Elemental Cats

At first, the rats only came out one at a time, after which it drizzled rats before an endless amount poured out. It would have looked like it did earlier, during the ambush, if not for the net covering the cliff wall. The hair-fine threads were practically invisible to the panicking rats as they charged right into them, getting sliced into pieces that rained down in a shower of blood.

Although some rats had enough consciousness to realize their compatriots were dying as soon as they left the hole, the heat, and more rats, chasing them from behind wouldn't let them stop. The gory rain continued unabated.

Mindle had been killing the odd rats that slipped through the net, but the blood and flesh splattering her soon got too much, and she joined Lucy in the familiar space. Nil was envious, but he understood that he and Toz had to work together to hold up the net.

Nil hid behind Toz, climbing up on his back to take shelter from the blood raining down from above and the blood that had started covering the ground, streaming past Toz's feet.

Toz himself looked like a mad demon of slaughter as he was covered head to toe in bits and pieces of flesh and blood. Nil, even with his cover, wasn't much better off. Both of them wanted a couple of showers and baths with an amazing brush in hand and some soap.

But they couldn't leave yet. The rats were still pouring out, with no signs of stopping any time soon.

The streaming blood had reached past Toz's ankles.

They had to close their eyes due to all the raining blood and only rely on their instinct to try and kill any rats slipping through with enough life to go after them.

Still, no matter how many rats died, more rats fled from the nest every second. The tunnel system seemed to be more extensive than what the group previously thought if it could hold that many. Toz almost let his concentration falter as he wondered how they could survive in a wasteland so devoid of life when he realized that maybe the rats were the reason for that.

Thankfully Nil noticed and tapped him on the head to get Toz to focus again. No matter how monotonous it was, holding up the net took a lot of concentration since they needed to control their mana and keep the net steady. Not to mention being on the lookout for surviving rats.

But despite how much mana Mindle had gathered in her fireball, neither that nor the rats were infinite, and soon instead of rats fleeing from the heat, rats already touched by the fire replaced them. The burned rats didn't make as much of a mess when being sliced by the net, but it didn't matter since both Toz and Nil were completely covered in gore.

Eventually, only barely alive rats managed to crawl out of their nest, dropping down, dead before they hit the ground.

Toz felt that no more rats were coming and opened his eyes. He was standing in a river of blood and scraps of flesh. Despite the small size of rats, with their numbers, they had managed to create a veritable spring of flowing blood.

With blood dripping down his hair, all Toz could see, hear, and touch was the red blood.

Both he and Nil were not in a proper state of mind or body, having exhausted their mana, holding the net up against the avalanche of rats and getting drenched in their entrails.

But now was not the time to rest or clean up since the rats had been chased out of the nearby cliff wall, and Toz had gotten himself an opportunity to escape the canyon.

The heat from the laserbeam still lingered inside, preventing the rats from reclaiming their territory, but with the size of the nest and with how spread out the heat would be, the stone would soon cool down enough for the rats to come back.

Nil shook off as much blood as he could before entering the familiar space. Toz didn't need to carry any extra weight when climbing the wall. The familiar space was easily cleaned, but Nil didn't want to fall asleep when covered in blood, not to mention leaving Toz in this land of massacre alone, so Nil hesitated when entering the familiar space. But he trusted Toz, and in the end, Toz was left to climb the bloody wall alone.

The heat had spread through the cliff, but only the area immediately surrounding the hole that Mindle had shot her laser into was untouchably hot. The rest of the wall was moderately warm, but it could also have been the warm blood that wall was soaked in.

The slippery wall was difficult to climb, but the many holes and crevices provided a lot of foot and handholds. Nevertheless, at some points, he was forced to use the remaining dregs of his mana to reinforce his fingers and shoes.

It was an exhausting climb, something Toz never wanted to do again, but despite close shaves where he almost lost his grip and fell, he managed to reach the top and get over the ledge.

He laid down panting, and the only reason he didn't collapse the moment he had solid ground below him was the sticky feeling of being covered in blood. Although he really didn't want to continue moving at the moment, the discomfort kept him awake long enough to make him remember that the rats would eat him in his sleep if he stayed.

As such, Toz could only falteringly get up and keep moving to get clear of the area he was in.

He remembered the river they had first started following, and unless it completely changed directions, he would eventually reach it if he went west instead of continuing straight ahead. Toz knew that the canyon he had just crossed stretched out west and east since it was almost straight in his journey south. Toz was thankful he didn't need to rummage around his pockets, trying to find a compass.

Toz took one last glance down at the canyon. No matter how discomforting, it was one hell of a slaughter. Enough rats had died to create a stream of blood, now flowing through the canyon. Toz placed some distance between himself and the canyon before heading west, hoping to find a river of flowing water.

He had considered stopping to try and scrape the blood off of him and change clothes to prevent anyone from following his scent, but without an extremely powerful rinsing, the stench of blood wouldn't leave him.

Leaving bloody footprints behind him, a man drenched in blood walked through the wasteland.