Chapter 39: Level-Two [Rat King]

Page (1/3)

The school graduation ceremony, once filled with laughter and cheerful voices, had now become a hunting ground for hordes of rats.

Desperate, terrified screams and wails intertwined into a vast net that enveloped everyone.

Countless mutated gray rats and dread rats, their pupils glowing with a blood-red light, poured continuously from the passageways.

They squeaked wildly.

They rampaged without restraint.

And in orderly fashion, they pursued the fleeing humans.

The noble students and teachers fled in every direction, heedless of where they were going.

Even the band that had been performing scattered in terror, scrambling for places to hide.

A girl who was not fast enough accidentally tripped over the hem of her long dress.

“Save me, Charles!”

She cried out desperately to her companion.

But the man who had sworn eternal love to her only glanced back before turning away and abandoning her.

The next moment, the despairing girl was swallowed up by a mass of mutated gray rats.

Amid their biting and tugging, the girl was dragged into the pitch-black cavern, until the darkness drowned out her desperate cries.

Her dance partner did not get far either. A lean dread rat bit through his heel, sending him crashing to the ground.

As he screamed in agony, the nobleman named Charles was likewise dragged toward the black cavern.

Throughout the campus, students, teachers, and other people were constantly being besieged by the mutated gray rats.

There was resistance, but those scattered attempts were quickly crushed beneath numbers dozens or even hundreds of times greater. The victims were torn apart and devoured with ravenous delight.

A crimson and horrifying bloody ceremony was unfolding brutally across the campus.

The air reeked of blood and death.

Over the past half month, the rat infestation had grown steadily worse throughout every corner of Auglan City.

People were constantly being bitten by gray rats. Some were even dragged away by them in horrifying incidents.

Fear of the Rat Plague began to spread across the skies above Auglan City.

The Auglan City Hall had already organized rat catchers, volunteer militias, and police forces to begin exterminating the gray rats in the sewers.

Poison, traps, blockades—even large numbers of hunting dogs had been deployed in the siege against the sewer rats.

Thousands of gray rats were killed.

For a time, the rat infestation seemed to have been brought under control.

Zorn knew that the city government’s efforts would indeed weaken the intensity of the Rat Plague to a certain extent and help protect Auglan City.

But under the influence of the Forbidden Blood Origin, on the day the blood source of the higher beings blossomed, the Rat Plague would erupt in a twisted and frenzied form.

Now, it seemed that today was the day the terrifying blood-source power would erupt.

Had it occurred one day earlier or one day later—had it missed the noble academy’s graduation ceremony—there would have been no “bloody ceremony” at the academy at this very moment.

But the course of fate was sometimes impossible to fathom.

Since a “bloody ceremony” had appeared here, then several other regions would also experience landmark events signaling the outbreak of the Rat Plague.

Second floor of the academic building.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

Watching the gray rats hunt and devour human beings, Jolia covered her mouth, her face faintly pale after witnessing the cruelty of the supernatural world.

Although she was a Rank One witch, if she were surrounded by the gray rats that had crawled out of the sewers, she might not be able to escape.

She secretly glanced at Zorn.

To her surprise, he was calmly surveying the campus, as though searching for something.

At once, she understood.

“His Excellency has already seen through everything!”

Her faith in the great and mysterious Saint Witch Sovereign grew ever more devout.

After rapidly inspecting the campus, Zorn spotted the Dreadnight Ratmen he had once killed—creatures as large as adult men—now appearing across the grounds.

They directed the mutated gray rats, continuously dragging captured humans into the caverns.

At a glance, there were seven or eight of them.

Zorn deduced that there were actually more than twenty, perhaps even more than thirty.

Among the gray rats, there would also be a terrifying Rat King.

A Rat King possessing a high level of intelligence.

“Hide. Go upstairs.”

Zorn suddenly bent down, lowered his voice, and spoke quickly.

Without asking why, Jolia immediately imitated him and crouched down.

