A fierce and intense battle unfolds between the two rodent adversaries: the crazed Corrupted rat and the determined Arav mouse.

The rat, larger and more powerful, charges forward with a fierce squeak. Its beady eyes are fixed on the mouse, which stands its ground, trembling with adrenaline as well as a little bit of fear.

The mouse, quick and agile, darts to the side, avoiding the rat's snapping jaws. The rat recovers swiftly, its long tail whipping back and forth as it pursues the mouse.

The mouse retaliates with a series of rapid, high-pitched squeaks, trying to distract the rat. The rat, however was undettered. It launch another attack. The mouse, quick as usual was able to avoid the rat's snapping jaw but was hit with a blow from the rat powerful paw, lined with greasy and sharp claws on his face.

The mouse squeal in pain as it stumbles down. It's left eye were scratch, blood oozing out.

The mouse was at a disadvantage. It was wounded. The rat charged at the mouse, aiming to end the fight.

A horde of creatures entered the chamber through the hole from where the mouse came from and charged at the rat. The flying wasps with their stinger, the scorpion with their pincers and stingers and the spiders with their fangs.

The rat howl in pain at the combined attack of the dungeon creatures. The spiders and scorpions attack from the ground with their pincers, fangs and stingers while the wasps srung the rat from above. However, they only bought a few seconds as the rat was far stronger than they were.

The first of the dungeon creature to fall was one of the spider. It was bitten by the rat's powerful jaws. The second was a scorpion, suffering the same fate as the spider.

Meanwhile, the mouse had recovered from the assault on his eyes and charge again. It went for the rat dorsal neck. The rat occupied on killing the second spider didn't see it coming.

The rat scream in pain as the sharp teeth of the mouse tear on its flesh. It tried to throw off the mouse by shaking but found that it's limb had no more strength. The spiders and the scorpions had stung and bitten at the legs and their poison was beginning to take effect.

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At the same time, something had caught hold of its body like twining ropes. It was Ozymandias.

Ozymandias had been furiously spending his mana to gained deeper control of the mouse tunnel, especially the chamber where the fight was taking place so that he could use his mana tendrils. He could control thirty tendrils now and he used all of them on binding the corrupted rat.

With a thump, the rat fell to the ground. It was immobolized both by the poisons and Ozymandias' tendrils. It couldn't even screamed as the mouse tear it's flesh apart.

Ozymandias also send his mana through the tendril into the rat. The miasma in the body fought back but Ozymandias was experience now. He send waves after waves of mana. The miasma was strong but could not overpowered the mana. In the end, the miasma got purified and broken down into prana forcefully by Ozymandias. Then....

BOOM.......

As the tendrils touch the core of the miasma, the body of the rat burst from the torso. The force sent the mouse flying.

“How did you like them mana, you foul creature?“ Ozymandias jeered excitedly in his own thought.

The mouse got up but instead of feasting on the now purified rat carcass, it attack the nearest scorpion. Thankfully, Ozymandias was quick to react. With his tendrils, he bound the mouse and commanded his creatures to leave.

On release, the mouse began to feast. It wolf down most of the upper part of the now purified rat carcass.

Ozymandias absorbed the lower torso and the corpses of his fallen creatures to make up for the lost mana. He also noticed something was wrong with the mouse. There was a hint of madness in its remaining good eye. Miasma poisoning.

Ozymandias waited. The mouse was still not corrupted but within a day it will be. Ozymandias did not want that. After filling it's stomach, the mouse ran back to its nesting chamber, curled up and began to sleep.

Ozymandias also began to work. He subtly push his mana into the mouse little body. The miasma was heading towards the brain, where it will first infect like a parasite. It didn't take long for Ozymandias to purify the miasma in the mouse body as it was only in small amount, which got transferred in during the fight.

Then he started on the next task in hand. Claiming the mouse as his own.

The mouse had sustain several wounds in its body. Ozymandias did not knew how to heal but he hope that mana will do the trick. This was his first time working on a injured creature afterall.

He push his mana gently into the mouse, especially on the injured area. To his delight, his mana was closing the wounds until all that was left were scars.

While healing the mouse, he also learnt many things. First, it was a male as he found a pair of balls and a penis. Secondly that a mouse body was very much different than a spider, fly, scorpion, wasp or ants.

Having healed the mouse, he pulled back his vision to the den. He access the damage on the dungeon. He had lost two spiders and a scorpion. He had also lost five hundred units of mana but managed to get back half.

“In terms of profit and loss, it was a huge loss. But in terms of victory and defeat, it was a big victory.“

His mana detection sent an alarm. An intruder had appeared. It was at the tunnel entrance. He focus his Camvision.

A creature, ten inches long, draped in a spiny scaly tail from its broad triangular head to its stubby tail. It had a rounded flat body and short legs with a frilly beard of spines around their lower jaw and dewlap and round

large eyes.

It was a Lizard.

“That's a bearded dragon.“