We ran head on towards our new challenge, fully prepared to fight with everything we had. We could beat them, the only problem was that there's a lot of them. The previous wave was weaker, this wave was still weak, but they were stronger than the previous, and just as much. The only true danger here was exhaustion. The first stone rat to meet me, was actually made of loose earth, like the kind they plant stuff in. Of course the fangs and claws were very real, so it would not do to write if off because of what it looked like.
I released my soul energy from my body, and decided to rely on my insane luck to carry out an experiment, it has not failed me yet anyway. I quickly condensed my soul energy from the billowing fog like properties it had, to a clump of clouds that I shaped like a fist.
There was a surprising strain to this maneuver, and I realized that I could only condense all the fog into two fists that were about five meters round in diameter, and three meter long. But I wasn't worried, the bigger the fist, the more painful the punch. I slammed my hands down, punching the earth rat into the ground as clumps of dust flew into the air in an explosion of dust.
The rat let out an ear piercing shriek before it collapsed at my feet. It was not dead, but it was definitely out of this fight.
I scaled over its body, running forwards before I gatherd my momentum and jumped into the air. Above me hung two enormous fist made of soul energy, it was as if they were giant avatars of my own fist. I pulled my arm back wards, and pushed it downwards as gravity pulled me right back to the ground. The massive fist hammered down on two stone rats, who had bodies like the pavements placed on streets.
"BOOOOOM!"
A cloud of dust, stones and guts flew every which way as both stone rats had the middle of their spines smashed to pieces, in fact it was better to say that their entire lower half was in shambles and the only thing left was their tails. I heard a loud boom from my side, and I had to duck as a 'crystal rat'? Flew over my head. It had barely flown over before three massive spears made of darkness flew over my head and past my face to pierce into it's body, like a hot knife through butter. I got angry.
"God Dammit Teluna, stick to your own side. Are you trying to get me killed?" I asked furiously.
"Tch! Aren't you supposed to be our fearless leader. Don't be such a baby" Teluna answered nonchalantly as he proceeded to stab his dagger along with his entire fist into the throat of a stone rat.
It should have ended there, but this Kid was annoying. He always had an answer for everything I had to say, he made fun of me all the time, and he thought he was better than me. I'll show him who's boss. I opened my palm, and the soul fist, now soul hand above my head opened up too. Then I grabbed the closest stone rat I could find, it was actually the same earth rat I had left injured, and then I simply threw it at Teluna.
I watched with extreme satisfaction as the earth rat sailed over the air, homing in on Teluna's position like a heat seeking missile. I could almost envision the look on his face when he gets a thousand pound sack of flesh and earth dropping on his stupid head. But Teluna was a Shadower, he noticed the rat coming and just stepped back a bit, and the whole rat missed his body by mere inches. My jaw was open wide with surprise before Teluna turned to me with a mocking expression on his face.
"What are you doing, I can't believe you want to play catch In a situation like this."
My answer to that was...…well I just grabbed the next stone rat and chucked it towards him, and the next, and then the next, until the cavern was filled with flying stone rats, and Teluna who decided to use them for some sort of parkour training.
What the HELL! Gosh this kid is driving me insane. But to think about it, this was a very different Teluna than the one I first met. At first Teluna was cold and never really spoke much, it wasn't until Xaseah joined us, and I went into a three month long coma that everything changed. Now this Kid was so lively...…in a hair pulling kind of way. I don't know if I prefer the old Teluna to this one.
My temper tantrum was brought to an end when a stone rat ran into me, and proceeded to stomp and jump on top of me like I was some sort of trampoline. It was screeching in anger as it did so, completely forgetting it could have used either its fangs or claws to cause damage. But it didn't, this stone rat was probably angry because I've been throwing it's comrades like dodgeball, or...….wait a minute! I recognize this stone rat, I probably threw him like fourteen times, because every time I threw him (or her)at Teluna, Teluna would throw him back. So that's why I was being stomped on, good to know.
There was a flash of red light and the sound of metal traveling through the air. The ensuing result was the stone rat loosing it's head, and a copious amount of it's blood poured down all over my body. I opened my mouth wide and made sure I drank a few mouth fulls, before it's body crashed to the floor. I got up and grabbed the now headless body, and held it over my mouth as it's life giving blood drained into my throat. Halfway through, I could hear Gus, Kodak, Magellan and Teluna draw close to me, then I was struck with a profound understanding, I couldn't help but tell my comrades.
