Now that the ring was gone, Logan began to understand how far he’d lost the plot. Everything but killing had fallen to the wayside. He’d had no thought to strategy, no thought to what would happen once they worked through the lower leveled two-headed rats and had to fight the three-headed rats.

Or Fang.

The level 100 rats had purposely stayed back, watching the battle with sick, grinning mouths as if everything were going to plan. They had something up their sleeves.

But even worse, if Logan had been in his right mind, he could have taken the time his clones had given him to plan a strategy while he’d been on top of the roof. But strategy had been the last thing on his mind. He’d thought of nothing but killing.

“We must save them!” said Ernie, climbing out of his pouch and staring, his tentacles jerking in alarm. “There will be no empire building if there are no people!”

Up above, Brooke was discharging her gun, shooting the nearest charging two-headed rat, carving out clumps of flesh. But it didn’t matter. Although the bullets were doing damage, the monster was too large. It was like shooting an elephant with a handgun. Eventually, it might wear it down and it would collapse, but while it was enraged, nothing would stop it.

Dropping the gun after she ran out of bullets, Brooke swung the baseball bat instead. Logan could give her credit—she was determined and showed no fear. But the result would have been the same if Logan had tried the same thing when he was her level.

It hardly did any damage at all.

At least Chase was making headway with Errol’s whip, snapping the thing at the nearest charging rat and pulling it off balance. But it was a whip; there was a limit to what it could do. They had seconds at best before the rats swarmed them and trampled them to death.

Kicking off with his Pink Sock, Logan leaped over the swarm. Right before he landed in front of them, a rat shot past Brook and Chase and went for a woman with a wrench.

Shrieking rather than attacking, she tried to dart to the side, but the rat was too fast. With both of its two mouths, it chomped down on her—one mouth latching onto her shoulder and severing her arm, the other going for her side.

Logan’s stomach sank.

The woman gurgled, blood spraying from her mouth, before she went limp and sagged in the rat’s grip.

Logan slammed his sword through the body of the rat, cleaving it clean in half, but it was too late. Staring down at her body, he swallowed, his mouth dry. If Logan hadn’t been so power hungry, he might have come up with a strategy to save her.

But the others were still alive.

“Ernie, tell your minions to come to the front and distract the rats! I need to give them enough time to get away.”

There was no way these people were any match for this army. Trying to make a stand against a swarm that consisted of hundreds if not a thousand of these monsters had been folly. Not on his own. Not without clones.

Chase had a cut on his arm; Brooke was limping.

“I thought you wanted us to fight?” said Brooke, dazed.

“You can’t win! I’ll hold them off, you get away!” When they stared at him with stunned, blank faces, he pushed them, forcing them into a run.

“Go go go!” he shouted, pushing them away from the swarm.

They’d given the children and the lower-level adults enough time. They had to be blocks in front of them by now, but they still had the same problem as before. If Brooke, Chase, and the others fled, Logan could hold the rats off for minutes at most. Eventually, the rat swarm would surge, and stragglers would escape while Logan was occupied.

But there was one thing he could try.

[Life Fabricator].

***

Logan’s gaze lingered on the fallen woman. He didn’t know what was possible with [Life Fabricator]. Perhaps his new skill would give him the ability to heal or bring people back to life, but the problem was that he didn’t have the luxury of time. If he lingered here, distracted by the woman, the rats would catch up, and then he’d have more than one person that he’d need to bring back to life.

His stomach sloshing, Logan turned away from the sight of the woman and urged everyone forward, pushing their backs, pulling on their collars, anything possible to just get them to move. Half of his attention was on that; the rest was on contemplating a way forward with [Life Fabricator].

He knew what he had to do, but it was just a matter of tactics.

He also had free attributes that he could use to increase his Karma regeneration rate, which would help with the skill. Leveling up ten times meant he had 50 attributes to assign, but he wasn’t certain that was the right way forward. After all, he hadn’t yet unlocked [Liche Devourer]. But even if he threw all 50 into his intelligence stat, it still wouldn’t be enough to unlock it. By his calculations, to reach a 3500 Karma pool, he’d need to level up 30 times to get anywhere close. 30 level increases!

What’s worst was that against these lower-level monsters, it was getting harder to level quickly. He would need to defeat monsters like Fang to make a dent.

In the meantime, Logan purposely fell back and tried to give the group more time to distance themselves from the rat army. At least the remaining people weren’t sheltering children, which meant they could run.

Logan swung with his sword, slicing a rat in half, not giving himself a second’s break before using his Pink Sock to dart to the next.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 35 Two-Headed Rat!]

