Author's note: I am back to trying to put out a chapter every two days and I'm going to try to build up a sizeable backlog of chapters so that if anything happens where I no longer have the time to write, I can at least keep the consistent chapters going.
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CREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!! With a loud creaking sound the heavy stone door opened. Stepping through the door the party was met by a gigantic gaping hole, the sewage water pouring in it unceasingly. Grime and dirt covered the walls and the unbearable stench invaded the nostrils of the party. Pitter-patter sounds could be heard from every nook and corner of the sewers. Large yellow crystals hung on the ceiling of the sewers, illuminating the whole area.
Around the gaping hole was a ten meter wide walkway, with every few meters another tunnel branching out. From every tunnel the pitter-patter sounds became clearer and clearer and seconds later a variety of dog-sized rats came swarming out of them at the party. There were at least 40 rats swarming towards the party and every single one of them was level 50 and had 10.000 hp. By no means would this be an easy battle!
"Florance and Cindarrah stay back and cover for us, Kirin, me and Nuvahn will stop them." Zaran barked. "Nuvahn, you take the left side, I will take the right side. Kirin you deal with the stragglers."
Zaran and Nuvahn stood in the middle of the pathway so they could somewhat assure it wasn't easy for the rats to pass them. In seconds the swarm of rats was upon them. Swiftly taking a batting stance, with his greatsword to the left of him, Zaran struck out and smashed three rats in the side knocking them towards the gaping hole. With the additional knock back effect from his greatsword, each of the three rats toppled over and fell into the hole. On the other side Nuvahn had used wind slash to get the same effect and he too sent three rats into the gaping hole, cutting their numbers down by three more.
Noticing the fate of their peers, the rats grew vigilant. Zaran took the batting stance again and swung out at another pair of rats who ran at him. The moment he struck out the rats jumped to try to avoid the blow. "Fools!" Zaran muttered as he used gravity. It heavily affected both rats ability to jump and caused them to not jump high enough to avoid the sword blow. The two rats crashed into each other before being sent over the edge.
Nuvahn was already engaged in close combat with the rats on his side with Kirin, Cindarrah and Florance already supporting him. Kirin used dark rush to wreak havoc in the pack of rats while Cindarrah used Web Shot to restrict the rats' movements. Meanwhile Florance skilfully used homing fireballs to damage them and the lightning spell 'lightning shackles' to constrict the opponents movements.
On his own side more rats were approaching him, he struck the ground with his foot and two meter long earth lances burst through the ground, striking at the rats. He followed this up with the mist skill. The rats were dazed by the mist but Zaran was not! With a few more well placed earth lances, the rats were split up and Zaran started striking the rats, each of his strike dealing a good amount of damage to them.
After a minute the mist dissipated and Zaran felt his heart grew heavy. Even with having a full minute alone with the rats he had not been able to kill one. Every single one of the fifteen rats was damaged to a certain extent but not even one had reached below 40% HP.
Every single one of the rats was absolutely furious and went into a frenzy upon seeing their attacker. A grey sheen appeared around every single rat and each burst forward with great speed, intent on gnawing this enemy in front of them to death!
Seeing the situation on Zaran's side, Florance started channelling one of her stronger skills, lightning started to surge around her. "Lightning field!" Florance shouted as flicked her hands, sending the lightning to the area in front of Zaran, which became covered in bolts of lightning, continuously striking out to the surroundings and occasionally stunning the rats, greatly slowing down their speed. Through great control and at the cost of her mental strength being drained continuously, she was able to stop the spell from inflicting damage to Zaran.
"I can not keep this spell up too long as the mental drain is too great! You have about a minute at most!" Florance shouted.
Every bolt of lightning dealt a great amount of damage to the rats and 5 to 10 % of their hp disappeared with a single one! With the continuous onslaught of lightning bolts the giant rat's hp swiftly started to drop!
Zaran back stepped a few attacks of the rats and unleashed devouring chaos, his sword became shrouded in chaos ki. Letting out a short breath, the completely calm Zaran took a small step forward and and sliced towards the nearest rat. A huge cut appeared on the rat's body and blood sprayed out in every direction. Another sword strike flew out and another cut appeared on the rat. The giant rats could not just stand by and watch their comrade being hurt and they rushed to Zaran.
His expression was completely serene and the speed of his greatsword greatly increased. Giant rat after giant rat jumped at him, yet every rat was met with a sword strike! Every strike caused another deep cut to open on a rat and caused an ark of blood to spew out of the cut. The previous black-red blade was completely drenched in blood now and with every strike blood flew from the blade. From the current situation, one would think a demon had descended upon the world!
Zaran was in a peculiar mindset right now, even though the sword was extremely heavy at 70 kilograms in his hands it currently felt as if it weighed nothing and was merely another appendage!
