Time dripped like grains of sand until only there were seconds left.

10,9,8,7…

4…3…2…1...0...

The bamboo event has ended.

And like magic, the army on the wall could see changes to the world. Bamboo began to shrink, seeds began to rot, and the bloody color. It didn’t take long for the forest to return to its original look making the dwarfs amazed.

Perhaps only a few minutes or so had passed, but soon the earthquake started to shake. Urist knew it was no earthquake, instead of the movement of an army on the march of an army heading to siege.

With their food supply gone they wouldn’t be able to run away anymore. Today will be our final battle against these vermin. As expected, the first out of the wave of rats will be the regular and the slightly bigger rats.

Giving a rough estimate, their number totaled over to ten thousand as they smashed into the second line of trench defense. The rats once again gave their lives by impaling themselves on the spikes making a pathway full made out of bodies. A thousand died to make it before the water mages acted to push more rats into the trenches killing another seven hundred.

But the rats felt no fear charging into the last trench line impaling themselves once again. Thankfully this one was deeper, killing another three thousand plus using the last two water mages to push that number another eight hundred.

Before they reached the wall over half their number had been slaughtered before the swarm. Although their numbers culled, with the number of dwarfs they had no choice but to light the oil trench on fire.

Torches were thrown into the trench of oil as the rat smashed into the wall. Soon the smell of flesh burning filled the air causing Urist to frown as hoped that this would stall them and allow the mages to thin their numbers. What he didn’t expect were the rats to use their own bodies to snuff out the flames! Wide-eyed they watched as the crazy rats used their flaming bodies to plug the holes into the walls and make corpse ramps.

As the suicide wave gave up their lives, ten thousand rats that consisted of quarters, halves and three-fourths class sized rats slaughtered forth.

Urist cursed under his breath when he saw the rat force pile up and try snuff out his and Uria’s Origin flames with sheer mass. Although our flames are powerful if it uses another source like oil to spread it’ll only act like slightly better than a regular fire. And with all these rats filling up the trench-like sand it’ll give these elites the time they need to climb and attack the wall.

Urist cursed as corpses piled up to the point that they had overpowered the pushers and mace spinners. Thankfully before the second wave reached the walls what was left of the first change was pretty much wiped. As Urist was about to douse the ramp in Origin fire and burn the bodies to ash, something caught his eye as he saw in the sky made him go pale.

Ten thousand flying rats flying from all directions aimed at the wall. That wasn’t all, as another wave of five thousand rats charged out of the jungle. These charging rats were the size of dwarfs if not larger all wielding red bamboo spears.

In their ranks were a number of them who were at the size of large gorillas; that were ripped to the point that bodybuilders would blush and be ashamed. The one thing that caught his eye though was at the back of the army, one that stood double the size of the biggest rat gorilla.

With his good eyesight, he could see that this one had a scar over one of his eyes. Instantly, Urist knew he couldn’t use any of his fire for the air or the ground. He needed to save his power to fight off the elite army of the Rat King. So he made his instructions clear, “Blow up the ramps, Blood Mages shoot them down from the sky. Everyone, cover the mages so they don’t get swarmed by the bat rats.”

On his order, the warriors began to move and circle around the mages as the commoners began to throw bombs and shouting profanities. The blood mages began pulling out blood crystals from their leather pouches. The blood mages hearts ached at losing such precious resources but gritted their teeth and started chanting.

Blood energy began to form patterns in the air and before the rat bats descended a volley of exploding blood shards littered the air like anti-air.

As they watch the bat rats die in droves the blood mages wept except for Vlad who laughed fanatically. “Die vermin scum! Die!”

Corpses fell from the sky and littered the base with the stench of blood and burning bodies. Vlad transformed into a one-man army compared to the other three blood mages. His spells were on point killing tens to hundreds at a time while the others were struggling to keep up. The battle was chaotic as the flying bastards tried to divebomb dwarfs and slit throats with their razor-sharp wings.

Thankfully before the shit hit the base, Urist ordered all noncombatants, and useful items to be moved into the cave. Eventually, the blood mage ran out of crystals and with no more anti-air the remaining thousand strong rat bats had free reign to start attacking the dwarfs. Screams and shouts filled the air as dwarven blood began to fly. The wounded and blood mages were lead by the defender peasants to retreat into the cave as they tried to stop the rat bats from dive-bombing them.

It now had become a harsh battle of about ninety dwarfs vs. seven thousand rats. It was at this point the enraged Urist shouted to Uria and the fire mage, “Burn the skies and kill those fuckers.”

With a nod, the two gathered flame energy and shot out two clouds of fire one scarlet and one orange. The two expended most of their mana to burn the skies to burn the rat bats out of the sky leaving only a few staggerers to keep their lives. Charred bodies fell from the sky, dwarven war cries filled the air, and rat brains were splattered along the wall.

Six thousand rats vs. eighty-five dwarfs.

Pushing his glasses up Saren ordered. “Spike the wall Acar. Kill as many as you can and retreat to the cave.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that command, hundreds of ice spears appeared on the corpse ramp impaling the invaders and stopping the charge momentarily.

“All remaining spearmen, warriors and mages left with enough juice to the wall. We will fight to the last man standing! KILL!”

The crowd of angry dwarfs, “KILLLLL!!!”

Rocks were thrown like cannonballs, spears stabbed forth, and magic filled the battleground. The large rats had given up attempts to climb the highly contested corpse walls and instead tried to punch a hole into the wall with brute strength. The strength alone of these gorilla-sized rats caused the to wall crack and move.

Unicy shouted as she shattered gorilla rat heads one by one with her iron arrows. “Twist the ruby on the Wooden grenades and throw them over the wall see if we can't blast these fuckers to kingdom come!”

As ordered the dwarfs threw grenade after grenade over the wall in attempts to kill the gorilla rats. Explosions, fire, blood, and body parts, filled the air as hundreds of grenades exploded wave after wave.

After the huge explosion, for the first time, the battlefield grew quiet. The dwarfs stood momentary blank for a moment as their ears rang from the shockwaves. It was only after the smoke cleared that the dwarfs' moods became somber as the gorilla rats, although bloody stood firm. The hearty bastards soon resumed on trying to smash down the wall.

Urist, in a fit of rage, threw a metal grenade at the gorilla rats and succeeded in blowing off their monstrous limbs. Without hesitation rocks and all of the grenades were expended killing off about another two thousand rats before they breached the wall. The wind mages then summoned blades of wind to cut down their numbers further before they too left the wall.

In these attacks, the few remaining flying rats attacked the peasants trying to bite into their throats before the rats were crushed or stabbed to death. Fifteen dwarfs were heavily wounded in these attacks but the flying rat army was gone. A few peasants broke off to carry those still living back to the cave to try to be saved.

Although they had killed so many rats Urist didn’t delude himself. The true decisive war began now.

Sixty-five dwarfs vs. an army of 3500 elite rats.

All or nothing now Urist thought, “Everyone, drink the berserk potions. It's do or die now!”