"Don"t make a move!" Gold shouted at Flame Ripper and Sebastia through the System Channel, making them to stop at their tracks. "Meomi had decided to do this without your co-operation, and you should respect her for that."
"But isn"t she?!" Flame Ripper controlled his anger and frustration for a while, and later silence ensued. He knew from the random arena instance fights that Meomi had been trying hard by herself, struggling with various cultivators and sometimes against two cultivators herself.
In a one to one fight against the Demon Rats, she would completely annihilate them, but this is not even a group but a horde of them! Not to mention, all of the rats were carrying steampunk enhancements on themselves. Also, the rank and file were equipped with basic weapon and armour equipment enhancement that would boost their strength.
Gold also said that these Demon Rats were born from crops ranging from food to even weapons. How could Meomi possibly fight against all of them without their help? Was Gold really going to call forth Keyrin to finish the entire two battalions of Demon Rats rus.h.i.+ng against her? There was also the issue of the forest where she shot her Sniper Whip Rifle from.
Keyrin, the Thunder Ram Demon could not possibly summon a thunderstorm that pierces the lush forest"s emergent layer of the canopy to fight and support her. No matter the combination, Flame Ripper could not think of any way that Meomi could emerge this from all this.
"Our Lady fired the first shot!! Attack now!!" A sudden high pitch squealing was heard the top of the forest and suddenly multiple, if not dozens or maybe up to a hundred pairs of eyes shone through the blackness of the woods. All of them were gazing fiercely against the horde of Demon Rats and tens of arrow shots flew abruptly across the forest.
The surprise attack caused the demon rats to halt their advance for a while and Meomi took that as an advantage to attack the first few of the Demon rats. With just one swipe, the rats in front of her turned into mince rat meat. The rain of arrows did not cease, though none of it hindered Meomi"s furious charge of attacking the Demon Rats.
Some of the Farm Rats immediately went into formation and brought their guns out to shoot where the arrows were coming from, but they felt like they were shooting at some shadow of the forest. "Hahaha, they think those metal projectiles of theirs could hit us." A tiny low pitch voice cheerfully said as the rain of arrows came from another direction which the Demon Rats did not expect.
As the rats were frantically shooting and shouting into emptiness, Meomi continued her onslaught systematically. With each kill she performed, the rats felt that she was more confident in her attacks as well as stronger and faster.
They were not wrong.
Because of her efforts and constant pestering, Jin had decided to give her a few extra upgrade cards when he turned Grade 8. One of which was called Catzerker Fury. Each time she killed an opponent, she would have a slight boost in stats momentarily. The boost was an addictive effect and it continued to add up until a maximum stack of 20.
Unless the System was seeing things, it observed that Meomi had long exceeded the 20 stacks of Catzerker Fury, hitting almost 40 stacks and counting with each additional rat she kills. It was a unique phenomenon that the System could only believe that the werecat was pus.h.i.+ng the limits of the upgrade card herself. The drive to decimate the Demon Rat race was driving her more than expected.
"System will not be surprised if werecat Meomi voluntarily evolved without any trigger." The System rea.n.a.lysed Meomi growth as it continued to observe her reckless fighting.
With her increased stats from Catzerker Fury, her regeneration rate increased too. However, she still had to endure the constant pain inflicted from the Demon Rat"s stabbing, shots and slashes that she received from all sides of her body. As long as it was not a vital wound, she continued to fight with heightened ferocity. That was why she was thankful that her increased regeneration abilities of the werecat were able to keep up with her battle tempo.
Seeing how the Demon Rats fell quickly from the attacks of the merciless werecat, they decided to bring the big guns out. (The ones that did not require much time to activate.) A mobile steampunk tank like cannon mounted on a modified Demon Rat who was two times taller than Meomi.
Like all of the steampunk enhancements, this mounted tank cannon was heavily reliant on Litorde ore as its ammo. The bullet was charged with Litoride, and the explosion radius was at least ten metres according to Flame Ripper"s observation and calculation.
If she was the only visible target, take her out first. It did not matter to the rats if there were some friendly fire. To them, more can be created with mere crops by their saviours, the Scholars of the North and South, so that was not an issue. After which, they could proceed to remove the hindrances in the forest and burn the entire forest if required.
A Demon Rat loaded the bullet into the mounted cannon and tapped on the Ogre sized Demon Rat to fire. However, instead of shooting to the intended target, the sh.e.l.l exploded right in its face, causing the demon rat on its shoulder to suffer the backfire, eventually dying from it.
Meomi knew it was aiming at her , so she already had thrown her Sniper Whip forth, causing it to wrap around the cannon and crus.h.i.+ng the barrel. Therefore it was unable to fire as intended when the Ogre Demon Rat pulled the trigger.
However, the backfired explosion was not enough to kill it, merely allowing it to suffer third degree burns throughout its body. Even the arrows seemed like they were just poking him. Meomi, who was busy fending off a continuous attack against the Demon Rats, knew that she was obliged to take that Ogre Rat down as soon as possible so she can take a proper breather.
Thus, she summoned out her Gun knuckle and equipped it on her left hand. The modified gun knuckle wrapped around her hand similar to a power gauntlet, comparable to what Xue Ping, the Prancing Puma cultivator had used.
Using a storage inscription charm, Meomi summoned an attachment for her gun knuckle, and a rocket booster attachment appeared on it. Doing what a rocket booster should do, the gun knuckle roared extremely loudly, violently pulling Meomi along with it towards the Ogre Demon Rat.
