8 Fierce and Unrelenting

"The Outerworld is a force that absolutely cannot be provoked," said Old Tom.

"We're in a constant struggle against them, us against them. Only one of us can live while the other survives."

"They sack and pillage our cities, they exist on a scale that people like us cannot hope to reach. That's why I know that my son is probably dead, but in the end, there is that slight chance he could be safe elsewhere, right?"

"There still might be a chance. Who knows? A lot of things can be possible. Your son could still be alive, no matter the odds," replied Eidiri, "and who knows? Perhaps there will be a day when we will be rid of the Outerworld as well."

"Ha you're funny kid," barked Old Tom, "well if you're going to go about that, then you may as well not get yourself killed."

He then points in a particular direction, "If you head about 12 minutes out that way, you should come across a field full of monsters that can give you some decent fighting experience. Do with that information what you will," he says as he turns around and leaves.

Following Tom's advice, Eidiri heads out in the direction provided and eventually comes upon a low field with outrageously sized rats, many of them fighting with each other over the corpse of what appears to be another human.

Not daring to recklessly confront such a horde, he decided to go after the stragglers on the edges of the group.

As he approaches the rats, their sharp snouts turn towards the air, quivering slightly.

Suddenly, their little, beady red eyes swiftly home in on Eidiri, their bodies eagerly running towards him, moving through the tall grass, almost like a shark going after its prey.

If he didn't pull something off, he would be drowned by sheer numbers. These Giant Rats were approximately Lvl 3, while Eidiri was still Lvl 2. Seeing this he decided to try to get them positioned so that they would hinder one another.

See, as witnessed before, despite the rats acting like a horde, they still lacked all forms of cooperation, making this endeavor many times simpler.

In their eagerness to slaughter him, they caused each other to stumble; with all of them wanting to get a taste of the fresh meat.

Seeing the rats bumbling about, Eidiri continuously kited them, running away and occasionally lashing out a fist here and there.

Luckily enough, the commotion caused by the fighting didn't provoke the main group of rats over at the corpse. If they were provoked then he would definitely have no hope for survival.

As he thinned out the group, one of the rats snuck up from behind him and bit his ankle, disrupting the rhythm he had set up as he cried out in pain.

This momentary lapse in concentration proved to be extremely detrimental as the rats rapidly overtook him, biting everywhere that was exposed.

Some of the more desperate of the rats even bit at the meager scraps of clothing he wore, gnawing away at whatever they could ahold of.

In a fit of panic, Eidiri wildly thrashed around, hoping to fling some off of him to free up some space.

Activating Fury Fist, his mana rapidly began to drain out of him. A bite to his face ripped off a chunk of flesh, leaving an aching burn that numbed his nerves.

As his legs flailed out, they began to lose their energy, weighed down by the opposing weight of several rats.

His fists still lashed out with a fiery vigor knocking rats away from him. However, despite his great efforts in pushing back the rats, they simply outnumbered him to such a large degree that whenever he would knock them back, more would simply take their place.

After knocking off the ones on his chest for another moment, another sharp pain swept through his legs, teeth marks absolutely littering his flesh.

With a tired grunt, he swung his legs around again, shaking the rats off and hurriedly crawling backward for a brief respite.

He couldn't stand, not in his condition, so the best he did was keep his back away from them and prepare his fists once more.

Predictably, they charged him again. His left hand batted away the first one, his right swinging at another immediately afterward.

At this point, Eidiri was at the dregs of his HP, anymore hits and he would be taken down.

It wasn't only he who had taken hits though, some of the rats were more severely injured so that a good punch would eliminate them from the equation.

The third and fourth rats were taken out as they got knocked into and trampled by the considerably smaller horde of rats.

An elbow thrown into this violent mix led to another one of the Giant Rats being taken out.

Slowly but surely the Exp from the rat slaying began to pile up to sizeable amounts, boosting Eidiri's level to 3.

This Level Up good not have been more opportune, as it added a little bit of extra health to him as well as enhancing his attacks to make that just a little bit stronger.

Tanking a couple of hits by raising his arms to shield his head, he then pushed outwards, sweeping 3 of them back.

However, despite the amount of punishment that he had dished out, the rats were relentless, still hungering for flesh and blood.

Their primal instincts surged upon seeing the weakened state that Eidiri was in, and in one final rush, they leaped at him.

"Stupid animals," Eidiri thought to himself as he simply just took a step to the side. The rats had no maneuverability in the air, and as they made their undignified jumps, Eidiri knocked them back into the ground one by one.

The imminent threat was over, the rats that been chasing him were over, deciding to get out of there as fast as possible, he carried as attempted to harvest as many of the corpses as he could.

From the first one, he obtained a small piece of meat, another one gave several coppers (presumably from its likeliness to collect random odds and ends, especially shiny ones), the drops continued onwards.

In the end, his life-or-death battle resulted in him obtaining enough meat to last for about a week, given that they weren't inedible or spiled and approximately 17 coppers.