Chapter 482: Deeper
I watched through my dimensional sight as a swarm of rats moved closer to us.
“What does the swarm look like?” asked the [Sound Mage].
“The first thing I’m noticing is that the two swarms are actually coordinating with each other, and the effect is getting more noticeable as they approach each other,” I said. “It seems like the rats can inherently coordinate with each other when they’re within a certain range.”
The [Sound Mage] nodded as more messages were sent back and forth. “We already knew that. Anything else noteworthy? New hidden enemies or problems?”
“Not that I’m seeing.”
“Got it. The commanders of other clans are saying we have five minutes to rest a bit, recover from our injuries, and then we should set up a proper defensive line for the next wave. How much essence do you have?”
“I have 50% left. Exactly enough for an emergency, as you stated I should keep earlier. The rest was mostly used on a few dangerous injuries, and healing the village-bearing beasts. If those go down or their wounds are allowed to fester, our entire alliance might collapse.”
“Got it. Take five minutes while the village-bearing beasts shuffle around, then get ready for the next battle.”
I quickly settled into a relaxed posture and did my best to recover some essence while we waited. Every minute, I used my special types of sight to scout out the rats again and make sure they weren’t doing anything unexpected.
Meanwhile, messages continued to fly between [Sound Mages].
The village-bearing beasts quickly converged into a large, controlled block of giant monstrous creatures. This time, we positioned ourselves right against the edge of the river, and I quickly realized that the leadership was trying to cut off avenues for extra attackers to join the battle. There was always a chance I had missed something, and the leadership clearly didn’t want to risk it.
With the river covering one of our flanks, the next thing we did was shuffle around, until we were arranged in a circular formation that was two village-bearing beasts deep. I nodded in approval.
This gave villages on the interior of the battle formation clear firing lines for spells and arrows once the horde came for us, and it would also set us up to defend against any new, unexpected threats. I wasn’t really sure if this was an optimal way to handle two large masses of enemies coming at us from different directions, but at the very least, we shouldn’t be the disorganized, uncoordinated mess from the first fight.
Soon, the enemy appeared. Two massive hordes of rats skittered across the frozen jungle like masses of dark flood water, seeking to drown our village-bearing beasts under sheer weight. Once again, spells started to flash towards the horde.
This time, I noticed that our mages had far less firepower to unleash - after all, slightly less than fifteen minutes was nowhere near enough time to regenerate mana after a battle. The archers also had far fewer arrows to sink into the horde. I wasn’t sure whether they were simply out of stock, or too tired to pull their bowstrings, or if there was a completely different issue at work - but either way, we had far less ranged combat power than the previous battle. I frowned. The formation we had arrayed ourselves within this time was explicitly built to give village-bearing beasts in the inner-circle clear firing lines for spells and arrows. However, the people meant to exploit those gaps in the formation could barely muster enough arrows and magic to matter. In a sense, this meant that this coordination attempt was also a failure - we built our formation to exploit an advantage, then failed to capitalize on it. That was a problem, even if it was still better than the disorder and chaos from our first engagement with the rat swarm.
After a somewhat sparse volley of spells and arrows, the rats once again reached our village-bearing beasts. This time, to my surprise, it was followed by a second wave of magical attacks.
The [Sound Mage] sitting next to me, as well as the other [Sound Mages], all opened their mouths, and screamed. The sound barely reached my eardrums. Some part of their magic carried the sound wave to the rat army and amplified the sound thousands of times. I saw nearly a tenth of the rat horde closest to me just pop as if they were bloody pimples crushed by a train. Several other rats looked disoriented, and collapsed into the snow, where a few more rounds of spells, arrows, explosives, and Felix’s snowballs finished off another big chunk of the horde. The rat horde didn’t care for the weakened rats - instead, the other monsters simply trampled over their fallen comrades, before they took to the skies.
Like the previous battle, they quickly slammed into the front lines - but unlike the previous battle, there was a distinct difference in what happened when our front line met theirs. It took me a few seconds to figure out what was happening.
The rats on the front line didn’t try to maintain their rat form at all this time. Instead, the moment they got any sort of opening, they shapeshifted into a projectile or band of flesh, and then tried to drag whatever warrior they targeted away from the front lines and into the rat swarm. The most common form of rat that I saw was actually some kind of half-rat half-hula-hoop form.
This was because the rats didn’t have enough essence to actually finish their transformation - and even more notably, the rats died quickly after shapeshifting into these new forms. Hula-hoop shaped rats were extremely bad at keeping their organs functioning, and whatever the rats used to control their shapeshifting didn’t allow them to totally ignore biological needs such as organs and blood flow, even if it somewhat mitigated it.
The moment one rat got any sort of grip around another person, the other nearby rats would grab whatever part of the original rat they could, and wrench the unfortunate warrior out of position, before swarming him and tearing him apart.
This sort of suicidal tactic would never have been possible for human soldiers to replicate - humans had survival instincts, after all. But the rat swarm did not. Each individual lived wholly for the collective, and that meant they had far more ways to use their shapeshifting than a regular human soldier would have.
Fortunately, the leaders of the clans quickly adapted. Our village-bearing beasts huddled closer together, and warriors who could leap between village-bearing beasts started to jump to the front lines of other village-bearing beasts. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but people quickly started to plug the gaps in the formation caused by lost warriors. More importantly, a few of our own warriors started to use large hooks to grab people and drag them back into our own lines if the rats managed to swarm them. Coupled with my healing magic, they usually suffered severe injuries, but there was at least a decent chance to live.
Teeth, metal, and spells tore through the skies as humans fought against the endless tide of monsters. People screamed and died, and the claws of rats skittered against steel as the faceless horde assaulted us. Healing magic poured out of me, until the [Sound Mage] told me to save my last ten percent of my essence. Just in case another wave came after this.
The only bright side was the number of rats. They were insufficient to truly wipe us out, or even severely threaten us. The number of rats, combined with the low individual strength of the enemy, meant that a normal person had no problem taking down ten or eleven rats. Just like the first base we had fought, within five minutes, the rat horde simply ran out of steam. A few stragglers tried to sneak in a few last attacks as the enemy horde’s numbers thinned out to practically nothing, but most of those were caught by a few Mages and wiped out using their last strands of mana.
Then, the battlefield fell into a tense silence, as people looked around for new targets to fight, and realized there was nothing left. The rats were all dead. I used my soul sight check the battlefield, and confirmed that there was nothing left.
The [Sound Mage] turned towards me. “Any other enemies heading our way?”
I checked everything I could see with my soul sight and dimension sight, and then relaxed. “No. We’re safe for now. We should be free to rest for a few hours, and then advance,” I said.
The Mage grinned at me, before she relayed my words to the other village-bearing beasts. Many of the warriors that had been standing in battle formations at the edge of their respective village bearing beasts started to shuffle away, as several people picked up the injured and dragged them back to their own [Apothecaries] and [Healers] for treatment. My group of friends and I took this as our own opportunity to retreat and take a look at what we had accomplished.
I hadn’t gotten any slaughter Achievement during the battle - clearly, I hadn’t killed enough rats to trip any new thresholds, especially given how much I had focused on healing. However, I had earned a little bit more influence Achievement, which was nice.
| Influence: Play a moderate role in a battle against the universal tree.
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| Achievement +2,500
|
I smiled. Our first strike against the Universal Tree hadn’t exactly gone off without a hitch - there were a variety of coordination issues we needed to work out. Even so, this battle had gone well, for the most part.
I just hoped we could keep it up as we delved further into the Universal Tree’s territory.