Of all the bad ideas he’s ever had, charging straight into a raging swarm of monster rats has got to be near the top of the list, just beating that late night run to Taco Bell. He waited for the five to circle the building a little, staying far away enough to not be detected by the swarm.

They had to enter the building the moment he distracted the swarm, which in of itself wasn’t difficult. The difficult part would be distracting the swarm and surviving. He was aware that surviving after their first meeting was almost purely luck, and the hivemind most likely have already gotten smarter on an innate level.

Laughing softly to himself, he shook his head. The parking lot had a lot of cars, but none were usable- wait, were they usable?

He hadn’t checked, and no one else had either. The lights had all gone out and electronics didn’t work either, yes, but the gas cars would still work, right? Even if some parts didn’t? He grinned and walked down the road for a moment.

With a loud bang, the window to the car in front of him smashed open and he reached his hand inside. Quickly opening the door and sitting inside he opened the vanity mirror above him, luckily finding a set of keys within that put a smile on his face.

Sebastian had, in his boredom, once read an article that even in the event of an emp destroying the power grid completely and sending the world back centuries, a car would still function fine. He didn’t remember specifics, but overall it seemed to be true. He put the keys in the ignition and felt the car slowly wake with a rumble.

Fumbling around in his pockets, he found a matchbook and a lighter he kept for cigarettes in his jeans, feeling glad he hadn’t changed out of his long torn pants. He tested a match to make sure it would still work, and then drove back to the rat infested parking lot.

It was mostly empty, which made sense considering the time of day that The Light struck, but there were a few places in the parking lot that had a lot of cars placed together

He had a feeling that a few people inside might dislike his idea of a distraction as he aligned the small sedan with one of these pockets and pressed his foot hard on the gas.

The metal beast roared to life as it quickly accelerated across the asphalt, driving through the parking lot. Sebastian braced for impact, one hand on his saber, the other on the wheel as he readied himself for another crash.

Tires screeched as the car slammed into the side of an SUV, pushing it into another car with the remaining momentum. The airbags went off, but Sebastian moved fast enough to pop them before they impacted his face.

Sebastian felt a little dazed as he left the car, but the atmosphere around him chilled as he circulated his Vitality to steady himself. Standing beside the crushed husk of metal beside him, Sebastian looked over at the rat horde The crash had gotten their curiosity, but seeing his body of flesh and blood, that got their attention.

The rats squeaked, trying to sound as intimidating as possible as they moved towards him like a tide. He opened the gas cap to the Sedan and got his matchbook out, waiting for them to come even closer.

Fire, Explosion, Run like hell. That was the plan.

Was it a good plan? Probably not. He was hoping his Ice Vitality would offset some of the temperature from the explosion, but the shrapnel would definitely tear through some of him.

He closed his eyes, breathed in, and held his breath as he waited for the swarm’s approach. The pitter patter of their feet, their enraged squeaks, the collision of their bodies, and the distinctly higher pitched sound coming from the back of the horde..

Closer.. and closer.. Until he finally decided to light the match. He tossed it into the open gas tank, closed the cover, and ran into the group of cars, intent on luring as much as he could of the horde into the soon to be giant explosion.

As he expected, the rats crawled over and under the car to reach him, ignorant of the car about to explode. He continued opening gas caps and tossing matches inside as he ran, allowing the rats to close the distance slightly.

Just when a third of the rats had passed by the first car, it erupted into flames, blowing the back half of the car into fiery shrapnel that tossed itself straight into the horde. Rats caught fire, spreading it to their brethren as some other rats were simply slashed or crushed by shrapnel. Sebastian felt a sharp, stinging pain on his arm as a metal piece flew by him.

It wasn’t long after the first car that the second exploded, and the third, then the fourth. The area was filled with an extreme heat as the vehicles burst into great balls of fire amidst the flowing rat swarm, killing many and crippling even more.

The repeated explosions took their toll on both sides as Sebastian continuously felt slashing pains across his arms and legs, large and small pieces of flaming shrapnel embedded into his back. His cold vitality worked at soothing the burns, apparently it’s natural counterpart as he felt the heat largely reduced even when a large portion of the parking lot evolved into an all-consuming firestorm.

Did he take into account how injured he’d be by shrapnel even if he survived? Not really. Did he take into account what might be lured by the massive explosions. Nope. Did he think about the fire spreading? Nah. The swarm was surging around the exploding cars, learning their lesson after a good few hundred casualties, maybe even more.

Their new approach earned him a small amount of respite as he stood a few dozen meters away from the closest exploding car, allowing his body to rest slightly before he’d be surrounded by the complete storm.

His original plan was to simply distract the rats, but now after having taken care of a large portion of their horde, his body mangled, burned and torn, he hoped Dallas would be smart enough to bring out their dozens of patrol members to destroy what was left.

Dallas was most likely his level, and they should have more than a few level fives. With that many combatants against a swarm type of monster, each could easily kill five or ten rats. So long as the higher levels were taken care of, they’d be fine.

