Although that encounter left John with many things to think about, he deemed it unnecessary to do so at this time. He was to level up and then kill Thana. THAT was his primary goal. Prophecies and words of gods be damned. Rolling over, he began rising from the stone floor. His flight out of the Secret Room had not been a pleasant one.
“Master, I think you should-”
“I don’t care, Aclysia!” John didn’t even let her finish, pushing the hand that was trying to help him up aside. Quickly he got up. He had no time to be reasonable. Logic boiled into nothingness whenever he considered what torture his girlfriend must have been going through at that very moment. He ignored the exhausted burning in his eyes.
For once, Aclysia did not ignore being interrupted. Her lips quivered, as she bowed deeply in apology.
John felt the sting of regret so he sighed. “I am sorry, it’s just…these are long days,” he mumbled that apology before ordering her to take the lead again. It was a weak apology but all that he could muster right now. At the same time, the Possessed Bee spotted the boss room. A promise of progress.
Confusingly, when they arrived, the boss room was empty. That was not to say that it was a blank room. On the contrary, it was a large banquet hall with wooden desks filled with food and drink of rather measly quality but a quantity that made John unsure how any of the Skaven could be that malnourished.
He took a step into the room. Nothing happened. Perhaps he was in the wrong area? No, that was unlikely, the big wooden door at the back of the hall looked exactly like the ones he had used to get down here.
He grabbed one of the plates and inspected the food further. The silence was unnerving. Only the sound of the stone plate grinding over the table echoed through the hall and it was swiftly muffled to nothingness. Even his breaths and Salamanders constant crackling were somehow unable to cut apart the silence. On the plate lay a small ensemble of differently sized mushrooms as well as parts of some sort of light meat he couldn’t identify.
Carefully he put the plate back down. It really didn’t help that he didn’t get notifications for bosses in floor based dungeons. He walked deeper into the room, Aclysia, her new dagger in hand, following him closely just like the four elemental girls did.
Suddenly half his vision was gone. That was to say, he could no longer watch through the eyes of his bee. He could still feel it but he had no idea where it was, just that it was not there. It had happened so suddenly and he had paid so little attention to his second body that he didn’t know where in the room it last was. Panicked, he looked around, carefully, everyone going into a defensive position. Then, at least, he looked up.
Under the ceiling hung hundreds if not thousands of rats. They were of the normal size for such vermin, about the size of his own feet. The sheer number of such small creatures made them more threatening than any other rat monster he had faced so far.
Just as he finished looking over Observe the rats let go of the ceiling. There was a moment where John was certain that he was done for. What was descending unto him was a solid wall of writhing bodies, the impact alone would burn away his mana. However, as he remembered, he was not alone here.
‘SALAMANDER!’ He screamed mentally, pouring more than half of his mana into the Elemental. He thought he heard an anarchic, satisfied giggle but that might have been his imagination. Salamander unleashed a pillar of flames towards the ceiling.
Like a burning candle that falls on a rug the Vermintide had a small hole burned into it, bodies reduced to ash. These rats, even though they looked mostly normal, had a strong resistance to magic it seemed.
Even the tiniest of holes took a huge burden off Mana Protection. Salamander continued burning through the mana that John had given her, the inferno spreading as hundreds of rats and ashes rained down. When the rest of the swarm hit, the pre-emptive barrier broke down immediately. Repelling the raw number of creatures further cost him.
The Vermintide, now on the ground, was held back only by the inferno Salamander kept unleashing. A ring of fire that spared John but burned all around him. Salamander kept burning and burning, fuelled by John’s order and his mana regeneration. It was efficient. It was fast. That was all that mattered.
The fire elemental likely had killed over half of the Vermintide on her own at this point. However, what she did only kept John safe and he didn’t realize that until he felt a wave of agony crashing into his consciousness. It lingered only for a moment, before rapidly ebbing away again, a message following the blink of an eye later.
He knew instinctively that it was Undine. Aclysia was immune, Gnome didn’t care much about fire and Sylph was able to find a safe spot in the air but Undine was both unable to get away and naturally at odds with fire and so her slime body was vaporized in the flames of over 500 Mana. ‘She must have blocked the pain from reaching our mental connection until the very last moment’ John realized as the fire finally ran out.
The Vermintide around them was an ocean of brown and grey fur. The swarm didn’t hesitate for a second. The fire was gone and their prey apparently helpless. With John’s Mana down to 270 they were not entirely incorrect.
‘Aclysia, left, Cleaver of Streets, Gnome, Sylph cover my right, Salamander keep my back protected,’ he quickly sent out his new orders.
It was impossible for them to stem this tide. The only thing they could do was make this a match of grindstones. It was either John died or the enemy ran out of numbers. This was it. In this scenario John wanted to prolong the fight for as long as possible. As long as the defence held, the best way to take care of the enemy was to give Salamander as much of his mana as possible so she might bathe them in AoE attacks. For that to happen, he needed to regenerate enough mana to let her unleash another wall of pure fire.
