nownovels Chapter 46 Encounter Battle
Chapter 46 Encounter Battle
Tenor quickly transformed, but the bullets that hit him failed to penetrate; instead, they were deflected and shattered by the scales.
He then noticed that the "machine gun" was firing particles of some kind of green stone—dimensional stone? He knew that; it was a crystallization of some kind of chaotic magic—like radioactive uranium.
Those dimensional bullets were powerful enough to deal with lightly armored units, but they were still too weak against Tenor, who had undergone multiple mutations.
The overwhelming specks of light were either blocked by the dwarven rune shields or struck the armor of the outer clan warriors, rendering them completely ineffective.
The runic crossbow twanged, and the gunman who was laughing wildly was shot through the throat on the spot. Before another ratman could take his place, he was also killed by an arrow.
The strange gun fell to the ground and exploded upon contact, scattering green light and smoke.
And this was just the beginning; many blood-red eyes lit up.
They were fearful and timid, but as more and more rat-men gathered, their weakness disappeared, replaced by wolf-like greed and arrogance.
They numbered in the thousands, while the enemy numbered only a few dozen.
"Tenor!" Gotley called out to the lizardman, slapping the axe blade.
He seemed to understand something, and instead of rushing alone into the tunnel where the enemy situation was unclear, he took advantage of the gap left by the clan warriors and entered the heart of the formation.
He had a good view here, but he didn't feel protected—given the difference in elevation, the dwarves' shields only protected his feet.
However, at least he wasn't fighting alone, and he didn't have to worry about an assassin attacking him from behind.
The restless, bloodshot eyes converged into a sea of red, surging out from tunnels in all directions.
Rat people, a dense swarm of rats, so dense it's nauseating.
They wore no armor, were completely naked and dirty, were so hungry that they were nothing but skin and bones, and were thin due to malnutrition.
Even the most well-off ratmen only have a piece of cloth and hold either a wooden stick or a kitchen knife they picked up from somewhere—these are the most luxurious weapons.
The gray tide surged in from the four tunnels in all directions, without any formation, more like a desperate and frantic mob being driven away. Two engineering apprentices took out the Molotov cocktails they had made and threw them into the left and rear tunnels as the rat swarm approached.
Flames exploded, and frantic screams and cries of pain echoed through the pipes, filling the air with the stench of burning flesh and the aroma of meat.
"Theoretically, it can seal this tunnel!" Engineering apprentice Glendy said with considerable pride.
However, even after he finished speaking, the burning ratmen continued to move forward.
This is not a fearless charge, but rather the painful escape forced upon them by their own kind who cannot turn back.
The effect was the same as a charge; these ratmen crashed into the dwarf's iron wall much faster than their undisturbed counterparts.
Some of the ratmen, who were leaping and bounding across the walls, almost jumped over the dwarves in front of them, but three or five burning rats were all knocked away by Tenor's stick mid-leap.
The corpse fell into the swarm of rats, and the hungry rodents pounced on it in a frenzy. In the blink of an eye, only a bleeding skeleton remained, and then even that skeleton was dismantled.
"Hungry! Hungry!" came the hysterical howls of some of the ratmen who failed to get any food.
"These slave rats are disgusting!" Tenor heard the dwarf butcher complain.
The butcher swung his rune axe, splitting the ratmen that had come flying down from above in two.
Blood and intestines dripped onto the heads of the clan warriors below, but they did not complain. They simply used their shields to hold back the frenzied rat horde and occasionally retaliated with their one-handed weapons.
"Gotley, I thought you were used to it." Tenor didn't even turn his head, focusing on smashing the ratmen away with his burning sword. It has to be said that with their cooperation, the battle had become an easy task.
"Aha, the 16th one! Big guy, let's see who kills more!"
"Keep it up, Southerners! I haven't even fought alongside you yet!"
"I'll never get used to these filthy things!"
The three Gottries answered Tenor almost simultaneously. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Gottry Bardinson directly behind him, flanked by butchers he had only met a few times, all also named Gottry.
With the length of his weapon and his height, Tenor could easily protect either side. His tail was a whip, and his hands were long war clubs. Any ratmen who tried to jump into the fray were either killed by the butcher or whipped into a pulp by him.
"I can kill 16 ratmen in a few breaths." Tenor had no intention of competing with the dwarves, because counting was difficult.
"I counted the big ones for you." Gron, the rune apprentice, was probably the youngest dwarf present, only in his thirties. "117...118, my God! If only I could prove myself like you!" Gron said with genuine admiration. He activated the runes on his lantern, and the dwarfs and Tenor, illuminated by the light, moved much more gracefully.
"Master Adum said I was a useless stone and swore he wouldn't teach me anything more until I forged a Master-level defensive rune. That rune saved many dwarves from elven arrows during the War of Revenge, but I still can't forge a perfect piece worthy of a Master-level defensive rune." He dejectedly activated the wheel at his waist. As the rune lit up, any ratmen that stepped within ten paces suddenly slowed down considerably.
Ternor's slaughter was much easier; "I actually find you quite useful."
A clan warrior at the front also spoke up in a muffled voice, "If Adum can create a Master-level defensive rune himself, then his test of you will be justified."
Experienced dwarves know that any equipment inlaid with master-level runes is what humans call "artifacts," and not every rune blacksmith can forge such a work.
Flesh and blood piled up at his feet, the corpses gradually rising higher and higher. Slowly, Tenor noticed something was wrong—the ratmen looked increasingly desperate and crazed, not only towards the dwarves and lizardmen, but also towards those behind them.
They seem to live up to their name, being nothing more than slaves and cannon fodder.
Two or three more ratmen carrying machine guns appeared, but before they could fire, one of them jammed and exploded, killing the slave rats who couldn't dodge in time. The remaining two managed to fire, but as soon as the green flames appeared, they were spotted and killed by the crossbowmen who had been watching the anomaly.
The dimensional bullets killed a large number of slave rats, but due to the limited range, only a few actually landed in front of the dwarf shield.
A thrower mixed in with the rat swarm attempted to throw some kind of explosive, but was pulled out by the crossbowmen and fell halfway through.
This caused great harm to their "comrades-in-arms," because their explosives were obviously extremely unstable, and the first to be wiped out when the poison gas exploded were the rats in the passage.
The dwarven lines became an insurmountable barrier. Even humans, after such a futile assault, would despair, and a rout was to be expected.
But when a group of slave rats collapsed, throwing down their weapons and screaming, "Die! Die!" as they charged toward those behind them, they were quickly and easily killed by another group of taller ratmen, at least equipped with iron weapons, from the shadows.
"The giant horned rat is watching us!"
"We're ready! We're ready!"
The ratmen then rushed towards their opponents, whose strength had been depleted by the slave rats.
"The battle has begun?" Tenor looked at the rabble with suspicion. For ordinary people without supernatural powers, this was indeed a troublesome enemy, but only because of their numbers.
"Just a bunch of clan rats," a dwarf warrior replied dismissively.
Both the dwarves and the lizardmen could afford to fight; they could continue for several more days and nights. Tenor even believed that without being alienated, they could remain safe thanks to the dwarves' cooperation.
Fighting them is not fighting, it is slaughter.
A cold, ammonia-smelling gust of air swept over, and the lizardman's excellent senses alerted Tenor that some kind of large creature was approaching.
The strange sounds of hooves slamming on the ground and metal scraping became increasingly noticeable. The clan rats, who had just been full of fighting spirit, became clearly flustered. The clan rats in front noticed the commotion coming from behind and tried to avoid it in a panic.