The black, scalding smoke erupted from Andy’s lungs in a cone-shaped cloud that engulfed the Baron and most of the bugs that had hatched from his swollen flesh. As a secondary effect, the burst of hot, smoky air pushed the green, poisonous gas away from Andy, and he was able to breathe again. Inside the cloud, unbothered by the heat or the smoke, Andy could see the outlines of his foes in shades of yellow and orange—the huge, swollen body of the Baron, and the thousands of insects as they fell to the gray slate floor, twitching.
Details were hard to discern in the strange smoke-vision he had within his cloud, but Andy thought the bugs’ wings had been destroyed by the heat, though their bodies continued to twitch and jump, their stiff little legs wriggling—in their death throes, he hoped. As for the Baron, he launched himself away from the cloud with an impossibly adroit leap, landing on his table, sending plates and platters clattering to the ground as he slid toward the far end.
Andy charged after him, jumping onto the sturdy platform, which took him out of his smoke cloud. The air was still eye-watering with the scent of chlorine, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t breathe. With his regular vision restored, he saw the enormous white ratman was even more disturbing to gaze upon than before. His fur was patchy, his pink flesh burned in sections, and the pustules from which the bugs had erupted were still open and oozing. Even so, the Baron gesticulated wildly, brandishing his claws as he screeched commands to the ratmen in the hall.
Andy hurried toward him, but he couldn’t help scanning the room, taking stock. A miniature thunderstorm was raging near the other end of the table. Icy rain was sheeting down, and a dozen ratmen were caught in the spell, sprawled out on the ground, slipping and stumbling over each other as they tried to climb. He glanced toward the rear corner, expecting to see Bea waving her staff in the air, but all he could see were the backs of eight or so blitz-rats hacking and stabbing at Bella and Omar, threatening to break through their guard.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, Rundle was in a vicious melee with the zerker-rat. They were grappling, clawing and gnashing their teeth at each other. Blood and fur flew through the air, and their screams and roars were cacophonous. When Andy saw arrows sprouting from Rundle’s arms and legs, he jerked his gaze closer to home and saw the pack of archers he’d passed earlier. They were free to shoot at will.
With another glance at the Baron, Andy made a split-second decision to handle the archers before he confronted the boss again. He leaped off the table and, spear leading the way, slammed into the back of the central archer rat. His Critical Mastery guided the blade, and it slammed through the creature’s spine, just below the neck. As he ripped the spear free, the two closest ratmen spun, bows lifted, but Andy was faster. He stabbed one in the heart and stomped the other in the knee with his boot heel.
The archer rats were just normal-sized ratmen; they couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds each, and something cracked when he kicked the archer. He crumpled, dropping his bow with a clatter, and then Andy stabbed the last of them before it even had a chance to realize they were under attack. As the balefire flames spread through the deep puncture wound in its belly, Andy drew back his spear and finished the archer he’d knocked down.
With their ranged support taken care of, Andy turned back to the Baron. The giant ratman had lifted his arms aloft and was prancing from one foot to the other. Dark green mana swirled around him, gathering into a pulsating orb that floated near the stout wooden beams that held the arched ceiling aloft. Andy didn’t like the looks of the spell, so he leaped atop the table, and, sensing that the shifting robe would blunt the impact of his spear, slammed his shoulder into the giant ratman’s hip at full tilt.
Andy was fast, and he wasn’t small. More importantly, though, the ratman was already off balance doing its prancing ritual dance. When his shoulder crunched into the Baron’s hip, the ratman stumbled. He might have caught himself, though, if he weren’t standing on a table. As it was, the huge ratman tumbled off the side, interrupting the swirling flow of mana. Andy stood at the edge, watching the bulbous creature sprawl in an ungainly heap onto the stone.
When he felt another surge of mana, Andy held his breath, closed his eyes, and jumped, spear-first, toward his foe. As the spear hit home, burying three feet of its length into the Baron’s blubbery, singed belly, another explosion of caustic green gas poured out of the ratman’s pores. Andy blindly yanked his spear out and stabbed again and again. He felt his spear hit home two more times, then the Baron, kicking and screaming, thrashed so violently that his thick, whip-like tail took Andy’s feet out from under him, and he fell onto the hard slate floor.
He was still holding his breath, still squeezing his eyes shut against the gas, and he lost his grip on his spear. Worse, his head thunked against the stone hard enough to daze him. Still, some part of Andy was cognizant of his danger, and he rolled to the side, crashing into some wooden chairs. He continued to roll, wriggling his way through them until he was under the table. By then, his lungs were aflame, and he had to breathe, so he chanced a small gasp. To his relief, though it was sharp and pungent, the air delivered some oxygen.
Blinking, Andy peered through the haze as stinging tears filled his eyes. The Baron was still croaking and thrashing, flopping on his fat rolls as the wounds Andy inflicted spread, the black balefire eating through his flesh. Andy’s spear—what was left of it—stood proudly from his side, though the boss’s thrashing had snapped the haft. It seemed like the rat was at least temporarily out of the fight, so Andy wormed his way out the other side of the table and jumped up, scanning the rest of the hall.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Rundle was still engaged with the zerker-rat, but it seemed like he was winning. A throng of ratmen and blitz-rats were driving into the other corner, though, and Andy knew his friends couldn’t hold them off much longer. He ran toward them, yanking his blitz-rat dagger from his belt as he went. He couldn’t safely use a Cinderstorm Blast, so instead, he jumped at the rear line and, as his dagger found the first ratman’s neck, he cast Smoke Cloud.