"Guys I just realized something, vampire's are disgustingly very messy eaters. There's no difference between us and animals." I said.
"Well duh, why do you think we drink blood from a bottle." Teluna answered me as he wiped dirt of off his black hair.
"Oh! So that's why. Well the rats are not attacking again, what's wrong?"
My words finally brought all of our attention to the rats. They weren't attacking at all, instead they were all retreating deeper and higher into the tower as they ran up the main tower. We were dumbfounded by this sudden change of character, were we that terrifying.
"Stay here, I'll go and check it out." Teluna said, trying to sound cool as he stuck his chest out and followed after the rats in top speed. I blinked, then blinked again before turning to the others and asking.
"is there something wrong with that kid?" my remaining three companions just looked at me and shrugged their shoulders, equally as confused as I was. Fifteen minutes later, when I was just about to run out of patience, I saw Teluna running towards us, with a frightened look on his face.
"RUN!!!" me screamed, waving his arms as he left shadows in his wake. He ran passed me as I asked stupidly
"Errr what?" and he still answered even though he had disappeared down the main tunnel and his voice was only a distant echo.
"RUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!"
"SCREEEEEEEEEECHHHH!!"
"SWEET MOTHER OF ALL RATS!" I screamed out loud when I looked behind me. So that is why we have to run.
I never imagined I could see such a thing in my life, it was huge almost twenty meters in height and an extra 50 in length from snout to tail. It had spikes growing from the side of it's head, on it's jaws, and a ridge of them from the back of it's neck all the way to the tip of it tail. There was a giant silver crystal stuck on it's head, a head which I should mention was the size of two tour busses lined up side by side. It was a rat, probably a giant mother rat. And it's entire body was made of metal.
Before I could turn my head, Kodak, Gus and Magellan had already taken off, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. I didn't hesitate to follow, but I was a lot weaker than any one of them, so catching up was out of the question. The metal mother rat was right on my tail, so close that I could actually feel her breath on my back. The ground beneath my feet rumbled with each step she took and my heart quivered every time.
Up ahead I saw Magellan and the others bank into the tunnel that led straight to the entrance that brought us up to the main tunnel. But it was too late for me to go through that tunnel as the mother rat, was right behind me. I felt a suction force behind me, and a cusp of hot air as she opened her mouth, my eyes widened in shock and I swung my fist backwards, slamming my soul energy into the side of the metal mama Ratzilla, effectively saving my life as she was forced to snap her jaws close a little to early.
Almost immediately a screen pooped up in front of me.
[MISSION: DEFEAT AND KILL THE 'MAMA RATZILLA' AND PLUNDER THE DUNGEON CORE ON HER HEAD: REWARDS: NEW SOUL RUNE, 1000 ESSENCE POINTS, NEW SOUL SKILL]
Seriously, at a time like this, Earth was giving me a mission. How the hell was I supposed to beat this thing. Up ahead I saw the giant entrance that was at the side of the tower, that entrance was almost a hundred feet in the air if not more, and it was the proverbial dead end of the main tunnel. I couldn't divert into any of the auxiliary tunnels around since this damn thing was too close, and I was not so sure about being able to survive a fall from that height giving I've never been that high up in the air before. Vampires can defy gravity to a certain extent, but not completely.
But there was no go going back or sideways, all those led to certain death. The only other option, that might see me surviving this consequence of my really stupid decisions was to go straight forward and jump. And I did just that, I pushed my speed to the maximum, so much so that my slow beating heart began to pound at an even faster pace and rhythm, moving and jerking with every slap my feet made on the earth. I was scared, and I was not so sure I would be able to make, it, the entrance loomed ahead of me, it was so close yet it seemed so far.
20 meters
15 meters
10 meters
5 meters
0!
I jumped, using every power in my body to push of the edge of the entrance, it was like jumping of a cliff. For a moment I thought I was safe, but I was wrong. The rat had leaped up with me, and all I could see was an open jaw with a giant pink tongue, rows upon rows of sharpened metal fangs, and I was right in the middle of it. The darkness drew closer as the rat snapped it's jaws shut!