The weakest soldier of those two legions was of the fifth rank.
During the battle at the prefectural city of Cod, they had only attacked at the very end, and then travelled for a day. Given their power, even staying up for three days and three nights was fine.
Within the Forest of Darkness.
“Rustle…” In this primeval forest, a soft sound rustled throughout the area. One Stoneater Rat and Shadowmouse after another could be seen, moving in dense ranks… as far as the eye could see, there were Shadowmice and Stoneater Rats. Countless rat-type magical beasts were traveling towards the south side of the Forest of Darkness at high speed.
Gray Stoneater Rats, black Shadowmice, silver Stoneater rats, blue Shadowmice, golden Stoneater Rats, violet Shadowmice…
Rat-type magical beasts of all colors were coming out in a constant stream from within the depths of the Forest of Darkness like a tide, surging towards the south.
Amongst them, three violet-gold rat-type magical beasts were flying in the air above.
“Big Brother, are we being a bit too nasty?” one of the violet-gold rats spoke out.
“What do you mean, too nasty?” The leader of the violet-gold rats sneered. “We are the kings of the rat-type magical beasts. Since all three of us brothers are making our grand entrance… we have to show off a bit. Also, we only brought a portion of the rat-type magical beasts of the Forest of Darkness. It isn’t as though we brought them all.”
The Forest of Darkness was the home of rat-type magical beasts.
In the Forest of Darkness, rat-type magical beast hordes were terrifying in power. No other magical beasts dared to offend these rat-type magical beast hordes.
Even Saint-level magical beasts didn’t want to offend the Rat Kings.
Each of these violet-gold rats possessed terrifying amounts of power.
“That Linley hasn’t met us a single time yet, has he?” The violet-gold rat in the middle laughed.
“Right. He can be considered as having rendered great merits, for him having taken care of Bebe for so long,” the leading violet-gold rat said.
“Big Brother, don’t be so self-satisfied. From what I’ve learned from my conversations with Bebe, that Linley’s power is quite astonishing. In his full Dragonform, combined with his extremely high understanding of the Laws, you probably aren’t a match for him,” the third violet-gold rat said.
The leading violet-gold rat let out a few snorts. “At his current level of power, I suppose he finally, just barely, qualifies to be Bebe’s ‘Boss’, now.”
Twelve years ago, when Bebe and the violet-gold rat had exchanged blows, Bebe had been at a disadvantage.
But twelve years later, Bebe’s level of power had already reached parity with the violet-gold rat.
“They are moving so slowly,” the leading violet-gold rat said with impatience. Suddenly, it let out a shrill screech. “Shkreeeee!” The piercing sound rang out, and instantly, the masses of Stoneater Rats and Shadowmice below them began to move more quickly.
Wherever the endless tide of rat-type magical beasts went, the other magical beasts immediately scrambled to flee.
Nobody dared to stop them!
Linley’s forces were all hidden behind their defenses. All they could do was rely on the local geography and environment to stop the enemy. Although they knew the enemy forces were exhausted last night, Linley’s 150,000 soldiers were exhausted as well.
The day slowly brightened. This morning was a foggy one.
The fog wasn’t very thick, but it prevented a person from seeing beyond a few hundred meters.
“The enemy is moving.”
Behind the defenses, the soldiers could clearly hear a multitude of footsteps. Clearly, the enemy forces were charging in this direction. In the mist, one could vaguely begin to see countless soldiers appear like a wave crashing towards them.
Linley, Delia, Bebe, Zassler, Barker, and the others all quietly watched.
“Jeeze, this pisses me off,” Bebe grumbled on Linley’s shoulders.
Bebe secretly glanced at Linley, but Linley maintained his silence. Who here was happy? Who wouldn’t be upset at having to give away half the magicite mine to the enemies? But Linley had signed the agreement, and he didn’t want to make Desri look bad. And so, he held to the agreement.
Soon, the hundreds of millions of gold coins worth of magicite gems would belong to the enemy.
