Fighting and flailing, he tries to break free from the rats bite. While looking around, he sees the rats that were once nowhere to be seen, crawl down from the ceiling. They had been hiding in the darkness at the top of the sewer the entire time.
The darkness did not matter much to Alistair due to his night vision improving after eating the cockroach. While being dragged though, he notices that instead of directly eating him like they did with one of their own kind, they seem to be taking him somewhere.
He could still use [Knuckle Burst] with his remaining hand, but he would immediately be surrounded by the horde of rats resting on the ceiling. Deciding that the best time to break away would be when he is able to find an escape route, he focuses on reducing the damage to his leg as much as possible.
After being brought around three corners, the rat that was dragging him comes to a stop and releases its death grip on his leg. Alistair unfortunately was unable to find a way to escape.
While looking around at the area that they have taken him to though, he is unsure of their plan. They brought him into a small crevice in the ground that is covered with a material that resembles hay.
After releasing its death grip though, it then chomps Alistairs leg completely off. It does so with his other leg as well. Alistair would have stopped it, but he immediately picked up on its intention and was secretly delighted.
After getting a better look at the ground covered in hay, he sees a pile of slightly smaller but still bigger than normal rats huddled up.
"They must want to weaken me for their young to finish me off and eat me. I don't mind dismembering when they provide a nice meal to heal me back up. I should thank them!" Is what he was thinking.
The young rats looked nowhere near as ferocious as their older counterparts. They appear to be eating a lizard about the same size as Alistair, he sees it's limbs scattered around being picked clean.
"Apparently, that lizard suffered the same fate as me. Poor bastard." He thinks to himself.
The rat finishes dismembering his legs it squeaks in the direction of its young and then scurries out of the crevice. When Alistair sees he has been left alone, he grabs his legs and pulls them back to his body.
After seeing no reaction when putting them back together at the cutoff put, he looks inside his stomach. He sees the spiral moving very slowly and trying to send its tendrils throughout his body to heal but unable to properly move too far.
This caused Alistair to realize "It would seem I need a large amount of energy in that spiral to reattach body parts. I guess it won't do any incomplete repairs on my body in the meantime."
Not much time passed by before the young giant rats finished off the large lizard and made their way towards Alistair.
He notices that the crevice seems to be made from concrete that caved in and made a pocket sized area while looking around. He could see pieces of rubble and debris stacked in a very slipshod manner. All the rubble and debris is resting against a steel beam.
He would normally feel afraid in this situation, but he noticed these details on his way into this crevice and started formulating his plan upon seeing the young rats.
The rats nests are fortified from the foundation up, and their young are kept in the center around their foundation. In hopes of getting out of there alive, he decides to place his bets on the rats being afraid of the sudden collapse of their home and leaving.
"With my body I should be fine... My skin is tougher than most and I can heal from the aftermath of the damage. I'm not sure what will happen if my whole body gets crushed though... I need to get to an area in here that has a more stable roof."
To do this though, he needs to get his legs back. He holds one of his legs like a club with his good hand and waits for the young rats to get closer. Three of them start moving in close to Alistair, they were the ones that decided to give up first on the large lizard and attack the fresh meat.
One of the three rats makes a dash for his exposed leg wound and is greeted with a strong stomp on the head from Alistairs dismembered leg. It is slightly stunned and hurt from the force of Alistairs swing.
This gives Alistair all the time needed to swiftly grab the dazed rat and sink his own teeth into it. He takes large bites without chewing and keeps pressing the other leg against his wound. Shortly afterwards, his leg begins healing at a rapid pace.
Not fast enough though, the other two rats dash at him hissing at the sudden resistance from their food. Normally, a dismembered and bleeding creature would be too preoccupied to put up a meaningful resistance.
That would be the case for any other creature besides Alistair though. He still clings to his leg and uses it as a club to bash one of the rats on the head. After doing so, he lets go of his leg and grabs the other charging rat with his hand.
Upon being grabbed, it bites at his hand with its fangs in an attempt to release itself. Alistair feels no pain though and instead chomps down on the rats extended nose and then the rest of its skull.
He tosses it to the ground and focuses on the young rat that was dazed at the earlier blow and tries to grab that one before it can regain its sense. He miscalculated though, the rat was not stunned for long and hurriedly scurried back to the other young rats.
Alistair knew that his best chance had been lost. If he could take out all three of them, then maybe the other young rats would not have noticed and he could have had more time to heal his injury and carry out his plan.
He shrugs to himself internally and decides to move on regardless. He picks up his other leg and looks down at the leg that is still healing and at his hand. His hand has been healing at a slow rate as well as his leg.
"It would seem that when more areas of the body needs to be restored, it will take longer for the body to heal... That's inconvenient."
He holds off on putting his other leg down to reattach as he needs at least one working leg as soon as possible right now. Instead, he looks around for a place with a sturdier foundation and sees a steel beam protruding horizontally from the dirt around him and seems completely lodged into both sides of the tunnel.
"It has just enough width for me to try and hide under. I just hope it's really as sturdy as it looks."