Blood spurted out of the gashing wound above the giant rat’s chest, right below its throat. The red liquid covered the rusty metal chestplate that it was wearing, dyeing it a deep crimson color that didn’t seem to want to go away, as if the metal was a sponge pulling the blood into itself. The rat wasn’t dead yet, but it had finally been damaged to a large degree.

To try and stop the bleeding, the rat pressed its palm onto its wound. Some of the layers of rock covering its arms moved over toward the wound, pressing it shut like a compress. Of course, that meant that the rat wouldn’t immediately die because of the wound, but it also meant that its arm was now easier to attack. Lynol had already been slashing at it continuosly, chipping away at the rock armor that was covering it. But now, he should be able to do some fair amount of damage. But before that could happen, the giant rat started to run away, trying to build distance despite its injured knee.

It pressed its spear into the ground once it was standing on the other side of the room, its back pressed against the wall. Careful about what might happen now, the party stayed behind. While moving back, Foster got the chance to look at Rachel. She was standing at the back, perplexed at what was going on. She said she was able to handle herself, but it was clear that she wasn’t a fighter. She was good enough to stay out of trouble and navigate around the group as they were fighting, and she had enough knowledge and rudimentary skill to be able to tell how strong everyone here in the group was, and what sort of people they needed to complement their combat styles. But that was the limit to her abilities. She was practically defenseless in this particular situation. That was fine, she was a handler and not a fighter, after all, but it still made this fight a bit more troublesome. They had to make sure to defend her as well, after all.

And considering the next attacks they were faced with, that became even tougher to do. The giant rat pushed its spear into the ground, before pressings its claws into the wall behind it. With a single pull, it dragged a small boulder out of the wall, and proceeded to throw it at the party at high speed, as if it weighed nothing at all.

“Kyla, use a defense buff on Octer instead!” Lynol exclaimed, “And then hide behind him, you as well, Rachel!”

The swordsman turned his head while the music started to change. For a moment, Octer’s body seemed to light up, but not only that. At the same time, he activated his Bone Armor, covering his body in an extra layer of protection. Kyla couldn’t move much while she was playing her songs, so she was an easy target if there wasn’t anyone to protect her like this.

Meanwhile, as those three stood in the back, trying to protect themselves from the boulders that continued being thrown at them like nothing, Lynol and Foster moved around in an attempt to avoid the rocks while distracting the rat and hopefully closing some of the distance between them. In order to be able to dodge properly, Foster actually used the silent step martial skill to get around more quickly. Of course, it was quite dangerous, since his defense dropped as he used the skill to increase his speed. But considering the size of those rocks flying all over the room, Foster doubted that he would be able to survive a direct impact with those anyway.

Just as he pushed off the ground to sprint forward, a smaller rock shot past Foster’s face at a speed he was barely able to even notice. But certainly, once it passed by, shivers ran down his spine as he realized what just happened. Not only did the rat use boulders to try and break through Octer’s defense, but he was using smaller rocks to hit Foster or Lynol as they tried to approach.

The first one to reach the rat again was Lynol, as he used his greatsword to block or deflect the smaller rocks instead of having to dodge out of the way like Foster. He slashed his sword at the giant rat’s arm, but it pulled one of the boulders in front of its body, using it like a shield to stop the blade. Even Lynol couldn’t cut through something like that.

But while the rat was distracted, it gave Foster enough time to approach close enough as well. The rat was still hunched over due to the injury to its knee, and part of the wall behind it had collapsed, creating the perfect stepping-stones for him. Jumping off of the rocks, Foster deactivated the silent step skill, and instead activated another. He hadn’t actually used it in combat yet, because it simply wasn’t worth it to do so. Simply using single strike, combined with chilling touch if necessary, was enough until now. The stamina use of this martial skill was a lot higher than for most others he had. It was the ‘Bone Breaker’ martial skill that he received after clearing the ‘Little Undead Laboratory’.

It penetrated through the target’s flesh and directly impacted the bone. He did test it out on a few bones he bought at a butcher, and it seemed like just using the skill on bones was enough to make them crack sometimes. And if he combined it with a strike, the bone would shatter like glass. So now, Foster wondered what would happen if he used it together with his single strike.

The principle behind the two were the same. Pushing out internal energy in a burst upon contact with the target, just that each had a different mental image connected to them. For a ‘Single Strike’, Foster imagined his hand becoming something that simply did more damage, like a sledgehammer, while for ‘Bone Breaker’, his mind was filled with the idea of bones shattering. For obvious reasons, these two things worked together quite perfectly in his mind. However, Foster didn’t aim for his arm or neck. No, those areas were all covered in rock. Instead, what he aimed for was what basically just a hole in the side of the rat’s head. The place where its ear was before it was apparently quite violently ripped off, most likely either during the fight with the King Mole or the Cave Golem.

The inner ear was incredibly important to a person’s sense of balance, something that was obviously vital in a fight to the death. Foster didn’t know too much about anatomy, but he did know a little about things like this. One of his former coworkers specialized in information gathering through torture. Foster was pretty disgusted by him, but he picked up a few useful things like this here and there.

Foster’s strike hit the rat’s ear perfectly, and its head was forcefully swung to the side as the effect of the attack traveled through the rat’s body. While there was only a small bone inside of the ear that was part of the vestibular system, those sorts of frail bones tended to shatter more easily, and with the extra impact from the ‘Single Strike’ skill, Foster was sure that it was enough to simply tear apart the rat’s inner ear. While he didn’t know how similar a rat’s anatomy was to that of a human, this was just something he had to try. If it succeeded, it would make the fight much, much easier.

The rat’s eyes rolled into the back of its head, only showing the whites. It dropped the rock that it was holding onto and fell to its knees once more. Now, Lynol had a straight view of the part of the rat’s arm that became exposed so that some rocks could close the wound on its chest. With his whole body, the swordsman swung his blade at it, cutting through the flesh and bone with ease, as the rat’s dominant arm fell to the ground.

It let out a loud squeak, which really just sounded like an agonizing scream of pain. It struggled and tried to stand up, but its destroyed inner ear didn’t allow it to, making the rat quickly fall forward onto the ground. It tried to catch its fall, but since it only had one arm left, it dropped onto its side.

Foster and Lynol stood over its body, and Foster was the first to attack it. Once more using the Bone Breaker skill, he shattered rat’s face wherever it wasn’t covered in rock. And then, with incredible ease, Lynol stabbed his sword through its skull, and a message window appeared in front of the five people in the room.

— 

[You are the first to clear the Unique Sub-Boss {The Lord of the Cave}. Special rewards will be awarded]

[787 Experience Points Rewarded]

[You have leveled up!]

[Your Familiar {Aster} has leveled up!]

[Your {Martial Necromancer} Skill has leveled up!]

— 

The body of the giant rat started to disappear the moment the messages popped up. By the time they disappeared, the boss’ body, together with that of the Mole King, were gone, and the room had repaired itself. There were a few things left behind, however.

The cloak belonging to the Lord of the Cave made from the Mole King’s hide still laid there, and peaking out from underneath it was a small purple marble. And on top of the cloak laid a crystal a bit larger than a finger.

“Huh… is it normal for something like this to be left behind?” Foster wondered as he looked down at the cloak.

“Normal….? Did you just ask whether this is normal?” Rae muttered, “Nothing is normal about this situation!”