Of the original eight stone rats, three were left, and the moment Teluna and I stepped out of the boundary, they attacked. Teluna was fast on his feet as he threw one of his darkness formed daggers at the closest rat to us, the dagger sank into it's skull with such ease that it dropped dead, its body crashing to the ground and it's previous inertia carrying it forward.
The second and third rats we're not to far behind as they nonchalantly jumped over their now dead companion to launch an attack at me. As they drew closer I was tempted to use my soul energy to fire the essence of rune [BREAK] at them. However, my soul energy was finite, and I couldn't waste it unnecessarily. And seeing how for the past few hours I've been using it to practice, my tank was only half full with two circles out of four occupied by energy.
I held the short sword in a two handed grip and took a baseball stance, angling my body so that my left fist was facing the incoming rats. They pounced and I sent my soul energy to my cloth wrapped fist, making a bright blue whit light come to life, effectively blinding the first rat was now unable to change it's trajectory in the air and was essentially blinded.
I swung my sword at it's head. There was a little resistance and recoil since I had just banged an ordinary iron sword at a body made of stone. There was a shower of sparks, but almost immediately the sound of cracking could be heard as the rat's body began to control in buzzard and funny ways before it fell down to the ground.
The third and final rat had slowed down it's pace and came to an abrupt stop due to the sudden appearance of light, it made it a stationary target for Teluna's other dagger to find it's way into it's head too.
"Well, that's wasn't so bad." I commented while stretching my body.
"we have one problem though." Teluna spoke up.
"Oh! What's that?"
"I'm not sure we can carry them through." He said while also pointing at the barrier of blue light behind us.
He does make a valid point, but I had a theory, and I was going to test it out. I picked up one of the rats, and to be honest those things are not light at all. I half carried half dragged the carcass of the rat, and just walked past the barrier. Nothing happened.
"As long as they're either dead or being carrier by us, we can bring them through." I said to Teluna.
He nodded his head in acceptance and picked up the remaining two rats like they weighed nothing, and walked past the barrier, depositing them on the ground beside each other. Then he turned to me and asked.
"What next?"
I looked back at the black district, standing at the edge of the hill that led into this valley of death. The black towers within seemed rather ominous, and chilling. But I came here with a mission in mind, so I'm not leaving until I complete it.
"We go deeper."
I crossed back into the black district and felt the residual soul energy of the stone rats seep into my body. And with that came a sound in my head.
[2 POINTS OF SOUL ENERGY ABSORBED, 0.7% EARTH ESSENCE ABSORBED.]
I was startled and a little shocked. I knew I had s deep connection to the tower, but not up to the point where I can communicate with from such a distance. But I think this was a good enough option for me. That soul energy I gain here is shared equally between me and the tower, I don't know how the tower is getting there soul energy from this much distance, but it was, and it's freaky.
However the soul energy received from these three rats are practically negligible, which meant that we had to kill a lot of this things to not only get enough soul energy to handle the functions and the leveling of the tower, but enough soul energy to get me into the next realm.
I raised my head up at the sound of wings being flapped, the three blood bats were hovering around, but they were not really useful. The stone rats had a body that the teeth of the bats would never be able to bite through unless they're made from metal.
I inclined my head towards the valley below, my eyes coming to rest on the first tower, due to their size, almost ell the towers we're even spaced away from each other with s distance of about 3 to 400 meters. Which meant we could focus on attacking one tower at a time. But there was a problem, the rats we're clustered around their towers, with their numbers reaching hundreds. To get into any one of those towers, I had to kill every rat outside.
But going down there right now would be suicide as those things would swarm me and Teluna. We would be dead before we can say meow. We needed to draw them out, but it has to be a diversion that they would follow, but not a whole lot of them. I turned to look at the barrier and smirked as another idea began to form in my head. I don't think Teluna's going to like what I do next.
"YOOHOOO! RAT BOYS, COME AND GET ME, I'M A TASTY VAMPIRE AND I LOOK DELICIOUS!!!!!"
