NOVPUB
Chapter 377: 377
The tunnels became a claustrophobic nightmare. The thick webbing caught at the ratmen’s feet, slowing them down. Fungal lamps were snuffed out by hybrid scouts, plunging the tunnels into near-total darkness. The ratmen’s heavy breathing and the relentless skittering of claws were the only sounds.
One by one, the ratmen fell.
The ratmen team regrouped in a narrow junction of the tunnels, their backs against the rough, web-coated walls. Steam hissed from their rifles as the whirring of gears echoed in the confined space. Skrag barked orders, his gauntlet’s pilot flame illuminating the determined faces of his comrades.
"Hold this ground! Make them pay for every step!"
The hybrids came in a wave, their chittering claws and glistening fangs a nightmarish blur. The ratmen fired, the steam rifles releasing sharp bursts of superheated mist that seared through the air. The first wave of hybrids fell, their carapaces hissing and cracking under the scalding onslaught.
"Push them back!" shouted one of the engineers, cranking the lever of his shoulder-mounted steam cannon. A jet of boiling steam shot out, enveloping the tunnel in a thick, scalding cloud. Screeches of pain echoed as the hybrids retreated momentarily, their momentum slowed by the brutal defense.
But the hybrids were cunning. From the ceiling, one dropped silently onto a ratman who was reloading, its fangs sinking deep into his neck. He screamed, flailing as the creature dragged him upward into the darkness.
"Focus fire on the walls and ceiling!" Skrag roared.
Steam-powered exosuits hissed as ratmen shifted their aim, their rifles and flamethrowers spraying streams of heat and flame across the tunnel. The hybrids responded with ferocity, darting in and out of the steam cloud, using the terrain to their advantage.
One hybrid lunged at Skrag, its claws aimed for his chest. With a snarl, Skrag activated his gauntlet’s flamethrower, engulfing the creature in a torrent of fire. It screeched, thrashing wildly before collapsing in a smoldering heap.
"Cover me!" shouted a scout carrying a bulky contraption—a makeshift steam bomb. He dashed forward, ducking under a hybrid’s swipe, and slammed the device onto the tunnel floor. The bomb hissed and sputtered, releasing a pressurized blast of steam that filled the tunnel with scalding heat.
The explosion sent hybrids reeling, their exoskeletons blistering under the heat. For a moment, the ratmen cheered, believing they had turned the tide.
But then, another hybrid descended. This one was one of the first to descend to teh underground.
The monstrous hybrid dropped from the ceiling, its massive form crashing down with a bone-rattling impact. Its many eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, and its mandibles clicked menacingly.
The ratmen opened fire, their weapons focusing on the hulking creature. Steam jets and flame licked its carapace, but the Alpha advanced, seemingly unfazed. With a swipe of its massive claw, it shattered one ratman’s exosuit, sending him flying into the wall with a sickening crunch.
"Fall back!" Skrag ordered, his voice desperate.
The ratmen retreated, leaving behind their fallen comrades and broken machinery.
The few survivors staggered into an unfamiliar cavern, its walls pulsating with a sickly glow from the hybrids’ nest. Cocooned ratmen corpses hung from the ceiling, and the ground was littered with eggs and carcasses.
At the center of it all was the Alpha, descending slowly from the ceiling on a thick strand of silk. His grotesque, arachnid form towered over the trembling ratmen, his multifaceted eyes gleaming with cruel intelligence.
"Welcome," he rasped, his voice a guttural, mocking echo. "Your service to the nest begins now."
The hybrids descended upon the remaining ratmen. Screams echoed through the tunnels, but they were soon drowned out by the sounds of feeding and the wet, tearing noises of construction as the hybrids expanded their nest.
Back in the bustling ratmen city, life continued as usual. The loss of the scouting team was noted but dismissed as mere bad luck. "More teams will be sent," they thought, "better equipped and more prepared."
But the hybrids were patient. There was no need for haste. With each skirmish, their numbers grew, and their nest expanded.
It wasn’t until several teams failed to return that the ratmen began to notice something was truly amiss. The hybrids weren’t as simple or mindless as they had initially assumed.
