Rat Tide

Bang—

The thing slammed into the glass, making a cracking impact. Lu Ban clenched the crowbar beside him and instinctively swung it over.

Crack—

The glass shattered in an instant. Shards stained with some kind of viscous, foul-smelling liquid flew everywhere, making Stone hurriedly cover his head and crouch down. Lu Ban narrowed his eyes slightly and saw a mass fall from midair and hit the ground.

"."

Stone stared blankly at everything before him, suddenly feeling that Lu Ban's destructive power was far greater than that of the unknown thing.

"What is it?"

Lu Ban took out his flashlight and illuminated the ground.

Outside, the driver and Hound also came running over after hearing the commotion. Hound was holding a rather crude pistol, seemingly homemade. He warily glanced at the crowbar in Lu Ban's hand, then shifted his gaze to the ground.

It was a furry mass of flesh. Judging by its size, it was probably similar to a small dog or rabbit. The filthy ground had been made even more disgusting by the flesh and blood, while a foul stench spread through the air—enough to make those children who loved cleanliness vomit on the spot.

"What animal is that?"

Lu Ban asked again.

"This... is a rat."

Hound said hesitantly. He looked again toward the direction from which the creature had come, into the ruins illuminated by the bus's lights.

"We'd better get back inside the bus and turn off the lights. I have a feeling something bad is about to happen."

"No. It already has."

Mary, who had appeared by the window at some point, took a deep look into the darkness and then bent down.

Bend down?

By the time Lu Ban noticed this, the impact came again.

Bang—

A mass of black flesh leaped out from those deep, pitch-black shadows and slammed into the glass in front of Stone.

This time, Lu Ban did not raise the crowbar in his hand, allowing the people inside the bus to see the flesh's true form.

It really was a rat.

However, when this giant rat, roughly the size of a dachshund, struck the glass at a speed faster than a bullet, the immense impact directly crushed its bones and muscles.

The creature spread across the transparent glass like a pancake, displaying its bizarre bodily structure. Its organs, bones, muscles, and blood vessels had been mashed together, then violently torn apart, brazenly exposed beneath the light.

It had smashed itself to death.

Stone, a young man who had never seen much of the world, stared dumbly at the flesh sliding down the glass. It seemed to have seized all his attention, leaving him incapable of thought. The blood vessels in his eyes became increasingly prominent, as if they might cover his entire pupils.

Lu Ban seemed to sense something. He tapped Stone's head with the crowbar, making the stiff young man instinctively crouch down, while he bent over at the same time.

The next moment, another thunderous impact rang out.

Bang—

Another rat slammed into the bus. The sound was as though it meant to bore through the steel itself, making everyone's hearts tremble with fear.

The young man Stone hugged his head and curled into a ball, muttering a prayer he had apparently picked up from somewhere.

"Move!"

Hound shouted, shoving the driver. He raised the gun in his hand, and in the next moment, a gunshot rang out simultaneously with the sound of something breaking.

Lu Ban saw a rat leap up and slam into Hound's right shoulder at a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow.

His burly body sank deeply inward. The rat's bodily tissues disintegrated under the impact, accompanied by severe fractures or dislocations. An expression of pain appeared on Hound's face. He covered the wound with the hand holding his gun and moved toward the front of the bus.

It was unimaginable. These enormous rats had completely abandoned their own lives. No one knew what they were trying to do.

Bang, bang, bang—

The impacts against the bus continued without pause, making the entire vehicle shake.

"Damn it, damn it!"

Hound had no time to treat his wound and could only urge the driver to start the engine faster.

The hoarse engine roared and fell silent in the noisy night, then roared again and fell silent, torturing everyone's nerves.

Smack—

A rat crashed through the window Lu Ban had shattered and entered the bus. It struck the railing, its entire body deforming and twisting without being completely crushed. Instead, it writhed and spasmed as it crawled across the floor.

"Ahhhhhh!"

Stone's voice trembled like a wave. He desperately curled himself up, trying to get farther away from the half-dead rat, but the creature dragged a streak of blood across the floor in a bizarre posture and crept toward Stone.

Just as the rat was about to climb onto Stone's ankle, its flesh matted with filthy hair about to burrow into his rough skin, something pinned it down.

Lu Ban smashed the rat with his crowbar, dragging it backward a short distance.

At the same time, the engine's intermittent growl, like that of an old man with decades of tuberculosis, finally became steady.

"Get us moving!"

Hound shouted. Then Lu Ban felt the seats behind him begin to push forward, carrying them onward.

The rats' impacts made the vehicle sway somewhat, but the crystallization of human science and technology continued forward. Before long, the grating, unending impacts disappeared, leaving only the final rat that had entered through the shattered window, now accurately pinned to the floor by Lu Ban's crowbar.

"It's a rat tide."

After everyone finally let out a breath, the taciturn middle-aged woman Mary spoke in her hoarse voice.

"Sometimes, the rats in the ruins migrate collectively because of certain events, forming a massive rat tide. We simply ran into it by misfortune."

"You mean these rats leaping and moving at such incredible speed are only undergoing an ordinary migration?"

Lu Ban sought confirmation, and he saw Mary give a slight nod.

"I'm actually a scholar who studies wild creatures. This time, I finished my fieldwork and was returning to Ruined City to write my paper."

Mary lifted her shawl slightly, revealing the somewhat refined clothes beneath it, as well as the gun holster beneath her ribs.

No one doubted her. They merely watched the road behind the bus.

At this speed and in such numbers, whatever creature encountered the rat tide would probably have to go around it.

This black flood did not bend to anyone's will. It swept through the ruins, engulfing everything in its path.

And humans could only evade it, fear it, and remain powerless to resist.

The bus gradually returned to a steady pace, making the experience just now seem like nothing more than an illusion.

Only the viscous, congealed Filthy Blood stuck to one side of the windows, along with the enormous rat pinned to the ground by the crowbar, proved that the encounter had truly happened.

"Rat."

Lu Ban looked at the rat, suddenly struck by inspiration, and asked,

"Can this rat be eaten?"

"?"

Question marks appeared above everyone's heads inside the bus.

"In theory, these rats are ordinary creatures."

After a long while, Mary finally answered Lu Ban's question.

"Then that's pretty good."

Lu Ban took a frying pan from the backpack at his feet.

"That was far too dangerous just now. We should eat something first to calm our nerves."

*

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