Warm mana poured through his body and explosively erupted outward. The spell, upgraded to rank four, was far more expansive than when he’d first acquired it. It filled that corner with inky black smoke, and the vermin throng immediately began to panic, their senses deprived; not only couldn’t they see, but their noses were overwhelmed. Considering the clamorous battle taking place in the hall, their ears weren’t much help to them either. Andy, on the other hand, was in his element.
Like a ghost drifting among blind mortals, he used his enhanced speed to full effect, passing from one ratman to another, delivering a series of vicious, mortal jabs. He pierced livers, kidneys, spines, necks, eyes, and ears. The dagger was heavy and inelegant, but its blade was straight and sharp, and the point crunched through flesh, bone, and even leather without much trouble.
As he reached the front line of blitz-rats, he had to be more discerning with his stabs to avoid their armor, but it wasn’t difficult. The thing about his smoke vision was that it simplified things; he wasn’t distracted by colors or details. He saw the glowing amber of flesh, and he let his Critical Mastery guide his knife toward the most vulnerable points. As the blitz-rats struggled to understand their new smoke-filled reality, he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.
By the time the smoke began to clear, the vermin were dead, dying, or fleeing the immediate area. He could see that Omar and Bella had hunkered down behind their shields, using the smoke and their own silence to avoid further attacks. Lucy and Bea were behind them; Andy could see their faintly glowing figures, but he couldn’t tell if they were hurt. He hoped not, but he also knew he couldn’t waste any time. Turning back toward the center of the hall, he yelled, “Finish them off! I’m going back for the Baron!”
A ground-shaking thud echoed through the hall, and Rundle let loose a roar, the meaning of which was clear: he’d won. Andy glanced at him, saw him standing on his hind legs, blood-drenched claws raised high, and his mouth wide, displaying at least one broken-off tooth as he roared and roared. Andy charged toward the Baron.
The Boss was struggling to his feet, but huge sections of his corpulent body were blackened and oozing. Gouts of glistening, rendered fat poured onto the stones as Andy’s caustic damage-over-time effect continued to burn. A question occurred to him: how long would it burn? Could a person—or giant ratman—outlast the effect? It seemed so, because the Baron wasn’t dead and his gleaming red eyes were fixed murderously on Andy as he approached.
“Come on, then!” Andy yelled, kicking his charge into an all-out sprint as he cast Smoke Drift. The Baron was still on his hands and knees, but he screamed a harsh roar, blood-flecked saliva flying. Andy flew through the air, leaping with all the speed he could muster toward the huge ratman’s head. The Baron’s claws crackled with red electricity, and he tried to swipe at Andy, but he was too slow. The attack caught nothing but air as Andy veritably flew past the baron’s head.
When he landed a dozen feet behind the boss, his hands were empty; he’d left his long iron dagger buried to the hilt in the Baron’s left eye. Adrenaline roared through his veins as he spun, already gathering mana for a Cinderstorm Blast, but he stopped mid-cast, watching as the huge ratman collapsed onto the soot-covered flagstones, twitching—dead.
“Yes!” Andy screamed, taking a page out of Rundle’s book. “Eat that, you big bastard!” Resting his hands on his knees, he looked past the dead boss, watching as, with Lucy’s help, Omar and Bella finished off the last of the scattered ratmen. Rundle was sitting with his back to the wall, his chest heaving as he took short, panting breaths. Bea, too, was kneeling in the corner, cradling her forehead in her palm.
Seeing that Bea was hurt and knowing the others might be too, Andy jogged over to the Baron’s cooling corpse and grasped the remainder of his spear haft, yanking it free with a splash of dark blood. With about two-thirds of a spear, he hurried toward the far end of the hall, but as he jogged toward Bella and Omar, he saw it was over; they were taking down the last of the blitz-rats.
As it fell, gurgling around Bella’s sword in its throat, she screamed an inarticulate war-cry, ripping her bloody sword free. Omar joined in, but his shouts were more like, “Yeah! Yeah!”
Andy looked past them to Lucy, and she met his eyes, nodding as she smiled wanly. Her face was streaked with blood, but he couldn’t tell if any of it was hers. Before he could walk over to find out, the doors resonated with an echoing click and cracked open slightly. Then the System hit him with a wall of text:
***Congratulations, Andy! You and your team have taken down the Boss of the vermin invasion of Scarag Heights! Your role was instrumental in the battle, and in addition to a large experience award, you’ll be awarded valuable System-generated loot—replicas of treasures left behind by the Tevenbrite Empire. Your chances at rare and even more valuable loot have been increased because you’ve:
- Reduced the Baron’s Forces, Stage One
- Reduced the Baron’s Forces, Stage Two
- Defeated Jarqar the Butcher
- Liberated the Clover Bear Inn
- Rescued Rundle the Battle-bear
You’ll find your System-generated awards near the exit portal, which will appear in a room adjacent to the Boss chamber. Once again, you have the System’s admiration; the people of Scarag Heights have you and your companions to thank for their liberation!***
***Andy, because of your efforts in the battle against the Baron of Corruption, you’ve gained two levels in your Brimstone Stalker class, earning you an Improvement Point. Moreover, the System is awarding you an additional Improvement Point for heroism! Congratulations!***