They stared at each other for a long moment. The large Rat Kin seemingly gloating at Quills own predicament with Quill glaring defiantly at the Rat Kin as the smoke from the blast began clearing. Quill quickly took advantage of this and using his energy manifestation, let it seep out of him under the guise of smoke, letting it creep slowly towards the group of rats.

The leader began to say something to him though he had no idea what considering his ears were still ringing. But if he were to hazard a guess it was most certainly bragging about how they found him.

Slowly but surely sound started to return to him and he caught just the tail end of his speech. “So I knew that the first squad that was ambushed and killed had to be closer to where your base of operations was and everything else was a misdirect. Then it was only a matter of time before we found that bag of yours. Now I shall finish what my brothers should have and then claim the glory of killing the Vermin slayer all to myself!”

“Vermin Slayer?” His voice came out a little hoarse, needing to stall for more time to get his energy in place.

“That thing you bragged about to those rats and they ran away thinking you had a title. Remember?”

“They are still on about that? That feels like it happened ages ago” He rubbed his head and the Rat Kin cleared his throat which had him turn his attention back to him. “Oh yeah, sorry. You were monologuing and I interrupted. Please continue.”

The large Rat Kin turned around towards the other rats as if wanting to ask ‘Are you seeing this disrespect?’ But he was pretty sure they were all system spawns as the leading Rat Kin turned back around with a sigh. “Whatever. Kill him but don’t touch the head, I wish for that part of him to remain pristine when I present it to his majesty.”

“Well that’s nice of him” She managed to get out a response as all the rats launched forward.

It was indeed nice of him. His monologue and gloating gave him enough time to get his energy manifestation to get into place. He had more than enough to cover all the rats as they started to charge him ready to tear him apart.

With a strong force of his will. He made the smoke snap upwards into condensed energy as spikes, impaling all the rats that tried to charge, killing all but the armored rat in the process. Their own momentum being the deciding factor of their fate.

Blood spurted out of his nose and he could taste a large amount of blood as he felt his entire body tremble from over taxation but he still held onto consciousness as he slowly, albeit wobbly, stood up, having already dispersed his manifestations before it became too much.

The forces of the rats dropped dead right there except for the large armored Rat Kin who was now looking at all the dead rats as it clutched its leg in pain. Since he had not charged forward like the rest, the spikes didn’t have enough power to grievously wound or kill him. But he was still injured which was a win in Quills book.

“It is no matter.” The Rat Kin spoke with some frustrated pain in his voice which was far tamer than Quill would have expected given what he just did. “We can easily replenish the numbers with our spawners.”

He drew out a wicked looking great ax and brandished it towards him. “They served their purpose, you are in even worse shape than before by that ability of yours. Such a powerful ability was sure to have a drawback. Acceptable losses for our empire.”

The Rat Kin charged forward and brought their axe down towards Quill who just barely managed to step to the side in time, his entire body hurting from the jerking motion. He didn’t know why but what they just said really pissed him off. He wasn’t in much of a position to counter attack so he settled on the next best thing and spat at the Rats eye.

The Rat Kin recoiled from the surprise of blood and spit hitting him, letting out a surprised yelp which gave Quill just enough time to manifest a dagger of his own and jammed it as hard as he could into the monsters throat causing their surprised yelp to turn into a gurgle. However it clearly wasn’t down for the count as they swung a meaty fist at Quill, slamming it into his face and knocking him back several feet and onto his back, his dagger dispersing at the loss of concentration.

“ROLL!” Her voice screamed with urgency and his body rolled to the left as it barely dodged the giant battle ax trying to cave in his chest, instead missing and cleaving through the stone floor instead.

His body didn’t want to move but he still forced himself to jump away towards one of the dead Rat Kins and grabbed one of their weapons. He could barely see anything as he felt some of his skin crack and peel open from the sudden movements and overuse of the energy. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up.

The armored rat glared at him with one hand clutching his throat and the other on his ax as he lifted up and charged Quill. Feeling like he wouldn’t be able to block the ax without dying he rolled again dodging the blow. But got a swift kick in the ribs because of it, sending him into the wall as he coughed up more blood.

He heard the rat start to make his way over to him and gritted his teeth. Just needed to push himself just a little bit further. That was all he needed to do. All he needed too…

“THEN DO IT!” Her voice screamed in his head and his body shot forward, the ax grazing his shoulder and taking a chunk of skin with it as he thrust the sword he stole into the Rats abdomen. Channeling his energy manifestation into the point of the blade and imagining it expanding outward causing the monster's stomach to suddenly swell like a balloon and explode, its guts covering Quill in gore. The Rat Kin let out a shrilled, gurgled screech before collapsing dead on the spot from the sudden horrible wound.

Killed Rat Kin lvl 24. Experience gained.

Energy manifestation has leveled up to lvl 4

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You have leveled up to lvl 22

Quill fell to the ground himself. He was fighting the urge to not completely pass out as he took out the health potion he kept in his pocket and chugged it as quickly as he could.

He felt some of his major wounds heal but he still felt like shit and could still taste blood in his mouth. He could have really gone for some extra potions but they were sadly now all blown up.

Taking a gander he pawed over the dead armored rat kin but came up with nothing. He doubted the other rats would have healing potions either sadly so he was shit out of luck.

“Are you doing okay there darling?” She spoke in his head and he almost flinched but still kept composure.

