Several things happened at once.

The Cursed Rope crackled with electricity as it jumped through the air, zooming towards the nearest rat at the edge of the crowd, while that same rat scurried behind an unsuspecting man who was hunched over and eating barbeque, his eyes closed in pleasure. The rat's invisibility skill was still active, fluctuating as it moved.

From here, Logan could clearly make it out, but Logan's perception stat had to be higher than anyone else's. The soldiers around him couldn't see it—they could only see that his Cursed Rope was heading in that direction.

One second, the beat of a heart.

That's all it took.

The rat chomped onto the man's neck, digging deep and taking out a bloody chunk of flesh. The man dropped his barbeque and screamed, blood gushing in a spray, splattering the rat's fur. Wiggling worms detached from the rat's mouth and buried into the wound, viscera and muscles gleaming. The rat was still invisible to the others; the only sign of it the splattered blood stuck to its fur which could have just as easily have been a trick of the eye.

To the soldiers, Logan might as well have just attacked, using his rope as a weapon. They could only see the rope flying, hear a scream, and the sight of a bloody man.

Ah, fuck.

Logan had just enough time to take in Hawthorne commanding, "Men! Open fire on this fucker! And kill the flying serpent!" before he darted to the side as the soldiers unloaded on him. Logan's mouth was in a thin line, his emotions brittle as he used [Threshold Shift] to jump behind the soldiers. They ended up unloading on empty space, which meant that bullets that should have hit a solid surface—Logan—ended up grazing the soldiers behind him.

"Oh shit! Motherfucker! Ed, fuck, Ed!" said a soldier with bright red freckles, his face washed of color and his lips bloodless as he took in the man he'd hit in Logan's place.

The soldier had been sprayed with bullets, a look of stunned shock on his face as he fell to the ground with a grunt. Blood pooled around him, his stunned look turning to panic as he pressed his hand over his wounded leg, his fingers trembling. "You shot me!" he shouted. "You shot me!"

"We need a medic! Medic!" screamed Emily. And then pinning the stunned men with a sharp look, she said, "Snap out of it, man!"

"He's behind us!" said another soldier as he sighted Logan in his scope.

With a blink, Logan used [Threshold Shift] to jump again, this time slamming to the ground in the opposite direction, right behind the soldiers. The soldiers blinked, staring at the empty space where Logan had been standing.

Growling, Logan narrowed his eyes as he let loose every earned attribute, radiating his aura in a killing intent, using every inch of his power to make them come to their senses. "I'm not the enemy, assholes!" he said, his fingers in a white-knuckled grip around the handle of his sword. "Look around you!"

The soldiers staggered, gasping and panting, beads of sweat trailing down the back of their necks. Their rifles shook in their grips, one man collapsing to the ground to his knees. The highest leveled of the lot did their best to withstand the pressure around them, but Logan knew what it was like to resist something that strong. Back in Pied's Kingdom, against Pied's aura, it was like trying to overcome air compressing all around him; a feeling as if his eyeballs and eardrums were about to blow out.

Keeping his aura blasting, Logan scanned past the soldiers and studied the crowd. Before, he hadn't bothered to scan the perimeter or inside the crowd with [Life Fabricator]. After all, why bother when there was so much life it would be like looking for a grain of sand inside of a gulley? There was too much life here; the auras were too overwhelming.

That had been a mistake.

The rats were already here.

Not just one invisible rat, but hundreds, hundreds of monsters over level 80. Against a civilian population that was barely above level 10 at most, it was like ants facing scorpions.

More and more screams ricochetted through the crowd as the rats revealed themselves, chomping on the person nearest them. A senior with a cane lurched to the ground as a rat the size of a bear jumped on top of him, tearing into his face and swallowing down a chunk of his nose.

Logan didn't know where to look, who to prioritize first. There were so many rats attacking at once, hundreds—hundreds!

Twenty feet away, a man in shorts with barbeque sauce on his face shrieked as a rat the size of a racoon jumped onto his shoulders and then used its disease-ridden talons to slice through the back of his shirt, tearing out strips of skin and gobbling it down before burrowing deeper, so deep it had to have hit his spine.

Forty feet away from him, a larger rat's camouflaging effect dissolved, its long tail swaying from side-to-side as it dug into the ground with its talons, wiggling in excitement before it jumped on top of a young girl that had to be no older than ten—if that. A child that resembled Sawyer, with a pink streak going through her hair.

She didn't even have a chance to make a sound. The rat's body was so large that it engulfed the girl, covering her in a swarm of fur. A pool of blood spread onto the ground underneath them as a woman, presumably the child's mother, stared, her face washed of color and her mouth gaping. Then she let out a scream. A scream full of panic that turned into a scream full of heartache and pain.

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A child.

Those motherfuckers.

Logan felt rage swirling in his gut, his lips bared in a grimace, a vein on his forehead throbbing. He'd known the reality of their situation; it was an apocalypse, and when the System announced the daily purges, he'd known that children had been casualties. Hell, poor Jack had even lost his daughters. But until now, he'd never lost a child in a battle. Seeing such a stark scene was a shock to the senses, something that seemed unthinkable. Not with Logan here. Not when he could prevent it.

Hell no.

With a crackle of electricity, the Cursed Rope hovered in front of a feasting rat. Too many choices, too many choices, blasted the rope through Logan's mind. But too many rules!