Suddenly…
The footsteps came to a halt. At the same time, a loud, world-shaking voice could be heard: “Surrender. There is no way you can resist our army. If you surrender, we definitely won’t mistreat you.” The words were said quite suavely.
“He’s rather polite.” Gates snickered.
“Of course.” Zassler let out a sinister sneer. “They are afraid that we Saints will interfere.”
“If you put down your weapons within one minute’s time and surrender, we definitely won’t harm any of you. The countdown begins now.” After the voice finished speaking, not a single one of the 350,000 soldiers surrendered. They all quietly awaited the battle to start.
One minute and one second passed. A minute was a very short period of time.
The entire battlefield was put under terrifying pressure.
Baruch Kingdom’s side saw many soldiers sweating. Their knuckles were white from how tightly they held their weapons.
“Prepare!”
A voice rang out. The battle at the prefectural city of Cod had resulted in almost no losses to the Sacred Legion or the Shadow Legion. Those 60,000 elite soldiers hefted their shields and raised their spears and warblades.
“We’re going to lose!” Gates said in a low voice.
Delia and Bebe looked at Linley, but Linley remained silent.
But just at this time…
Three violet-gold flashes of light suddenly streaked through the air, while at the same time, their excited voices rang out. “Bebe, I’m here! This time, I brought my Big Brother and my second brother with me.”
“Saint-level magical beasts?” Linley turned and saw three violet-gold rats.
This was Linley’s first time meeting Saint-level rat-type magical beasts aside from Bebe, and what’s more, there were three of them.
“What is that sound?” Linley, extremely sensitive to the elemental essences, suddenly sensed a sound from far away. That sound was moving towards them at a very fast speed. Linley spread out his spiritual sense, and suddenly he sensed…
“So many!!!!”
Countless rat-type magical beasts. Black ones. Blue ones. Violet ones. Gray ones. Silver ones. Gold ones. All sorts of rat-type magical beasts covered the land, like an enormous, endless sea. Countless rat-type magical beasts raised their head and began to let out excited screeches.
“Shkreeeeeeee!”
“Shkreeeeeeee!”
Countless terrifying screeches filled the air, the world reverberating with the sound.
“What is that sound?” The Sacred Legion and the Shadow Legion, which was just about to engage in battle, suddenly felt their hearts quiver. The sound was coming from behind the magicite mines, but there were far too many voices, like trillions of magical beasts screeching at the same time.
Weiss Porter and Guillermo’s faces instantly changed.
“What is going on?” Weiss Porter and the others all felt nervous, but they didn’t know what was happening.
Not just them. Even the forces of the Baruch Kingdom felt their hearts shake.
“Magical beasts are coming. All soldiers, remain behind the earthworks. None of you are permitted to go out, nor are you permitted to attack the magical beasts.” Linley’s voice could be heard across their entire camp, and his words immediately caused all the soldiers of the Baruch Kingdom to shout in joy.
But the reaction in the camp of the Radiant Church and the Cult of Shadows was the opposite.
“A magical beast swarm?” Weiss Porter and Guillermo’s faces changed dramatically.
Controllin
g a swarm of magical beasts to attack wasn’t a violation. After all, the Saint-level magical beasts weren’t personally attacking. For example, the O’Brien Empire had its Vampiric Iron Bull legion, which was a terrifying legion that had hundreds of thousands of Vampiric Iron Bulls along with their caretakers.
“A swarm of magical beasts? Where did they come from?” Weiss Porter hurriedly said.
Guillermo’s face was ashen pale. “Linley’s rat-type magical beast! Right. It must be that Saint-level rat-type magical beast. The Forest of Darkness is the home of rat-type magical beasts.”
“Shouldn’t be. The rat-type magical beasts of the Forest of Darkness have their own rulers.” Weiss Porter knew very well that the Rat Kings of the Forest of Darkness were violet-gold rats. There was no way they would be under Bebe’s control.
But just at this time…
The squeaks from an endless tide of rat-type magical beasts rang out, and instantly, the horde of rat-type magical beasts covered an area of tens of square kilometers. Tens of kilometers! In other words, as far as the eye could see, the world had become covered with nothing but rat-type magical beasts.
