The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 50.1 - Human versus Rat Part I (Patreon)

                                                                                          Alexander North

The spider and rat continue fighting for several minutes before the rat does something that makes my eyes practically bulge out of their sockets.

It actually controls the energy in its chest and manipulates it to move around to its right paw, where the energy begins to consolidate into some sort of spike where its paw used to be. The rat then rushes forward once again towards the spider whose eight beady eyes are locked on the paw before raising it and slashing down straight at the spider. But the spider queen doesn’t just sit there and take it either, as it suddenly begins doing the same thing by manipulating its energy towards its spinnerets, which immediately begins spinning webbing that forms an enormous cocoon around it in just moments.

“Holy fu-” I clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself from finishing my exclamation at the sight of the rat’s ear twitching. Despite that though, the rat doesn’t stop its approach and its spiky paw strikes at the cocoon, making a loud bang sound out throughout the tunnel, followed immediately after by a small shockwave.

I narrow my eyes at the two monstrous creatures before slowly beginning to back up several meters to find a spot to continue my observation a little further away.

Even after getting resituated in my new spot, the rat is still trying to force the spike of ice into the cocoon. But now a faint pale blue light is beginning to shine from the tip of the icy spike, following which cracks begin to appear in the cocoon.

Looks like the winner is decided.

A loud shattering sound echoes throughout the entire tunnel, making me cover my ears instinctively for a moment as the cocoon shatters into shards of icy thread while the rat’s icy spike continues its path straight towards the spider queen’s head.

In a last ditch move, the spider queen raises four of its legs, bringing two up to delay the spike while sending the other two straight into the rat’s chest, piercing its armor-like fur in the process. But the spike still manages to break through the first two legs, making its way straight through the spider queen’s head and into its brain as the rat finds itself coughing out chunks of bloody ice while suspended in the air by the spider queen’s legs sticking out of its belly.

I ready myself to sprint over there, just to stop when I notice the rat’s eyes still moving. It then rips out the spike and sends it around in a circle beneath it, breaking both of the legs impaling it and yanking them out through the force. The rat then falls to the ground while still coughing icy blood.

It’s still alive.

My eyes narrow even more as I tense up.

Several seconds pass with no movement from the rat outside of its coughing before I decide to climb to my feet. Just for an eggshell to crack beneath my foot, causing the rat’s head to jerk over towards me.

Shit.

It quickly begins to climb to its feet, ignoring the spider queen in the process despite the energy there being ripe for the taking, before slowly lumbering over to me.

“Terminal, check its current energy level,” I mutter quietly while getting away from the walled off portion I was at in the middle of several eggs that I was using as cover.

/ Alert \

Exterior energy source located.
Two energy sources identified as Frozen Ones.
The first has an energy level of 2.51, while the second has an energy level of 1.72.

\End of Alert/

The first one should be the spider queen, and the second one is the rat. Which means that I now have more energy than the rat. And with its injuries…

I grit my teeth for a moment, trying to decide if I should risk it or not, just for the choice to be taken out of my hands as the large rat suddenly lets out a loud squeal and begins full on sprinting over to me while completely ignoring its wounds. Pale blue blood immediately begins to pour even faster from its wounds during its run, and its breathing continues to get heavier and heavier by the sound of it.

So I draw my sword and begin stepping up closer to the large rat. But my eyes can’t help but gravitate towards the icy spike that was once its paw as it runs towards me a tad awkwardly.

That’s something to watch out for. Even if it’ll lower its mobility in the process.

It also looks like the spike has dimmed down quite a bit in terms of brightness. Which I think is safe to take as it’s not as strong without as much energy to put into it.

I rush forward, raising my sword to clash with the icy spike, and startling the rat in the process, just to maneuver out of the way of its attack at the last second, leaving the icy spike to crash directly into the ground. This sends a powerful tremor throughout it that almost has me tripping. But I manage to keep my footing before grabbing my sword’s handle with both hands and driving it straight into the rat’s side.

The blade lets out the sound of metal scraping against metal as my blade simply scrapes down the side of the rat without creating any wounds.

“Shit!” I swear, but right when I’m about to pull back, the blade reaches one of the dozens of wounds left behind by the spider and pushes its way inside a little bit, widening the wound in the process.

Okay. That I can work with.

Then the rat rips its icy spike out of the ground again and sends it flying towards me, swatting me far away and into the wall several meters down the tunnel with a grunt.

I cough out a mouthful of pale reddish-blue blood a second later before realizing that my sword is still in the rat’s side.

Right after seeing that though, the sword simply falls out of it as the rat begins moving towards me again. But when I look down at myself, I find a pale blue light shining all over my torso as broken bones work to fix themselves.

This’ll be a pain.

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