[You have defeated a Level 34 Two-Headed Rat!]

But unlike before, he wasn’t mindless with the need to kill. This time, he was cognizant of everything around him. Cognizant of the fact that Fang and the other higher leveled rats continued to hang back, far back in the army, their red eyes glittering. You’d think they’d be upset that he was slaughtering so many, but instead, Fang watched in satisfaction, as if everything were going to plan.

There was something up with that fucker.

Fang and the four-headed rats had to know that the others were no match for Logan; that he had enough power that he could continue killing everything in reach. And yet they persisted with the same strategy, as if they were happy to feed Logan more and more rats.

As if they were purposely letting him level up more.

Fattening him for the kill.

Scowling, he jabbed his talons into the eyes of the nearest rat, blinding one head and slicing across the eye of another. As long as he didn’t cut off the heads, he was fine to do his worst with whatever was in reach.

Jumping clear, he pivoted on his feet, swinging his sword in a down arc, aiming for the legs of the fuckers that were charging at him. Like cutting off chicken legs, limbs went flying, blood and viscera splashing his armour.

“Yucky,” said Ernie.

Logan looked down the road. The others had managed to outpace him a whole half block, which gave him room to move, but he needed more distance to have a chance to effectively deploy [Life Fabricator]. The skill took concentration; concentration took time. Time he wouldn’t have if Chase and Brooke’s group were too close.

Logan growled as he surged into the fray, a vein on his forehead throbbing with rage. After he’d shattered the skill ring, he was no longer an unhinged killer, but he could admit to anger as he continued slicing these fuckers. And that wasn’t anger fed by the Cursed Rope, who was being remarkedly well behaved… suspiciously well behaved.

Up above, it continued jumping through the air with crackles of blue electricity, dive bombing on top of the rats, curving itself around their bodies, eating into their flesh, then jumping to the next and curling around a hind leg, severing it clean in half. Each time, it purred, the rope can be good, the rope can obey.

On top of that, since Logan had leveled up ten times, so had the rope. Now, it didn’t just have divots, it had eyes. Within the sockets, it had formed black eyes the size of golf balls. They shone with intelligence and pleasure. Now that it could see, it kept its gaze glued to Logan, as if trying to gauge whether he was impressed.

No, the emotion wasn’t coming from the Cursed Rope. By now, he could recognize an emotion fueled by an external force. This time, the rage was all his own.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Would these rats never end? Never stop?

“Get the next one, Ernie,” he said as he jumped on the back of the nearest two-headed rat. He’d slaughtered all the mid-30 leveled rats. Now, the rats close to level 40 surged. These ones were the same size, but they moved quicker and were more agile.

Ernie scrambled out of his pouch and crawled down Logan’s side, clinging to his armour with his suction cups as he pressed a tentacle to the back of the rat.

“Minion minion minion!” he panted in excitement “I will build an army unlike any other. A master of the lakes, a master of the ocean, a master of the world. Hundreds and thousands will become part of my dominion, for I’m sneaky, I’m smart, I’m a power like none other!”

Logan raised his eyebrows. Just because Logan was no longer under the spell of the skill ring, didn’t mean Ernie couldn’t keep having fun. Logan suspected that for Ernie, adding a minion to his army gave him a surge, hitting his pleasure centers. After all, animals who were undead would need encouragement to infect others. If making another animal into the undead didn’t cause them satisfaction, they’d be a lonely zombie indeed.

Just like the other minions, Ernie spread tiny diamond filaments into the body of the rat, seeping into the thing’s skin, infecting it. Its fur turned from pitch black to light brown, then white, and finally silver, its eyes milky and pale.

Logan let Ernie scurry back into his pouch before he surged forward, giving himself time to reach the others—

What.

Brooke and Chase had left the group and had come back, meeting Logan with sweat drenched faces. Brooke was still limping, a bloody gash on her exercise pants, her blonde hair stringy and splattered with blood. She clutched the baseball bat in a white knuckled grip, but her face was resolute. Firm.

Chase looked weary, but resigned, as if he’d followed Brooke reluctantly. Over his shoulder, Errol’s whip looked like it weighed him down; his already lined face made him look as if he’d aged ten years in one fight.

“What are you doing?” Logan demanded. “I told you to get away!”

Brooke snorted. “We’re never going to get strong if we run away from a fight. The others were glad to leave, but not me. Why should you get all the XP?”

Logan stared. “I’m trying to save you. I’m not trying to steal the kill.”

