With a quick sidestep, Kayd dodged the beast once again, he needed to follow Ishmael’s order, to conserve as many of the bombs as possible.

Just need to lure it closer to the other one.

Kayd smacked the sword against the rat’s metal fur, causing sparks and loud clangs.

It hacked away around itself, trying to hit Kayd but to little success, Kayd continued hitting its fur and head, goading it and irritating the creature to continue trying to fight him.

Kayd moved and jumped around, evading every single attack the rat threw at him.

Ishmael and Mian kept their distance with the beast, but Ishmael was less hesitant. She ran up towards it, narrowly avoiding its bites and slashes before climbing on top of its head and banging her hatchet against its thick skull.

Kayd took notice of it, but his moment of gazing at them cost him dearly, as the rat clawed his chest, throwing him back against the wall with 3 long and deep gashes across his abdomen.

The beast slowly crawled towards Kayd who raised his sword at the beast, trying to get up from the wound.

But before either could make a first move, Ikari rushed in, arrow in hand.

She aimed for the eye, but with its small size and dense fur, she missed, splitting her arrow in the process. Tossing it to the ground, she grabbed her dagger and began stabbing into the beast, getting its attention away from Kayd.

“Ikari, what are you doing? You’ll get hurt!” He yelled out.

“Better than seeing you get turned into mush chow! This isn’t the first time I fought some big dumb animal!” She yelled back.

She’s reckless, but she’s having fun with this huh?

Kayd got up from the ground, feeling his wounds and fixing his posture.

Ikari was tossed towards another section of the wall, getting clawed at in the process.

But she bought enough time for Kayd, he jumped onto the beast, gripping down its spiky fur, feeling it dig into his skin like thousands of needles. The pain quickly became unbearable, but he couldn’t afford to jump down just yet.

At the front, Ishmael wrangled with the beast, gripping at its fur while the rat clawed and biting around it to toss her off.

“Ready!?” Ishmael could see Kayd as well, holding down on its fur while it wildly swung around its claws.

He banged at its head with his scabbard and sword, enraging it. The rat finally threw Kayd off its back, right in front of the second rat.

Ok…Not what I was planning either…

The two rats suddenly lunged at him, but he felt himself get shoved hard from the back, pushing him away.

A cloud of dust formed around his eyes as he fell, obscuring his vision. But the rats both crashed down on where he once stood. He could see Quellin drag someone away while Ishmael rushed towards him.

“On your feet! We have our chance!” She hoisted him up, from his daze he took out the explosives on his belt and lopped it at the cloud of rock in front of him.

Explosions and orange fire erupted, followed by the anguished cries of the two rats, and with most of their explosive supply gone, the smoke cleared, and the two rats were dead, mere clumps of metal fur and guts.

“We used more explosives, shame.” Kayd sighed, along with Ishmael.

“Indeed, but when the opportunity comes, always claim it, letting it pass will make things worse..” She replied.

Looking back, he saw Lia resting Ikari’s head on her lap while using her healing once more, reducing it to only one more use before it’s gone for good.

Before anyone could celebrate, the rat empress came out of the tunnel, and bit into one of Mian’s teammates who were standing nearby.

A brief cry for help from him was silenced as it bit into the man and swallowed him whole.

“No….no…no….” Kayd looked at Mian, his focus was gone, and all he could see was pure fury, grief, and disdain. All familiar sights to him. In his anger, he rushed forward with no more care or caution.

“Mian wait!” Her plea was left unheard as Mian kept running towards the empress while everyone else scurried away from it, moving towards Ishmael and Kayd and awaiting new orders.

Mian stabbed at the rat’s front leg, repeatedly driving his sword into it, either not caring or not realizing that the blade did no damage, and was simply bouncing off its skin.

In his blind fury, he threw the last explosive he had at the rat. It blew up just beneath its face, doing no damage at all.

The empress simply looked down at him, its eyes black and blank, visibly in disbelief at what she was witnessing.

In a split second, she sluggishly swung her claw at Mian, sending him flying to the nearby wall and knocking him out.

We know how to kill kings, queens, and normal rats, what the heck do we do against that!?

“What now captain? No way to go, Mian is down and all of us are injured…” One of Mian’s subordinates asked her.

“Back then all we did was simply overwhelm it and destroy its armored fur, I guess that’s what we can do. Save the explosives and try chipping off the weak points, focus on its belly, neck, and shoulders.”

“Wait, are you serious?”

“Yes, that was the only way we managed to defeat it.” She turned to everyone, with no fear nor confident smile or even a blood-lusted grin, only a blank expression.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“It’s the only way we know.”

Ikari readied her bow, unnerved by the empress but willing to fight nonetheless, her wounds were healed and she turned to Kayd with a smile.

“Thanks about earlier.” She laughed at his response.

“Don’t mention it, not letting one of my friends get turned to chow.

Everyone else stuck together, eyeing the spots they’ll attack.

The creature walked slowly towards them, its movements were slothful as if it hardly ever took steps or moved at all.

“Keep your eyes on the thing, just make sure to not get hit, it's slow but hard-hitting.” She sighed, “This is going to be an attrition battle.”

