Chereads / A Rat’s Second Chance (Old) / Chapter 81 - A Rat in an Uphill Battle

Chapter 81 - A Rat in an Uphill Battle

The small crack resounded throughout the inn. A small hush washed over the participants of the battle, a realization of the severity of the noise. Another small cracking noise came, and then another. The necromancer yelled out in the unfamiliar language they spoke in earlier. At their call, the abominable undead redoubled its efforts, once again slamming on the shield with all its force. The shield dented to the point of inverting the shield, so the edges of the shield stuck out farther than the middle.

More and more fissures appeared across the shield, some larger, some smaller, but it didn't matter in the end as the undead slammed one more time, and shattered the golden wall defending Sheila. She yelled in pain as the wall was essentially an extension of herself. She felt her knee hit the ground, and the undead took advantage of the sudden show of weakness. It pulled its more muscular, log-like arm to the side and swung it at Sheila with all its might.

Despite her shield being held up, the sheer force of the arm's power ignored most of the defensive properties of the shield. She and the shield were sent soaring across the room, colliding with the wall and putting a hole through it. Henry watched in horror and anger as he made a violent charge at the undead. He pulled a few vials of grayish powder, bottles of hard alcohol, and containers of oil. He threw the items in the air and jumped after them.

A small explosion of flames came from Henry and engulfed the containers. A crack signified the breaking of the vials from the heat of the flames, and the contents were released to the ground, undead, flames, and Henry. The flame from his explosion increased in power at the extra fuel to the fire, and the room was engulfed in flames as Eodum rushed to hide itself and Sheila in the void. The orange, yellow, and red flames covered the inn, consuming the necromancers, undead, and the patchwork abomination.

The flames continued roaring away, burning away at everything in the inn. The wood cracked a little, only singed and slightly burnt by the flames because Henry willed the flames to not damage the inn. Still though, that didn't help the force and pressure caused by the explosion which blasted into the inn's frame.

The flames began to die down, shrinking back into Henry's body. He slowly rose up, clearly exhausted by the effort of the attack. He huffed and puffed as he looked around, "D-did I get them?"

As if on cue, the smoke cleared away to reveal the blackened burnt back of the abomination. Its limbs slowly unfurled to reveal that it was only slightly damaged, and that it had protected its necromancer creators. It turned its head in anger, eyes furious as a mix of the mutual feelings of the necromancers. It stood, its clawed leg gripping hard into the ground as its humanoid leg pushed its body up.

Henry let out a small laugh, "Heh, you've gotta be kidding." The undead stood still before sprinting at Henry with all its force. He crouched low to the ground and dived to the side, narrowly avoiding becoming like Sheila and the arrogant mage. He rolled twice and looked up, only to see a lack of a large hulking undead. He shot his head from side to side, alarmed, when he felt his back bump into a hard, human-like, scaled leg. He looked up and let out another nervous laugh.

The undead acted quickly now that its position had been revealed, and it grabbed Henry with its many tentacles. They wrapped themselves around his body, limbs, and neck. The tentacles then began to tighten themselves, constricting Henry's body. Henry seriously doubted his chances of survival if he was still human. The force would be enough to cut blood flow and fracture bones in other creatures, and to him, it was choking him out and draining his Hp.

Despite being a spirit, he found that he still needed food and air. Maybe it was different for other spirits, but his fire spirit body demanded fuel and oxygen to fuel the living flame that he was. This meant that the slimy tentacle around his neck was not only choking him out, but it was also dampening his flames. The slimy mucus-like substance covering the tentacles also gave them a slight fire resistance. He was still burning away at them, but the mixture of the fire resistance and the undead's lack of care for the pain meant his resistance was futile.

A dark portal began to swirl into existence in the shadow casted by Henry's glowing form, and soon after, Eodum crawled out with the healed but dazed body of Sheila. Sheila recovered faster as an undead, and also found that she couldn't become unconscious anymore. Though just because she couldn't get knocked out, didn't mean that she was resistant to severe concussions that dazed her and left her in a stunned state.

Eodum ignored the slight mumbling that Sheila's confused mind was creating and watched as its other companion was being crushed by the tentacles of the undead. Eodum ran out, reverting back to his rat-form as it was much more comfortable and familiar to Eodum. It rushed forward and called upon its brand new magic. A small light appeared before the undead. It watched it intently, confused at the appearance of the strange magic. Then all of a sudden, it exploded in a bright flash of light.

[Light] was the first level spell of [Light Magic], and it was used to create a harmless orb of light to illuminate one's surroundings. Eodum knew it should've been harmless but had overflowed the spell with much more Mp than necessary. This caused the spell to turn into a flashbang that was unsurprisingly effective against the undead. It had many eyes dotting its body, so the sensory overload was bound to affect the undead. As the undead stumbled back and rubbed its many eyes with its many tentacles, Henry regrouped with Eodum and Sheila.

The foe was tough, and all three knew they weren't ready to face it.