Goblin King: My Innate Skill Is OP

I jumped back instinctively, boots skidding against the forest floor.

I knew it would be intense. I had prepared myself for pain, for resistance, even for violent backlash. But this… this was far beyond what I had anticipated.

The ground beneath Narg split apart with a sharp crack, black whips tearing free from the fractures as if something beneath the earth had been waiting to break out.

Tendrils of inky darkness lashed outward, slamming into the soil and wrapping around it like parasitic worms anchoring themselves to a host.

I gasped, my chest tightening as my heart began to pound harder.

The black ink didn’t just spread — it tightened. It pulsed, thick and alive, each contraction sending out more whips that struck the ground with wet, snapping sounds.

For a terrifying moment, it didn’t look like the power was merging with Narg at all.

It looked like it was trying to consume him.

His green skin faded rapidly into an unhealthy ashen gray, veins crawling and darkening beneath the surface until they looked like black roots spreading through dead soil.

His eyes lost their focus, hollowing out as if something was being pulled from behind them.

And seeing that… my stomach dropped.

Fear clawed its way up my spine.

It was too similar.

Too close to what I had seen before.

For a brief, horrible second, it looked exactly like what had happened to Jael — as if the same blackness that had devoured him was now wrapping itself around Narg, not as a tool or a weapon, but as a possessing force.

But just as the thought this was a mistake fully formed in my mind, the rampaging ink froze mid-motion.

Completely.

The whips stopped lashing.

The tendrils locked in place.

The forest went unnaturally still.

”What…?” I breathed.

Then I heard it — a low, strained groan tearing its way out of Narg’s chest.

It wasn’t pain alone. It sounded like effort, like something being forced back with sheer will.

I could feel the struggle now, not with my eyes, but with my instincts, as if two forces were wrestling inside him for ownership of the same body.

The black ink pulsed again.

Once.

Twice.

And for a brief, terrifying moment, it looked like he was losing.

The tendrils swelled, thickened, and tightened around him, the darkness drawing inward as if preparing for a final takeover.

Then Narg roared in defiance:

”This power is mine!”

The words detonated out of him along with a violent surge of energy.

A wave of black force blasted outward, slamming into me and forcing me to skid back several steps as the air itself recoiled.

But this time, something was different.

The ink didn’t lash out.

It didn’t strike or claw or spread.

Instead, it hesitated… and then slowly began to retract.

One tendril at a time, the blackness peeled itself away from the ground and drew back toward Narg’s body, like a living thing realizing it had lost the right to roam free.

Narg was doing it.

”That’s it, Narg… tame it,” I said, my voice low but steady, more encouragement than command. ”The power is yours. Take it.”

The black ink responded.

Every tendril that had spread across the forest floor began to move again, but this time not in violence or hunger.

Slowly, deliberately, the darkness peeled itself away from the earth and flowed back toward Narg’s body, seeping into his skin as if returning to its rightful place.

I clenched my fist without realizing it, nails biting into my palm.

He was actually doing it.

A long breath I didn’t remember holding finally escaped me, my shoulders loosening as the worst possibilities slipped further and further out of reach.

I didn’t have to intervene. I didn’t have to make a choice I couldn’t take back.

The integration of the skill seemed to be steady now, so I stayed where I was and watched, keeping my focus on Narg as the last traces of black ink settled back into his body.

Then I heard it.

A sound, faint at first, coming from somewhere deep within the forest.

I turned sharply, every instinct flaring as I strained to listen.

It wasn’t footsteps.

It wasn’t a roar.

It sounded like leaves fluttering violently, branches brushing past one another at high speed, the kind of noise you only heard when something was tearing through dense foliage without bothering to slow down.

And whatever it was, it was getting closer. Fast.

Enemies?

No doubt about it.

I could feel the hostility even from this distance, a sharp, predatory pressure pressing against my senses.

I didn’t know what they were, and I didn’t need to.

Hostile was hostile, and that was enough.

And there was no chance I was letting anything get close, not while Narg was still in the middle of stabilizing something as dangerous as Deathroot.

I shifted my stance, placing myself between the approaching presence and Narg without hesitation.

If something wanted to interrupt this…

It would have to go through me first.

But...just as I braced myself to meet the attacker head-on, the sound of rustling suddenly vanished.

And for a split second, confusion hit me… and then it snapped into something colder as my instincts screamed.

They weren’t coming from the front.

They were above.

”What the...”

I looked up just in time to see them.

Three monkey-like creatures, each standing close to two meters tall, their bodies lean and coiled with muscle, fur bristling as they clung effortlessly to the canopy.

They had moved through the trees with absurd speed, using the forest like it was an extension of their own bodies.

They weren’t scattered.

They were positioned.

The three of them formed a loose circle overhead, surrounding a single point.

And then a larger one with broader shoulders, and heavier frame appeared.

His presence alone warped the air around him, his aura pressing down with a primal dominance that made the others feel like little more than extensions of his will.

This one was different.

Dangerous.

Far more dangerous than the rest.

All of them had their eyes locked downward, unblinking, focused entirely on Narg as he knelt below, still stabilizing the aftermath of Deathroot, and a cold shiver ran down my spine.

They weren’t here by chance.

They were...