“Wow!”
“Whoah!”
Cries of surprise rang out constantly from Linley’s side. Those rat-type magical beasts all quite orderly avoided Linley’s soldiers, heading towards the forces of the Radiant Church and the Cult of Shadows in a stream. These rat-type magical beasts were generally able to eat even rocks. One could imagine how sharp their fangs and claws were.
Shadowmice were fast. Stoneater Rats were durable.
The entire swarm of rat-type magical beasts charged over. A swarm like this would even be able to devour an entire mountain.
“Wow, buddy, as badass as that?” Bebe’s eyes were bulging and round as he stared at the other three violet-gold rats next to him. “How many rat-type magical beasts did you bring over? My spiritual energy can’t even encompass them all.”
The leading violet-gold rat said with a delighted laugh, “Not many, not many… this is just a small portion of our forces in the Forest of Darkness. Just a couple hundred million, that’s all.”
93
The Ratmageddon Wave
Within the boundless mist, an endless swarm of rats came. All of the warriors, including the Sacred Legion and the Shadow Legion felt terror in their hearts. But despite their terror, they still had to wield their weapons and attack those magical beasts.
If the magical beasts didn’t die, they would die!
“Kill!” Arrows rained down like the rain upon the wave of rats, but the defense of the Stoneater Rats was simply too tough, while the Shadowmice were too fast. Only a few Shadowmice were killed.
And then…
The wave of rats slammed into the Radiant Church and the Cult of Shadows’ forces.
“Crunch, crunch.” A terrifying series of crunching sounds.
A seemingly infinite number of rats charged forward, biting to death all of the human soldiers who sought to block them. Not only was their flesh stripped; even their bones were devoured. The Sacred Legion and Shadow Legion, all combined, had ten thousand warriors of the seventh rank.
But ten thousand warriors of the seventh rank, in the face of that rat wave, was absolutely nothing.
This was because the rat wave had a terrifying number of rats of the seventh rank, while ordinary Stoneater Rats and Shadowmice of the fifth rank, when charging en masse, could still bite a warrior of the seventh rank to death. Ten thousand warriors of the seventh rank… in front of a tidal wave of hundreds of millions of rats, utterly disappeared.
“Flee!” Some soldiers cried out in terror as they began to run.
Once the first began to flee, many of the other terrified soldiers began to flee as well. They couldn’t resist the rat wave at all.
However…
They couldn’t flee!
The Shadowmice and Stoneater Rats were extremely fast, far faster than humans. The fleeing warriors were quickly surrounded, then devoured. Even Guillermo and Weiss Porter were so terrified that their faces turned white, and they quickly began to flee.
“Quick, quick.” Weiss Porter and Guillermo didn’t try to resist at all.
The attack of the rat wave caused nearly half of the enemy force of a million soldiers to disappear, with not even the bones remaining.
“Linley, it’s enough to make them surrender. Don’t let this slaughter continue.” Delia couldn’t bear to watch any more.
Linley glanced at the three Violet-Gold Rat Kings, and one of them grinned towards Delia. “Sure. Hey, Linley, just make the announcement. As long as the humans kneel down and raised their hands up in a token of submission, the rats won’t attack them.”
Linley nodded slightly.
“Everyone, listen up. Kneel down and raise your hands in surrender. The magical beasts won’t attack you if you do so!” Linley’s voice rang out like thunder from the skies.
Hearing this sound, the hopeless soldiers immediately began to kneel down and raise their hands up.
At the same time, the Violet-Gold Rat King opened its mouth. “Shkreeeee!”
The high-pitched screech rang out in the mist, and all the rats, as though having heard an order, bizarrely moved passed all of the kneeling soldiers, attacking the other soldiers.
“What to do?” Guillermo was in a state of total panic. Both Weiss Porter and Guillermo were using protective spells to defend themselves.
“How should I know?” Weiss Porter was terrified as well.
Right now, there were over ten rats nearly a meter-long staring at them. The ten rats were either violet colored or gold colored, and the violet-furred rats had hints of gold in their fur, while the gold-furred rats had tints of violet in their fur.
