Chapter 39 - Deadly Challenge Ahead

The wooden door shakes much more violently as time goes by. Everyone is prepared with their weapons out, and ready to defend against whatever was coming through the door.

Niko was very skeptical of the way that the pig monster smashed on the previous door before, there was no way this was a big monster, therefore, what could it be? His skepticism, however, did not prevent him from sweating profusely, as he readied himself, with the spirit of the bee, and the rankless spirit of the mantis.

"Swosh!" The door slammed open revealing the mysterious beings who were trying to come through, and to their surprise, it was four dog-sized rats that looked to have gone through many rough things. The fur on their back had patches that looked like it was ripped out, their sinister red eyes as well as their foamy mouth which revealed sharp teeth.

They darted from the door and towards the people standing there ready. Their reckless running did not help them as it left them exposed to easy attacks and Andrea was the first to react, using her metallic-looking legs to kick a rat so ferociously, that it hit a wall and fell down unconsciously.

Another one of the four rats that dashed out was instantly crushed into a meat paste by Kyle's draconic tail. The spikes dug through every piece of the rat's body as it looked like the rat was made out of tofu.

One rat was lucky to get through some of the attacks and lunged towards Singh who was quickly about to slash one of his axes, however, a short sword came from the side stabbing the rat in mid-air. Priya who had stabbed the rat, lowered the sword, allowing the dead rat to fall to the ground. She gave Singh a meaningful look, that spoke louder than words. Singh looked back at her with a caring smile, and then both focused back on the battle.

The last rat was slashed into pieces by Zheng's sharp nails and Candreva's ax. The rat that was kicked by Andrea earlier began to move as it picked itself up, however, as it opened its red eyes and was about to attack once more, a greenish transparent orb came from above directly over its head.

"Bang"

The head of the rat was smashed into a pulp as the rankless spirit of the mantis slowly floated back towards Niko.

Seeing these rats, they now had a better understanding of how that man had died. He most likely came upon this sewer system and found this place, and ended up being gruesomely killed by the rats.

"This is definitely not all of them," Fumito spoke, and everyone agreed. There were too many bite marks on the corpses and they could not be complacent.

Niko was a bit relieved that it was just these four rats and not an army of them. As he thought of this he shuddered, and then took a step towards the rat he had killed, whilst extending his arm.

[Spirit King's Order I]

A faint green aura surrounded his body, as well as the body of the rat with meat paste for ahead. Slowly, like a zombie coming from the underground, the spirit of the rat was erected. As it surfaced from the dead body, it moved towards Niko slowly and expressionlessly.

Seeing this, everyone looked towards this in awe, the bizarre technique was simply too strange. Dharma gave Niko a meaningful gaze and then turned towards the opened door, along with everyone else. As their gaze shifted, The bee spirit disappeared, and Niko looked at the status of his new spirit.

[Name: Crazed Rat]

Rank: None

Potential: F-

[Status]

Strength: 1

Constitution: 1

Agility: 2

Intelligence: 0

Mana: 0

Mana Power: 0

Spirit Power: 0

[Skills]

Rabid Bite

Niko was neither impressed nor disappointed, and instead, he was quite neutral. This spirit had potential, however, how useful this spirit could be, would depend on the circumstances.

The opened door led to a dark hallway, which led to an unknown place. This gave everyone a headache as they knew they had to move on and do what they needed to do to move forward.

"We will have to move forward, but be extremely cautious, there should definitely be more of these damn rats." Ivanic spoke, as he turned towards Niko, "We don't know what awaits for us ahead, would you mind making one of your spirits go ahead of us?"

Niko shook his head, as he understood their lives were much more important than the life of the spirits which could be replaced easily. In fact, the more practice he got with the new spirits the better.

The spirit of the rat as if being told what to do telepathically began moving down the hall slowly, and right behind it was the group, who was as cautious as ever. The hall was quite spacious, as above them on the ceiling were pipes that spread throughout like train tracks. Their shadows in the hallway looked completely distorted, like the scene of an old terror movie, where the monster was about to reveal itself. There was a strange eerie vibe that got stronger at their every step.

Time passed slowly as they moved down the hallway and the rat was in perfect shape when it came to a turn. The rat turned the corner fine and halted. They followed the rat and looked towards what was around the corner and their hearts dropped.

"Stairs?" Niko asked, perplexed.

"Stairs that lead upwards…" Eitan murmured.

They had to keep on moving upwards if they wanted to escape such a place. It was obvious that stays led either upwards or downwards, however, there was a reason why the stairs leading upwards was so shocking. There was only one thing they would encounter if they kept moving upwards. The dungeon.

This made the faces of everyone even uglier and darker, as their mood became extremely low. What lies ahead of them was a deadly challenge.