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SKREEEE one of the rats squeaked and Zaran felt his mind be lost in a daze. His movements grew more sluggish and the giant rat who had let out the squeak pounced forward and bit Zaran's side. Zaran slashed violently at the rat and depleted the remainder of his hp with the hit. He looked at his side and a small part of it had been bitten out yet a fourth of his health disappeared just like that!
His blade found its way to another rat and finished it off as well, bringing him to level 49. Each rat gave an absolutely humongous amount of exp and he was sure he would reach level 50 at the end of the fight. Multiple rats jumped at him simultaneously and Zaran gave a small flick to his wrist, changing to the broad side of the blade. He struck out and the broad side of the blade connected with each of the rats, giving all of them a slight concussion and even outright squashing the head of one of the giant rats.
A grey flash appeared in the corner of his eye and before he could even turn around, he winced as a giant rat cloaked in grey energy slammed into him. Another fourth of his health disappeared. He slammed the ground with his foot and earth lances shot out, penetrating the rat that had just attacked him. Two strikes of his blade followed and the rat dropped lifelessly to the ground. With a mere flick of his sleeve one of the summoned earth lances flew forward from the ground, homed in on a rat and impaled it, pinning it to the ground. One strike later its head rolled down the gaping hole.
Another rat tried to jump at him but this time Zaran did not use just his blade and merely used gravity to stop it from jumping. With the effect of both lightning field and gravity the rat could not move at all and its body swiftly slumped to the ground further reducing the numbers. Earth lances shot forward from the ground again and pierced another four rats. Their fate was sealed swiftly thereafter. Now only five rats remained.
With the majority of their allies gone, the morale of the rats disappeared. Half a minute later the last of the five rats dropped to ground after a mournful cry.
This fight made Zaran realize how much he needed the later techniques from dance of the butterfly. Especially the fourth technique would already have made the fight an enormous amount easier. The first three techniques were very effective on human or humanoid opponents but was not very effective versus opponents smaller than oneself. It was for this reason that he had not been using the techniques in this battle and simultaneously the reason why the battle had taken so long. As soon as he got the opportunity to do so he would instantly get the fourth technique and potentially the fifth or the sixth. Which one of the latter two he needed more he didn't know.
Zaran turned towards Florance and kissed her on the cheek. "thanks."
"It is nothing, I.. uhh" Florance said with a feeble tone before her body slumped down, the mental burden of controlling the spell having exhausted her. Zaran instantly caught her body, stored his greatsword into his space ring and gently carried her.
On the other side of the fight the group was finishing up and a minute later the last giant rat fell to the ground. "Nuvahn, could you collect the spoils? I have kind off got my hands full here right now." Zaran asked with a wry smile.
"Hahahahaha I notice. Leave it to me!" Nuvahn said as he quickly picked up all the dropped items. It was mostly gold, some rat fangs and some rat hide and a ring that added 20 intelligence and 20 wisdom which Nuvahn and Zaran decided to give to Florance. On the side Kirin and Cindarrah were feeding on the rat corpses, both quickly adding to their level.
Especially Cindarrah soared in level. If not for the original Cindarrah messing with her genetics she would now be a quite sizeable spider.
Until Florance woke up the group couldn't move and had to hope that no more enemies appeared out of nowhere. A few minutes passed with no additional giant rats appearing and Florance slowly opened her eyes. "uh... auch... my head..." She muttered as she brought her left hand to her head and wailed in pain. "uwuu uwuu".
She quickly took out a small pill from her storage ring and put it in her mouth. Her headache instantly cleared. Noticing that she was being carried like a princess by Zaran her face instantly flushed bright red. It was very embarrassing for her to be carried like this. With a shy face she said "Put me down."
Zaran quickly put her down and Florance stood next to Zaran with a completely flushed face.
"Hey Florance a 20 intelligence and wisdom ring dropped. Do you want it?" Nuvahn asked.
"Yeah sure." Florance said, her face still flushed.
Nuvahn handed her the ring, which she equipped right away. Her stats increased by a fair amount and she could feel a surge of power enter her body.
WUFF! Kirin finished eating and let out a content bark. Compared to before she had grown slightly taller. Cindarrah on the other hand hadn't grown but the colours of her body had grown a shade darker. Cindarrah had gotten a new skill added to her skill list while Kirin's dark flame skill had evolved and gotten another ability.
Cindarrah's new skill was "Hellweaver's land" which created a huge area of effect web on the ground that slowed bigger enemies and completely snared smaller enemies.
Kirin's dark flame had evolved and now the skill could also be used to emit a fiery breath that dealt a moderate amount of damage.
With Florance recovered and Kirin and Cindarrah done feeding the party could finally move on.