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“Squeak squeak!” (Stop, Walker! He hasn’t answered my question yet!)
The taller rat thrall grew more alert. He halted his companion and raised his rifle at Yang Yi.
“Squeak squeak!” (Talk! Who are you? Which squad are you assigned to? Who’s your captain?)
A string of questions followed, none of which Yang Yi could answer.
Even if he guessed one correctly, more detailed questioning would follow.
This was bad.
He had not expected his cover to be at risk the moment he boarded the Sanctuary ship.
Fortunately, he had played enough stealth games to know a universal solution: eliminate all witnesses, and stealth remains intact.
The same logic applied here.
Kill these two rat thralls. Leave no witnesses. But it had to be fast.
“Squeak…?” (Where did you even come from…)
The rat thrall was still speaking when Yang Yi moved.
He was faster than their neural reflexes.
With one kick, he sent the shorter rat thrall flying. The body slammed into the taller one. The impact was heavy enough to produce a sharp crack of breaking bones.
But that was not the end.
A Molotov cocktail followed immediately, igniting the surrounding area.
He did this to kill the small rats inside their bodies, preventing any from escaping to spread information.
And the elevator had not brought only these two. Several Settler Rats were lurking nearby, nearly blending into the environment.
Yang Yi’s keen sense of smell picked up their approximate positions. More Molotovs solved the problem.
By the time he finished, the entire floor had turned into a sea of flames.
He then fired the Roaring Flintlock twice, deliberately creating loud echoes.
By now, large numbers of Settler Rats and rat thralls were surely on their way.
That was precisely his intention.
If quiet infiltration was difficult, then he would infiltrate through chaos.
Blending in with a responding squad would be far less suspicious.
To make the attack convincing and avoid raising doubts, Yang Yi also poured out Drowned One’s Resentment into the sea.
The rats would assume he had summoned drowned creatures to attack them. A chaotic clash would make everything more believable.
Two minutes later, a Settler Rat tactical squad arrived. Twelve in total.
Their equipment was worn but functional. They stared at the burning area, emitting harsh squeaks.
“It’s that damned human again. They haven’t left. They’ve got a death wish.”
“Be careful. The one in black armour is extremely dangerous.”
“Let me handle it. I brought fire-extinguishing grenades.”
The assault trooper fired a grenade into the room. A blast of powder erupted, smothering a large portion of the flames.
He fired seven rounds in total. Two were duds, but the others detonated, extinguishing most of the fire.
“Two dead. Burned beyond recognition. No sign of the human. Stay alert.”
The squad leader scanned the area. A small rat darted out of his body and ran off, apparently to report.
The sniper moved to the breach, bracing his rifle against his chest as he aimed into the distance.
“Human vessel spotted. It’s moving away. Out of effective range.”
“They ran? Just came to start a fire?”
The squad leader inspected the charred corpses, but there was little to glean from the blackened remains.
At that moment, a grayish-white, bloated hand suddenly shot up from beneath the breach. It grabbed the sniper’s leg and yanked him down.
“No! Aaaah-!”
The splash and the scream drew the attention of every member of the squad.
Several gray, bloated hands grabbed the edge of the breach and pushed upwards, revealing seven or eight swollen gray-white heads, some still entangled with seaweed.
“It’s the Drowned Ones!”
The rat squad immediately opened fire, blasting the heads of the few visible Drowned Ones.
But more kept climbing up. The battle erupted, the sound of gunfire echoing continuously.
Outside the fray, Yang Yi watched quietly.
He was hidden in the damaged hallway of the lighthouse, ready to take advantage of the chaos.
From his vantage point, he could see countless Drowned Ones.
“So many of them?” he muttered in surprise.
The effect of Drowned One’s Resentment was to attract Drowned Ones. The more of them in the surrounding waters, the stronger the effect.
Below the breach, an enormous number of swollen corpses floated up, almost covering the surface of the sea, layered several deep.
The unlucky sniper who had fallen had barely squeaked twice before the Drowned Ones tore him apart.
These were undead creatures. Their flesh had long since bloated and rotted, carrying corpse toxins, making them immune to the parasites of Settler Rats.
Many Drowned Ones began climbing up the Sanctuary ship’s outer walls, gripping with their fan-sized hands, aiming directly for the breach on the second floor.
“So many!”
“This must be the humans’ doing!”
“My ammo’s almost gone!”
“Send for backup quickly!”
…
The firepower below immediately diminished.
Though the rat thrall squad had weapons, they were neither infinite nor perfectly reliable. Their guns were old, prone to misfires or jams. Only the beam rifles were reasonably stable and had large magazine capacities.
Soon, some Drowned Ones broke into the breach, engaging the rat thralls in close combat.
The ones following were essentially being pushed upward by those below, the sheer numbers were overwhelming.
Before long, the floor shook with dull cracking noises.
Yang Yi recognised it immediately: the Drowned Ones were exploding themselves in death. The blast radius was substantial, the impact considerable.
He stayed put, watching the chaos and waiting for the perfect moment to enter.
…
Fifteen minutes later, more rat thralls had joined the battlefield. Some were even forming “conjoined rat nests”, three or four rats fused together in abnormal postures, with multiple arms capable of handling several firearms simultaneously. Their firepower was intense, and their size massive.
The largest of these nearly blocked the entire hallway, formed by over a dozen fused rat thralls. Inside, an enormous Settler Rat was parasitizing the body, accompanied by several giant rats controlling the formation together.
The overwhelming firepower finally drove the Drowned Ones out of the floor.
After securing the breach, the rat thralls assembled two rotary beam cannons from parts nearby. They were aimed at the climbing Drowned Ones and the sea below.
The weapons fired rapidly, with heavy impact and adjustable angles. The Drowned Ones were swiftly obliterated and sent back into the sea.
Yang Yi, blending with the swarm of rats, stepped out openly from the hallway, holding his beam rifle. He joined the fight against the Drowned Ones, perfectly blending into the chaotic scene without raising suspicion.