Chapter Twenty-Three: The Swarm of Rats
"That'...... What the hell is that. ”
The Servant followed closely behind the Priest, who had witnessed Lorenzo's fall, but for a brief moment before that, Lorenzo had already put him under tremendous pressure.
In that desperate situation, the power is far beyond what ordinary people can do...... He couldn't help but think of the monsters that had once existed in the church, and they should have died according to the cleansing that night.
The priest was silent, and he walked away with determination.
Of course, he knew what the servants suspected, and he was even more vigilant and anxious, there were more monsters hidden in the old Dun Spirit than they had expected.
The priest didn't dare to think about it, he didn't even dare to be sure of his guess, and once that guess was true, he was targeted by that kind of monster...... Perhaps no one will be able to escape from this underground, and he can only deceive himself into speeding up.
But suddenly, a strange voice sounded from behind them.
They stopped, the tunnel the rat had dug not far from the nest, where they could see what was on the high platform, where they had just shot.
Then a pale sword plunged from the edge into the ground, and the man climbed up from under the cliff with the blade.
He failed to fall into the cistern, and as he fell, under the watchful eye of the informant and Camu, Lorenzo plunged his sword into the wall, and with great force he managed to stabilize himself and rise again.
Lorenzo looked at the tunnel, and the people in the darkness looked terrified.
"Hunting ...... The Witcher?"
The priest whispered with some skepticism, he had also witnessed the core power of the church, of course he knew that this extraordinary body would only appear in those monsters, but he didn't expect these monsters to be alive and still appear in the old Dunling.
But then there was a slight joy, sure enough, they were right, whether Lorenzo was a witcher or not, this extraordinary power must have already appeared in the old Dunling, and they were not mistakenly searching.
"Believers...... The time has come for dedication. ”
The priest stepped back slightly, his gaze like a blade, clenching his pistol as he looked at the servants around him.
Since the new pope took office, he has launched a purge of the evangelical church, and all opponents have been purged in a cruel and swift manner, and when they mobilize their forces to prepare for a counterattack, they find that the new pope has control of everything, and they are forced to flee with Cardinal Migar as the leader.
After a long confrontation, this became the first civil war of the Evangelical Church, and now that they got the news that Lawrence had appeared in Invig with him, this was their chance to fight back, once the new pope got them first, there was no chance to fight back, but again, they recaptured, then the new pope was no longer a threat.
He needs to live, at least bring the news back, and now that their faction has been cornered, this is the last chance to turn the tables around.
"Priest Jacques ......"
The servants looked at him in disbelief, with uncontrollable horror in their eyes.
"As martyrs, the glory still belongs to you. ”
Jager said calmly, and several people looked at each other for a short time, as if the inner strength had overcome fear, they nodded with difficulty, and then let Jager run away towards the surface.
They still have a chance to win, this tunnel is so narrow, they occupy this position to shoot, Lorenzo has no room to dodge at all, they can delay for a long time, and even say that they can evacuate safely.
Yes, there's no need to be so afraid, maybe Lorenzo is just surprisingly good? he's not a witcher, the witcher is long dead, and even if there are survivors, they won't be in this filthy rat's nest, right?
The servants tried to comfort themselves, and by this time Lorenzo had already gotten up, his body wet with mist, and water dripping from his smooth staff.
The damp clothes clinged to his body, outlining a black silhouette, and he hung his head half-down, like a scarecrow in a field.
His eyes slowly raised, and he briefly looked at the servants in the darkness, and the next moment the gunfire was like a starting gun, and Lorenzo ran wildly while the servants fired.
The staff and sword dragged out a miserable white arc of light, which was extremely dangerous.
There is an unspeakable sense of oppression in him, like a dead reaper, and when he decides to knock on the door, no matter what you do, you can't stop it, not even delay.
The flesh erupted with incredible power, wielding the staff sword with swiftness, and the iron slammed in the air, this was not a carefully crafted nail sword, nor was it the characteristic metal that purified the mechanism.
At the moment of impact, a small dent appeared on the staff sword, accompanied by Lorenzo's slash, and there was a gap in the sharp blade.
Several sparks erupted in front of him, and the staff sword cut it down accurately, the fire was fleeting, Lorenzo rushed into the tunnel in an instant, more bullets poured out, and it was difficult to turn around in this narrow space, Lorenzo couldn't swing the sword blade at all, and in the eyes of the servant, he would definitely die.
The bullets then fell in front of them, but the Servants' vision was dim as Lorenzo's entry blocked the light, but soon more sparks burst into the darkness.
They didn't dare to stop, they continued to fire, and they could hear the sound of metal crashing in the darkness, but in it there was a sharp sound of wind, and the staff and sword pierced through the air directly through the first servant, something was moving in the darkness, and his pace was swift.
"Fire, fire, don't stop!"
The muzzle fire revealed the position of the Servants, and most of them had to crouch down to prevent bullets from hitting them from behind, but soon the muzzle fire illuminated something that wasn't there.
It was pitch-black armor, and it didn't completely cover Lorenzo, it only wrapped around his arm, like a simple hand shield, and it was this shield that blocked most of the attacks in the darkness.
The narrow space didn't leave room for the swing to accelerate, but that didn't mean that the hand-to-hand combat was ineffective, as Lorenzo pressed one hand directly against the Servant's body, shielding him in front of him.
He thrashed Lorenzo hard, but it was only a feeble resistance, and more gunshots rang out, shooting the servant in front of him, and the bullets kept falling, and blood was spilling everywhere.
In this dark and closed environment, he was terrifying like a monster.
Picking up the staff sword on the corpse, Lorenzo continued to push forward with the servant's body, and when approaching the next servant, he directly abandoned the corpse, and the nail sword pierced out of the narrow space, piercing the servant's palm and nailing him to the spot.
