Ratmen

Protection quest completed

Quest evaluation: Quite good

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

Reward: 1,500 experience, extra 1,000 experience, +1 attribute point, +1 specialization point, level raised to 20

Gained an additional feat

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

Additional Feat—fury: Each kill grants +1% critical hit chance and damage 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 maximum health (stackable)

Each attack has a +6.9% chance to knock back the target

Looking at the data before him, Duanmu Huai nodded in satisfaction. Thunder Warhammer's special effect in particular was simply the perfect skill for mowing down mobs. Area damage equal to 50% of their health, and it could stack too. That meant if he knocked down a whole group at once and several of them triggered it, wouldn't that be 150% area damage?

Could it be calculated like that?

Thinking this, Duanmu Huai opened his panel again.

Little Hammer Smashes Your Skull Primarch Gene #15 Evil Bane

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

Strength: 14 Brawling +6 Space Marine Combat Training LV8 Material Misalignment 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 batch of experience, Duanmu Huai had already reached level 20. He had allocated the specialization points and attribute points to Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and the three primary skills they represented: Space Marine Combat Training, Ecclesiarchy Siege Doctrine, and Combat Psyker Training. These skills respectively boosted combat damage, defense, Psychic Power resistance, and the overheating limit. They were 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 fragile enough already; adding an assassin would only make him doubly fragile, practically a crispy cracker. As for Perception, 8 points were enough for now. He planned to make up the rest with Power Armor's detection systems—if his abilities fell short, equipment could fill the gap.

As for Charisma... forget it. He would just give up on it.

He couldn't raise it anyway.

"Knight."

Just as Duanmu Huai was considering how to allocate his future points, 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 referred to was most likely Elisa's mother. He nodded, rose to his feet, and followed Kado into the fortress ahead.

The fortress held more than soldiers. There were also quite a few ragged civilians, huddled together anxiously as they stared at the towering Giant. Duanmu Huai did not care. He simply followed Kado through the crowd and into the fortress hall. It was not that they were slighting him; Duanmu Huai was simply too large to fit through the guest room's doorway.

There, Duanmu Huai saw a woman dressed in luxurious clothing. Yet her face was haggard, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Elisa stood behind her. The girl had shed the bedraggled appearance she had worn during the journey and changed into an elegant long dress befitting her status. She finally looked somewhat like a young lady from a noble household.

When she saw Duanmu Huai, Elisa smiled and waved to him.

"Hello, honored knight."

At that moment, 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 rescuing my daughter from those evil Chaos Believers."

"No need for formalities. Chaos is my enemy as well."

Duanmu Huai waved his hand, signaling that she need not dwell on it.

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

As she spoke, the noblewoman stepped forward and handed Duanmu Huai a box. He took it and opened it. Inside was a box filled with gold coins, along with jewels and accessories... clearly worth a considerable sum.

Duanmu Huai glanced at it and put it away. It was perfectly normal for an npc to pay a reward after a quest was complete, and he was indeed penniless at the moment. He was not about to stand on ceremony over that.

"So, what's the situation here?"

Duanmu Huai had no intention of making idle conversation. Well, judging from the current situation, they had no time for it anyway.

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

"As you can see, 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.

Come to think of it, the origins of the Ratmen came with quite a story.

Rumors said that long ago... exactly how long ago did not matter for now... there was a prosperous city. Its rulers wanted to build a High Tower to display the city's wealth and glory. But then, a mysterious man appeared at the city gate. He requested an audience with the lords and said that if they allowed him to place one small ornament atop the High Tower, he could complete it within ten days.

The lords agreed to his request, and the man truly completed the High Tower within ten days. He also placed a greenish-blue bell at its peak. However, when the man asked the lords for payment after the tower was finished, they refused him outright, claiming that no payment had been discussed when the contract was signed. They then beat him badly and drove him from the city.

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

Then, that very night, the bell atop the High Tower began to ring. After the thirteenth chime, countless rats appeared like a tide and covered the entire city. Thus, the Rat Plague erupted. Nor was that all. Soon afterward, countless Meteors fell from the sky and crashed into the city, reducing what had once been a prosperous and flourishing city to ruins.

Yet the evil power contained within those meteorites reacted with the rats, causing them to evolve into Ratmen—such was the origin of the Ratmen.

Of course, the story was somewhat allegorical, and no one knew whether it was true. But Ratmen were indeed an extremely evil, cunning, and cruel alien race. What was more, they even knew how to research and employ technology—like that multi-barreled Gatling they had used against Duanmu Huai earlier. Though it ran on steam and fired stones, it had actually worked!

If Ratmen were not innately cunning and chaotic, constantly fighting among themselves, they might have already invented airplanes by now!

Ratmen belonged entirely to the Chaotic Evil faction. They usually mingled with Evil God Believers and were essentially the Evil God's cannon fodder. They were skilled at poisoning, spreading plagues, and using a little technology. Overall, they were merely annoying fodder for 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, whereas the ones who had taken Elisa before were followers of the God of Tyranny. Though none of the Four Gods of Chaos were good news, they rarely cooperated with one another. It was far more common for them to trip each other up. No one knew whether the Ratmen's invasion of the city while the Brutal Cultists had seized the lord had been premeditated, or whether it was another case of the Chaos faction losing its mind out of boredom.

Kado's explanation also confirmed Duanmu Huai's suspicions. Several days ago, Elisa and her father had vanished while returning home. Naturally, this drew attention and unease from the others, and Christine, as the lord's wife, hurriedly sent people everywhere to search for them.

But at that very moment, as if seizing the opportunity presented by the lord's disappearance and the resulting chaos in the city, Ratmen suddenly poured out from the Underground Sewers and launched an assault on the entire city. Faced with these suddenly appearing monsters, Silver City's soldiers fought desperately while evacuating the civilians toward the lord's residence. Yet the Ratmen came with overwhelming force. Caught off guard, Silver City suffered severe losses, and only after several days did it barely manage to stabilize the situation.

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

"So, you want my help, right?"

Duanmu Huai was not an idiot. The other side had gone to such lengths to tell him all this, so they were obviously not just wasting their breath. Of course, as long as there was a quest, Duanmu Huai would not let it pass him by. It was not that he cared much about the experience. What he truly valued was the quest evaluation. If the evaluation was high, the system would randomly award all sorts of good things. It was basically like opening a blind box. Players simply could not spend money to pull cards; they could only earn one blind box after another by completing quests through sheer effort, then see whether they could get anything good.

Players had no principles. Give them a quest, and even if the reward was an iron sword, they could still help wipe out the other side. But if you gave them no quest, then no matter how pitiful your story was, what did it have to do with them?

"Yes."

Compared to Duanmu Huai, Kado seemed somewhat restrained. He was not a player and did not understand how players thought. He had heard about Duanmu Huai from Elisa and had been greatly astonished by his strength. Kado deeply respected someone who could fight Evil God Believers alone and even tear Demons apart with his bare hands. He had witnessed Duanmu Huai's power himself. Logically speaking, such a powerful being would probably be the Empire's highest-ranking guardian general. The fact that he was willing to help at all was already more than enough. If Kado made further requests of him... would that not be ungrateful?

If Duanmu Huai knew what Kado was thinking, he would have scoffed. What status did players have? Even if they became admirals, would they not still have to clean toilets themselves?

"No problem."

Of course, Duanmu Huai would not say that aloud.

"Striking at Chaos is my responsibility. Every hound of Chaos is my enemy."

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

"That is... wonderful!!!"