“I mean.. Okay is such a relative term… Will I live? Yes. Is that good? No idea..” He let out a sigh that turned into a small cough “Either way, thanks for giving me that extra push.”

She let out a happy giggle “Oh no problem. Glad I didn’t need to remind you to thank me this time~.”

He took a deep breath as he tried to suppress another cough. He wasn’t in very good shape to put it lightly. All he wanted to do was fall asleep for a very long time but that wasn’t going to help.

The rats knew his position, but the rats also probably had very few of their numbers left, otherwise he felt like the large armored rat would have shown up with more reinforcements. If he could destroy the spawners then that meant he could complete his quest which meant he would get the rewards of the potions.

That said he sure as shit wasn’t going to charge in guns blazing as was his original plan. He didn’t think he’d be able to survive that. Instead he decided to try and sneak and destroy the spawners as soon as possible. If that failed, he’d make a blitz for them. He really needed those potions pronto.

He groaned as he got up from where he sat and slowly limped his way past all the dead rats, however paused at a dead rat that had a crossbow. “Well looks like we won’t have to worry about revenge.”

“That's not the one who shot you” She spoke in a rather annoyed tone “Shame too. Lying down in these dank tunnels after being skewered by you seems like a fitting end for such a low life”

He stared at the dead rat in confusion “are you sure? I mean they have a crossbow.”

“Why Quill. Are you implying that all these rats look the same??” He could almost see the shit eating grin on her face when she said that and he decided to just take her word for it.

“Good call~” she responded to his acceptance. He did loot the crossbow and the bolts though. Anything that allowed him to kill his enemies from far away was a very welcome gift. He then pulled his map out as he made his way towards the possible entrance of the grand station.

He had gotten used to much of the tunnel's layouts by now and didn’t get lost on his way there but his progress was still slow. He blamed it on his injuries, minor as they were, but also how tired he felt. Admittedly though he felt some of the slow pace could be attributed to procrastinating , just so he didn’t have to engage in combat again so soon.

Reluctantly he made his way towards where the entrance to the Grand Station was and sure enough there was a small group of dire rats and rat kin guarding the trap door. Thankfully it seemed like said trap door was shut so any engagement he would do would hopefully go unnoticed.

He stepped back a bit further away so he could properly fiddle with the crossbow and figured out how to use it correctly. He still felt like utter shit but the walk had helped a bit with his mind and energy a little, plus he needed to hurry as fast as he could and thus needed to take care of this group of guards.

It didn’t take long to figure out how to get the crossbow to work and it didn’t take too much physical effort on his part to load which he and his sore body was thankful for.

Once loaded he scooted his way back towards where the rats were guarding the entrance and started to take aim with the crossbow from behind the corner.

“Scoot closer. You are too far away to deal any real damage.” She startled him with the sudden commentary and nearly made him fire the crossbow by accident.

“Aww. Don’t worry. Shooting your load prematurely is a compliment in my eyes~”

He felt his face flush from the comment but still heeded her advice and, sticking to the shadows as close as possible, crawled his way forward until she told him he was close enough to kill. So he took aim again.

“Aim a tad more to the right. You’ll only graze him if you shoot right now.” He followed her instructions. Why she didn’t help him when shooting that gun at the diseased dire rat was beyond… He shook his head and refocused. He was sure she had her reasons.

Split thin-

He quickly dismissed the notification to prevent it from distracting him and he slowly exhaled and pulled the triggering mechanism, firing the bolt as it shot forward and right into the chest or the Rat Kin he was aiming for giving him a kill notification.

The other rats quickly snapped their attention towards Quill who was already up and scurrying away as he reloaded the crossbow. Pivoting around and taking aim again just before he turned the corner. Taking a shot and and of course missing as the rats were now charging him.

Muttering a curse he quickly ran away. Trying to maintain a decent distance without losing them as he reloaded the crossbow, relying on his memory of the tunnels he had been traversing for too long.

“You know sweetie, I can help you aim that crossbow. Just give me control of your arms and I will make sure you land every shot.”

He growled and did another pivot around while taking aim. Waiting for the rats to get much closer before firing the crossbow. This time actually landing a hit at the lead dire rat before quickly turning right back around and started to reload.

“There? See. Don’t need your help. Doing perfectly fine on my own.” He managed to squeeze out through his labored breaths

“No need to be stubborn. I know you didn’t appreciate losing control of your body that one time but that’s hardly any reason to act like this.”

“Nonsense. Just wanted to show you I can do these things by myself.” He managed to retort as he loosed another bolt and landed another successful hit.

“Hmmm” Her tone indicated her suspicion so Quill quickly followed up.

“I enjoy your help! Truly. But I need to get better at shooting anyways. This life and death situation seems like a great time to practice” He desperately managed to squeeze out despite the shortness of breath as he reloaded, turned, shot and ran again. His body aching in extreme protest which he ignored.

This continued on until he finally ran out of bolts, he probably missed more shots then he hit but he still hit enough and had thinned out the ranks enough that he managed to blitz the rest with a few quick swipes of his Pizza Cutter, damn near fainting in the process.

Just like that he had finished off the rest of the rats that had guarded the entrance to the grand station. He was pretty thankful that the system spawned monsters really didn’t seem that intelligent. Especially when they don’t have anything guiding their movements.

He felt woozy now, likely from using the pizza cutter in the final bit. But the path was open and now it was time to finish this stupid quest.