Rat Tide

What a strange ability...

Lin Dong watched silently, but he had no idea where the culprit was.

The two people on the street gnawed at each other, blood pouring from their bodies as their life force grew weaker and weaker. Before long, they both collapsed.

The two living people had actually bitten each other to death!

An ordinary person would probably be scared out of their wits at such a horrifying sight.

Just then.

A pitch-black figure crawled out of a street-side sewer, squeaking excitedly as it ran toward the two corpses.

It was a huge rat, the size of a wolfhound, its fur black and thick. Its two front teeth were sharper than daggers.

It tore into the two bodies with relish, greedily chewing their flesh.

Clearly.

It was the mastermind behind it all. A mutated beast that had condensed a Crystal Core, capable of controlling people's minds. It was also the Rat King of this area.

I wonder... what a mutated beast's Crystal Core tastes like...

Lin Dong had hunted a mutated Two-Headed Wolf before, but that wolf had only been at the Brain Core stage. Even so, it had already tasted quite good.

So, he began eyeing the Rat King's Crystal Core.

Although the huge rat was eating, its mental power was formidable and its senses sharp. It seemed to have noticed someone watching it.

It hurriedly turned its head and looked over, only to find a human figure atop a tall building!

"Oh? It found me?"

Lin Dong raised an eyebrow.

One man and one rat, separated by a hundred meters, stared at each other.

For a moment.

Their eyes met.

"Squeak—squeak squeak—" The rat suddenly became agitated, a savage gleam radiating from its dark-red pupils.

At the same time, a faint black mist drifted from its body and floated toward Lin Dong.

Its mental attacks had an enormous range.

But compared to Lin Dong's Corpse Domain, it was utterly insignificant. The difference between them was like heaven and earth.

A red glint flashed in Lin Dong's eyes as his domain unfolded!

The Corpse Domain spread outward.

The wispy black mist was immediately blasted apart, melting away like ice and snow. It could not get anywhere near him.

"Squeak—"

The rat's nostrils twitched, and it was clearly frightened.

Its gaze remained fixed on the figure atop the building.

It was as though it had seen a king who ruled the world, feeling an incomparable pressure.

Rats were naturally highly sensitive to danger. During natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, snakes and rats were often the first to sense them.

At that moment, the huge rat sensed the aura of death drawing closer and closer.

So it abandoned the two corpses.

Then turned to flee.

"Trying to run?"

Lin Dong leaped down from the high-rise and landed on the street. He moved with incredible speed, shooting more than ten meters away in the blink of an eye.

Like a ghost capable of blinking through space.

A few hundred meters passed in no more than a breath.

"Squeak—squeak squeak—"

The Rat King let out a shrill, piercing screech that echoed throughout the entire street.

Squeak squeak squeak squeak—

Lin Dong immediately heard rustling beneath the dirt under his feet, accompanied by the rats' cries.

Then countless rats poured out of the sewers, densely packed and pitch-black, like black fountains.

The rat horde erupting from the manholes immediately surrounded Lin Dong.

Not only that, rats came racing from the streets and alleys as well, converging from every direction as if rushing to rescue their king.

"So it was calling its underlings..."

Lin Dong stood alone, surrounded by a tide of millions upon millions of rats.

The rats varied in size. Some were as large as dogs, others as large as cats, and their levels of evolution differed as well. Yet all of them were incomparably ferocious as they charged at their enemy.

But Lin Dong's Corpse Domain was powerful. Any rat that entered it exploded nonstop like a watermelon smashed by a hammer.

Though the rat tide was fierce, a vacuum formed around Lin Dong. They simply could not get close.

Yet the rats were not afraid of death. They continued charging like moths flying into a flame.

Lin Dong had completely transformed into a meat grinder.

Chunks of flesh flew around him, blood spraying everywhere. Within a few breaths, corpses had piled up layer after layer.

Everywhere he looked, above and below, there were rats!

Lin Dong focused his gaze and discovered that the original Rat King had slipped into the horde. He had no idea where it had gone and had already lost track of it.

"This rat isn't easy to catch..."

Lin Dong swept his gaze around and suddenly spotted a huge rat sprawled atop a bus stop by the roadside. Its eyes were half-closed, its tail swaying leisurely as it watched him with an amused, mocking expression, its provocation unmistakable.

"It still dares to provoke me?"

Lin Dong was certain it was the Rat King, so he immediately charged in that direction.

But the rat was not flustered at all. It leaped forward, dove into a nearby sewer, and disappeared into the rat tide.

Lin Dong lost track of it again and could not lock onto it at all.

He had already begun to sense that something was wrong. With the Corpse Domain fully expanded, he could only maintain it for around twenty minutes, and two minutes had already passed.

If this continued, his odds of winning would not be high.

Just as Lin Dong was thinking, the huge rat appeared again. This time, it was lying atop an abandoned carport, watching Lin Dong with that same amused expression.

Lin Dong was just about to chase after it.

But the huge rat used the same trick again and fled once more.

Meanwhile, the endless rat horde around him continued surging toward Lin Dong like a tide.

Clearly, the huge rat wanted to wear him down until he died!

Lin Dong considered giving up. Once the Corpse Domain ran out, the rats would swarm over him.

Although their sharp front teeth could not break through Lin Dong's defenses given the strength of his body, creatures that lived in sewers were simply too filthy.

Lin Dong did not want to end up covered in rats.

Most importantly, without the Corpse Domain supporting him, it would be even harder to hunt the Rat King.

"With my abilities, I can't guarantee a hundred percent success in this hunt either."

Lin Dong thought to himself.

But that hateful huge rat appeared again.

Just like before.

It lay atop a trash can, squinting as it watched Lin Dong provocatively.

This time, Lin Dong had no intention of catching it. Instead, he planned to use the remaining time of his Corpse Domain to leave this area and come back to kill the rat when he had another chance!

But just as he was about to give up.

A sudden change occurred.

The previously bright sky abruptly darkened as a massive shadow enveloped the area overhead.

"Caw—caw caw!"

Miserable crow cries came from afar.

Mixed among them was a distinct bird call.

"Hello, good person..."

"Oh?"

Lin Dong looked up and found a huge crow circling above his head. It was the one he had fed before.

It seemed to have come to help him.

The Red-Eyed Crow stared at the rat tide, its ferocious gleam undiminished and its killing intent fully exposed. Then it let out a piercing screech.

Tens of thousands of crows in the sky all dove downward.

Their bodies were like cannonballs as they plummeted at high speed, their sharp beaks easily piercing through the rats.

The countless crows had actually helped Lin Dong block the rat tide!

Seeing this, the huge rat atop the trash can lost its leisurely demeanor. Its nostrils twitched as it fumed with anger.