Chapter 475: Floods
The other warriors of the clan cheered as the upper half of the giant’s body disintegrated into component monsters. While there were plenty of disgusting, writhing monsters made of flesh, muscles, and bones, it was obvious that none of these monsters were capable of existing independently. The tendons writhed and squirmed, but couldn’t actually move any closer to our village-bearing beasts. The muscles contracted and writhed, but couldn’t even reorient themselves - they resembled turtles that had been flipped onto their backs and were unable to right themselves. Without the command of the torso, head, and other parts of the body, the lower half of the giant had also lost control of itself. It was still trying to step closer to us, but its movements had become unwieldy and clumsy. On its third step, it finally messed up, tripped over a tree, and collapsed to the ground, squashing hundreds of rodents and also killing nearly a tenth of the remaining constituent monsters.
Sallia was unharmed by the collapse. She casually slid down the monster’s body, used her barriers to halt her free-fall a few times, and with a few nimble movements, landed upright a few dozen meters behind the still-twitching pair of legs. Her excited chatter burst into my mind a moment later.
<I got it! I killed the giant!> She yelled, as the rodent swarm continued to swarm her. Anise and I cleared out another wave of rats as Sallia dashed towards us. <I also got a System message saying I’ll get a bunch of Achievement after the battle is over. I hit level 40, too! I’m also ready for my third spark! I got ten thousand Achievement just from all of the different types of monster I just killed with my {Suppression Field}!>
As Sallia’s excited chatter continued to ring through my mind, she finally made it back to our village-bearing beast, where a few of the warriors from our town threw down a few ropes for her to climb up. Sallia probably didn’t need them, since she had climbed up the giant’s body even without aid - but Sallia still graciously took a rope, climbed up, and landed back on our village-bearing beast’s back a moment later.
<Be careful. That giant is dead, but the rodent swarm is also a major threat,> said Felix. <The number of rats is already concerning, and even if their only ability seems to be shapeshifting, they’re still capable of wiping out our clan if there are enough of them. We just don’t need to fear getting stomped to death anymore.>
I looked at the horde of rats, and realized that Felix was right. We weren’t out of the danger zone yet. While Anise, Sallia, and I had been focused on getting Sallia to and from the giant, the rodent swarm had started to board the village-bearing beasts. The defenders of each village-bearing beast were trying to clear out the rats, in turn, but the sheer number disparity made it hard to deal with each rodent. Many of the surviving rats were trying to gnaw at the limbs of our village-bearing beasts, and they were having very little success. Clearly, the [Vitality] of the village-bearing beasts was so ludicrous that it was effectively impossible for the tiny rats to cut through, at least not in a reasonable timeframe. Not to mention, given the size difference, even if a rat managed to bite and gnaw at a village-bearing beasts’s flesh, the size difference meant that the rats were practically inflicting mosquito bites on the massive creatures.
However, not all of the rodents were engaged in the hopeless task of bringing down our village-bearing beasts. Instead, after boarding a village-bearing beast, they dashed at either the defenders of the village-bearing beast, or they tried to sneak around the front lines and attack the civilians and craftsmen hidden in the rest of the village. I quickly found myself locked in combat with the horde of rats, without even a moment to catch my breath after helping Sallia retreat to the front lines. Swords, spells, and arrows flashed and darted through the air as we fought to hold back the endless tide of vermin.
Sallia only took a few moments to catch her breath, before she rushed back into battle along with the other warriors. Due to her unusual mobility, as well as her currently boosted-beyond-reason physical stats, she hit the ocean of rats like a freight train. Every single swing of her blade turned more rodents into meat splatters, and she was almost capable of protecting a corner of the battlefield entirely by herself. Anise and I used our own magic to help keep the rodents away from her flanks, while Felix worked to keep the other parts of the front lines from collapsing during the madness.
The battle quickly fell into a stalemate. The rodents continued to pour out of the depths of the forest and leap towards us, but I was starting to notice that the rats were getting less and less energetic as the fight went on. Evidently, the rats weren’t very good at long-distance running, unlike our village bearing beast. Since the rats had to travel all the way to us from the portal, the further we got from their invasion point, the less stamina the rats had when they actually reached us.
Still, that was a thin comfort amid the ever-increasing exhaustion of our own warriors. The rats weren’t the only ones getting tired. There was only so much fighting we could endure before we started to make mistakes.
The first big issue came from a few of the mages in the back. Two of them ran out of mana, and while they were attempting to retreat to the back to take a breather and grab some bows, a few stragglers managed to ambush them from above and rip into their torsos. I immediately killed the rats with a few icicles, and then healed up the injured mages - but it was a sign that things were starting to go off the rails.
Soon, a second group of mages got ambushed by a group of rats.
Anise and I barely managed to rescue them in time - but one of them had his jugular vein ripped out by the rats. I managed to piece it back together, but it took an unusual amount of essence - and the man’s eyes were wide and panicked even after I healed him. I doubted the mage would be an effective combatant again for at least several minutes.
Then a warrior on the front lines had his eyeball ripped apart, before a rat shapeshifted some of its claws into larger daggers and pierced his brain. He died before I could heal him.
Mistakes started to crop up on the front lines and people started to get injured or killed. My healing started to fall behind the rate at which injuries accumulated on the front lines, and soon I fell into a numb state of constant healing and observation. I barely had time to think - I just healed, healed, and healed more as the front lines started to struggle and buckle under the weight of the endless rat army.
<Miria, how are your essence reserves holding up?> asked Felix.
<I’m at about half. Why?>
<I’m starting to wonder if the clan will really survive this battle. I’m not saying you should stop or give up. Just… if you run below around 20% essence reserves, start to hold back a bit. We might need to flee after the clan falls, if this endless horde of rodents doesn’t let up soon. The village-bearing beast just can’t run fast enough to get out of this battle, and our warriors are starting to buckle under the pressure.>
I almost objected. I didn’t feel very good about fleeing for our lives as our clan collapsed.
I held my words in. I didn’t want to abandon these people to their fate, but I also didn’t want any of us to die during the next battle that would happen in the Market. Felix hadn’t built the universal tree sliver into a powerful item yet, since he had been trying to hold off until his third spark. If we died here, we would lose a lot of time and potential.
After Felix said his piece, I started to weigh the value of each drop of essence I spent. People with more serious injuries, especially ones that would take too much essence to heal, I started to ignore. I hated letting people die - but I also knew that if I could spend the same amount of essence to heal five fatal injuries, that would matter more as the battle raged on.
Still, with the help of the four of us, our village-bearing beast and the town on top of it held on.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the other village-bearing beasts. There was only one group of hero trainees, and only one group of the four of us. My healing spells were having a huge impact on the battle, since our side could fight far more effectively and for far longer periods of time than the other towns. The other towns didn’t have magic healing - and apothecary potions were far less effective and far more prone to running out.
A distant scream heralded the collapse of the front lines of one of the nearby village-bearing beasts, as a group of rats finally managed to crawl inside of the commander of that beast’s armor and then rip apart her face. The woman’s screaming quickly turned into wet gurgles, and while I wanted to heal her, she was simply too far away.
A few moments afterwards, another round of screams echoed through the lines of that village-bearing beast. While I crept closer and tried to use my ice magic to intervene, along with some other warriors, it wasn’t enough. The horde of rats finally overran the front lines, and soon, the warriors of that village either retreated, or fell under the claws of the vermin tide.
I didn’t see what happened after that, but the screams from the village and the desperate sounds of combat made me suspect the worst. One of the remaining towns in our clan had likely fallen. As I looked at the giant horde of monstrous rats still chasing after us, I realized that might not be the only village-bearing beast to fall today.