"Promise me, will you stay here honestly?"
In the darkness, Lorenzo said to the Servant who had been pinned to his place, he was already frightened, Lorenzo was so close to him, but he didn't even have the courage to fire.
The remaining servants were nowhere to be found, fleeing in fear before Lorenzo arrived, but buying time for Jager had done so.
Lorenzo looked around, and he saw the priest as he approached the high platform, and he could tell from the clothes that he was the one who knew everything.
But now Lorenzo didn't know where to go from, there were many forks in the tunnel, and the priest was not a demon, so Lorenzo couldn't track him.
But at that moment there was a sparse sound in the darkness, and Lorenzo could vaguely see a large rat crawling out of nowhere, with a yellow chain hanging from its tail.
As if it had wisdom, it stopped not far from Lorenzo and headed again towards one of the intersections.
"So...... Metaphysics?"
Lorenzo couldn't believe it, but he kept up with the rat's route.
......
Outside the tunnel, in the rat's nest, the informant was standing on the edge, he looked up at the high platform that was long gone, although Lorenzo had been in it for so long, he still stared at it with a little palpitation and joy.
"Do you think that's what people can do?"
After a long silence, he said suddenly.
It was only him and Kamu, an alert group of the Bad Rats, who had already scattered and fled when the first shots rang out.
Camu knew he was asking himself, and he thought back to Lorenzo's incredible actions on the wall, and he was stunned for a long time before he spoke slowly.
"I ...... I don't know. ”
But after waiting for a while, the tipster suddenly laughed, he had collected too much information, and when these unnoticed gossip were integrated, they would be linked into a complete story.
But in it, the intelligence chamber gives the story a value, which he calls a "deviation value".
These stories are all related by him based on intelligence, so they will always be different from what actually happened, and in order to ensure that the logic of the linked stories is reasonable, he will allow some "deviations" from the stories he associates, or "corrections" to the actual reality, to fill in the loopholes in the story.
For example, Lorenzo just climbed the wall, if the tipster didn't actually witness this, he would have corrected it in order to make the story reasonable, such as the fact that there were many more footholds on the wall.
But such a correction is not too biased, for example, Lorenzo rushed again in a short period of time with a staff and sword, which in the story, this is too much deviation.
There is a lot of information in the minds of the tipsters, and they can integrate one huge story after another, but some of these stories are ridiculously biased, such as the shrike, such as Lorenzo, such as ...... Old Dunling.
He can detect the holes in these stories, and in order to fill those holes, he has to make unreasonable corrections to the original stories...... But that's the story, but what about the reality?
Is reality like this, and if so, what is the force that is correcting all this?
It would be a very terrible force, and this power was hidden in the shadows of the old Dunling, and now that the informant had seen it with his own eyes, this was perhaps the closest he had ever been to this secret.
Something was hiding in the shadows, and he was about to see it.
"The Rat King will be happy. ”
The tipster said that Kamu didn't know what was going on in his head.
"Stop!"
But then a voice sounded, and after fleeing from the desert, he made a great circle in the tunnel, and finally returned here, and he raised his gun to warn the two.
Camumu was terrified, he was just a poor rat who survived, and he instinctively obeyed and stopped where he was.
The tipster slowly turned his head and looked at the lost servant.
He had a smile on his face, but his eyes were full of pity.
"You're a bunch of unruly guys. ”
"Shut up!" the servant roared, "get me out of here!"
The tunnel was so complicated that he couldn't find his way out.
But the informant didn't pay any attention to the muzzle, and he continued.
"Although the lower city is chaotic, it is still bound by an invisible order, so everyone can survive in the chaos...... Breaking the rules is deathly. ”
The informant looked at the Servant, and then whistled, the voice was sharp and penetrating, and the Servant was about to fire a warning shot, but countless sharp voices echoed the whistle...... From the tunnel behind him.
He jerked his head back, something wriggling in the darkness, and the next moment they burst out.
That's a black wave...... Dead swarms of rats.
They swarmed to the sound of whistles, surrounding the Servant, seemingly harmless, baring their teeth and claws, repeatedly gnawing and biting on the Servant's body, he wailed in pain, firing frantically, but there was nothing he could do.
He struggled, but the rats kept jumping up, their teeth biting him hard, and under the continuous superposition, he could no longer stand, and finally curled up on the ground, covered with rats feasting.
The informant calmly walked away from him, blood flowing out of the dense rats, and from the exposed gaps, even the bitten flesh and white bones could be seen.
The screams began to weaken and turned quiet, except for the dense sound of eating.
Kamu was so frightened that he forgot to breathe, he never thought that the rats he played with at random in his hands would one day be so terrifying, and then he looked at the tipster.
The tipster only taught them how to train rats to relay information, but never taught them...... These murderous techniques.
The heart was beating violently, and perhaps at the slightest whistle, the rat swarm would roll itself up and eat it all.
As if aware of his fears, the informant said slowly.
"You are your own person, don't worry, I won't kill people. ”
I don't know if it was a lie or the truth, but at least it calmed Kamu's frightened heart a little, and the informant signaled to him.
"Follow me, the Rat King is still waiting for us......"
"Rat King?"
Kamu couldn't believe it, could it be that he really existed.
"Kamu, you've seen something you shouldn't see, then...... Either prove your worth, you deserve to be invested, or you are abandoned. ”
The informant continued, with a strange smile, and Camu was stunned for a long time, knowing that he had no right to refuse, and he followed.
The two of them stepped into the tunnel, and in the short time they had eaten, the rats scattered, leaving only blood stains and broken bones in their place.