Hiding the army’s advance was no easy task, but it was regardless an essential one. Given there were nearly two thousand warriors from Riverside and a further two thousand from New Derby, there was no way Ratterinks would launch an attack into mycelia territory if they knew what awaited them. For this reason, the human armies took a longer route than the direct path which Silas regularly trekked, tending away from the ratkin watchtowers as they made for the prophet’s lands.

Of course, even with this, the sheer number of soldiers meant it was impossible to completely hide the commotion from the vermin, which was why the prophet simultaneously launched a diversion operation. His creations and zombies pushed to the edge of the borders en masse and put on a display of preparing for a large scale invasion themselves. This sufficiently captured the ratkin’s attention, allowing the humans to slink behind the disruption into the forest.

One of the measures they took to ensure they stayed hidden was to maintain a great distance from the borders, but this also meant it would take them considerable time to reach the frontline when the fighting broke out. Of course, the prophet could have ordered his creations to rout when he spotted the ratkin army coming for him, baiting them deeper into his territory and into the midst of the waiting humans. This would have reduced his expected losses, but instead he had elected to keep his troops where they were. He said it would arouse suspicion if an invading army suddenly did a 180 and retreated, and besides, the ratkin were very wary of entering his lands in the first place. For their plan to work, a great number of sacrifices were required and to all sights, it was the prophet incurring most of the costs.

This put Silas more on edge instead of calming him. Now that he saw how much the prophet was willing to sacrifice for his goodwill, it made him feel even stronger that there were some hidden arrangements in this dealing that he had overlooked. He had shared the details of their agreement with both the Riverside council and his friends and family. As such, it was now Mia who tried to assuage his worries.

“You said he’s scouting out other people as well, right?” she asked with a thoughtful expression. “Then maybe he’s willing to risk his troops here because you fit perfectly into the strike team he’s envisioning. Remember back at the tutorial, how you were the one who dealt with the alabaster mink. Aengus was stronger than you, but even he was beaten where you weren’t. Your class is amazing at dealing with bosses, Silas, so maybe that’s why the prophet wants you so badly.”

“But this many mycelia, Mia,” he replied, sweeping his hand in front, although the mycelia were too far off to be seen. “Like don’t you feel there’s something else up?”

“Um,” Olivia interrupted, chewing at her lip. “Maybe he just doesn’t think his creations are valuable. I know in New Derby my life had little value once more people joined. I became one of thousands. So it could be all his troops here actually mean nothing to him. Perhaps he can easily create more of them?” Ethan nodded with her.

Silas sighed but admitted they had a point - perhaps he was being paranoid. He had brought Ethan and Olivia since he figured this war would be relatively safe, given their massive numbers advantage, and he wanted them to experience large-scale conflict now rather than later. It was unrealistic to think he could protect them forever; he had realised from his foray into Ratterinks that his tendency for dangerous missions and his like for risky gambles could mean he could disappear at any time. In case such a possibility became reality, it only made sense to prepare both Olivia and Ethan to cut their own paths through Idroa before then.

Just then, a runner came up to them from Elise, calling on Silas. The message was brief, stating simply how the burrows in sight were showing massively increased activity, and that it was likely that Talis had finally taken the bait. Silas nodded appreciatively and let the runner leave, then turned to Mia. “Keep these two safe, alright?”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she fired back at him with a grin, although he could see the hints of strain around it. He hadn’t told anyone other than Elise and Dom about his walk-in to the Smallfoot manor. He was grateful he hadn’t as he knew she wouldn’t have even put on a smile now if she knew what he was likely to get up to.

“Yeah, make sure you return safe,” Ethan added, hugging his brother.

Silas waved his hand dismissively when they separated. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m just on scouting duty - I’m not keen on entering that mess of a fight.” They watched tensely as he slunk away to the frontline, although he felt there was no reason for them to do so. He hadn’t been lying in his earlier statement - he truly doubted he would need to fight if their plans went right.

Reporting in with Elise, he then sped on, sneaking past the border and watching the ratkin’s movements. He could hardly enter their territory and stay hidden since he spotted countless ratkin scouts going ahead of their main army. Eventually forced to back, he headed for the mycelia army and stopped at a sufficient vantage, taking note of the hundreds of hideous mycelia and ghastly zombies. There was just something about seeing so many of them in one place that raised his hairs in the wrong direction, making him feel even more uneasy than when amid ratkin.

He had made no attempt at stealth, and as such he wasn’t surprised when the prophet came up from behind.

“What do you think of our chances? You had a look in their territory, didn’t you?”

