Chapter Thirty-Five: Treachery
“Attention, host. A rat hole dungeon has been discovered, levels range from 11 to 15. Please select the dungeon level.”
At the base of the wall in the old house’s main hall, Li Yunfei gazed thoughtfully at the rat hole.
After a moment, a sly smile crept across his face.
He opened his right hand, and a bag of Want Want fairy biscuits appeared. Tearing open the package, he unwrapped each biscuit and placed them all into a large bag. Then, he poured several packets of knockout powder inside and shook the bag vigorously.
Once all the biscuits were coated with the powder, Li Yunfei crouched down and poured them out, piling them not far from the rat hole.
He exchanged a glance with the little fox beside him; cunning glinted in both their eyes.
“Hehehe…”
“Yiyi…”
Man and fox let out a chorus of mischievous laughter.
Li Yunfei dragged a large stone to the other side of the rat hole and hid behind it. With a thought, an advanced ant armor enveloped his body, and with a flick of his hand, a paralytic Ant Lion Scythe appeared in his palm.
“Aw…”
The little fox barked, shifting into combat form.
Li Yunfei leapt onto the fox’s back. Now he had a mount and a long weapon; at last, he had graduated from infantry to cavalry.
“Select level 11 for the rat hole dungeon.”
“Dungeon level confirmed. Do you wish to enter?”
“Enter.”
“Dungeon entry confirmed. Initiating dungeon program.”
The dungeon program activated, and the rat hole and the stone beneath their feet rapidly expanded.
Within two breaths, the stone became a rocky hill, concealing Li Yunfei and the little fox from view, about seventy meters from the entrance.
The pile of biscuits grew larger than Li Yunfei astride the fox, each piece over three meters long and a meter wide; the rat hole’s diameter swelled to nearly four meters.
“Honghong, greet our rodent brothers.”
The little fox carried Li Yunfei around the rocky hill, and let out a series of “yo-yo-yo” calls toward the rat hole before retreating behind the stone.
“Squeak-squeak—”
Soon, there was movement in the rat hole. A giant rat, nearly as large as the little fox, with a shoulder height exceeding 1.8 meters and a body length approaching four meters, crawled out.
Page (1/3)
On its head, the name “Adult Rat 11” glowed, with a health bar beneath.
This rat didn’t emerge fully; it half-crouched at the entrance, raising its head, whiskers twitching, nose quivering.
Rats are extremely nearsighted, their vision always a blur, only able to see clearly in a short range before them. A phrase for rat vision goes, “the eye of the rat sees but an inch.”
Their whiskers serve as their “walking stick,” guiding them. That’s why rats favor running along walls—less chance of getting lost.
But as poor as their eyesight is, their sense of smell and hearing are exceptional. A rat can detect precisely what is where by scent, and even the faintest sound does not escape them.
At this moment, Honghong stood motionless, silent, and Li Yunfei slowed his breathing.
The rat lingered cautiously at the entrance. Hearing nothing, it finally crawled out and headed for the biscuit pile.
There was more than one rat; several followed behind.
A total of five rats emerged, some big, some small.
The larger ones were just a bit smaller than the fox, all bearing the “Adult Rat 11” label.
The smaller ones, with shoulder heights around 1.5 meters, about the size of a horse, wore the name “Young Rat 11.”
Rats don’t march in line as ants do; they scattered as soon as they emerged, each rushing toward the biscuit pile.
The biscuits were about fifty meters from the entrance, and twenty meters from the stone hill.
Li Yunfei watched as the rats gnawed busily at the biscuits, then each dragged a piece back into the hole. A smile curved his lips.
The little fox’s enchanting eyes narrowed into crescent moons, its long snout splitting into a broad grin.
They were patient. Even as all five rats carried biscuits back to the hole, neither moved.
Soon, more rats poured out, and the biscuit pile dwindled rapidly.
Seeing their numbers, Li Yunfei raised his eyebrows; had he known there would be so many, he would have opened another bag.
Suddenly, a particularly large rat, its shoulder height surpassing the fox’s at around 2.3 meters, turned its head toward Li Yunfei and the fox.
Its wind-catching ears rotated like radar, as if picking up some signal.
Li Yunfei had noticed these rats upon their emergence: their limbs were unusually thick, their teeth and claws sharp, not inferior to the fox.
On their heads, the label read “Giant Rat 11.” By dungeon standards, these were elite monsters.
“Squeak, squeak, squeak…”
The giant rat’s ears rotated for a while, eventually pausing, aimed at Li Yunfei for seven or eight seconds.
Then it let out several sharp cries to the rat horde, which immediately split into two groups.
One group dragged the remaining biscuits back into the hole, while another, led by three giant rats, charged toward the rocky hill.
Over twenty rats advanced; Li Yunfei was puzzled—how had the giant rat detected him?
Page (2/3)
Was it his heartbeat?
But it didn’t matter. Since they were exposed, battle was inevitable.
“Honghong, go! Watch your movement.”
“Yi!”
The little fox didn’t hesitate, springing forward to meet the rat group head-on.
With only twenty meters between them, the distance vanished in a heartbeat.
Just as the fox was about to collide with the foremost giant rat, it deftly sidestepped, darting past its flank.
The giant rat, relying on its massive head and wide jaws, tried to bite the fox’s head, but snapped at empty air.
“Kill!”
Li Yunfei shouted, raising the paralytic Ant Lion Scythe and thrusting at the giant rat’s neck.
“Puff… swish…”
The tip of the scythe plunged deep into the giant rat’s neck; Li Yunfei needed only to grip the handle firmly.
The fox’s forward momentum dragged the blade across the rat’s side, carving a horrific wound, blood gushing forth.
The giant rat didn’t even have time to scream; the moment Li Yunfei stabbed its neck, it froze, completely paralyzed.
The scythe’s stun effect had kicked in instantly.
In that fleeting moment as he passed the giant rat, Li Yunfei gleaned a new combat insight.
If he’d aimed the blade a foot lower, he could have sliced open the rat’s belly from the side—one swing, one kill.
With this realization, Li Yunfei lowered his scythe slightly, targeting the rat’s side just behind the forelimb, not the neck.
The fox maneuvered nimbly through the rat horde, weaving like a thread through a needle, moving at lightning speed.
The rats couldn’t react, barely able to attempt an attack before the fox darted past.
Each time the fox slipped through a gap in the horde, a rat was gutted, its entrails spilling from its belly.
This method was not only highly efficient—one swing, one kill—but most importantly, it conserved energy.
Li Yunfei barely needed to act; he simply gripped the scythe, stabbing its tip into the rat’s side.
The greatest slaughter came from the fox’s speed.
Page (3/3)