The giant rat horrified Bo. Images of its long and pink tail, both fleshy and silky, flashed through his mind. He heard it approaching, a soft tapping against the stone floor.

“Big,” Bo shouted. “Big, for fuck sake, don’t let it get close to me!”

“What am I supposed to do?” Big said. “It’s huge. Just don’t move and hope for the best.”

“I swear to god Big.”

He didn’t know what the rat would do. It could be inspecting him, taking a few sniffs and so, or it was sizing him up, wondering if it should attack him. What kinds of plagues did this rat carry? He had no misconception that a disease mixed with magic would be much worse than a disease without magic.

Sniff.

Sniff sniff.

Suddenly, the rat leaped at him and knocked him down onto the floor and began mauling into his face. Big’s eyes widened in shock as he made towards them. Bo felt that something heavy and furry pushed against his chest, restraining him and making it tough to breath, and he could feel the rat’s hard teeth bite into his nose and let the blood flow. He tasted iron.

Bo tried to grab the rat’s head but he could not get a good grip as its head moved from spot to spot. It seemed rather skittish, jumping from spot to spot. It bit into his nose, and then his ears, and then the space between his eyes, and then his right eye.

Bo shrieked.

He couldn’t see from one eye. It wasn’t just that the sight from his right eye turned black, but it had disappeared completely. His sight came only from his left eye now, it spanned from the left to the right, ending on his nose.

“Help,” he spat, blood having covered his lips.

“I don’t have my dagger.”

Kill it with your fucking hands! He thought, remembering that they can speak through thoughts.

The rat’s teeth jumped to his other and dove in. All of his vision disappeared with a flash of red. His eyes stung, and he could feel the teeth digging deeper in, but he didn’t think of the consequences at the moment.

His body focused only on surviving. He’d managed to wrap his legs around the rat’s right back-leg, and his hands had finally gotten a good grip on the rat. He was pressing his fingers into its eyes. It shrieked and its teeth dug in with a new fervor.

Suddenly it stopped.

I’m biting its tail, Big thought.

The rat tried to turn around but Bo managed to restrain it. Bo could hear the tiny, goblin’s mouth open and clamp shut on the tail, and the rat’s shrieks. It must have hurt a lot, but Bo wanted nothing more than for it to hurt even more.

Suddenly, the rat escaped Bo’s grip and managed to turn around and leap into Bo. Bo heard the wrestling close to him. Teeth clamping into teeth. Nails digging into skin. Kick’s thumping against the gut.

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He shuffled towards the noise, blood pouring out of his eyes. There was still something he could do, and perhaps if he’d done it sooner, this entire event wouldn’t have happened, or at least not gone down as it had.

His hand reached out and touched Big.

“Status,” he spat out blood.

“Big”

Race/Species: [Worker Goblin]

Level: 1

Class: None

Stats:

Unassigned points: 5

Strength: 1

Agility: 2

Stamina: 4

Toughness: 2

Intelligence: 2

Charisma: 1

Skill:

Perks: [Night vision] lvl 1, [Goblin Ferocity] lvl 1

He dumped all of the unassigned points into strength, bringing it up to six. All of a sudden, Big wasn’t getting mauled, the fight seemed to have become much more even. At least, judging from the sounds.

The kicks had more impact. He could hear the rat’s organs squelching after a kick to the gut, and it wasn’t eating at his face anymore as Big’s grip managed to restrain it.

The rat began whimpering but Big didn’t give up on the kicks.

Suddenly, Bo spoke.

“[Tame]”

[Tame] succeeded. You can access the rat’s status. Due to being recently tamed, the rat gained five unassigned points.

He couldn’t hear the fight’s grunts, or Bo’s kicks slamming into the rat anymore. He could only hear the breathing of two creatures on top of eachother. He shuffled closer laying against them.

Bo didn’t know exactly why he did this. Once again he was on death’s bed, and he felt nothing but regret. All of it had happened so quickly. It had felt like one second he was fine, walking through the maze’s hallways, and the next he was in darkness, blind and bleeding to death. That he guessed was how death worked, but at least when he died, he wanted to feel something other than the cold, hard stone and the blood on his face.

He fell into them, blood mixing into blood. The anticipation of death filled the air thick. None of them tried to avoid it or fight to stay alive. Their fate was clear, and nothing they did could change that.

Ace skill gained!

[Amalgamation]

[Amalgamation], Bo thought, what the hell was that?

Sounds clever, Big thought. Hopefully it’s a good skill boss, I don’t think I’m going to make it.

You’re in good acquaintance than, heh. Might as well see what it does.

“[Amalgamation]” he said with his final breath.

Something took hold of his body. It seemed that in an instant, a cold, bandage like substance wrapped itself around him from head to toe. He felt his legs grow taller and his body slimmer. A cold liquid filled his eyes, and all of a sudden he could see again. Small claws replaced his fingernails, and a large, pink tail shot out of his tailbone.

The bandage vanished, and he felt that a monster had been released.

Boss, Big said. I’m inside of you.