Under a normal situation…
High-level Shadowmice were violet at the seventh rank, and were known as Violet Shadowmice.
High-level Stoneater Rats were gold at the seventh rank, and were known as Gold Stoneater Rats.
But from the seventh rank to the Saint level, the fur of Violet Shadowmice would slowly turn a violet-gold color, while the Gold Stoneater Rats would see their fur also turn to a gold-violet color.
These ten rats were clearly of the eighth or ninth ranks.
“Squeak squeak.” One of the Stoneater Rats of the ninth rank suddenly pounced at them, biting through Guillermo’s Lightguard spell at one chomp. At the same time, Weiss Porter’s magical defense also came under assault and was broken through, but the ten rats didn’t immediately continue their assaults.
They were very intelligent, not one bit lower than humans in intelligence.
Guillermo and Weiss Porter exchanged glances. Their foreheads were covered with sweat, and their backs were also slick with sweat. They understood… if these ten rats charged toward them, they would instantly be bitten to death. Not even their bones would be left.
But just at this time, Linley’s voice rang out.
After exchanging glances, the two didn’t hesitate at all.
“Thud!” Their knees hit the ground, and their hands raised up.
Instantly, eight of the ten rats left, while the other two stayed there, staring at them. The rats were very smart; the ten rats had instantly discovered that these two experts of the ninth rank, Guillermo and Weiss Porter, were the enemy leaders.
Enemy leaders had to be taken alive, of course.
After the morning fog slowly dissipated, Linley’s side could clearly see that large number of kneeling enemy soldiers, all of whom were surrounded by ten, no, a hundred times their number of rats and mice. The visual effect of these massive numbers alone were awesome and terrifying to behold.
“Swish!” A sudden flash of light, as a gold-colored rat with a tint of purple in its fur scurried over, letting out two squeaks.
“What? Only three hundred thousand enemy soldiers are still alive?” Bebe said in surprise. Bebe naturally could understand the language of rat-type magical beasts.
The three
Violet-Gold Rat Kings narrowed their eyes in delight. One of them looked at Bebe. “Bebe, what do you think?” Bebe looked at the endless sea of rats and sighed, “They really are powerful. It’d be so awesome if these rats obeyed my command.”
Who could possibly resist an army of hundreds of millions of rat-type magical beasts?
“Oh, that’s easy.” The leader of the violet-gold rats let out a few high-pitched screeches, and Bebe instantly grew excited.
Linley looked at Bebe in confusion.
“Boss, from today onwards, these hundreds of millions of rats will obey my command. Haha!” Bebe was extremely excited. At the same time, he also let out a few high-pitched squeaks which also encompassed the entire battlefield. The countless rat-type magical beasts all lowered their heads and bowed towards Bebe.
Linley was secretly shocked.
Stoneater Rat swarms and Shadowmice swarms were frighteningly strong. Linley had known of this since he was young. But Linley had felt that a rat wave of several million rat-type monsters was already very frightening. But several hundred million… this was simply terrifying.
“Which army can possibly resist these hundreds of millions of rats?” Linley secretly shook his head.
This was like when the magical beasts of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts came charging out. Even Fenlai City itself was broken through in moments, and both the Holy Union as well as the Dark Alliance lost a third of their territory. One could imagine how terrifying magical beast swarms were. And the Forest of Darkness… was the home of rat-type magical beasts.
This small portion of the rat-type beasts within it was enough to lay waste to an empire.
But of course, that was assuming Saints did not get involved!
The leading Violet-Gold Rat King laughed towards Linley. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Harry!”
“My name’s Hart. I’m number two,” a second Violet-Gold Rat King said immediately.
The final Violet-Gold Rat King nodded and was about to speak, but Linley interjected, “You must be Harvey, right? Bebe often speaks to me of you.” The only Violet-Gold Rat King that Bebe had made friends with in the Forest of Darkness was Harvey. The others, he didn’t have much of a relationship with.
Baruch Rising_Book 3 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 72