The Ogre Demon Rat was not stupid enough to let it get punched by Meomi, so it raised its arms out like an "X" cross to block the attack. However, Meomi smirked at such foolishness. With a pulse of slight magic coursing through her veins and into the storage inscription charm of the gun knuckle, the rocket booster disappeared, and now a spinning drill attachment was on the gun knuckle.
Meomi pressed on the knuckle"s trigger, causing the drill to spin with high power while she delivered a barrage of bullets at the Ogre Demon Rat. The drill contacted with the burnt arms of the Demon Rat and it pierced through it effortlessly. Meomi thought it would be an easy kill…until she noticed it slightly late.
The Ogre Demon Rat originated or…mutated from a Venus Flytrap crop plant. Therefore, its mouth grew larger in size, waiting to snap at the delicious incoming werecat. "Heh, I am a werecat remember? My senses already told me you had something up your sleeves." Meomi made an excuse as her tail ring glowed and suddenly she was able to evade in midair, avoiding the snap of the Flytrap mouth of that demon rat.
After which, Meomi readjusted her sniper whip as well as changing the mode of the rifle into one of the modifications her dear fellow werecat had installed previously.
A flamethrower.
Not just any ordinary flamethrower but a flame breathing device capable of the savagery equivalent to Mr Hot"s wyrm flames and its sheer volume which it spits the fire was nearly the same as two breaths of Wyrm Ant Father Hot. After Meomi evaded above the mutated Venus Flytrap mouth, a click from the rifle produced the flames of destruction to flush the life out of the Ogre Demon Rat as well as the surrounding rats.
"Woah! Lady Meomi had such an interesting device!" Another cheerful squeak was heard from the above the trees as if they was being encouraged by Meomi"s actions to press on harder. True enough, the arrow shower did not stop and was even more accurate.
At this time, some of the Demon Rats were scuffling back to base, hoping to sortie in their different steampunk machinery so they could take on the ambush they encountered in the forest. But someone was not giving them any chance while Meomi fought at the frontlines.
"Do not think you can escape alive from desecrating my home with your filthy presence." Keyrin stood majestically at the top of the cliff with storms brewing above him, and coincidentally he appeared just a few metres away from Flame Ripper. In his fury, multiple blue orbs swiftly appeared in front of the Demon Rats and their pieces of machinery. As they were entranced by blue orbs, several bursts of lightning struck their camp base, damaging the steampunk machines in one go.
It caused the Litoride in those steampunk machines, those tanks and helicopters to explode, causing multiple fires to spread throughout the camp base. Being an Avatar of Fire, Flame Ripper could not standby idly when he saw that he was able to help out without making too much of a presence.
He whispered a minor enchantment which caused the flames to be under his control temporarily and moved them at will, burning anything flammable. Thus, allowing the fire to grow stronger as well as ensuring that the rats die within the flames and smoke too.
But Flame Ripper had another objective. He made sure the flames did not burn the commander tent down, and that was when Sebastia made her move. She knew that there would be vital information and went ahead to see if there was anything worthy to retrieve.
In the heat of the moment, the Demon Rats did not notice the quiet female minotaur maid pa.s.sing through all of them while gathering any possible critical information. Of course, there were occasional Demon Rats that seemed to enter into the tent for safety, but they were killed immediately by her unusual technique of coin tossing. (Seems like Moloch was not the only one who was good with "magic" tricks.)
"I threw all the doc.u.ments I can find in the storage ring," Sebastia said as she made her way out of the tent and fled into the darkness of the cliffs, allowing Keyrin to unleash his rage full force at the base camp for defiling his home territory.
The Farm Rats realising that this was a coordinated attack of some sort had decided to retreat tactically to inform of such powerful rebels existing to other battalions. Else, at least report that Keyrin was not dead at all. With the numbers, some had decided to split the angry rat mob fighting against Meomi into several groups to increase the chance of survival.
However, Meomi did not let them off…or to be more specific, her lackeys. While those Demon Rats were attempting to escape, several figures jumped off the forest canopy and hunted the retreating Farm Rats. Flame Ripper took a closer look at them with his binoculars and realised that…they have a rather small build.
Despite those small builds, the figures aimed precisely at the Demon Rat"s vital points, killing them mostly with just one blow.
"Mousefolk or weremouse. They preferred the former as it sounded less stupid." Gold said as he appeared right beside Flame Ripper. Not just him but the entire group of Werejackals appeared via the portals.
"Hmmm let"s just say they are the subjects of Lord of Ording Town which my dear departed friend had once saved. If I say that Meomi was the daughter of the dead Lord, things should make more sense to you." Gold nodded his head lightly, and the werejackals behind him jumped into action, including Nyanmi.
"Since they have no magic, we better make sure all of them die so that they cannot report anything out there. I am counting on you, Demonic Sage Queen, Peppers." Gold said as he jumped down, transforming into his werejackal form midway to fight against the Demon Rats.
"I am surprised you accept to help us." Flame Ripper knew how superior the Bellators were and they were in no way answerable to the monsters that Jin had captured. "…unless Master Jin sent you here to aid us."
"Nah, I owe this little scholar a small favour for something he did for me. That"s all." Peppers said as she plunged her staff onto the top of the cliff and initialised her area wide search magic.
"No rat will run from my prying eyes of magic, be it under or above ground." Peppers said as she smirked wildly.