Chapter 53 There was no fury, no rage. Just a terrible, silent promise of what was to come.

Cat Boss’s golden eyes, wet with tears, slowly lifted from Lyn’s lifeless body. His gaze locked onto Rakrak. There was no fury in his expression, no roar of rage. Just a terrible, silent promise of what was to come. He gently laid Lyn’s body on the ground and stood to his full height, towering over Rakrak. Blood dripped from his face, his fur matted and soaked, but his eyes burned with a cold, unrelenting resolve.

At that moment Rakrak knew that he had made a fatal mistake.

With a final, heart-stopping growl, Cat Boss stepped toward the trembling goblin master. The battlefield had fallen silent now as if even the wind and the trees dared not make a sound in the presence of such grief-fueled wrath.

And Rakrak, for the first time in his life, felt the true meaning of terror.

The goblin master's beady eyes bulged with primal terror as realization struck—he was about to die. Not in glorious battle, not in some grand betrayal, but like a cornered rat, squealing and desperate. His yellowed fangs gnashed together, spittle flying as he let loose an unearthly shriek and lunged at Cat Boss, his rusted, jagged sword swinging in a wild, clumsy arc.

But Cat Boss was death incarnate.

The first strike came like lightning—the rapier's needlepoint punched through Rakrak's gut with a sickening schlick, twisting viciously before ripping free in a spray of dark, stinking blood. Rakrak gagged, his clawed hands clutching at the gaping wound, his intestines already threatening to spill. Before he could even scream, the blade lanced into his shoulder, the tip scraping bone with a hideous screech that set his teeth on edge.

Again. Again. And again.

The rapier became a silver blur, a relentless piston of pain. It stabbed through Rakrak's thigh, cutting muscle from bone. It punched into his side, nicking a kidney. It skewered his sword arm, tendons snapping like overstretched cords. His eye got impaled on the rapier, spiling blood from his ruined eye socket. Each strike was brutal, each withdrawal a fresh torrent of gore. Rakrak staggered, his breath coming in wet, heaving gasps, his vision swimming as his own blood painted the ground beneath him.

"G-gah—! Y-you—!" he gurgled, but Cat Boss wasn't done.

With a flick of his wrist, the feline warrior slashed Rakrak's hamstrings, sending the goblin crashing face-first into the dirt. Rakrak howled, his body convulsing, his fingers clawing at the dirt as he tried to drag himself away. But Cat Boss planted a boot between his shoulder blades, pinning him like a bug.

Then—the final thrust.

The rapier plunged down, spearing through Rakrak's back with a meaty thunk, punching through lung before bursting out his chest in a shower of stinking goblin blood. Rakrak's body arched violently, his mouth stretching in a silent scream as the blade ground against his spine. Cat Boss leaned in, twisting the steel, ensuring every nerve was set ablaze with agony.

"This," Cat Boss shouted, "is for my daughter!"

With a wet schlorp, Cat Boss ripped his rapier free from Rakrak's ruined body. The goblin master slumped forward, barely conscious, his breath coming in ragged, blood-flecked gasps. But his suffering wasn't over yet.

Cat Boss free hand shot out, seizing Rakrak by the throat with clawed fingers that dug deep into green flesh.

He lifted the dying goblin master effortlessly, holding him aloft like a grotesque trophy. Rakrak's legs kicked weakly, his remaining eye bulging as he choked on his own blood. His claws scraped uselessly against Cat Boss' arm, leaving thin trails of red, but the grip was iron.

Then Cat Boss drove his rapier straight into Rakrak's chest again. The blade punched through ribs with a sickening crack, the tip bursting out his back in a fresh gout of blood. Rakrak's body convulsed violently, a wet, gurgling scream tearing from his throat as he was impaled mid-air.

Cat Boss held him there, suspended on the gleaming steel, watching with cold stare as Rakrak twitched and spasmed. The goblin's remaining arm flailed, his legs jerked, his mouth worked soundlessly—each second an eternity of agony.

Cat Boss held in his free hand the same knife evil goblins tortured Lyn, the same one he pulled from her lifeless body moments ago.