Silas shrugged. “I thought you could tell with your scanning ability or whatever.”

“Hardly - their sorcerers are blocking my senses with their barriers. I can roughly tell where they are from that, but it does block me from spying on their numbers and morale,” the prophet replied.

“I couldn’t see much either. They’ve got scouts swarming the area, so I guess it means they’re at least preparing for something big.”

The prophet’s face came lined, slowly nodding. “I can sense them moving forward. It shouldn’t be too long now.”

Just like the prophet said, it wasn’t at all a long wait as the ratkin moved swiftly, forming ranks and spilling out of their territory with haste. Silas was able to sense their combined, monolithic aura some minutes later when he spied on a host of a thousand-plus charging towards the bunched up mycelia. Volleys of fireballs and arrows initiated the attack, forcing the mycelia onto the back foot from the get-go.

However, the undead blocked these blows with their bodies, a good number breaking apart, before launching their own offensive. The mycelia followed, and the two armies crashed together in an explosion of reckless violence. Simultaneously, while their conflict raged, the human armies began moving forward from the backdrop, creeping ever closer and forming a rough encirclement. Although some ratmen noticed this and panicked, it was clear to Silas’s eyes that they hadn’t realised the full extent of their situation yet. Through this, he knew it was already over.

Gunfire trumpeted the beginning of the end, started by just a few weapons before the entire forest came alive to contribute to the deafening disharmony. The ratkin tried to organise themselves into defensive positions, but this wasn’t Ratterinks with its subterranean cover: there was nowhere to hide. Twenty minutes following the humans’ arrival, both the mycelia and ratkin were shredded down, and at last the melee troops moved in for the cleanup.

In particular, Silas saw a furious ratman who had come out of the barrage with only superficial wounds. There was no doubt that this was Talis Ratter, the mayor of Ratterinks and the supposed architect of this reckless charge. Further on, Silas spotted Floyd staring at the ratman with interest. He fully expected the Champion to run in headlong and activate his Sacred Arena, but instead Floyd moved in slowly with his elite platoon at his back, closing the net on the Bravo. Silas had heard that Floyd had become far more cautious following his fight with Dimas where he had been carved alive, and this sight confirmed those rumours since it appeared the Champion no longer minded sharing the spotlight with others.

It would have been a waste of Silas’s time to watching the massacre for any longer, and so he sped away to find Elise and learn of the status of the other squads. While most of the human armies had marched here, some had carried on in an effort to capture the burrows. The greatest danger was that the ratkin would collapse all the burrows once they knew they had lost the war, effectively shutting themselves in underground, which was why these forces had gone ahead.

Fortunately, this plan had worked out to some extent as they had secured three burrows in total out of the near two dozen. Still, they hadn’t actually been able to advance into Ratterinks since the ratmen had set up rushed blockades at the chokepoints. Silas and Dom were quick to lead one of the strike forces into a burrow to clear this up, finding several dozens of ratmen soldiers waiting at the end of the tunnel behind hastily raised barricades.

The fighting was quick and crushing, the Black Knight tearing through their ranks and Duellist spearing through anyone who attempted to resist. There were no Talises or Xe’Hekons to match them here, only ordinary troops who became frightened at the sight of these humans-cum-monsters. Once the barricades were cleared and the stairwells secured, the human armies continued on and swept into Ratterinks without wait.

Silas and Dom fell back in case they were required elsewhere to deal with bothersome enemies again, but no such case came forward, even as the minutes passed, as Talis had taken most of the combatant ratmen out with him. Nearly all those who remained in Ratterinks were civilians, not that such a fact saved them from the humans’ wrath as they were either slaughtered on the streets or rounded up to be taken prisoner.

In the aftermath, Silas found himself in Ratterinks’s fort, treading its high walls and taking in its innards with widened eyes and quickened breath. Tawny had told him there were several thousands of prisoners here, and it was likely there once had been, but no longer since there were only a single thousand living souls remaining. These people were of all races: human, shaerd, ogre, satyr, mycelia, drakkar, and the list went on. They had all been extensively tested on, the humans haggard and bone-thin with patches of discoloured skin or missing limbs or even freakish growths on their bodies.

From the small number who were mentally stable enough to talk, a grim picture was quickly formed of what had happened here. This had been a laboratory of sorts with the prisoners behaving as lab rats. The missing thousands had been incinerated after failed tests or due to poor behaviour, leaving behind only the broken lot who had survived through sheer luck. Alas to say, Silas’s sympathy with the ratkin which he had discovered during his trip here dried up completely with this. There was no denying that the ratkin shared many human qualities, but it appeared that included the worst of them as well.