The hungry Thorn Rat had no idea why it had come to this unfamiliar territory; its peanut-sized brain simply didn't have the processing power to think about it.
But its instincts told it that it hadn't eaten anything in the past three days of day and night cycles, and now every part of its body was howling with hunger, especially the spot where it had just been injured.
It needs nutrients, it needs food, it needs to eat!
Where is the food?
The Thorn Rat, its eyes bloodshot with hunger, was about to tear at the surrounding wooden building materials when it was suddenly startled by the trembling ground.
It smelled a familiar scent, looked around, and saw a huge fish head lying next to it.
As a native land animal, the Thorn Rat has never eaten fish.
But it knew that this was exactly what it needed.
Without any hesitation, the Thorn Rat leaped up and burrowed its entire body into the cracked gills of the frozen fish, then began to devour it from the inside out.
In less than a minute, the Thorn Rat had eaten the entire fish head.
Its body quickly recovered to its best condition, but that wasn't enough.
More shattered fish pieces fell around it, but unfortunately, countless of its own kind also fell with them.
What you eat is what you truly own.
The Thorn Rat hissed menacingly at its hungry kin ahead, then resumed its feast on its new piece of fish.
The defeated Thorn Rat could only drag its badly injured body to find new food.
However, it was not easy for its weak body to find a piece of fish meat of its own. While this unlucky Thorn Rat was scurrying back and forth near the cathedral looking for food, no one noticed that the first Thorn Rat that had eaten its fill and started to plunder its own kind had begun to undergo physical Aberration.
The originally streamlined body began to develop into a spherical shape, and the tail of the Thorn Rat, which had some characteristics of thorn branches, began to grow real barbs, and its overall length also began to increase.
With a powerful flick of its tail, it pierced the body of a passing Thorn Rat.
The barbed tail pulled the Thorn Rat closer, then forcibly merged with its tail.
The Thorn Rat was evolving into a spherical shape, let out a shriek that was not of its own species. After a brief moment of stunned silence, the surrounding Thorn Rat rushed towards it as if they had lost their minds.
Countless Thorn Rat slithered toward the individual that had emitted the shriek, wrapping their tails around the fat rat's body.
More and more Thorn Rat joined this glorious evolution, and on this snowy New Year's night, a " Rat King " was born!
The newly born Rat King is only the size of a normal person, and its overall shape is more like a hemisphere than a sphere.
However, the continuous influx of Thorn Rat caused the group to gradually transform into a complete sphere.
Finally, after a Thorn Rat joined the group, the newly born " Rat King " gained the ability to roll.
It's time to start looking for food.
Because of the birth of the Rat King, there were still many frozen fish scattered around that had not been eaten. The huge ball of flesh began to roll and quickly crushed the food.
The Rat King's foraging and fighting methods both involve rolling. As it rolls over things, every edible or inedible item will be nibbled on by any rat that happens to pass by.
Under such tearing action, like a high-speed angle grinder, even steel would find it difficult to remain intact under the Rat King's attack.
The unstoppable Rat King quickly devoured all the frozen fish in the vicinity.
Mice have a very keen sense of smell; they quickly located the area where prey was fresher and more concentrated.
The cathedral next door.
The hard stone wall blocked the rats that only wanted to walk in a straight line. Even with sharp teeth that could bite through steel, the Thorn Rat were still unwilling to gnaw on the stone wall whose thickness they could not determine.
The Rat King began rolling along the outer wall of the cathedral, and after a few minutes of effort, it arrived at a doorway.
The materials used for the gate of a Tree Worship Church are obviously of high quality.
It is made of wood.
At this moment, the priests inside the cathedral were in complete chaos.
They had never heard of a Rat King, nor did they think that such a large city as Fir City would have such a large number of rats.
Soon, a composed elderly priest became the backbone of the group, choosing the safest course of action on their behalf:
To deliver a message.
As long as this matter is reported, everything will be alright.
A priest, widely recognized as the fastest runner, was chosen, and the crowd gathered around him, chattering amongst themselves:
"Quickly, go to Lord Antiya Lisi's private residence first, then go to the nearest military camp."
The priest was somewhat flustered by this situation:
How should I put it?
"What else can we say? Let's tell the truth: it's a rat infestation! A serious rat infestation!"
"But we have no idea where all these rats came from?"
"That's why it's a rat infestation. We can't even find the source, and we're already surrounded by rats. Isn't that terrifying enough?"
"... It seems that's really the case."
The chosen priest nodded, turned and walked towards the stairwell, but after just one glance, he froze in place, and then began to carefully back away step by step.
The priests in the corridor immediately began to curse and swear upon seeing this:
"Why aren't you leaving yet? Hurry up, what if a mouse gets in?"
The priest who ran the fastest turned his head and revealed an ugly smile:
"They're already in."
The next moment, in everyone's sight, a huge ball of flesh, nearly two people tall and composed of thousands upon thousands of rats, rolled out of the stairwell little by little.
The priests fell silent in astonishment...
After a brief, almost paused silence, the priest, whom everyone had temporarily regarded as their leader, suddenly flicked his wrist, and two thumb-thick wooden arrows shot towards the fleshy ball in front of him.
"Whoosh!"
Amidst the screech of wood scraping against flesh, dozens of rats were pierced through by the blow, dying instantly before they could even utter a mournful cry.
But this did not hinder the Rat King's rolling advance in any way. The rats around the wooden arrow quickly began to gnaw on the foreign object, not only gnawing the wooden arrow into wood chips, but also not sparing their dead companions.
Wood chips, hair, and bits of flesh and blood...
Amidst this accumulation of things, the Rat King steadily approached the priests.
In the face of life and death, the priests, guilty of their own sins, had no time to consider who was Pure Ones and who was Stained Ones.
If we're still dividing into factions now, at this rate, we'll all soon meet in the Rat King's stomach.
Every attack that could be used was unleashed at this moment, raining down on the Rat King in front of them as if it were free.