Prepared and only wishing to leave this cursed place, everyone charged forward, rapidly spreading out to confuse the rat, it slowly turned its head towards everyone, turning left and right to find a good target.

It did not take long before making its first attack, digging its claw into the ground, narrowly missing one of them, and burying its claw deep into the ground.

Kayd grabbed onto the spiky fur, hastily getting on top to target its neck. The others remained below, chipping off the fur covering the rat’s belly.

Each step felt like a dozen needles dug into Kayd’s boots, pushing through the pain just to reach the neck and beat at the metal fur covering it like a madman.

Raising his scabbard for another strike, he felt something puncture into his stomach. Looking down, it resembled the tip of a spear.

What the- Did someone throw this at me?

The spear pushed through, and to Kayd’s horror, it wasn’t a spear. It’s the empress’ tail.

Kayd felt his back slam hard into the nearby wall, quickly going limp and falling to the ground.

Not again, this is getting annoying!

He pushed himself up, seeing his teammates receive the same treatment. The rat’s tail coiled and wrapped around them or simply stabbed through their bodies, tossing them around and away from it.

Ishmael crashed down next to him with a cloud of rock dust covering her. Ikari and the remaining ones fighting against the creature now found themselves having to not only evade the claws but also the agile tail.

“At this rate killing it would be impossible.” Kayd silently agreed, they were exhausted, injured, and most importantly, outmatched. Even with their combined skill and experience, the rat made quick work of them.

Just then, he heard a familiar sound from above. The muffled noise of running water. The river water.

Wait a minute

He looked back at the rat empress, seeing how high her body reached, just a few meters below the ceiling.

“I think I have an idea, but I need all your explosives.”

“Why? Want to blow up its neck with more of these things?” Ishmael asked while handing the remaining bombs she had to him.

“No, I had another idea, but it’s risky.”

“If it gets us out, I'm willing to try anything at this point.” Kayd pointed at the ceiling.

“Did you notice that the ceiling seemed hollow?” Ishmael looked up, she was unsure of what Kayd was going with but agreed.

“I want to blow up the ceiling, to flood this place and get us out or at least kill the rat in the explosion.” Ishmael was horrified by the suggestion, but one look at the ongoing battle in front of her silenced her doubts.

“It may get us killed, but it’s better than nothing at this point, do what you need to do. Destroy the ceiling, I'll rally everyone to me.”

Kayd got up, sheathing his blade and now just holding a bundle of explosives.

He inhaled deeply, perhaps the last time he could, and started running forward.

The rat spotted him quickly, slamming its claws into the ground in a bid to hit Kayd, alongside it was the tail, beelining towards Kayd to impale him once more or try coiling him. But each attempt was evaded and he started climbing the beast’s fur, reaching the top once again.

It moved around violently, trying to toss Kayd off again or force him to hold down for the tail to get a shot on him. Hands tightly on the explosives, with one holding onto the string, he maneuvered his way up near the head.

Standing on its neck, Kayd took a moment to see his allies down below, forming up with Ishmael and looking up at him like some savior.

This better work

Kayd pulled the strings of the bombs, but rather than throwing them, he failed to notice the tail in front of him. It stabbed into his chest, causing him to cough blood and lifting him up higher, towards the rat’s mouth to just fall into its gaping maw of teeth.

Thanks, dumb thing

He cocked his head up and threw the bundle of explosives at the ceiling. As it made contact, their vision was blinded in orange and red, their ears deafened by the explosion, but most of all, debris began to fall on top of the rat, releasing its grip on Kayd and sending him falling to the ground.

“This is probably the most amount of times I got wounded in a single mission.” He grabbed at his chest.

Above, spurts of water fell from the ceiling, and they could see a crack expanding across the ceiling. It rapidly grew in size, until.

Like a geyser, water shot down from above, bringing with it their escape, they could see the light of the sun above, and their way out was in sight.

“Stick together lads, time to get out of this hellhole,” Ishmael ordered.

The water crashed down and began to flood the room, quickly reaching up to their knees in mere seconds.

“Wait- Look out!” Looking up, rocks descended down towards them, too fast for anyone to respond easily.

Kayd stared in awe at what he had done, his plan succeeded, but now they faced another problem.

So the ceiling really was hollow-

….

….

…

Silence

You amuse me, child, both in your ingenuity and your will.

Through the void of black, a familiar voice echoed loudly.

Her again?

Yes, me. Unlike many that have been sent to this realm before you show high promise, along with your compatriots.

What specifically are you? And why are you talking to me?

….I am the reason you have been given this chance to feel the splendor and fame that you always begged for.

Your performance thus far has caught my interest, such a skilled erudite. Fortunately, you stumbled here and not on the other realms…

Other realms? Caught your interest? So I managed to swoon over a voice?

The voice laughed at his thought.

Indeed, many more trials await beyond here, but if you continue at the pace you’re on it should take far less time. We shall speak once again once your first mission has concluded, and if you showed more promise, perhaps a gift personally from me….

Good luck child, and may you survive till we next speak…