He took a moment to look through his notifications. He saw a string of text telling him he had killed dozens of rats, varying levels 3 - 8, mostly somewhere in the middle. The lower levels were most likely new rats, whereas the higher levels must have been the survivors from the original meeting.

[You have slain Lv. 8 Infant Rat Swarmling]

[Indirect means used, no related class, reduced xp]

[Defeated Higher Level, Equal Tier]

[Awarded 48 xp]

[You have slain Lv. 5 Infant Rat Swarmling]

[You have slain Lv. 7 Infant Rat Swarmling]

[You have slain Lv. 3 Infant Rat Swarmling]

[Congratulations on reaching Lv. 8]

Allocating two points into intelligence and wisdom each and the remaining into perception again, Sebastian briefly thought about what the second message meant. He had killed them indirectly, yes, but he got less xp for.. not having a class for it? He was hoping to level up a lot from blowing them up, but apparently not.

He got reduced xp for everything at a level lower, and even the bonus to killing something at a higher level was reduced, so he just barely levelled up to Lv. 8. Granted a lot of rats were left crippled, not dead, but still.

He exhaled a warm breath, gripping his saber tight as he slashed apart the rat that got closest to him. They had finally caught up, bringing him out of his thoughts. Man, were these fucking pissed. With somehow even less self-preservation than before, the rats swarmed his body as he quickly slashed apart everything that came his way, notifications piling up at the corner of his eye as he kept a meter of space around him in every direction, his blade sweeping every which way.

In the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by flaming debris, he was the lone combatant against the horde. The saber split the air apart before it met flesh over and over, Sebastian refining the movements over and over to use less and less energy to bring out the same force. His awakened Vitality gave him a much better endurance, he was aware, but he was still worried about the fight once the Rat Vanguards joined the fight.

It wasn’t long before he felt the group around him slow to a halt, corpses of rats lining the surroundings. He had to have killed over fifty at this point, but he wasn’t any happier, as he saw ten distinctly larger, bulkier rats crawl over their siblings to stand around him.

[Lv. 9 Infant Rat Vanguard]...

[Lv. 8 Infant Rat Vanguard]...

[Lv. 9 Infant Rat Vanguard]...

[Lv. 9 Infant Rat Vanguard]...

Well. Fuck.

He felt a much higher pressure as the Vanguard watched him. He didn’t ignore the feeling of another intelligent gaze coming from within the horde, most likely the Hivemind itself. He had distracted the horde, now he’s distracting the big guys. Funny how those things work out.

The Vanguard eyed him down and he did the same in turn, circulating his Vitality slowly, healing his wounds as much as he could before one side got restless. It emphasized and strengthened the bone chilling air around him.

He tried his best to channel the mana in the air around him consciously to lower the temperature, drawing out the ice mana. There wasn’t a lot of it in the area, but it still added to his Ice Vitality’s effect in freezing the surroundings.

The layered ice effects seemed to have some difference, too, as he noticed the horde stiffen up around him, shivering within. It was Winter anyways, and he was just lowering the temperature even more.

The Hivemind seemed to notice the effect as he heard an abrupt squeak, and the Vanguard around him rushed forth at it’s command. Two went for each limb, legs, arms, torso and head. He simply wasn’t fast enough to defend all of them, so he brought his blade across and slammed into the two going towards his head, smashing them back into the swarm.

He felt their teeth dig into his hardened flesh as they landed on his body, their clawed feet latching onto him like hooks. The cold was only more intense the closer to his body, but the rats simply powered through the freezing temperatures, using it to their advantage as they stiffened up on his body, doing their best to rip chunks from his limbs.

He felt sweat run down his back, realizing how lucky he was that he made sure they didn’t land near his neck. He pierced his saber into the ground and started grabbing the rats latched onto his body, grabbing their large furred bodies and ripping them from his skin with all his strength. Their bodies froze up as his bare hands touched them, frost appearing on their fur.

The two he had smacked away quickly ran back up to him whilst he was ripping two off of him, leading him to harshly whip his arm out and slam one back into the ground as the other latched onto abdomen hard. The pains from the nine vanguards built up, and they even started moving as they got used to the chill surrounding his body.

He had to let go of one of the two Vanguard Rats as the others crawled all over his body, forcing him to keep a hand free so he could defend his neck. The other hand committed to snapping the neck of the other Rat, lowering the count permanently.

[You have slain a Lv. 9 Infant Rat Vanguard]

[Defeated Higher Level, Equal Tier]

[Awarded 68 xp]

He vaguely saw the rest of the hive move, but his vision was focused on the nine Vanguards tearing his body to shreds. His hands did their best to slam down on the vermin as they slipped and crawled around his body. Whenever he managed to catch one, the rest rushed towards his collarbone, an act that forced him to let the rat go so it could return to its comrades on his body.

He had a new, increasingly bad feeling on his mind as he couldn’t catch the rats on his body. Even in the chilled air around him, they insisted on eating his flesh and destroying his person. He took a deep breath as he looked around him.

And then darted into the raging fire.