101 The Six Steps

The giant lion was already almost out of strength, he was receiving more damaged than he could inflict, and that did not bode well for us. But we were ready, a cursory nod to each other and the plan was placed into motion. Since Nisi was around, we had to use her expertise and control over earth, and from the assurance she had given us, there was a possibility that her involvement would make this a whole lot easier for everybody.

I had Magellan stay back, as the rest ran towards the giant rat, with Teluna at the forefront. Nisi was a lot slower given her diminutive figure, but she was able to keep up by turning the earth beneath into sand athat she used to slide towards the rat. I looked on with clenched fist and a pounding heart as I said.

"Step one: Status Ailment: Blindness!"

All of a sudden the giant lion jumped away from the rat, putting quite a bit of a distance between themselves as he turned and brought his head to the ground covering his face with his two front paws.

The rat was startled by the sudden actions of Lowen the shadow beast, which gave Teluna enough time to appear and throw a rock at it's face. The rock was thrown higher, making it arc through the air till it was positioned a few feet away from its forehead and placed well enough that it's eyes could see it.

Then the rock broke apart, and as soon as it did so, a bright light was released with a muffled bang. Thankfully by that time we all had our eyes closed, but even then, my eyes could still feel the burn from behind my closed eyelids. The rat screeched in pain as it was robbed of it's sight.

This was my own very own specially concocted flash grenade. As a lawyer back on earth, I have had my own fair share of run ins with the police and quite a number of special task force that dealt with criminals. In fact rather than say I was a lawyer, you could say I was a prosecutor, or a lawyer who mostly prosecuted. If that made sense.

Anyway I was in the sacrum realm, which afforded me the ability to make rune phrases. I had just weaved my soul rune [ BREAK] together with the ordinary rune [LIGHT]. Then it was just a matter of infusing intent and having the activation and execution of the [BREAK]serve as a timer and activation for [LIGHT] which I had made sure I amplified with everything I had.The effort drained me, but I was rapidly trying to pool soul energy, absorbing it from the residues in the air, by the time all of the steps were completed, I should have enough for one last massive weaving.

The light disappeared after lingering for about three seconds. Since its job was done, it was now time to move on to the next step.

"Step two: Status Ailment: Slow".

The next step was entirely up to Nisi as the two feet tall gnome went as close as she could to the rat, and slammed her tiny palms on the ground, causing a ripple over the earth that moved and flowed towards the rat.

Then this ripple expanded and encircled the rat,before sinking back into the earth. Almost immediately for a diameter of about 80 meters around, and about fifteen deep, a sinkhole appeared. Of course it was not so deep that it would completely take care of the rat, by suffocating it to death, but it was going to help us slow the beast down for the coming stages.

The rat let out a screech as it began to sink, it struggled to drag itself back out of the sinkhole, but all of its attempt were futile, since it couldn't see, every movement it made just wasted more energy than it had to spare. It roared and trashed, and almost immediately we could hear resounding roars from the tower behind us.

What was left of the elite stone rats had heard the cry of their mother, and it seems they were coming to her rescue. I felt my heart skip a beat, I had completely forgotten about them, and if we don't hurry up, everything that I had put in place would be completely jeopardized. I looked up in time to see that the next step was about to be implemented.

"Step three: Status Ailment: Paralysis."

Kodak and Gus had place themselves on both sides of the still struggling giant rat, they looked like ants compared to it's massive bulk, but I just hope they had enough power and resources for the next step.

A massive wave of blood rose up, both brothers were draining blood from the thousands of boneless rat corpses littered around us, from my first attack.the amount of blood they had floating over the rat was insane, it was like looking at a tidal wave made with blood, and blood alone. But such an action was incredibly tasking for the brothers, so they hurried it up.

They brought the blood waves crashing over the frame off the rat, turning it into many individual strands of blood whips that wrapped around the frame of the rat, securing and trapping it in the sinkhole. By now I'm sure the damn rat would have already discovered that the sinkhole was not that deep, and only half of its body was stuck into it. But with Kodak and Gus restraining her, her options should be quite limited.

