Pain

Aldrich turned towards his next opponent and attacked first. His sword slash aimed for the husk's knee the hit broke the knee of the husk. The husk responded by a stab of it's own but it was too late.

The husk attacked even as it fell down. The spear managed to break his leather armor and graze his left shoulder. He kicked the unbalanced husk down.

The spear flew out of its hand. Aldrich finished it of with three strikes. Turns out decapitating someone wasn't as easy as it sounded in the stories.

Aldrich collected his orbs and advanced upwards and on the staircase. The moment he set foot on the second floor and arrow lodged itself in his abdomen.

Shit.

Aldrich rolled to the right before the second arrow shot through his eye. This was bad. An archer who can see in the dark while Aldrich can't.

Aldrich felt chills up his spine before he rolled over but he wasn't fast enough. The hammer got him in the knee. The feeling of breaking bone was horrible to behold. In what seemed like a moment of twisted divine retribution.

A bad predicament could become even worse. The archer had a melee partner.

Aldrich used his position on the ground and grabbed the husks legs. With a mighty push the husk was felled to the ground.

Aldrich climbed over it and another arrow hit him in the back. Aldrich ignored the pain and took the husks own hammer to break its skull. *crack* Turns out breaking a skull was a much easier alternative.

After which he picked back his sword and immediately rolled to the side barely missing an arrow aimed for his head.

Aldrich breathed hard. He got beaten up but he learned something after taking this beating. The position of the archer. The advantages the archer had over him was the distance and visibility in the darkness and the fact that it was hidden.

Now the archer had lost one of them, he had to take a chance. Aldrich sprinted towards the archer hiding in the dark.

His face kissed the floor in a violent collision.

His knee. It was broken. Funny thing is as he fell down he heard an arrow whistle where his head would have been.

Aldrich hurriedly placed his shield over his head and the impact of the arrow on his shield numbed his hand.

Aldrich didn't know what to do, he was in a seemingly hopeless situation. The barrage of arrows didn't stop and his hand was about to give in despite his increased strength.

His endurance was still at one.

Think. Think.

Aldrich threw his sword at the position of the archer. A move that the archer had not expected, it jumped away but otherwise remained balanced. Aldrich had yo try something else.

He took the chance and jumped using his right leg and jumped once again thankfully he crossed the distance. Then, using the edge of the shield he smacked away the archer's bow. Sending it flying in the air.

Aldrich fell down at the archer's feet, the archer stomped on him once, twice but Aldrich caught the third and twisted its leg until it fell to his level.

Aldrich punched and broke the husk's nose with a crack. The archer was evidently weaker than him. Much weaker. It was back to an old fashioned fist fight.

It was finally down after Aldrich broke it's neck with a chilling twist.

Aldrich took the time to check on his knee and cursed at the sight of his broken knee. Maybe if he had better endurance it wouldn't have broken so easily.

Aldrich stood back up albeit with difficultly. Aldrich started stabbing the husks corps randomly out of anger. This pissed him off to no end, and the pain was on another level.

After calming down he collected his spoils of war, four essence orbs. A meager amount for all the trouble he went through. Luckily the archer had a coin pouch strapped to his belt so at least he got a little extra.

Aldrich picked up his weapons and decided to retreat back to the base. He could clearly hear more husks in the house but he was in no condition to fight anymore.

If he found first type husks then he could easily dispose of them, that would be lucky, but if he got tangled with another fight like the last one he could only die. In the first place that's why he wanted a base so he could retreat and recuperate when needed.

Aldrich walked the deceptively empty streets alone with a heavy heart. Being delayed here means that his overall plan would be delayed. Although the streets were empty, by no means were they quite.

Aldrich felt like he was stared at by hundreds of thousands of eyes. Ever since that deafening roar he felt that something had change however that change was not over yet, that was only the trigger.

Soon something terrible will happen and the only way to be ready for it was to become stronger and to do that he needed more essence orbs.

Suddenly his attention was attracted by the sound of footsteps around the corner. Aldrich stopped all movement. He listen closer. The footsteps grew closer and higher in number.

Technically he had better vision now with the fog being thinner, but he didn't see anything. Aldrich suddenly lowered his eyesight and saw it.

It was a horde of white-furred mice running through the streets heading somewhere he couldn't see. There were thousands of them running in almost soldier-like discipline. Like a marching army.

These mice would have been no different from normal mice if not for the human hand growing out of the end point of their tails.

The hand had five fingers some had right hands and some had left hands. The nails of said hands were yellowish green and most were broken and jagged.

Aldrich was pressed against a wall and trying his best to be part of the wall. As he was observing the endless flow of mice he remembered his encounter with the giant roaches.

The giant roaches were very weak and yet they each gave him an essence orb, what if these mice were the same? This was an inconceivable number of orbs. With such a number of orbs wouldn't he just be able to end all of his problems?

Aldrich gulped. Not only were these mice small they were also not bloodthirsty like the giant roaches, skinned dogs or husks. They haven't charged at him madly despite him being so close.

Aldrich used his eyes of insight on the mice and a name appeared on the mice's head. Ahuizotl. Another weird name but he wasn't going to change it this time.

Chance.

This was undoubtedly a chance to make it big. Aldrich didn't hesitate any further, he raised his sword and slammed it down on the endless stream of mice.

The blow was so powerful and brutal it directly crushed four or five mice. This elated Aldrich, his theory wasn't wrong about these Ahuizotls, they were by far the weakest monster in the nightmare realm.

But his elation didn't last long as the endless stream of mice came to a sudden and abrupt stop. The mice closest to the sword jumped and climbed over the sword's edge with extreme speed.

Aldrich backed away and punched the Ahuizotl in time sending it crashing on the nearby wall. It exploded into blood and gore at the impact.

Aldrich didn't have the time to celebrate as the countless horde of mice charged at him from everywhere. Aldrich was bigger and stronger but he found himself helpless against tens of mice climbing on his body scratching and biting.

Without any warning multiple mice sneaked under his leather armor. Aldrich realized his folly and attempted to run except he forgot about his broken knee and fell down.

Again he felt a chill at his feet, he looked and found the mice had torn his boots and dug into his feet with their saw-like teeth. Aldrich screamed at the top of his lungs.

The mice started eating his flesh with hunger. Aldrich tried to get up but there were tens of mice eating at his every part, his legs and arms his face and even his hair.

Aldrich suddenly felt an even more violent pain that for a moment he forgot about everything else. It was one of the mice that sneaked under his armor, not that it mattered since the armor was torn to shreds already.

Somehow Aldrich mustered the strength to raise his head to see that a mouse had dug a hole in his abdomen. It's white fur was now red with his own blood. Aldrich wailed desperately.

Another one of the mice pocked his left eye socket. Slowly, very slowly with the sound of crunching and munching everything turned to black.