44 Like Flies They Fall (1/2)
As the army of grey rats begins to run down the stairs, everyone quickly reacts. Dharma was the first, as he crouched slightly, and with force, he leaped into the air and grabbed the side of the top balcony with one hand, and then pulled himself upwards.
Veronica was just like Dharma, as she quickly murmured, ”[Boots of Shadow].” And a peculiar black fog surrounded her feet as she also leaped upwards onto the balcony.
Niko who saw all this was also quick to react. He took one last glance at the unconscious Candreva as a painful expression was seen. Candreva was way too heavy for him or any of them to carry, and even if they did carry him, there would be no way to escape the rats. He knew leaving Candreva here was the wrong things to do, however, his life was on the line and that was the number one priority.
Niko ran towards the furniture in the hall and jumped on top of a wooden table. Every single spirit that he possessed was called back, as they would most likely have trouble in this sea of rats, and Niko simply could not lose a spirit at this moment. In fact, Niko was so worried that as he ran and jumped on the table, he brought up his status window and placed his points from the level up into intelligence, which allowed him to control more spirits. After doing so, Niko quickly looked towards the dead rats he had killed with his spirits before and sed his skill on them.
As the green aura from his [Spirit King's Order] surrounded himself and the dead ratmen that laid bloodied on the wooden floor, the leading rats that ran towards them slowed down, and although no one other than Niko noticed this change, it was quite surprising. This meant only one thing, and that was that these rats had to be lower level than himself! The effect of his aura made the rats slow down much more, which gave him a bit more confidence with this bit of info.
As Niko was doing all of this, the others all moved to stand on top of a furniture. Ivanic, Zheng, and Fumito stood on top of another table, whilst Singh and Priya stood on two chairs. As they looked back they were perplexed by Kyle standing there where they once stood with his head lowered.
”What the hell are you doing?!” Fumito was about to jump off of the table, but Ivanic did not allow him to. It was simply too dangerous.
The rats had finally reached them, and as they surrounded Kyle, his glossy draconic tail began to move. Kyle raised his head and looked towards the wise-looking rat as his eyes were foggy, with deep sadness within them.
”You… Will die for me today!!!” Kyle yelled. In his voice, there was a deep sorrow, that as everyone heard it they felt it themselves. Despite having many rats surrounding his body and biting him, he moved forward as if there was nothing obstructing his patch.
”Bang!”
He slammed the spiky end of his tail towards the ground killing the rats beneath, but regardless of how many he killed, more came out.
”Bang!”
Kyle slammed his tail again, killing more and more rats.
”Stop it! Don't be foolish!” Fumito called to him, but to no avail. Just like many other people in this world, Kyle seemed broken. He looked much different from the Kyle that once escaped with them.
Seeing Kyle's actions Niko felt great sadness and fear. This world broke anyone, and as soon as anything traumatic happened to a person, they would break. How much did Andrea mean to him? Niko asked himself, as he thought of his sister. If she died like Andrea how would he react? He was afraid of even thinking of such a scenario.
Kyle approached the stairs, and as he was beginning to walk up to it, his face was beginning to show great pain. The rats had bitten a chunk off of his feet and leg, but through perseverance alone, he continued. As he took one more step up the stairs it was his last, as his body gave in causing him to fall back down the stairs where he was covered in rats.
As all of this happened the wise-looking rat, stood on top of the stairs unmoving, with a huge grin on his face. To this wise ratman, this was extremely entertaining, just another group of pathetic humans to feed his underlings.
”NO!” Fumito yelled as his eyes watered. The pain he was feeling was completely unexplainable, he had lost two of the people he cared about most in this world.