But I was not so stupid as to underestimate my opponent's strength. That thing did not just have size and speed, I mean for God's sake it's a rat. But it also had an impenetrable defense and a very powerful skill. And I would be foolish to think it only had one, so I had to make sure that against all odds, that beast remains where I want it to be.

"Step four: Status Ailment: Petrification."

Nisi was up again, and this time she performed wonderfully as she encased the trapped lower half of the rat in solid earth by turning the entire sink hole back into a solid slab of earth that kept the entire rat completely secured. I was pushing every single person here past their limits, so I had to pick up the pace, and hopefully everything went according to plan.

The giant rat opened her eyes, and glared at the people who had trapped her, then she opened her massive jaws and the giant silver spell circle appeared again. I knew exactly what was going to come next, I had anticipated and predicted it. Which was why I could not help the smile on my face as I called out the next step.

"Step five: Status Ailment: Mute!"

Teluna appeared out of thin air and stretched his hands towards the rat. A transparent black barrier appeared over it's head and rapidly shrunk it size until it had snapped the rats mouth shut.

It's breath attack was instead released inside it's own mouth, and the ensuing explosion was quite gory to look at. Even though it was being restrained by blood and earth, a section of its abdomen was blown off, as blood and guts rained over the hard and unforgiving earth.

But even then it was still alive as it trashed and slammed it's head down on the ground, breaking the barrier around it's face to pieces, but in the process also dislodging a few of the it's spikes. It swung a claw at Teluna, but his Shadow beast Lowen, was there to deflect it by swing his own paw backat the rat's.

Even though it was considerably weakened, and would probably be dead in about fifteen minutes or so, it still had enough vitality left to kill us all and then some. And the Dungeon core still stuck on it's forehead was another unknown variable that I was not sure we could beat. We had to try harder.

The rat was now actively struggling and was making it's way free of all the traps I had set off around it, the stampeding sound of its rapidly approaching comrades seem to have given it a burst of strength and confidence, and I knew in no time at all, that beast would be free to rampage and pick us off, well most of us anyway. Teluna and Magellan should be quite capable of escaping due to the fact they were Shadowers. It was now or never.

I turned to Magellan and gave him a nod, I was still healing from all of my previous wounds, and I still couldn't move much by myself. This next and final step required the element of surprise since we only had one shot at this. And at the rat that was rapidly breaking free of it's restraints, my window of opportunity was quickly closing.

I turned to Magellan and nodded my head to him, he noddedback with a smile, looking like the uncle I never had...….well I had an uncle in my past life, but he was only ever interested in how long he could have sex with my mother before my father got home, so no; you could say I never had one. Don't have the best impressions about uncles though, but Magellan was cool.

He placed his hands on my back, and I felt a very cold sensation come over my body. I opened my eyes to see a world in twilight, stuck between that time of an evening stroll, and the perpetual darkness you experience at midnight and beyond. I could see figures of varying shapes and sizes, the smallest would have been as tiny as an ant, and the largest was a huge as a mountain, moving and living. This was the shadow realm.

But my vision and the cold feeling that accompanied it only lasted for a moment, before I was thrust back into a world of heat. It was like moving from the arctic all the way to the Sahara in but a moment.

I appeared ten feet above the neck of the giant rat, exactly where I wanted to be, falling straight down with a speed that was too fast for her to react to. And just before my hand touched the base of her neck I spoke out, it was more for my benefit than anyone else, but I felt the need to say it out loud.

"Step Six: Finisher: [BREAK!]"

And then my palm, with my finger tips glowing with soul energy, touched the neck of the giant metallic rat that I had dubbed Mama Ratzilla.There was a crisp breaking sound, or more like the kind of sounds you would hear when a metal rod is bent.

It was so loud that it sent vibrations all over my body. Magellan who was still holding on to me, traveled to the shadow realm and out again in but a moment, placing me back on the throne Nisi had made from earth. The others had already made their way back, by having Teluna teleport them back instantly the moment step six was put into motion.

This was a part of my plan as I had wanted them to be able to escape if step six had failed, seems like there's no need for that anymore. The rat was stuck in the moment for a while, but then together we all watched as it's huge body fell to the earth with a bang, and this time I knew without a doubt, that bitch was staying down.