Bait

In the same way the rat tide had been learning as time passed, Kris had also been learning more and more about it in return, and it was inevitable that he noticed a few things.

First was the nature of its consumption and how it grew.

The rats seemed capable of eating anything. Rocks, trees, other animals, and even the energy that made up his chains.

Moreover, his chains were, naturally, quite good, so they were especially appealing to the rats, and as the source of the chains, he was deemed the most 'tasty' thing in the vicinity, hence their focus on him.

Following that, they seemed to have an uncanny ability to sense what was around them and what was good to eat. This sense seemed to extend even through physical matter, as Kris had tried a few times to stick his chains underground to set traps, but the rats always noticed and ate them.

Then, there was the nature of their multiplication. Somehow, the nutrients of whatever they ate seemed to get transferred to the rat king, regardless of how far away the rat that ate was. When these nutrients reached it, it would somehow use them to multiply itself to create more rats, and this process wasn't slow in the least, as it could pump out hundreds of rats in a dozen or so seconds with ease.

The rats in the swarm weren't the same, either.

Some were bigger than others, some were faster, some ate quicker, some were more perceptive, and so on. No rat was quite the same. However, what was the same was the way they all acted in relation to the rat king.

Kris had judged that the entire swarm was one big hive mind, a suspicion he confirmed when he sensed the biosignals of the rats on a wider scale.

All their nerves had one source, and that was the rat king. It was the brain, and the swarm was the body. As such, it could use the entire swarm to defend or attack on a whim.

So, with all that said, how exactly does one kill such a foe?

Fighting it head-on wasn't an option as the swarm would just eat anything Kris threw at it, and fleeing would only work for so long. Moreover, again, the swarm keeps growing. So, the difficulty is constantly rising in real time.

So, at a glance, beating such a foe seemed impossible for Kris, at least, at his current level.

But he would beg to differ.

Those things weren't all he'd noticed, after all.

For starters, while the rats had impressive sensory abilities, they weren't omnipotent, and there was still a limit to how far they could sense.

Furthermore, inasmuch as they could sense things through physical matter, it was still worse than sensing things through air. In short, their senses were slightly muddled in the ground.

This was important, as while they liked eating his chains, once more, HE was their primary target, so if something was far enough away that they couldn't sense it, they would leave it and only go for him.

The rats were closer now. The distance between them shrinking to only a few hundred meters.

They'd slowed down, probably wary of his next move. But Kris didn't move.

'Not yet.'

It was strange, really. He didn't have many experiences with rats before now. He knew them, of course. They were one of the many creatures that people thought were unique to earth before the Bestowal, only to be found in numerous other life-sustaining world across the galaxy, particularly well known for their propagation.

However, they weren't known for their intelligence, so it was strange to see them act with such caution.

Kris also wondered where they came from. After all, a swarm with such an insatiable appetite should have been quite notorious around this place, but even the other creatures he'd encountered seemed shocked by their appearance.

Had they simply been dormant? Waiting for a truly 'nutritious' meal like Kris to come around?

Were they even native to this planet at all? Or had they been planted here by the school as a sort of special 'boss' monster they had to deal with?

So many questions, not a lot of answers... Not that it mattered, not now at least.

They were almost upon him now.

Oddly enough, outside of his ability to sense biosignals, it wasn't the sound that reached him first.

It was the smell.

Rats weren't particularly well known for their hygiene, and a literal ocean of them? Well, let's just say it's not very pleasant.

Still, this meant that they were very close.

But Kris still didn't move. His expression didn't change, either. He simply looked like a tired boy trying to catch his breath, unaware of the looming threat.

The cliff side was shaking a bit now as the rats dug their way through. Now, all that remained was a few dozen meters, and they would reach him.

It was eerie. Not too long ago, it was impossible not to hear how the vast tide moved through the forest, scuttling and eating through everything in their way to reach their target.

But now?

Silence pervaded the forest.

A hive mind indeed.

Kris felt the electricity in the nerves of the large creature that was the tide shift in the familiar way that meant muscles were tensing, like they were ready to pounce, and Kris slowly opened his eyes.

Then, the rats moved, and so did he.

All of a sudden, the numerous fuzzy bodies moved as one. The ones in the mountain moved first, their teeth tearing through stone as they emerged from the cliff. At the same time, the ones at the bottom swarmed forward, covering all sides and preventing Kris from escaping from any angle.

He could use his chains like springs again, but the tide had gotten even larger now. It was doubtful that he could truly escape its reaches with his mobility.

Not that he planned on running again.

The world seemed to slow down for a moment, and he took a breath as everything came to a lull in his mind.

The vast network of nerve signals was like a massive web to him, pulsing and humming chaotically, but also with an eerie rhythm as all their sources traced back to one thing.

'Now.'

Kris clenched his fist, and everything fell.

There was a brief tremor through the ground, then everything started to sink and fall down.

Within a large area around the mountain Kris was on, like a massive sinkhole had suddenly appeared, the integrity of the surrounding earth gave way and began to descend rapidly.

One might ask why Kris chose that specific mountain to rest on.

His answer?

Well, other than observing the behavior of the rats, he hadn't just been running around all this time. Instead, he'd been putting what he learned into use.

Especially the knowledge about their senses and proximity.

Kris never truly tried to run away. Instead, he kept moving in a wide circle, keeping the mountain as the center.

Why was he doing this?

Well, as it turn out, when Kris creates his permanent chains, being able to track them isn't all he can do.

No.

He can still control them.

Moreover, due to them being permanent, unless he actively injects energy into them, they are pretty much inert, so there is a lower chance of the rats finding them through a solid medium.

All this while, he'd been driving his chains deep into the ground for miles, going through layer after layer until he reached what he was looking for.

Theresa said that the reason there was so much greenery on Naraka despite the lack of oceans was due to a vast underground ocean beneath the surface. However, that's not all that was there.

Using his chains, he was able to detect something.

A massive underground lake. Only, the lake wasn't made of water. No.

It was lava.

And the mountain was right above it.

While the rats chasing him was tiring, it wasn't truly enough to make him so exhausted.

The reason he was so tired is because he'd periodically use his chains which he had spread out in a large area to slowly carve through the ground. Careful to only inject energy into them when the rats weren't paying attention.

As such, for the past couple of hours, Kris had been slowly carving out an entire landscape for his plan and used himself as bait.

To draw in the large tide to fall into the lava lake.

As soon as the ground gave way, Kris immediately noticed the nerve signals change, and the rats tried to start retreating, but that's also when he moved.

He didn't care about the lesser rats. Those weren't his targets.

No, his target was the rat king. It's what he needed to kill the most, so he absolutely could not let it escape.

There were about 10 seconds before they reached the lava lake. So he had to prevent it from escaping in that time.

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