"Did they really think that they could escape from death?" A man wearing a black robe on top of a Giant Rat Monster chuckled. "Well, this is at most a prey's struggle for life before the hunter takes its life. This is also a form of entertainment."
After finding out that the entire town of Bradford had been abandoned, the man didn't even bother ordering the monsters to loot whatever that was left. Instead, he ordered them to pursue the townspeople to the closest town possible.
What he came here to do was cause a massacre. He needed to do it to spread fear and anxiety to the surrounding towns and villages in the Southern Regions of the Empire.
Judging by the scent that still lingered by the roadside, he could tell that the people had left not too long ago. Traveling with plenty of people would greatly slow down the pace of the journey, so the black-robed man was confident that he would be able to overtake them in just a few hours.
It had been an hour since his Monster Army left Bradford Town. They traveled with a steady pace, with the black-robed man riding a mile behind his minions.
Their Organization's plan was to make the village's annihilation look like a Monster Outbreak, so his identity couldn't be discovered no matter what.
His ability allowed him to control Rat Type Monsters to a certain extent, which had earned him the title of "Pied Piper".
"Still, the Organization's growth serum did wonders," the Pied Piper muttered. "Who would have thought that Rank 2 Monsters could turn berserk permanently, and increase their strength to Rank 4? Unfortunately, they could only live for a week at most, so raising an army to conquer the empire's lands is still impossible. It also takes a lot of manpower to capture these Monsters."
The Pied Piper sighed as he glanced at his formidable army that was more than enough to raze villages and towns.
The main cities of the Empire were heavily guarded, so the Organization's experiments could only be conducted in the countryside, allowing them to try out their Monster Armies on the villages and towns with weaker defenses.
'I can't wait to see the look of despair on the townspeople's faces when they see my army behind them,' the Pied Piper mused. 'Boris, you had this one coming. I still haven't settled my scores with you yet!'
The Pied Piper sneered at the thought of personally cutting off the head of the Guildmaster of the Adventurer's Guild, who had gotten in the way of his promotion in the past. In order to seek vengeance, he joined the guild Twilight Dynasty to bring down the Guildmaster, as well as those who had ridiculed him in the past.
While the Pied Piper was relishing his upcoming victory, he heard a loud explosion somewhere in the distance.
A moment later, another explosion occurred, and shrieks of pain from his Monster Army reverberated in the surroundings.
The Pied Piper was downhill when the first explosion happened, so he wasn't able to see clearly what happened. However, the moment he reached the top of the hill, his eyes widened in shock. When he got there, he witnessed a scene that he never expected to see.
His Monster Army had started to disperse, and dozens of the Rat Monsters, who had collapsed on the ground, were writhing in pain as various parts of their body were missing. Although none of the Monsters had died, the ones that were injured were close to dying, so it didn't really matter whether they were still alive or not.
They had stopped running and were looking around their surroundings for the hidden enemies that had come to ambush them.
"What in the world happene–"
The Pied Piper wasn't able to finish his sentence because he was silenced by another incredible scene that he was seeing for the first time.
A three-meter-tall Flaming Skull that left a blazing trail in the sky was about to descend on his Monster Army
"Scatter!" the Pied Piper ordered.
The Monsters did as they were told, but some were unable to escape in time.
The Fiery Skull descended on a dense cluster of monsters and exploded. Fiery bony shrapnel flew in different directions, injuring hundreds of Rat Monsters, making them shriek in pain.
Before the Pied Piper could even react to the devastation that happened, another Flaming Skull descended upon the Monster army, and this time, it killed the seriously injured monsters who barely survived the first two bombardments.
Over two hundred Rat Monsters had died after the three Flaming Skulls crashed into them.
The rest of the Monsters had safely escaped and had backed away a considerable distance from the place where the Fiery Skulls had previously landed, all of which were still covered in black smoke.
The Pied Piper ordered the Rat Army retreat while trying to understand what just happened.
While the ringleader of the Monster Attack was trying to assess the damage his army had taken, Lux was crouching on all fours and panting for breath.
"How do you feel, Master?" Asmodeus asked as he crouched down beside the Half-Elf, whose drool was already spilling from his mouth due to exhaustion.
"I feel like dying," Lux replied as he tried to catch his breath. "Did we get them?"
Asmodeus nodded. "Congratulations, Master. It is a success. This new skill of yours is truly wonderful. The only downside is that whenever you use it, it drains almost all of your Mana, leaving you exhausted."
Lux wiped the drool from his mouth and took out a mana potion. He then chugged it all down, and only then did he feel a bit better from the aftermath of his and Asmodeus' experiment.
"Let's go, Master," Asmodeus said as he extended his hand to help Lux stand up. "At most, we bought ourselves a few minutes. We need to head to the next location."
"Uhhh…"
Lux felt nauseated because his head was hurting so badly. This was the first time he experienced Mana Deprivation, and he didn't like it.
Not one bit.
Seeing that Lux was unable to stand by himself, Asmodeus supported his Master's body and helped him mount Jed's back, so that they could go to their next destination.
Since the Half-Elf and the Archlich knew that someone was commanding the Rat Army, they were confident that the latter would hesitate to continue the pursuit after experiencing an unexpected attack that killed over two hundred of his Rat Monsters.
'It's a shame that the monsters scattered and moved away from the corpses,' Asmodeus thought as he mounted the Warg that was assigned to him by Lux. 'If they hadn't, I could have killed more using Corpse Explosion. What a pity.'
The Archlich's mana had also taken a beating, but since his mana was higher than Lux's and he was an Undead, he didn't suffer too much of a backlash after using the skill, Skeleton Make, to attack their enemy from great distances.
As Lux and Asmodeus made their hasty retreat, the Pied Piper was still wary about letting his Army advance. Since there were unknown enemies hiding around them, he dispatched dozens of Rat Monsters to scout the surroundings.
Although he still had many Monsters under his command, he didn't want a repeat of what just happened earlier.
This gave Lux and Asmodeus precious time to reach their destination and prepare for another round of bombardment.