Did it work...…..it did. Maybe a little too much. I dived back into the other side of the barrier as the rats came after us in the hundreds. A lot of them were probably going to kill themselves by running into the barrier, but it would whittle down their numbers enough for me and Teluna to work our magic.
About four hundred stone rats came after me, and every time one of them turned into dust and rocks, Teluna's eye would twitch. To be honest I didn't get it, was he feeling sorry for the monsters or something. When a about s hundred and fifty of the rats had died, they all stopped and took several steps back, but that was the opening I was looking for, and so. Was Teluna.
I jumped out and raised my left hand up, letting the rune on it release a beam of light that blinded the rats. Amidst indignant shrieks of protests from them, I raised my short sword and let my soul energy run through it. Then I swung, with the giant rune appearing, an expanding blue wave shot out of the sword in a horizontal manner, sweeping most of the entire front line of the stone rats, and much of their middle.
It was like hearing the sound of a thousand vases being thrown of a ten story building. It was scene of utter decimation. And those of the rats who survived, but were too close for comfort, ended up with a black dagger in their heads.
Then I felt it rise up into the air, I felt seep into my bones and all the way to my spine as my soul energy converged, and began knocking on a gate to a different realm. But what I had was not enough, the rats were regrouping to launch another wave, but I won't let them. I swung my hands as the lit up bright like the sun, letting out s beam of light so bright my eyes burned. But it gave me the time I needed to move closer and swing my sword letting my soul energy come to bear as the power of the rune sprung up and tore through their ranks, breaking them all.
The soul energy that seeped into my body was like a heart beat, it was slow, methodical, smooth and sharp. I side swung my sword again, letting out an even bigger sword wave, that destroyed what was left of this army of stone rats. They were all dead or dying, with a few stragglers around. Those ones I left to Teluna as he flitted around the battlefield, leaving daggers made of darkness in their skulls.
I sat down, and closed my eyes. Feeling the advent of my soul energy as it tried to push it self upward, sojourning for a higher realm. The barrier in front of my soul energy was not that thick, so my soul energy began to chip at it, removing and shaving it off little by little. All of my recent memories began to fly past my closed eyes as my mind be came open to all of my experiences.
Everything I have been through so far, all that I have triumphed over, given up or lost, began to make a qualitative change. It was no longer just experience, but the energy from experience. It became a sort agent that mixed with my soul energy, refined it, and gave it a better and more unique property. Then suddenly the barrier fell, my soul energy rushed upward to fill up the conduit, the fifth circle and the fifth bone, but the first of a new realm.
I exhaled and opened my eyes, as a new sort of awareness came upon me. I could feel a domain of sorts, an area of mystical sight where everything is clear to me and exposed past the realm of the natural eyes. For a radius of three meters facing any direction, I could feel everything around me. It was like the perception of my surroundings had increaser to intense levels, but this was not something I could see with my eyes, I could feel it. Even though I wasn't looking, I could feel the bats as the flapped their wings and went around me in circles. At this point in time, I could weave rune phrases, and I had more soul energy to spare. I was now a bit confident of being able to remove the seal on my hands. Because as of this moment, I was an earth rank weaver of the fifth circle, and a weaver in the first circle of the sacrum realm.
The power, density, purity and amount of my soul energy had doubled in size and quality. It felt incredibly more easier to control. And with my new awareness, and entirely new avenue of abilities have now been opened up to me. I had achieved what I came here for, and even though I really wanted to go into that tower and slaughter my way through it, I needed to consolidate this new realm, and I needed to return to the tower for some upgrades. I could come back later to farm more of this monsters.
"SHRIIIIIEEEEEKKKKKKK"
"What the hell is that?" Teluna asked in shock.
"Well that should be their mother. She's pissed, and she's blocking out path to escape."
And my intense luck is shown again, as after gaining something really good. An obstacle had to pop up again. Wonderful.