Chapter 44 - Like Flies They Fall

As the army of grey rats begins to run down the stairs, everyone quickly reacts. Dharma was the first, as he crouched slightly, and with force, he leaped into the air and grabbed the side of the top balcony with one hand, and then pulled himself upwards.

Veronica was just like Dharma, as she quickly murmured, "[Boots of Shadow]." And a peculiar black fog surrounded her feet as she also leaped upwards onto the balcony.

Niko who saw all this was also quick to react. He took one last glance at the unconscious Candreva as a painful expression was seen. Candreva was way too heavy for him or any of them to carry, and even if they did carry him, there would be no way to escape the rats. He knew leaving Candreva here was the wrong things to do, however, his life was on the line and that was the number one priority.

Niko ran towards the furniture in the hall and jumped on top of a wooden table. Every single spirit that he possessed was called back, as they would most likely have trouble in this sea of rats, and Niko simply could not lose a spirit at this moment. In fact, Niko was so worried that as he ran and jumped on the table, he brought up his status window and placed his points from the level up into intelligence, which allowed him to control more spirits. After doing so, Niko quickly looked towards the dead rats he had killed with his spirits before and sed his skill on them.

As the green aura from his [Spirit King's Order] surrounded himself and the dead ratmen that laid bloodied on the wooden floor, the leading rats that ran towards them slowed down, and although no one other than Niko noticed this change, it was quite surprising. This meant only one thing, and that was that these rats had to be lower level than himself! The effect of his aura made the rats slow down much more, which gave him a bit more confidence with this bit of info.

As Niko was doing all of this, the others all moved to stand on top of furniture. Ivanic, Zheng, and Fumito stood on top of another table, whilst Singh and Priya stood on two chairs. As they looked back they were perplexed by Kyle standing there where they once stood with his head lowered.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Fumito was about to jump off of the table, but Ivanic did not allow him to. It was simply too dangerous.

The rats had finally reached them, and as they surrounded Kyle, his glossy draconic tail began to move. Kyle raised his head and looked towards the wise-looking rat as his eyes were foggy, with deep sadness within them.

"You… Will die for me today!!!" Kyle yelled. In his voice, there was a deep sorrow, that as everyone heard it they felt it themselves. Despite having many rats surrounding his body and biting him, he moved forward as if there was nothing obstructing his patch.

"Bang!"

He slammed the spiky end of his tail towards the ground killing the rats beneath, but regardless of how many he killed, more came out.

"Bang!"

Kyle slammed his tail again, killing more and more rats.

"Stop it! Don't be foolish!" Fumito called to him, but to no avail. Just like many other people in this world, Kyle seemed broken. He looked much different from the Kyle that once escaped with them.

Seeing Kyle's actions Niko felt great sadness and fear. This world broke anyone, and as soon as anything traumatic happened to a person, they would break. How much did Andrea mean to him? Niko asked himself, as he thought of his sister. If she died like Andrea how would he react? He was afraid of even thinking of such a scenario.

Kyle approached the stairs, and as he was beginning to walk up to it, his face was beginning to show great pain. The rats had bitten a chunk off of his feet and leg, but through perseverance alone, he continued. As he took one more step up the stairs it was his last, as his body gave in causing him to fall back down the stairs where he was covered in rats.

As all of this happened the wise-looking rat, stood on top of the stairs unmoving, with a huge grin on his face. To this wise ratman, this was extremely entertaining, just another group of pathetic humans to feed his underlings.

"NO!" Fumito yelled as his eyes watered. The pain he was feeling was completely unexplainable, he had lost two of the people he cared about most in this world.

As the bodies of Kyle were covered by rats, biting at his every piece, Candreva and Eitan suffered the same fate. Their bodies were covered by rats, as the sounds of munching could be heard, along with an eerie grunt from the unconscious Candreva, as his life slipped away.

At this point, the rats had already swarmed the furniture as well, as Niko said, "The more we kill, more will appear! We need to kill the source of these rats!"

Everyone agreed as Singh grabbed both of his axes and launched using his throwing skill, he launched it towards the wise ratman, however, the ratman was not slow, as he saw through Singh's intentions and barely evaded both of the axes.

The rats begin to climb the furniture, and as they begin doing so, everyone begins to panic. If they fall in the sea of rats, they would probably die.

"AHH!!!" A female scream came from behind as Niko looked towards this exclamation.

The chairs that Pryia and Singh were on, began to wobble as it looked extremely unsafe, until suddenly.

"Snap!" One of the legs of Priya's chair snapped as she fell to the ground as quickly as a meteor hitting earth.

"No!" Singh, without hesitation, jumped down to grab her, but as he did so, he made a huge mistake. The rats began to bite his body, and as he tried to pull Priya from the sea of rats, it was simply too difficult, it was as if the whole army of rats were pulling her down. He realized his mistake and naiveness of jumping down to be the hero, and as he couldn't bear the pain any longer, he tried to pick himself up, but no longer could. He fell then and there, next to the closest person to him both literally and mentally.

"Dammit!" Things were getting dire. Niko began using all of his spirits to combat these rats, and as his unranked spirit slammed down killing rats left and right, he noticed something. His unranked spirit was gaining spirit power from killing these rats, which was extremely easy to kill. As if a light bulb lit up in his mind he came up with an Idea.

As he thought of this idea in panic, he saw Dharma running on the balcony towards the wise ratman.

[Demonic Whirlwind Palm]!

Just like before, his palm was covered in a crimson aura, as a red hurricane much bigger than before enveloped it, as he aimed it towards the wise ratman.

Seeing this the wise ratman was no longer with a huge grin on his face, as he took a step back and pointed his staff towards Dharma.

As the crimson hurricane approached the wise ratman, his staff grew a dark green color, and seconds after that, it launched a strange dark green slimeball towards the hurricane. Both collide, creating a loud bang, which caused Dharma to be launched backward, breaking through the wall and falling inside a room. The wise ratman was also pushed back, but only slightly.

As the wise ratman turned its gaze back at the group, Niko looked towards Zheng and said, "Zheng! Jump on the boar and do as I say!"

As Niko said this, the boar spirit he possessed appeared next to the table Zheng.

Zheng looks towards him with confusion, and asks, "What!?!"