Chapter 302
“Yes, yes.” The ratman in rusty armor exclaimed in a hurried and continuous manner, “The human thing up there, the thing, has left for the most part, most of it! There’s infighting, infighting! As long as we rush out, the human thing, dead! Dead!”
After saying this, the armored ratman couldn’t help but jump up.
Opposite the armored ratman stood a ratman warlord, who was as tall as a human, carrying a burden on his back, dressed in red steel armor with triangular symbols painted on it.
The ratman warlord’s beady eyes flashed with suspicion; he had always doubted that his subordinates wanted to replace him. Otherwise, why would he rush over to inform him personally and incite him to break out from the underground city right after the humans left?
He was waiting for the human army to return and take the opportunity to backstab him, seizing his warlord position and draining all the glory. Yes, yes, it must be like that.
The ratman warlord’s eyes darted around, thinking of a clever idea:
“Yes, yes. Kill all those human things—”
“No, no! Leave half as slaves, slaves!”
The warlord’s eyes sparkled with suspicion as he continued, “You go as the vanguard! Vanguard.”
This was a great achievement.
The armored ratman was momentarily stunned by this grand achievement; as long as he secured this credit, he would have the leverage to backstab the ratman warlord.
He hurriedly said, “Okay, okay, I’ll kill the human thing! The thing! All of them!”
“Alright, you go investigate the flute player! Go now.”
The armored ratman got heated and agreed, “Okay, okay!”
As soon as he finished speaking, he realized what he had just committed to.
But the ratman warlord grabbed his hand and lifted it, shouting to the surrounding scurrying ratmen, “Rat brothers! He has agreed to go kill the flute player.”
The armored ratman suddenly realized, “Do you take me for a fool?”
But his voice was drowned out by the cheers of the surrounding ratmen, who crawled or ran over to crowd around him, urging him to hunt down the flute player.
The flute player was a legend that had suddenly circulated a week ago; it was said that a human wielding a giant sword appeared and vanished mysteriously, cutting off the heads of a group of ratmen each time, and murder cases would be accompanied by eerie music. Many patrol teams heard the music in the tunnels and met their demise.
According to surviving ratmen, the flute player was a butcher who appeared suddenly from the darkness, carrying a giant sword and a waist full of ratmen heads.
Although the ratmen found it strange what the connection was between carrying a giant sword and the flute player. In human legends, wasn’t the flute player one who played the flute to lure out the rats?
But no matter what, the entire clan went mad; the ratmen, who typically liked to stab each other in the back, were now huddling together to sleep. All attempts to uncover the true identity of the flute player were met with death for the investigating ratmen.
The ratman warlord watched as the armored ratman was sent off by the crowd, feeling pleased as he rubbed his hands together; now, one less competitor.
At that moment, a panting brown ratman rushed in, panic written all over his face, as if the sky had cracked open.
“Boss, something big has happened!”
The ratman warlord smacked him across the face, “What are you panicking about?”
The brown ratman got up from the ground and said, “The Thirteen Council! They summoned Chuan Luo to assist us in killing the human thing.”
Hearing the name Chuan Luo, the ratman warlord immediately jumped in fright: “Hurry, get him out of here!”
His ratman operations had mostly failed, and he had become infamous. Except for one time assisting a distant rat clan in attacking the green-skin tribe.
Chuan Luo had rarely reversed the situation; when the ratmen were retreating in defeat, Chuan Luo summoned dimensional lightning, hitting the catapult on the cliff which landed on the green-skin leader’s head, turning the tide.
But amid the victory celebrations, Chuan Luo looked pale, as if he had suffered a great defeat. Rumor had it that Chuan Luo was sent by the Thirteen Council to exterminate this rat clan.
“Who wants to chase me away?”
A skinny white-haired ratman walked in, adorned with several pieces of green dimensional stones, leaning on a dimensional stone staff with a few human heads hanging from it, lifting his chin as he entered.
It was none other than the infamous Chuan Luo.
Faced with the envoy of the Thirteen Council, the ratman warlord had to act politely; he said, “You must have misheard, yes, yes, you misheard.”
As he spoke, the warlord’s eyes were spinning wildly, hoping to think of a good way to send Chuan Luo away from his clan, or at least prevent him from meddling.
Chuan Luo said, “The Thirteen Council has decided that Aoli City must be taken; this is for the great plan. Therefore, I am importing a batch of the most advanced dimensional weapons from the Skuri clan to the underground dock for you.”
Upon hearing Skuri, advanced, and dimensional weapons, the warlord quickly changed his tune and went to check the goods with Chuan Luo.
Amidst the throng of other clan ratmen, they navigated through traps and winding rat tunnels, arriving at the underground river dock.
On the ratmen’s ship, a few ratman technicians carried out the most advanced weapon from the Skuri clan—the Ratstruin, a terrifying weapon made of multiple gun barrels bound together in a cylindrical shape, connected to a strange metal box with a handle.
“The most advanced dimensional stone technology weapon,” Chuan Luo said, “it can kill the human thing, dead! Dead! Show him.”
The Ratstruin was operated by two ratman technicians; one held the weapon while the other turned the handle on the metal box vigorously. The ratman holding the Ratstruin could no longer contain himself; he aimed it at the cave ceiling and pulled the trigger, firing a series of green bullets that struck the ceiling, causing debris to rain down.
The Ratstruin gunner laughed heartily, “Hahahahaha.”
He continued firing, white smoke billowing from the Ratstruin.
Chuan Luo quickly shouted for a stop; he was well aware that this was still a product from the lab that had not undergone field tests. His coming was partly to assist the local clan, and partly to test the Ratstruin, killing two birds with one stone.
“It looks like a good thing, very good.” The ratman warlord’s eyes glowed; he turned to shout, “Bring four hundred slaves! Let’s all try out the gun.”
Chuan Luo brought a total of thirteen Ratstruins and had fifty ratman technicians. They faced four hundred starving slave rats, and the ratman warlord personally promised the slave rats that they would gain freedom and food if they won.
To motivate the slave rats, the warlord piled food behind the ratman technicians.
As the cage holding the slave rats was opened, the starving slaves, with green eyes, surged toward the thirteen Ratstruins, which all opened fire; the green bullets crossed each other, creating a deadly green barrage, and the slave rats fell one after another, unable to get closer to the Ratstruins.
The slave rats fell into despair, retreating back with no escape route.
The Ratstruins continued to make the “rat-tat-tat-tat” sound as they sprayed fire at the cornered slave rats.
“Boom!”
Two Ratstruins exploded, killing four Ratstruin gunners on the spot. The frantic ratman technicians finally eased their fingers off the triggers.
The remaining ratman technicians rushed up, scrambling to check the exploded Ratstruins and taking them for repairs, ignoring the dead Ratstruin technicians. After all, ratmen were numerous.
The ratman warlord surveyed the ground littered with slave rat corpses, his eyes shining, repeatedly saying, “Good, good.”
In the end, he was very welcoming of Chuan Luo participating in this operation.
As for the armored ratman he sent to hunt for the flute player?
By the night of the third day, he had completely vanished.
He lay on the ground with wide-open eyes, blood flowing from a deep wound on his neck, mingling with the blood of several ratman corpses, washing into the filthy water of the underground sewage.
In the distance, a few ratmen fled in a panic, disappearing into a distant cave.
Shadow King Akarnis sat nearby, panting while picking up a bottle of alcohol and pouring it into his mouth, taking a few gulps while sighing, “Working is really tough. I wish I could avoid working from now on.”
After finishing, he took out the “Bloodied Singer” and placed it beside him.
A mournful melody echoed throughout the dark sewer…