She wrinkled her nose as they ran, keeping pace with Logan despite her wobbly ankle. “All very noble, I’m sure. Sorry if your act doesn’t fool me. I saw your face when you were killing those rats. That wasn’t the face of someone who wanted to protect us. You wanted to kill.”

Logan scowled. He didn’t have time to explain why he’d appeared so unhinged. To do that, he’d have to tell them about skill rings, and he couldn’t run, fight the rats, and explain at the same time. And worst yet, he didn’t want to be responsible for another death. They needed to leave.

As a rat darted close to his heels, he turned, slashing with his sword, taking out its two front legs then slicing through its belly. One more flick of his wrist and—

“No, stop!” said Brooke.

“What the hell, I’m not going to stop!” Logan flicked his sword, severing the thing clean in half.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 40 Two-Headed Rat!]

“Goddammit!” she hissed. “You couldn’t have waited?”

Waited.

Waited while hundreds of rats charged. Every second he delayed meant the army crept closer and eliminated the cushion he’d given himself. For his plan to work, he needed distance. He couldn’t deploy [Life Fabricator] while running.

“Brooke is a little excitable,” said Chase, panting while he ran, the shoulder with the whip soaked with sweat. “She just wanted to kill it. For the XP, you understand. You say you want to save us, well, that means helping us get strong. I suppose you’ve gone back on that, then? You won’t help us level?”

Logan ran a hand through his blood crusted hair. He supposed he’d promised them, but that was before everything with the skill ring happened.

Before the woman had died.

“Do you not understand how risky this is?” he said as he pivoted on his feet, slashing with his sword at the nearest charging rat. Ten more were behind it. “It’s taking everything I have to keep these things away from you. You might be okay with putting your lives in jeopardy, but I doubt the others are.”

Logan looked at Brooke, taking in her earnest, frustrated expression. He was annoyed at the delay, but in a way, he understood her perspective. It was a kill or be killed world; she wanted to take every advantage she could get, just like Logan had right after the integration. Hell, hadn’t he initially thought of his bond with Ernie that way? Ernie had been higher leveled than Logan. Logan had thought he could use that to his advantage. In a way, it was exactly what Brook was doing.

And, well… she was already here.

“Fine. One rat. Then I need you to escape with the others.”

Brooke brightened.

Logan darted forward with his Pink Sock, slamming into the nearest rat and digging into its side with his talons. It squealed like a stuck pig. Reaching down, he grabbed a leg, wrapping his glove around the limb and squeezing. The rat continued shrieking as he crushed the other leg, forcing it to crash to the ground. Even incapacitated like that, its two darting heads were dangerous, but he’d damaged it enough for them to kill it without too much trouble.

“Quickly,” he said as he stepped away and turned to face the remaining rats.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Brooke. Hesitant at first, and then with a scowl, she rushed towards the rat, screaming as she bashed its side with the baseball bat, the nails and screws cutting into its flesh.

On the other side, Chase crept close to the thing while the heads were snapping at Brooke. With a knife in one hand, he stabbed with a sick, wet sound, the heads turning on a dime and snapping at him instead.

Now that they were distracted once again, Brooke charged, the baseball bat making mush out of the rat’s side. Her chest was rising up and down, her teeth bared.

Fuck’s sake. It was taking too long.

With a scowl, Logan pivoted and pushed Brooke to the side.

“Hey!” she said.

Logan ignored her as he cleaved the thing in half.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 41 Two-Headed Rat! Experience points reduced and awarded based on contributions made.]

Brooke gasped while Chase stared off in the distance as he took in the System notification.

She jumped on the balls of her feet. “I’ve leveled up twice! Heck yeah!”

Chase didn’t say anything, but he had a self-satisfied smile on his face, his weariness disappearing as he straightened, his posture like a pencil, a solidness to his arms as if he no longer felt the weight of the whip.

Huh. He must have thrown his free points into his strength attribute.

“That’s enough,” said Logan. “You know I can’t hold these things off forever. Some of them will get by me. And you know they can find people when they’re hiding. Once they get past me, they’ll find not just the adults, but the children as well.”

They both sobered. “What can we do?”

Logan jerked his head down the street. “Go. I’m going to try something, and I can’t worry about protecting you while I do it.”

“A skill?” Chase questioned.

Logan was silent. Instead, he sliced his sword through the next five charging rats, nodding his head in acknowledgement as the Cursed Rope darted around the last straggler, acid eating into the monster’s front leg.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 44 Two-Headed Rat!]

[…]

[You have defeated a Level 45 Two-Headed Rat!]