It annoyed John that he had nothing to contribute to this situation himself. Mana Ray was entirely useless against multi-targets and possessing benches or tables was not practical against this sea of small enemies.
The rats jumped at Aclysia and, to John's surprise and horror, actually sank their teeth into her sturdy exterior, dealing damage. ‘Core bosses are no joke, huh?’ he thought to himself. Compared to Radio Head this was a whole different beast though. His skillset was way better at dealing with singular enemies or small groups, his whole mass he had trouble with. If only Rave were with him, she would have just kicked a few times and… Rave… Rave, his girlfriend who was being held hostage by a crazed war experiment… ‘This isn’t fast enough.’
Gnome, with the little earth that was around, was next to no issue for the rats to ignore. They streamed around her, only a chosen few jumping at the earth elemental’s eyes to blind her. It was remarkably effective. Aclysia was just as effective against them though. Whirling around with the Cleaver of Streets she cut trenches into the assaulters and ground alike. The sturdy weapon made the ground screech as it cut through. Sylph actually managed to hold back most of the rats that streamed by Gnome, zapping them at immense speeds.
Most of hundreds meant that dozens still got through. Dozens that clashed against John's shield, dealing miniscule damage to his mana. Small numbers rapidly mounted or would mount if he let them. This was ruining his plans. He couldn’t call Sylph or Gnome back to deal with this, the second the line broke he would have even more of the rats storming through. Even though he was able to kick a few of them away, others soon took their place. Similarly, Salamander only held the enemy back thanks to their respect for her initial inferno and the moment she turned to help they would descend unto him like the swarm of hungry vermin they were.
His mana bar dwindled to under 200. It was then that John decided that caution was unnecessary. What did his HP matter? If he was about to die, he’d be teleported anyway. Any risky strategy could be attempted and he would lose the time either way. What did it matter?
‘Even if it hurts like hell, I can endure it,’ he decided and deactivated Mana Protection and poured all of his mana, every second of regeneration, into Salamander.
The rats instantly jumped at him.
-3 HP -3HP -2HP -1HP -5HP, every bite of the vermin stung. They started at his feet, repeatedly ripping small chunks off and then finding Gamer’s Body to have replaced them. Many of the beasts started to climb up his body. He did his best to brush them off, but the rats were much nimbler than he gave them credit for. They just jumped on the hand that was trying to swat them away and climbed up his arm instead.
He was roughly aware of the fire meeting the Vermintide, as Salamanders powers, red and burning hot, filled the room. ‘The strategy is working, that’s all that matters!’ John thought to himself, just as tiny teeth began gnawing at his neck.
The pain wiped his mind for a moment. When he came back, the teeth of a rat appeared before his eyes. In a panic, he stepped backwards, stumbled and fell. That threw the rats off his head for a moment, but the carpet of them he landed on made sure to replace it moments later. The gnawing at his neck was next to nothing to the sensation of teeth ripping into his oculars.
Gamer’s Body kept restoring his sight between bites. His entire world was filled only with rats. They swarmed on his body, ripping to shred his clothes and devouring his meat. There was their skittering and their munching and their excited squeaking and nothing else.
-4HP, -8HP, -3HP, -12 HP, -1HP, -3HP. It continued and continued. All he could do was keep pouring his mana into Salamander as his HP-bar dwindled, entering the lower third. He had the Wisdom not to scream despite the pain. The rats would gladly eat his tongue too.
Bit by bit, the pain became less. John soon realized that the rats were torn off him like they were overgrown leeches. His face was freed last, simply the furthest away from a hurriedly working servant.
‘Thank you, Aclysia.’ John sent as he looked at his Artificial Guardian. To his surprise he received no answer, no ‘You are welcome’ or ‘Certainly, Master’ just cold, dead silence as she crushed the last rat in her hand. Before guts could stain her hand, the monster turned into dust.
Every other person would have died of blood loss or infections but thanks to Gamer’s Body the wounds just closed. All he was missing were most of his clothes and HP.
The Vermintide had been almost entirely defeated by Salamander. Most of the room had been painted black by the soot. A few rats were still about, charging with the typical mindless aggression of NPCs. Gnome squashed them underfoot until none remained. Afterwards, everyone turned to John.
Aclysia was still silent, Salamander, despite the glorious inferno all around her, did not laugh, Gnome kept her distance and even Sylph was not uttering a single sound. John tried to get up. His HP had fallen to a mere 40 before Aclysia had managed to rip the last rat off him. There was no hand extended to him but he still managed to get up. On shaky feet he stood. He had never felt this way before. Normally, when he had low HP he was healed almost instantly by a level up and the one time that hadn’t been the case, a high dragoness had kept his senses occupied otherwise. Now he felt tired, burned out.
He needed to keep going.
“Let’s do the next dungeon,” he mumbled in a half-dead voice and raised his hand. They were brought back to the black in-between dimension that lay behind the gates Magoi opened. John kept his hand in the air, contemplating which dungeon to summon next. Aclysia grabbed his arm and dragged it down. He growled at the Artificial Spirit, “What?!”