Chapter 629: Countercurrent
Facing the surging rat horde, everyone immediately took emergency countermeasures.
"Close the door quickly!"
"You guys leave now!"
"Disperse! Defend!"
Merlin and Vine, who had just jointly pulled open the large wooden doors of the warehouse, quickly pushed the two thick door panels back shut.
Merlin, who had already put on his red gloves, and his subordinates quickly pulled the few warehouse guards beside them away, standing in the empty spaces they had left to block the rats.
Anyone with life experience knows that once a wave rushes into a funnel-shaped opening, the water level often rises sharply.
Although the rats on both sides of the horde were blocked by the gradually closing wooden doors, as the gap between the doors tightened, not only did the swarming rat tide on the ground accelerate its flow, but some rats were even squeezed onto the constantly rising “water surface,” stepping on the bodies of their companions, fluttering out one after another like flying cockroaches.
Holy cow, even if there weren't thousands of these rats, there were at least several hundred.
It felt like just adding up and weighing the congested scene visible within sight would probably rival the workshop's daily meat delivery.
Were the rats in the Dock Area holding a meeting tonight to elect a Rat King?!
Wayne, instead, retreated two steps, quickly twisted off his kerosene lamp, and then turned and smashed it onto the ground. "Try to create a circle of fire to prevent them from spreading further!"
As he shouted, he used his foot to push the spilled kerosene to the side, trying to quickly draw a line on the ground.
Inessa, standing nearby, also smashed her kerosene lamp onto the ground after hearing him.
With a soft "bang" of ignition, a pool of flames began to spread, and the fire line quickly connected with the mark Wayne had just drawn, extending all the way to the end he was still trying to stretch.
Several more kerosene lamps were successively smashed onto the ground, and the wall of fire rapidly expanded amidst everyone's efforts, gradually showing a tendency to merge into one.
People who had freed their hands also continuously fired their guns or used various methods during this process, fighting against the rats that pounced on them within the increasingly bright and hot circle.
Wayne dodged Merlin's "flash," just used his gun stock to knock back a large rat, and then kicked another rat, sending it in an arc back into the rat pile.
Then, feeling the surging spiritual pressure, he, along with the busy people nearby, looked at the same figure in the arena, their gazes converging.
By this time, Inessa's eyes had turned crimson. She raised her hand, pulled out and discarded a syringe, and then charged directly into the wooden door gap, which seemed unable to close further:
"Leave the outside to you all! Help hold the wooden door, and be careful not to get caught in the crossfire!"
Around the figure in hunting attire wearing a bird-beak mask, blood-red threads, almost too fine to be seen with the naked eye, quickly encircled her, like a gradually tightening spring, carving out “empty spaces” in the dense rat tide leaking from the door gap, which were then enveloped by the subsequent surging rats.
And when Inessa, enduring the pressure of the swarming rat horde, finally pushed against the tide and blocked the door gap, it was as if with a "boom," Vine and Merlin, who had been struggling to hold the thick wooden doors from both sides with their bodies and were busy swatting away rats from themselves, were almost violently shaken outwards.
Wayne quickly understood Inessa's actions, waving one hand forward to push aside the rat tide while constantly picking rats off himself, heading towards the warehouse door from another direction.
Then, after the heavy wooden door of the warehouse suddenly shook outwards, he also forcefully braced his body against the reinforced door panel.
The pressure transmitted from behind the door immediately paused, and taking advantage of this brief opening, several people finally managed to completely close these damned "rat tide doors."
At this point, the noise inside did not immediately subside; to be precise, the commotion grew even louder. The force on the door panel, like a giant axe chopping, continued to shake outwards repeatedly, and that incisive, "penetrating" momentum made Wayne worry about whether these two wooden doors were sturdy enough.
After re-latching the chains on the door, Wayne quickly resumed dealing with the rats that were almost overwhelming him.
He had tried to inject spiritual power into the rats, but living creatures have a natural resistance to direct "injection." It wasn't difficult for Wayne to make a rat he touched explode, but trying to throw it as a bomb was not as convenient.
Shooting wasn't a very good method either; one shot couldn't kill many, and the empty spaces they left were quickly filled.
Fortunately, after getting past the initial psychological discomfort, the rats didn't seem as dangerous as Wayne had expected.
As long as one didn't stay still and didn't directly "pat their heads" when the rats opened their mouths and pounced, most of the places that could be hit with a swing of the hand were actually quite "soft," and the rats' claws were just so-so, feeling even inferior to a cat's. Their teeth were the more dangerous part.
And even the rats' most dangerous "bites" caused quite limited damage. A rat's teeth are only so long, and its mouth's opening angle is only so wide.
Unless bitten on a finger or carotid artery or similar, it would only be considered a "skin abrasion" or "flesh wound." As long as a normal person had a little vitality and wasn't knocked down by the rat horde, it would be very difficult to die directly.
But then again...
Being bitten at least seven or eight times on his body, legs, and arms, even Wayne, with his self-healing ability, still felt pain when he was supposed to...
He also had to worry about whether he would contract rabies or something—but that was a matter for "later."
At this time, there were at least a few hundred rats pouring out of the door, which would be an estimated thirty or forty per person; even cooked, they might not all be eaten. Fortunately, few rats chose to escape the fire circle; most took on a stance of wanting to perish with everyone.
So, although everyone was huffing and puffing, and inevitably got injured, they were all well-trained and had weapons and extraordinary abilities to rely on. Despite the unsightly scene, the battle gradually turned around.
Reality quickly proved once again that the terrifying upright apes, who reached the top of the food chain, still had a fighting chance against small rodents without an overwhelming numerical advantage.
As soon as the outside quieted down, and everyone was about to start helping each other with treatment, Wayne took off his torn jacket, picked up the special bolt-action rifle Inessa had left on the ground, unlocked the chain, and poked his head into the now quiet warehouse, "Inessa, are you alright?"
Inessa's eyes, still not completely faded from crimson, were easy to spot in the darkness. Her hunting attire was still on, and she was sitting on an empty patch of ground, resting with her arms wrapped around her knees: "I'm fine... Someone ran away just now. Maybe he wasn't good at direct confrontation, or maybe he gave up on continuing the sneak attack."
Following Inessa's gaze into the depths of the large warehouse, a high-up window there was open.
In the simplified line-of-sight, the shelves directly affected in the warehouse were already in disarray, and those slightly further away, though in slightly better condition, were also toppled. Unprocessed dried rubber looked somewhat like dried bean curd sticks; some had already turned into fragments, while others were still relatively intact.
The ground in a circle slightly further from Inessa was a bit too gruesome to look at: soupy, fragmented, and stepping on it with leather shoes felt much like stepping on a beach.
Looking around again, the heavy wooden warehouse door was actually less damaged, its back probably like the leg of a sofa in a house with a large group of wild kittens.
Wayne didn't have a chance to chat much at this moment. He placed the bolt-action rifle by Inessa's hand. "How long has he been gone? Is it still possible to catch him now?"
"Don't pursue alone. Wait until everyone has rested before considering annihilation." Inessa pointed to a relatively lighter-colored puddle in the circle of minced flesh around her. "That person's resurrected corpse is quite powerful. I estimate his own rank is at least Tier 5 or above, and he likely has more self-preservation methods. Moreover, destroying the node is more important right now; we need to prevent him from leaving traps."
Professional matters should be judged by professionals, and Wayne was very amenable to advice in this regard.
He turned and walked back out, opening the warehouse's wooden door wider as he did so: "Then I'll go confirm everyone's condition first and have Merlin and the others come over as soon as possible."
