[Large amount of divine energy from a minor deity detected. Initiating absorption……]

  Seeing the message, Noah was intrigued. He did not understand what the system meant by absorption of divine energy…… The meaning of the words was clear, but he could not understand what would happen until he looked at the wooden statue again.

  The statue, which used to be made of wood trunks that emerged from the ground like trees, was clearly losing the majestic and divine appearance that it had before. As if thousands of years were passing through the wood, at a speed barely recognizable to the naked eye, the statue was withering and magically dying.

  If Noah was already surprised by what was happening before his eyes, the goblin's reaction was even more intense, since his salvation was to pray to this statue of divinity that he had found alone after his group died a long time ago.

  For the little monster, the death of the statue of the goddess to which he prayed was practically a death decree for him as well, but he did not give up and continued to pray in the faith that it would all resolve, and when the statue was about to fall to the ground like a dry coat, a strange light came out of the tree and hit the goblin's small body.

  Noah was watching this with great interest as his system was apparently the cause of the "death" of the plant goddess statue. When he thought the statue would die without much fanfare, something that shocked him deeply happened before his eyes.

  The statue of the goddess who always showed love to humanity, who always gave great Blessings that helped humanity a lot in the fight against Fortresses, now before him had Blessed a monster. Firstly, Noah didn't even know that it was possible for a monster to receive a Blessing, and secondly, why was a goddess, who always helped humanity, now helping a monster that was fighting against humanity?

  Noah obviously knew that what the statue had done was to Bless that goblin because as soon as the light hit the little monster, his body started to grow in size, no longer being only 1 meter tall, now reaching 1.50 meters. A 50% increase in his size probably also meant something else: an increase of at least 50% in his strength as well.

  As he watched the goblin rise from his kneeling position, another black window appeared floating in front of Noah with burning letters.

  [Absorption of divine energy interrupted…… Processing absorbed divine energy…… 0%]

  'Damn, I need to know his strength……' Noah thought as he got up quickly to reposition himself. He still had no idea if the goblin's strength had really increased by 50% or not, but he also didn't want to find out in the worst way possible.

  'At least now that he is bigger, his bow no longer fits his size.' Noah thought as he saw that the goblin was running towards him with bare hands.

  The monster's speed had become noticeably faster than Noah's, but Noah wouldn't let that shake him. Hiding behind a tree, he quickly formed a fireball in each hand and appeared with only half his body in sight of the goblin.

  Throwing the fireball from his left hand slightly to the goblin's right side, Noah knew the goblin would take a step to the left side to dodge the attack. But while the goblin was still reacting to the first ball, Noah aimed further to the side and instantly hurled the other fireball into the position the goblin was moving.

  Because he was already moving in that direction, the goblin was caught off guard. It was impossible to stop his movement in time and move to the other side without being hit by either of the fireballs, so in a desperate moment, the goblin threw himself further to the right in an attempt not to be hit by those dangerous flames, even if to do that he had to throw himself hard against a tree.

  But luck was not on the side of the Blessed goblin. Even hurling himself towards a tree, the fireball still hit his left hand, causing him to start screaming in pain due to the purification of the flame eating away at his flesh as it started burning the meat before he even hit the tree with his body.

  Noah thought the monster's idea was very clever; the problem was that he had miscalculated the distance between him and the tree. But Noah could not blame the poor monster; even though he was Blessed by a goddess, he remained a Rank E monster, practically the base of the ladder in terms of intelligence.

  This pity that he felt for the monster's stupidity did not stop Noah from running towards him while drawing his knife from the bag he had tied around his waist using his right hand while his left hand was already aimed towards the goblin with the intention of launching a jet of flame and burning the monster's body completely.

  Noah could show neither pity nor excitement when dealing with an unknown monster, so he decided to go all out in this battle, as if he were fighting a Boss. And luckily Noah was not wrong to think this, because the flame that burned and made the goblin scream in pain was not enough to stop him from rising from the ground and running towards Noah to kill the detestable human in front of his sight.

  Noah was surprised by the goblin's stamina and determination but did not loosen the grip on the hand he was using to hold the knife. When the goblin roared at him with a bestial cry, Noah pointed his own knife at the arm which was already on fire and took advantage of the fire that had already removed much of the arm's resistance with its purification and gave his all to cut into that spot, while with his palm of the other hand pointed at the goblin, Noah incinerated the rest of the monster's body.

  The goblin was no longer able to think straight because of the pain his hand was causing him. The only thing that came into his mind was to kill, kill, and kill…… but just as he realized what was happening, the blade in the human's hand had connected with his arm and cut it as if it were slicing a piece of fabric. It put up a little resistance at first, but after it penetrated, it cut without any problems.

  This caused the goblin who ran with his mouth open to bite at Noah with the huge pointed fangs to lose his balance and fall to the ground without understanding what had happened.

  Stunned, the goblin looked at the ground in front of the human and saw that the flame that caused him so much pain was burning there…… with something that looked like his arm.

  Startled, the goblin looked where his arm was supposed to be and the only thing he saw was a void, but he couldn't think for long, as in that short period which didn't last even two seconds, the flame that Noah had launched at the goblin as a jet quickly spread over his body, transforming him into a monstrous version of a humanoid torch.

  Noah looked at the goblin lying on the floor being burned alive and in his eyes not a single ounce of pity or remorse could be seen. It was as if he was looking at a stone he had found on the way and had kicked it to see what would happen, nothing more. But inside that disinterested look, in his mind, he couldn't stop thinking that what just happened didn't make sense.

  He was probably the only human who cared to follow such a monster through a Fortress, as he could kill monsters and receive exp by killing each one, but that didn't happen with other humans. When a situation like this happened to them, the greatest probability of what might happen was that they would ignore the monster that ran away and go towards the Boss, since if they killed one more or one less monster it would not make any difference in their payment.

  When the goblin finally died, the window appeared again in Noah's vision, this time showing him two alerts. One alert was of how many exp points he had received, and the other was to notify him of the completion of the absorption of divine energy——