Chapter 106. Lambs to the Slaughter
“What’s going on over there? Jones? Come out here,” a guard demanded.
Rhys clicked his tongue, tossing the latest body away. The rats swarmed without him prompting, growing used to the flow of these battles, if Rhys’s one-sided assaults could be called battles. He’d managed to lure two more people into the nook, but it seemed like he’d reached the limit of what this guard station was willing to send forth without investigation. He subtly extended his energy, sweeping the cavern ahead of him. Three guards remained, grouped up near the exit of the next chamber, their weapons out, bundled up in a defensive formation. They didn’t react to the sweep of his energy, though he didn’t know if that was because they couldn’t detect it, or because they weren’t looking for an attacker with mana. This energy… it was probably mana, but he needed some time to be sure of it. Time he could spend breaking himself, and everyone else, out of this hellhole of a mine. He’d figure it out after he got free.
Three mages, two Tier 1, one Tier 2. Rhys stretched. It was go time.
“Jones? I’m warning you, if this is a joke—”
Rhys rushed out from behind the corner. The rats came with him, surging in a wave, a carpet of brown-black-gray fur. He gestured, and the rats raced ahead of him, charging the guard on the left. The guard had enough time to raise his sword before the rats swarmed him, and then he was too busy screaming and batting at his body to deal with Rhys or anyone else.
Rhys closed in on the center guard. The center guard stepped forward, sensing Rhys’s Tier, and the Tier 1 guard backed away. Fire crawled up the center guard’s arms. He struck with his sword, and a wave of fire blasted through the air at Rhys.
A projection of a green-brown translucent rat appeared on Rhys’s shoulder. It leaped off and met the oncoming wave, neutralizing it. Before the man could fire off another blast, Rhys was on top of him. He punched the guard’s head hard enough he heard a crack, then opened his hand and grabbed the guard’s shoulder. He sucked the guard’s energies into him, feeding them directly into the trash star.
The guard’s eyes glittered. With the last of his strength, before Rhys finished drawing his energy away, he slashed Rhys in the side. His sword carved through the thin robes Rhys wore and directly into his flesh. Blood poured down, and bone shone from beneath, the cut deep and gruesome.
Rhys didn’t scream. He barely reacted at all. After all the time in the mine, that level of pain meant almost nothing to him. He simply drew the man’s energy in more powerfully, fueling it into his vitality instead. His wound closed, the muscle knitting, the blood running in reverse, the skin sealing shut, and then it was as if the wound had never happened at all, except for the gash in his robes. The guard stared, wide-eyed. The last thing he saw before he died was Rhys reach out to his robes and seal the gash in his clothes shut. It was trash, after all, these robes made from the thinnest, most garbage fabric that was meant to be thrown away. A little bit of mana, Trash Intent, and Trash Enchanting, and the cut sealed right over as though it had never been.
He raised his brows. “I like these robes.”