He’d killed so many two-headed rats they were thinning. However, that didn’t reassure him. Now, his task had just gotten twice as hard. With the depletion of the two-headed rats, the three-headed monsters surged anew. The size of draft horses, these ones had armour covered bodies which meant he’d no longer be able to cleave through these things like butter. And if Logan had difficulties, Brooke and Chase would have no chance.

Brooke swallowed as she surveyed the three-headed rats. “Okay,” she said as if to herself. “Okay, we’re going.”

Logan waited until they headed down the street before surveying the surging army. He was covered in blood and guts, his hair crusted with dried goo, his sword looking like something out of a slaughterhouse. He’d gone up half an inch just from the volume of guts and shredded skin that had accumulated on the bottom of his boots. But despite all of that, he felt refreshed and ready to go, as if he’d just woken up from a good night’s sleep.

That had to be the effect of [Undead Stamina].

“That means you’re up, Ernie.”

“Already done.” Ernie peaked out of his pouch and waved a tentacle, his expression unfocused as he concentrated.

Up until now, Ernie had continued to direct his minions to be shit disturbers but not aggressive. They swarmed through the army, darting around the others as the regular rats chewed through their heads, forcing them to evolve. Now, all but one of Ernie’s minions had upgraded to a three-headed rat. That meant that at Ernie’s command, they could draw the army’s attention away from Logan while he did what was necessary.

Gradually, ten large, pale three-headed rats butted their heads through the regular army, streaming to the front line. The other rats screeched and snapped at them as they passed, but it was as if they felt nothing. Their milky white eyes were mindless with one overarching need—to obey.

Ernie suddenly sagged over his shoulder, his tentacles plopping down Logan’s chest, boneless. He’d lost his [Mimicry] effect, his skin pale. Alarmingly pale.

“Ernie?” asked Logan with a surge of alarm. “Are you okay?”

Ernie blew out his breath and then straightened, pulling himself together, crawling back to perch on Logan’s shoulder before making his way into the pouch. But still, his movements were sluggish.

“Bah! Of course I’m okay! I rival all, no rat will—”

“Ernie,” scolded Logan.

“Fine,” he muttered from inside the pouch. “It was just a little more difficult than I thought it would be! They fought me. They had a strand of loyalty connected to another being. Overriding that will even after their transformation wasn’t easy.” He raised his voice. “But it’s fine now! They’ll continue fighting until they’re overwhelmed. Even then, they won’t stop.” His voice was glum. “And after I’d built such a mammoth army!”

The ten rats were running back in forth in front of the army, blocking the street. Instead of just fighting their former comrades, they darted away from swipes of their claws and snapping jaws, anything they could do to be distracting. Eventually, the rat army would overwhelm them. Like Ernie had lamented, he would lose them.

But it should give Logan enough time to deploy his plan. He had no idea if it would work, and it was entirely possible that he could be in for serious Karma depletion, but just like everything else, he wouldn’t know until he tried.

Using his Pink Sock, he launched into the air, leaping half a block before landing to the asphalt with an explosion of dust. Powering with his arms, he kicked into high gear, running like his feet were rockets. Wind blew into his face, his hair flying, until the rats were far in the distance. As he continued running, Logan could make out Brooke and Chase, who had just reached the rest of the group.

That meant that by the time the army defeated Ernie’s minions, Logan should have enough time to deploy his strategy before they caught up.

Hopefully.

Turning around to face the rats, he surveyed the street. The city had made a massive effort to make Hope’s End green, irrigating planted trees, bushes, and flowers. In the summer, there could be weeks and even months with 100-degree heat and little precipitation. Directly irrigated plants was their solution to that—a way to hide the city’s natural desert look.

Right in front of the wide sidewalks on either side of the street, maple trees provided shade, bushes with bright, red flowers around each tree trunk. Overgrown lush grass grew between the apartment buildings, a solid row. Normally, the city mowed it, but that had fallen by the wayside with the trash pileups and everything else.

The trees weren’t anywhere close to the monster carbon trees he’d grown back at Richton’s Tomb, but they were life. Life was all he needed for [Life Fabricator].

That was the first step of his plan.

But he wouldn’t get anywhere if his heart were exploding out of his chest. Closing his eyes, Logan took a deep, shuddering breath, and turned his senses to the here and now. With his new skill, he no longer had to focus on the trees, bushes and grasses around him. Based on his experimentation back at the lake, once he deployed the skill, he should suck the life from them automatically.

After all, the description of his [Fabled Creation] class had been clear. He only had to will it, and he shall have it.

Logan wanted his money’s worth.