Zorn had noticed two Dreadnight Ratmen leading a large number of dread rats and gray rats toward them.

These rampaging hordes were actually searching for more humans.

That was the terrifying nature of the Rat Plague.

Within a localized area, they could tear everything apart.

The two of them climbed the stairs all the way to the fifth floor.

As soon as they reached the top floor, they noticed an elderly campus custodian hiding in a corner a short distance away. He wore a gray-blue cleaning uniform and was trembling violently.

Clearly, the scene outside had terrified him.

“Shh!”

Jolia raised a finger to her lips.

But when Zorn’s gaze swept over the custodian, his pupils contracted slightly.

“What do we do now, Zorn?”

The two crouched down, and Jolia asked in a whisper.

Meanwhile, Zorn began silently mobilizing the evil energy of the Evil Spirit Warlock.

“Has your mentor taught you any techniques for close-quarters combat?”

Zorn lowered his voice as he asked.

“Yes, but I’ve never used them in actual combat.”

“That’s enough. Get ready. You’re about to.”

“What?”

Jolia was still bewildered when Zorn suddenly turned around.

A black orb veined with blood—the Calamity Annihilation Orb—struck the custodian hiding in the corner the instant it manifested.

“Boom!”

The tremendous explosion made Jolia’s ears ring.

As he hurled the middle finger of his right hand forward, Zorn spoke rapidly.

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

“Go guard the stairwell. Keep those Dreadnight Ratmen from coming up.”

The emissary’s command left her no room for refusal.

She immediately ran downstairs, stealing a glance at the spot where the explosion had occurred.

A viscous darkness laced with threads of blood spread outward like a strange cloud of black mist.

“Heh heh heh…”

A low, hoarse voice drifted from the black mist roiling beneath the force of the explosion.

At the same time, the cloud of dark mist rapidly contracted.

A Rank Two Dreadnight Rat King emerged from the viscous darkness. Its entire body was covered in red fur, and it stood a full two meters tall, possessing the same form as a Dreadnight Ratman.

Although it had used a special method to evade the attack of Zorn’s Calamity Annihilation Orb, it had not escaped completely.

Half of its face had been blasted black, with flesh torn open and exposed.

Even as blood-colored threads continuously bloomed across the wound, attempting to regenerate it, the damage inflicted by the Calamity Annihilation Orb was clearly not easy to heal.

“Boy, how did you discover me?”

The Rank Two peak Dreadnight Rat King, which sought to capture humans for sacrifice so that it could advance, licked its wounds and revealed its sharp fangs. Its voice was low and filled with fury.

A pair of indifferent, blood-red eyes glimmered ominously as they fixed themselves upon Zorn.

This human supernatural being had injured the great Dreadnight Rat King.

It would torture him until he regretted ever being born into this world.

Yet faced with the oppressive presence of the Rat King, Zorn appeared relaxed and at ease.

Rat King boss?

As if he were not a boss himself.

He had joined this bloody ceremony in the first place to find the Rat King and hunt it down.

Then he would complete his advancement to Rank Two.

As it turned out, the Rat King had hidden in the very place they believed to be safe.

“You don’t need to know how I found you,” Zorn said indifferently.

“Besides… you’ll be dead soon.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Zorn charged forward.

He drove a fist toward the Rat King’s skull.

“Roar!”

The enraged Dreadnight Rat King, having taken Zorn’s punch, lashed out with its razor-sharp claws.

A man and a rat instantly plunged into an intense close-quarters battle.

Zorn possessed many other methods capable of disposing of the Dreadnight Rat King.

However, the experience of his Basic Skull-Splitting Fist had already reached ninety-five percent.

Engaging in a high-level battle of close-quarters combat was one of the requirements for upgrading the Basic Skull-Splitting Fist.

At the same time, it was also one of the factors required for advancing as a Fighter.

Killing the Rat King was merely a secondary objective.

Using the Rat King to complete his skill upgrade and advance in rank was the true purpose.