Son of Chaos 96 Training Dungeon 4

Meanwhile, Ivan defended the gap with everything he got. He could feel clearly that he had become much better at analyzing the incoming rat's path of attack and calculating the best way to divert their strength. Before his only option, when facing a strong attack, was to dodge it, but now he was capable of diverting it. He too had found out that in many cases blocking an attack would give him a better window for a counter attack, then just dodging.

Finally, the killed off the last of the rats and Tina let herself drop down to the floor.

"Damn, that was exhausting."

"But that should have been just about all the rats left.", Lars encouraged her.

Ivan who wasn't as exhausted as the rest, thanks to his higher stats, took a look in the now empty hall. As Lars had said, there weren't any rats left.

"Let's recuperate and then we can challenge the last hallway and hopefully the final boss."

When everyone else sat down too, to rest, Susan looked at the crates still stacked up as a barricade.

"Hey Ivan, if you have such a big inventory, could you bring some real materials for a barricade next time?"

"What materials?"

"I'm not sure, but I imagine something like concrete or even metal."

"I too think we should bring something like this with us.", Tina interjected, "How about you Susan check out what is good and then Ivan can buy it and bring it with him. Of course, we will have to provide the money for it together."

"Sounds good. Oh right, we haven't exchanged our contact number yet.", Susan accepted Tina's proposal.

Everyone else too accepted the proposal and then exchanged their contact number.

"Alright, now that that is out of the way, how about we continue on?", Tina asked. She had been the most exhausted, but after only a short rest now once again seemed to be filled with energy. Ivan and Susan could only marvel at her rate of recovery, while the other two were already used to it.

Ivan stored the crates once again in his inventory and the group carefully made their way forward. They were especially careful when crossing the big hall since a surprise attack by some rats they had missed would really get them into danger. Because they were in a hall, their standard front to back fighting style wouldn't work. It would be impossible for Susan and Ivan to tank the rats and keep them away from the easier injured members.

Luckily nothing happened and they soon reached another small hall. The hall was round and with a large free space in the middle. Divided by a row of columns an around two-meter width path went around the room. The pillars were made from stone and had a distance of about three meters from each other.

In the middle of the hall laid a huge rat. It was about five meters long and while it's hight wasn't visible, it should be at least two meters.

"Wow, that is one big guy. How the hell are we going to defeat something this big?", Lars exclaimed in astonishment.

<< Rat Lord

Level: 260

The lord of the rats of Floor 1 of the training dungeon. After it had entered this hall, he ate a relique stored here, which lead to his might drastically increasing. Unfortunately, as a side effect to his increased might, his body too had increased in size, leading to it being unable to leave this hall. It spends most of its time in a deep sleep from which it doesn't easily wake up.

>>

This was the description Ivan got when he used 'Inspect' on the large rat. There was a lot of background information, but nothing useful for the fight, besides that it wouldn't wake up easily.

Besides the huge rat, there were still about 10 or so smaller rats that seemed to be organizing something. Surprisingly, even though they had killed all the other rats, these rats didn't show any unusual behavior.

"So how are we going to proceed?", Susan asked. During the time fighting through the rest of the floor, Tina had established herself as the leader, not only in name but also in spirit. As such it was normal for her to make the decisions.

"Let's try to pull these little rats into the hallway, so we can get rid of them before taking on the big one. With its size, he shouldn't be able to help the little ones then. Unfortunately, we can't just shoot the big one with arrows, while staying safe in the hallway.",she then lamented. One of the columns was directly in front of the entrance, blocking the line of sight towards the Rat Lord. "Well, let's take care of the small ones first."

She then took up her bow, to pull the rats, while Susan and Ivan got ready to block them at the entrance of the hallway.

Having already gained a lot of experience with these types of fight, it didn't take them long to clear up all the little rats, leaving only behind the still sleeping Rat Lord.

"Ivan you go and try to keep these guys aggro. Remember not to instantly kill it.", Tina ordered, eliciting laughter from the others.

After Ivan had killed the first group instantly, there was another instance where he hadn't properly controlled his strength, once again killing the group of attacking rats instantly.

Ivan slowly moved towards the Rat Lord. Surprisingly he was able to reach melee range without the Rat Lord waking up. It seemed to be a really heavy sleeper. Since he had the time he moved around it, to check if there were any glaring weaknesses, they could exploit. But there was only the gray pelt visible.

Ivan used his sword to slash down on the neck of the Rat Lord. As soon as the sword was nearly in contact with the target, suddenly an invisible shield blocked it and the eyes of the Rat Lord shot open.

"Squeak", a rage-filled squeak came out of its mouth.

It turned towards Ivan with surprising speed, while using one of its front claws to sweep towards his head. Ivan agile jumped back just in time. He could feel the wind from the claws sweeping past his face.

"Careful everyone. This guy is much stronger and faster than the others.", he then warned the others.

The others acknowledged his warning and too started to attack. Susan, who wasn't really good at dealing damage, stood before Tom and Tina, so she could block for them in case the Rat Lord focused on them. Lars, on the other hand, used the columns around the room to stealthily move to the Rat Lords back.

Ivan used his sword to stab towards the Rat Lords eyes, whenever he had the opportunity while dodging its claw attacks. While he was mostly unable to hit, it managed to enrage the Rat Lord, so it fully focused its attention on him.

Tina too focused her arrows on the head of the rat, which leads to it being even more irritated. When Lars had made his way around, he stormed forwards targeting the backside of the Rat Lord. At that instant Ivan saw the monster before him, contract its muscles and he hurriedly called out, "Go back."

But it was too late. Lars didn't have the time to dodge the tail of the rat, that suddenly whipped out towards him and hit him squarely at his chest.

"Aaarrrghh", he screamed out in pain. There was no way that he could withstand that hit. Luckily he had reacted instantly when Ivan had screamed out his warning, so he had already started moving backward when the tail hit him. If he didn't it would surely have caved in his chest. But so it only broke a rib as well as throwing him back against the column behind him, leading to even more pain at his back.

"Damn!", Tina started cursing when she saw her boyfriend getting injured so heavily. But she kept her calm and continued firing arrows at their target.

Tom used the hallway to move towards Lars and then pulled him back behind the column, ignoring his screams of pain. He then used his magic to strengthen the self-regeneration, after fixing the position of the broken rib. Even though priests mostly only strengthened the self-regeneration of their patients by increasing their HP, they had to fix the position of broken bones too. While the bodies of higher leveled warriors would move the bones in the right position on their own, this wasn't the case for those with a lower level. Quite the opposite, if the position wasn't fixed they would just grow together in the wrong way.

Chapter end