Blood bubbled between Rakrak jagged teeth, his body a ruined tapestry of punctures and slashes. His remaining eye rolled wildly, his breath coming in wet, choking gasps.

"P-please... nngh... m-mercy... I... I'll g-give you... anything... G-gold... slaves... j-just... nngh... d-don't—"

Another cough. A tooth skittered across the ground.

"S-she... sh-she w-was just... one cat... P-please... I... I b-beg..."

 One moment he stood still, knife loose at his side. The next—steel flashed. Rakrak screamed as the blade licked across his thigh, parting flesh like parchment.

"You do not speak of her!"

Another flick. A finger hit the dirt.

"You do not breathe her name!"

The knife darted again. Rakrak's ear tumbled free.

"You will die knowing nothing of the light you stole! But you will know pain!"

The first real thrust pierced Rakrak's gut—slow, deliberate. The goblin shrieked as Cat Boss leaned in, their faces inches apart.

"This is for every story I'll never tell her," he whispered.

The blade twisted.

"Every hunt she'll never join."

Another stab. Higher.

"Every sunrise she'll never see."

His voice, when it came, was softer than falling snow, colder than a grave at midnight.

"Did you think I'd let you die quickly? That I'd grant you the mercy you denied her? No. You'll die knowing exactly what you stole."

His next words were barely audible—a secret for the dying.

"She called me 'Papa'. Do you know what her favorite game was? Hide-and-seek. She'd always... giggle when I found her. You know, she used to sit on my shoulders when she was just a kitten. She had these tiny little paws, so light I could barely feel them, but oh, she would dig her claws in when she got excited. Always clumsy, my little Lyn… always pouncing on things too big for her."

The rapier plunged deep.

"You know, Rakrak…" he whisper, "I was a victim of my own strength."

His claws ghosted over Rakrak’s trembling shoulder, not gripping, not hurting—just there, a reminder of the abyss yawning wide beneath the goblin master's feet.

"Feared. Respected. A legend. But behind closed doors… I was alone. Always alone. That was the price of being strong. No one sees you as a person. Just a force. A storm. A monster."

"I wanted to cry sometimes," Cat Boss continued, his voice almost gentle, "but I never did. Because I had her. Lyn. My little girl. My joy. My light in all that darkness. She made it all worth it. She made me more than just the beast they feared."

His grip tightened ever so slightly. His claws barely pricked through Rakrak’s skin.

"And you… You took her from me."

A pause. A silence so heavy it crushed the air from Rakrak’s lungs.

"You tore the only warmth from my world," Cat Boss whispered, his lips barely moving.

 "You took the only thing that kept me from becoming a monster goblins so fear."

Cat Boss leaned in so close that his lips brushed against Rakrak's mangled ear, his final words like the whisper of a blade against flesh.

"And now… I’ll show all the goblins the monster you created."

 His voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a funeral bell tolling in the darkness.

 "I will kill all of you green vermin."

He pulled back just enough to look into Rakrak’s terrified, sweat-slicked face, his golden cat eyes gleaming like twin embers in the darkness. The air felt colder, as if death itself had taken form in front of the cowering goblin master.

"Every single one of you," he continued, "The warriors, the weaklings, the mothers, the hatchlings… all of them." His breath ghosted over Rakrak’s ear as he leaned in one last time.

 "Your entire kind will burn. Your caves will collapse with your screams inside them. Your filth will be scoured from this forest, from this realm, until there is not a single goblin left to remember your wretched name."

A slow, cruel smirk curled at the edges of his mouth.

"You thought yourself clever, trickster. But even rats are clever. And when the fire comes, when the claws sink deep, when your people wail and beg…" He tilted his head slightly, "No one will be left to hear them."

A pause. A heartbeat stretched too long.

"Tell me, Rakrak… have you ever heard a goblin drown in its own blood?"

A sound escaped Rakrak’s lips—a pathetic, garbled noise, something between a sob and a gurgling whimper. His legs gave out beneath him.

Cat Boss exhaled, long and slow. 

"Yes, that's the sound. Just like that."

 But even when his legs gave out, Cat Boss held Rakrak upright impaled on the rapier for a long, torturous second before finally yanking it free.