Its tail flickered in confusion as it opened and closed its mouth, staring down at the rat. Logan's command to not hurt any of the people had turned it into a ball of confusion; every rat had simultaneously jumped on the nearest person, which meant that if the rope attacked, it could inadvertently harm someone and disobey Logan's command.

"Just kill them!" Logan snapped. "Casualties are inevitable."

The rope seemed to vibrate in excitement. Glee glee glee, it crooned as it jumped through the air with a crackle of electricity.

At the same time, Logan did the same. If the soldiers couldn't grasp the reality of the situation and continued to attack Logan, then that would be on them, but Logan wasn't going to waste time while the rats slaughtered innocents—children. Not when he could do something.

Grinding his teeth, Logan used his Pink Sock to jump over to the rat on top of the child, his rage like a living thing. He was so angry that he didn't bother trying to use his sword or his talons; no, the monster didn't deserve anything other than a hailstorm of pain in the most brutal way possible.

Switching his sword to his left hand, Logan slammed his fist into the back of the rat's skull, caving it in like he was crushing a watermelon.

Slam.

Slam.

Slam after slam, he pulverized it, bits of brain and wiggling worms flying as if he'd put it through a woodchipper.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 89 Sewage Rat!]

Logan disregarded the System message and flung the corpse away from the body of the child. Fuck. In the back of his mind, he'd been hoping for a miracle. For his eyes to have made it worse than what he'd perceived. But shit, there was no coming back from that. The child's throat was torn open, one shoulder completely gone, the white of bone showing from her ribcage.

As the mother got sight of the gory mess, she let out a blood-curling shriek and dropped to the floor in a boneless heap.

Logan looked up from her collapsed body to the scene of carnage around him.

People were running away from the rats, running in all directions. Some tried to hide in their tents or to escape to the wall, but for every one that escaped, another rat jumped on them, taking out chunks of flesh. They must have had their fill since instead of swallowing, they spat out bloody mouthfuls while their red eyes flashed with wicked intelligence.

Two rats got sight of a skinny man wearing jeans who let out panicked whimpers as he scooted inside a green, narrow tent. One monster shot the other a playful grin as it crept to the back of the tent with its tail flickering in eagerness. Its partner lowered itself to the ground and crawled towards the front of the tent like a cat getting ready to spring. The one at the back let out a squeak, purposely loud, and then used a talon to slash a hole through the fabric of the tent.

And while the man screamed in panic and shot out of the tent, the rat in the front sprung like a catcher with a mitt, its mouth wide open, its talons deployed, its red eyes alight.

The man didn't have a chance.

"Fuck," whispered one of the soldiers. "These things aren't just high leveled, they're smart."

The soldiers had switched their attention from Logan and were instead staring at the scene of carnage with stunned, bloodless faces, as if paralyzed by indecision.

Logan sneered, his rage only further agitated. These were professional soldiers? Logan knew he had gone through a lot since the System Integration; had killed more than his fair share and come out the trial a different man, but he'd been expecting better.

But to be fair, it had only been five seconds.

Up above, the soldiers on the wall started shooting, precision shots going directly into the back of the nearest rat's head. Two soldiers shot at the same time, drilling into the back of the rat. It shrieked, its tail flickering, and blood splattered, but it only turned and gave the soldiers on top of the wall a drooling grin.

So, they'd finally start to realize that guns and modern weapons weren't the answer against high leveled opponents. Oh well, Logan could at least give them points for effort.

"Soldiers!" growled Hawthorne. "Snap out of it! We need to form a protective barrier to give these people a chance. All soldiers on me!"

Fifty soldiers swarmed towards the general, using the wall at their backs to form a circle, while up above, the soldiers on top of the wall began making their way over, concentrating all their firepower in one area.

"General," said Emily, "we don't have enough men!" Biting her lip, she let out a shot at the nearest rat. This one was the size of another racoon and lower leveled, but the problem was that it must have thrown the majority of its attributes into agility, since it avoided her bullet and weaved behind fleeing people like a squirrel. Logan doubted that her shot had landed; and even worse, there were too many people around, making it almost impossible for them to use their weapons without spattering the civilians with friendly fire.

Emily was right. There were thousands of people; how many could fifty soldiers protect? Eventually, they'd gather too many civilians within their protective circle and be spread too thin.

Not to mention the other problem.

Logan had sensed a swarm of life underneath their feet, but the rats within the crowd had already been present. That hadn't been what he'd sensed. Using [Life Fabricator], he scanned underneath his feet, clenching his bloody fist when it pinged with too much life to count. But oddly, his senses kept pinging back and forth, from multiple pings to one massive radiating life force. Whatever was underground was still moving, so close it was barely five feet underneath them. But instead of continuing to burrow up, it had paused, as if wanting to spread as much as possible before revealing itself.

If these soldiers had any chance of surviving, they needed to move to an area with hard ground. Stone or concrete. Something that would make it difficult for whatever was about to burrow out of the ground to get through. Not dirt and grass.

But at this point, if they didn't figure that out themselves, then that was on them. He'd given them enough chances, enough warnings. Emily was smart, and might adjust in a pinch, but Logan had a different priority. Hell, these were his customers! He hadn't come all this way to finish his Build an Empire Quest only to have his customer base taken out right from underneath him.

It was time to grind. It was time for carnage.

It was time to kill the hell out of some rats.

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