For more than two weeks, no team sent out to locate the hybrids had returned. No reports or insight into the enemy had been obtained. Even when a specialized group was dispatched to recover the bodies or retrieve the steam-powered technology left behind after the attacks, they found nothing—only the steadily spreading white spider webs that marked the hybrids’ territory.
Meetings were held in hushed tones, with nervous glances exchanged among the council of engineers and warriors.
"They’re not coming back," Skrag’s second-in-command muttered during one such meeting, his voice low but firm. "None of them. We sent our best, and the tunnels swallowed them whole."
"But where are the bodies? The tech?" an engineer piped up, slamming his spanner on the table. "Hybrids are beasts! That’s what the mages said. They don’t have the brains to wipe out entire teams without leaving a trace!"
"Then these aren’t just hybrids," Skrag’s second-in-command growled, his eyes dark with dread. "They’ve adapted—or worse, something else is controlling them."
The room fell silent, the weight of his words sinking in. Finally, one ratman managed to muster the courage to speak. "Maybe we should contact the mages again. This has gone beyond what we can handle."
His suggestion was met with scornful gazes, but beneath the contempt was a flicker of caution. Others had likely entertained the same thought but were too afraid to voice it.
Chief, the ratmen leader, slammed his fist on the table, silencing the room. His sharp glare bore down on the one who had spoken.
"I want to make one thing clear to everyone here," Chief growled, his tone resolute. "We can’t go crawling back to the mages. Calling them after rejecting their initial offer would ensure we’re treated as less than slaves by the Empire. We already declined their help once. To ask again would strip away what little power we have left."
He leaned forward, his voice low and threatening. "Our only option is to deal with these hybrids ourselves. No in-between."
Looking directly at the ratman who had suggested contacting the mages, Chief added, "This will be the last I hear of such talk. Anyone sowing fear among us will face the consequences. Instead of dwelling on the impossible, we should be discussing how to eliminate the hybrids."
The council room fell into a heavy silence, the weight of Chief’s words pressing down on everyone. The ratmen seated around the table avoided each other’s gazes. The flickering light from the steam-powered lantern cast long, twitching shadows on the walls, amplifying the tense atmosphere. Chief’s authority was absolute, though the growing fear in the room was palpable.
"Fine," the second-in-command muttered, breaking the silence. "But we can’t keep sending teams to their deaths. We need a real strategy—a way to flush them out or hit them where it hurts."
Unbeknownst to the council, their meeting was being observed by Gurnak, the mage, through the eyes of an informant. Chief was absolutely correct—if the ratmen called for help now, the Empire’s response would be far less lenient than their first offer.
But what troubled Gurnak wasn’t just the hybrids’ growing strength. His city now felt like a mine on the verge of collapse, and he could do little about it. He could divert his forces to confront the hybrids, but he knew that was exactly what the demon king—or queen—on the other side of the Abyss portal was waiting for.
If Gurnak divided his attention, a full-scale Abyss attack could overwhelm his city, making its fall all but certain. He had no idea how many high-tier demons the enemy commanded, and the Empire’s high-tier personnel were already stretched thin, preoccupied with the strange attacks from another Abyss portal.
What made this particular demon king’s assault so unnerving was its predictability. He attacked twice a week, leaving the battlefield eerily quiet in between. Yet, despite the apparent simplicity of this strategy, the mages remained deeply uneasy. They had even deployed most of their high-tier forces to monitor this portal, fearing the demon king’s unknown plans.
Rumors circulated that the Empire was preparing to push through the Abyss portal to confront the demon king directly. Whatever he was planning, they feared it would cause catastrophic damage if left unchecked.
Gurnak rose from his seat and appeared in a secluded chamber within his tower. The room was a grim spectacle, strewn with the dissected bodies of ratmen, each meticulously cut for the purposes of deeper research.
His attention turned to a glowing green liquid, contained within a large, transparent tank.
The Empire had long studied the ratmen and their contributions to the war. While their technology showed promise, its overall impact on the battlefield had been underwhelming. Though there was interest in how ratman engineering might evolve, the Empire had grown impatient for results. They sought a decisive solution, one that could turn the tide of battle.
