Ratmen

Mission "Protection" Complete

Mission Rating: Quite Good

You successfully thwarted the Evil God Believers' plot and safely returned the protected target to her hometown.

Reward: 1,500 XP, additional 1,000 XP, +1 attribute point, +1 specialization point, level increased to 20.

Gained additional perks.

Additional Perk—Outnumbered: When surrounded, +60% melee damage.

Additional Perk—Fury: Each kill grants +1% critical hit chance and critical hit power for 5 seconds.

Judgment Warhammer upgraded to Thunder Warhammer.

Thunder Warhammer (Melee, Two-Handed, Heavy Strike)

+15% chance for enemies to explode upon death, dealing area damage equal to 50% of their health. (Stackable)

Each attack has a +6.9% chance to cause knockback.

Looking at the data before him, Duanmu Huai nodded in satisfaction. The Thunder Warhammer's special effect in particular was practically the ideal skill for mowing down mobs. Area damage equal to 50% of their health, and it could stack too. Did that mean that if he knocked down a whole group at once and several of them triggered it, the area damage would reach 150%?

Could it really be calculated that way?

With that thought, Duanmu Huai opened his panel again.

Little Hammer Smashes Your Skull Primarch Gene #5 Evil Bane

Class: Inquisitor (LV20) Soul Walker Specialization Warp Space Heat -50% Consumption

Strength: 14 Brawling +6 Space Marine Combat Training LV8 Matter Displacement Attack Weakness Outnumbered

Agility: 4 Shooting +0 Sicarian Enhancement LV1

Constitution: 12 Resistance +4 Ecclesiarchy Siege Doctrine LV5 Fury

Intelligence: 12 Willpower +4 Combat Psyker Training LV5 Soul Resonance (Special Skill) Primarch Gene Bonus

Perception: 8 Awareness +4 Adeptus Arbites Assault Tactics LV3

Charisma: 1 (Locked) Communication -3 Intimidation LV2

Soul Card +8

After gaining this wave of experience, Duanmu Huai had already reached level 20. He distributed his specialization points and attribute points among Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and the three primary skills they represented: Space Marine Combat Training, Ecclesiarchy Siege Doctrine, and Combat Psyker Training. These three skills respectively increased combat damage, defense, psychic resistance, and the heat limit, making them extremely useful to Duanmu Huai.

As for Agility and Perception, Duanmu Huai had no plans to raise them further. He had no intention of taking the Assassin's Court route, and assassins were fragile to begin with. Soul Walkers were already fragile enough; adding an assassin would only make him even more brittle, like a crispy cracker. As for Perception, 8 points were enough for now. He planned to make up the rest with the Power Armor's detection system—if your abilities fell short, your gear could make up the difference.

As for Charisma... forget it. He might as well give up on it.

He couldn't increase it anyway.

"Sir Knight."

Just as Duanmu Huai was considering his next point allocation strategy, Captain Kado came before him and respectfully bowed.

"Madam wishes to see you."

"Oh."

Duanmu Huai did not need to guess that the "Madam" Kado mentioned was most likely Elisa's mother. He nodded, rose to his feet, and followed Kado into the fortress before them.

The fortress was not occupied solely by soldiers. There were also many ragged civilians, huddled together uneasily as they stared at the towering giant. Duanmu Huai did not care about that. He simply followed Kado through the crowd and arrived at the hall inside the fortress. It was not that they were slighting him; it was simply that Duanmu Huai was too large to fit through the door of the Guest Room.

There, Duanmu Huai saw a woman dressed in luxurious clothes, though her face was haggard and her eyes were red-rimmed. Elisa stood behind her. The girl had shed the disheveled look she wore during the journey and changed into a long formal dress suited to her status. She finally looked somewhat like a proper young lady.

Seeing Duanmu Huai, Elisa smiled and waved at him.

"Greetings, esteemed Sir Knight."

The woman lifted her skirt and respectfully curtsied to Duanmu Huai.

"I am Christine DeFreyrm, wife of the Lord of DeFreyrm. I offer you my deepest gratitude for saving my daughter from those evil Chaos Believers."

"No need to be so polite. Chaos is my enemy too."

Duanmu Huai waved his hand, indicating that she need not concern herself with it.

"Even so, please allow me to express my gratitude..."

As she spoke, the noblewoman stepped forward and handed Duanmu Huai the box in her hands. He took it and opened it, finding it filled with Gold Coins, along with jewels and ornaments. It was clearly worth quite a fortune.

Duanmu Huai glanced at it and put it away. It was perfectly normal for NPCs to pay rewards after completing missions, and he really was penniless at the moment. He was not going to make a fuss over it.

"So, what's the situation here?"

Duanmu Huai had no intention of making idle conversation. From the looks of things, they did not have time for it anyway.

At Duanmu Huai's question, Christine's expression darkened, while Kado sighed.

"As you can see, Sir Knight, this city has been invaded by Ratmen... Do you know what Ratmen are?"

"I've heard a little."

As a veteran player, Duanmu Huai knew the origins of most races in this world like the back of his hand. Naturally, he knew what Ratmen were.

