Julien quickly plants his body against the closest wall. Apart from shielding his back, he tries to gain some confidence from the rough support. He’s not successful. He glances at the body of his ally.
Dead! Instantly! And I’m next!
In his current position, he cannot imagine how he can prevent rapidly following the stranger into the afterlife. Julien’s immediate concern is the half-dozen rats surrounding him. Even if he could manage to kill them, the tunnel to his left is crowded by at least twice as many of the standard quadruped rats. And then there is the bipedal terminator rat blocking the tunnel to his right.
Fuck! I need a game-changer.
Cold sweat trickles down his spine. Legs shaking, his eyes look around for something. Anything.
Before he can give his sorry predicament any more thought, one of the rats leaps forward. He catches the motion just in time and only just manages to intercept it with his dagger. The rat impales itself and, pulling his weapon back, Julien tears out its throat. Blood follows.
“Level up! Congratulations, you slaughtered enough oversized rodents to gain your first combat-oriented integration level. You have gained the ability to activate combat skills.
You have unlocked:
1 Fool suit upgrade
1 Fool suit artifact augmentation slot
Access to basic physical combat skills.
You have gained proficiency in basic weapons, including ‘Daggers’.
This should tip the scales. Please try to stay alive!”
With a startled scream, Julien waves the text screen in front of his eyes away. He regains his vision just in time. The other rats have decided to spring into action.
Feeling overwhelmed, Julien acts without thinking. He jumps to the right and sees four of the remaining rats jump into the wall. The fifth one, however, has firmly latched onto his left wrist.
“Combat skill gained: Dodge!”
The message hardly registers. Julien is more focused on stabbing the rat to free his left wrist. It takes three stabs for the jaws to slacken enough for him to pull his hand back. Doing so rakes his wrist open on the still clinging fangs.
“Combat skill gained: Triple Thrust.”
Just four rats left. Plus the dozen backing them and the terminator rat behind him. He rushes to the other wall and hazards a glance over his shoulder. Terminator rat sticks to his position. But when he growls, the smaller rats start moving again.
Julien stares at the one in front and somehow feels the angle and velocity of the rat’s next attack. It is a vicious lunge for his face. Ducking just in time, his dagger finds its way into a soft belly. Squeaking in pain, the rat slinks back. Julien attacks the remaining three rats. Slashing, stabbing, and kicking, he manages to overwhelm the rodents through his ferocity.
“Alright!”
Six more corpses lie at his feet. Julien’s legs have stopped shaking. A quick inspection of the bars in the left corner of his vision shows him that the rodents have not done that much damage. In fact, both bars seem to be fuller than they were before.
He growls at the ratpack. To his surprise, they back away slightly. But when he turns towards the other threat, he sees that the terminator rat is still unimpressed. Indeed, he brandishes his enormous club with both hands – and advances.
Julien gulps. Fuck it. Let’s do this!
Eyeing the club carefully, he makes sure to stay out of range. Julien merely steps back to avoid the first swing. The club crashes into a wall. Terminator rat growls, getting himself worked up.
What follows is a scary game of whack-a-mole. Julien being the mole.
Surviving merely by the grace of his dodge skill, he sees his magic reserves declining steadily. Something needs to change. But he only needs one look at the brute’s bulging muscles to know that charging is the worst idea possible. And trying to stab the arms after each dodge will have him out of energy before he makes any impact. He needs more reach.
On his last dodge, his eyes happen to stray past the wall of muscle to the figure lying motionlessly in front of the intersection. And just like that, he has a plan.
“Come on, ugly!”
He passes the dagger to his left hand and waits for the rat’s inevitable attack. He does not expect a rat to be able to roar. But roar it does. Then again, he reminds himself, this is no normal rat.
Perhaps due to the rat’s rage, his next move is easier to read than the previous ones. This time, Julien dives underneath the club’s horizontal swing. Landing on his hands and feet, he scrambles past to race towards the stranger’s corpse.
He snatches the sword from his dead grip and turns around. For just a second, he hesitates. Should he not just run? Then he realizes that leaving an enemy behind might be the worst thing to do.
A second is all he gets before the Terminator rat is at it again. This time, Julien feels ready. He sidesteps one of the vertical swings aimed to squash him and strikes on the lowered arms with all his might.
“Combat skill gained: Disarming Strike.”
Howling in pain, the rat drops his murder weapon. A deep gash is visible in the thick, furry underarms just above the wrists.
Julien does not let up. He pulls back to ready for another swing. But before he gets the chance to do so, the rat punches him in the chest with enough power to knock him back a few paces and force the air from his lungs.
Gasping, Julien struggles to remain standing. He barely manages to hold onto his weapons. The rat, however, stares dumbly at his paws that refuse to hold onto his club. He places them against the heft again and again, but his digits do not open to close on the solid object.
After a third attempt, he looks at Julien, a bestial snarl on his lips, his beady eyes narrowed. Julien returns the look, sword held in front of him, point first.
“Yeah. How do you like it? Being outdistanced, you ugly bastard?”
The rat eyes the sword once and takes a couple of steps back. Then, to Julien’s great surprise, he goes down on all fours and launches himself forward. He accelerates, a slight aura of orange light flaring around him. Julien feels like he is trying to stare down an approaching car. Not knowing what else to do, he just keeps his blade in front of him.
The impact of the raging terminator rat is enough to force the blade from his grip and deep into the rodent’s upper chest. It is at that moment, when two arms bulging with hard muscles close around his back, that Julien understands the intent. But it is too late. Stuck in an unbreakable bear hug, an enormous pressure starts making itself known on his back and ribs.
As if by a miracle, only his right arm is pinned to his side. Julien grunts as he squirms. He screams as the rat tightens his grip. And, half-heartedly, he pounds the rat with the only free hand he has. It is only at the second hit that he remembers that his hand isn’t empty.
In sheer desperation, he starts stabbing. Everything is fair game at first. There is no way to miss. But soon enough, he starts singling out certain targets. Mainly between the shoulder blades and the side of the bulging neck.
“Combat skill gained: Precision Strike.”
It takes more than a couple of these to finally bring the terminator rat to his knees. Hurting all over, Julien extracts himself from the monster’s embrace. His eyes flit to the left corner of his vision. His magical energy is almost completely consumed, and his life force is about a quarter from empty. Then he looks at the dozen or more rat underlings in front of him. He does not give them the time to consider finishing him off.
Instead, he takes a deep breath, curses himself for doing so, and yells as loud as he can.
“Combat skill gained: Battle Cry.”
His primal scream echoes throughout the tunnels. To Julien’s amazement, the remaining rats turn their tails and run.