Legacy of Hatred-Chapter 78: Rats

No one questioned how Liam had been able to sense the incoming threat before Milo could rely on his perception technique.

Of course, that wasn’t out of lack of curiosity. The intensifying rumbling forced the group to focus on the imminent battle, disregarding any useless thoughts.

Liam was no exception. He instinctively glanced at his left shoulder, but no bow rested there, bringing his gaze back to the holes in the wall in front of him.

Even with superhuman hearing, Liam couldn’t guess where the attack would come from. There were too many tunnels, and the rattling noises flooded the hall with their incessant echoes, preventing any accurate inspection.

If anything, it sounded like the group was surrounded, which didn’t bode well when taking Milo’s conclusions into account. As things were, Liam and the others threatened to be submerged by a tide of enemies.

Still, the team wasn’t without alternatives. Liam and the others could jump back into the previous tunnel to funnel those incoming threats into a single path. The passage would also limit them, but it could be better than remaining in the open and getting surrounded.

Also, the group could make a run for the stone passage on the other side of the hall, delving deeper into the ruined Sect while also improving their position.

Yet, despite the incoming danger and risk of awakening the bats above, Liam didn’t move, and his decision had a single, simple reason. Melissa and Neil were the only ones who knew where rewards could be and what awaited the group ahead, and that knowledge made them the group’s leaders.

"Let’s hold our ground here!" Neil shouted, understanding those general concerns. "The path ahead is unsuitable for a fight!"

Liam’s ignorance about the place forced him to trust Neil, and he wasn’t alone. Melissa soon stepped to Liam’s right, wearing the Sect’s battle stance, while Randall approached his left, his skin already glistening with a metallic luster.

The other group arranged itself in a similar battle formation, creating a circle with their pale-grey companions, but the preparations didn’t stop there.

Jason got to his knees and placed his palms on the smooth floor, sending his Qi into it to cause a reaction. Spikes quickly grew all around the group, pointing outward, creating a hard-to-navigate, dangerous maze that was bound to slow down the incoming enemies.

’It can be used like this,’ Liam realized, Qi still running through the floor and spikes since Jason had remained down. He probably wouldn’t help in the actual battle, but that barrier was more than enough.

Then, the rattling noises and rumblings intensified once more, finally showing visible repercussions. Bones started to flow down multiple holes, mostly belonging to small animals, falling into the hall to accumulate at its floor’s edges.

The bones grew bigger until Liam saw the almost intact skull of a snake fall from a hole in front of him, only for all hell to break loose in the next second.

Swarms of squeaking dark fur jumped out of various holes, as if black rivers were cascading into the hall. They came from everywhere, flowing toward the group in desperate fashion, only for that recklessness to immediately inflict casualties.

The black rivers crashed into the encirclement of spikes and bled, interrupting their forward momentum and highlighting what they were actually made of.

Dark-furred rats no bigger than thirty centimeters had impaled themselves on the spikes in their careless rush. That trend continued since more of them jumped on their bleeding companions to advance, only for that sharp blockage to stop them, too.

Still, the spikes hardly stretched for two meters in every direction, and the pack of rats looked more numerous than the bats. The former also attacked with complete disregard for their lives, overcoming the issue in quite the gory way.

As more and more rats got impaled, a safe path of bleeding fur formed above the spikes, which the animals in the following waves didn’t hesitate to tread.

A frontal clash seemed to be only a few seconds away, but more Qi flowed underground as the rats were about to reach the group, causing another deadly transformation.

New spikes abruptly grew, piercing the previous ones and whatever was running over them to rise around the group.

In a mere second, spikes almost as tall as Liam surrounded the group, blood continuously flowing down the furred bodies on their tips. Between the initial and last clash, around twenty rats had died, and all the credit went to Jason.

Of course, none of the rats was a magical beast. Some were also just injured and not dead, but the accomplishment remained praiseworthy. Even weakness was dangerous in high numbers, but Jason had turned that advantage against the enemy.

Nevertheless, that seemed to be the limit of Jason’s prowess. The tall spikes crumbled, and the dead and wounded rats fell to the floor. Meanwhile, Jason’s ragged breath resounded in the hall, mixing with the remaining squeaks around the group.

The spiky barrier had dealt with a third of the pack, but its remaining two-thirds were still around the group. That furred encirclement seemed to have been wary of Jason’s Qi, its more restrained behavior probably coming from the magical beasts leading it.

’Eight magical beasts,’ Liam counted, wearing his battle stance, ’But the wolf felt far stronger.’

The encirclement did indeed have magical beasts, but in the first level, their appearance was far from threatening. They were bigger than the other rats, but only slightly.

’I’m still adjusting,’ Liam realized.

Liam’s short time in the cultivation world showed its shortcomings once more. Magical beasts couldn’t be underestimated, especially when a pack accompanied them, but his opponents remained rats.

Meanwhile, Liam’s side counted six cultivators equipped with martial arts. They were a force to be reckoned with, not something that had to run in the face of superior numbers.

That prowess became evident when some of the magical beasts squeaked, prompting the rest of the pack to attack. The furred encirclement closed on the group, only to show its brittleness.

Rats crossed the spikes’ debris and jumped at Liam, but cracking noises resounded whenever his simple palm strikes slammed on them. He opted to swing or thrust his fingers at times, too, which never failed to pierce their hide.

That approach left Liam’s legs exposed, but he never needed to move or dodge since Melissa took care of that. Her graceful hand gestures painted bluish canvases in the air, which redirected the rats away, even squashing them on each other, keeping the ground level clear.

As for Randall, he ignored defense entirely, relying on his Jade Skin and letting the rats slam on him, suffering no injuries while he dealt with each one of them.

The red group was achieving similar success. Neil’s punches never failed to claim lives, and Milo’s incredible reaction speed allowed for quick and precise deadly blows. Only Jason didn’t do anything special, but his companions made up for that and let him catch a breath.

In a few waves of attacks, the cultivators decimated the pack, leaving it with a handful of rats and their level one leaders. Furred corpses had accumulated in gory piles all around them, but none of the blood on their hands, faces, and robes was their own.

Just like with mortals, mere animals were powerless against superhuman beings, no matter their superior numbers. Liam and the others were simply too quick and powerful for their smaller group to have any influence on the battle’s outcome.

Even with the eight magical beasts still alive, Liam felt nothing but confidence. That demonstration had been enough to silence his former mindset once and for all, almost driving him to jump at the remaining rats himself.

However, Liam didn’t. A deeper silence invaded the hall for a second before all hell broke loose again, this time involving the ceiling, too.

The remaining rats trembled and scurried away while the bats awakened to eek in fear, snapping out of their profound sleep to unfold their leathery wings.

The sudden awakening didn’t go well since many bats fell instead of flying, but the magical beasts among them succeeded at that, only to be met with a worse fate.

As predicted, the ceiling also had holes connected to other tunnels, which the bats’ dispersion revealed. However, something big and scaly suddenly came out from the largest cavity, snapping at the flying and falling bats to capture as many of them in its huge mouth.

’Level two?’ Liam guessed, totally unconvinced because the reptilian head hanging from the ceiling was as big as a man’s torso and felt far stronger than both Joel and Cecilia.