The origins of the Ratmen even had something of a story behind them.

Rumors said that long ago—exactly how long ago did not matter—there was once a prosperous city. Its rulers wanted to build a towering structure to display the city's wealth and glory. But just then, a mysterious man appeared at the city gates. He asked to meet with the lords and said that if they allowed him to place a small decoration atop the tower, he could finish building it within ten days.

The lords agreed to his request, and the man truly completed the tower within ten days. At its peak, he placed a verdigris-colored bell. Yet after the tower was completed, when the man asked the lords for payment, they refused him outright, claiming that no payment had ever been discussed when the agreement was made. They beat him badly and drove him from the city.

After leaving the city, the man furiously cursed it—when the bell atop the tower rang thirteen times, the city would be destroyed.

Then, that very night, the bell at the top of the tower began to ring. After the thirteenth chime, countless rats surged forth like a tidal wave, covering the entire city, and the Rat Plague broke out.

Nor did it end there. Soon afterward, countless meteors fell from the sky and crashed into the city, reducing the once prosperous and flourishing place to ruins.

Yet the evil power contained within those meteors reacted with the rats, causing them to evolve into Ratmen—that was how the Ratmen came to be.

Of course, the story probably contained more than a little allegory, and no one knew whether it was true. But Ratmen were indeed an extremely evil, cunning, and cruel alien species. Moreover, they even knew how to study and use technology—like the multi-barreled Gatling gun they had used against Duanmu Huai earlier. It was steam-powered and fired stones as ammunition, yet it had actually worked!

If Ratmen were not naturally cunning, chaotic, and fond of infighting, they might have developed airplanes by now!

Ratmen belonged completely to the Chaotic Evil faction. They usually mingled with Evil God Believers and were essentially cannon fodder for the evil gods. They excelled at poisoning, spreading plagues, and using a bit of technology. Overall, they were merely annoying mobs to players, but to ordinary people, Ratmen were already terrifying invaders.

The only strange thing was that Ratmen should logically have been followers of the God of Filth, while those who had taken Elisa before were believers of the God of Tyranny. Though none of the Four Gods of Chaos were anything good, they rarely cooperated with one another. Tripping each other up was far more common. Duanmu Huai did not know whether the Ratmen had long planned to invade the city by taking advantage of the Lord's capture by the God of Tyranny's followers, or whether this was simply another case of the Chaos faction losing its mind because it had nothing better to do.

Kado's explanation confirmed Duanmu Huai's suspicions. Several days earlier, Elisa and her father had vanished while returning home. This naturally drew attention and alarm from the others, and Christine, as the Lord's wife, hurriedly dispatched people to search everywhere.

But at that moment, as though seizing the chance presented by the Lord's disappearance and the chaos within the city, Ratmen suddenly poured out of the Underground Sewers and launched an assault on the entire city. Faced with these monsters that had appeared without warning, the soldiers of Silver City fought desperately while evacuating the citizens toward the Lord's residence. However, the Ratmen came on fiercely, and Silver City suffered severe losses after being caught unprepared. Only after several days did they barely manage to stabilize the situation.

However, the Ratmen clearly had no intention of letting them go. They launched another fierce assault just yesterday evening. If Duanmu Huai had not arrived in time, the entire city would likely have fallen completely by now.

"So you want my help, right?"

Duanmu Huai was not an idiot. They had spent so much effort telling him all this, clearly not just to waste their breath. Of course, as long as there was a mission, Duanmu Huai would not let it pass him by. It was not that he particularly cared about the experience. What he really cared about was the mission rating. If the rating was high enough, the system would randomly give out all kinds of good things. It was basically the equivalent of opening blind boxes. Players just could not spend money to roll for cards; they could only work hard to complete missions, earn one blind box after another, and see whether they could pull something worthwhile.

Players had no integrity. Give them a mission, and even if the reward was an iron sword, they would help you wipe out the other side. On the other hand, if you did not offer a mission, then no matter how pitiful your story was, what did it have to do with them?

"Yes."

Compared to Duanmu Huai, Kado seemed rather restrained. He was not a player and did not understand how players thought. He had heard about Duanmu Huai from Elisa and was greatly astonished by his strength. Kado deeply respected a powerful man who could fight Evil God Believers alone and even tear demons apart with his bare hands. He had witnessed Duanmu Huai's strength himself. By all reason, such a formidable existence would probably be one of the Empire's highest-ranking champions. His willingness to help was already more than generous. If Kado asked for more... would that not be too shameless?

If Duanmu Huai knew what Kado was thinking, he would certainly sneer. What status did players have? Even if you became an admiral, would you not still have to clean toilets yourself?

"No problem."

Naturally, Duanmu Huai would not say that aloud.

"Striking down Chaos is my duty. Every hound of Chaos is my enemy."

Kado naturally had no idea about all the twists and turns behind those words. When he heard Duanmu Huai's answer, he was overjoyed, as if an amateur school team had just received the support of an NBA superstar.

"That would be... wonderful!!!"