Chapter 26: Killing The Rats His hands fiddled with the straps around his waist as he drew the box forward, he had to input a series of codes to prime the various poisons inside. He was going to release all of them at once, but he had to keep his mind focused on the incoming threat, or he would lose the initiative. The benefit of an enhanced Spirit was more apparent here, for he used the movement of the rats he had observed over this short period and created a model that could act as a predictive mechanism. But this action while remarkable took all of his two mind processes, and he could do nothing else. Not seeing any drawback, he attempted to split his mind again. His mind parted easily once more, and now he had three running thought processes, his amazement could be put on hold as he rapidly inputted the code, it was a series of circular moments on a rotary dial set in the middle of the box. They spelled Baenor. The name of his father. He did not want to think about the thought processes behind naming the lock used to contain poisons after his father. The motion primed all the thirty select poisons he had gathered over time, and the poison included one particular sinister variant, it was called a Blood Mort. It was a sentient cluster of death that resembled tiny, microscopic flies. They could enter the bloodstream of their victims through any orifice, and they secrete a hallucinogenic toxin inside their blood that confuses the victim as well as shut off their organs before they feed on the blood and multiply. A thoroughly nasty cookie. It was a present given to him by his mother for his 18th birthday, the details of that day were blurry in his mind, but Rowan had an intuition that with his enhanced spirit he would be able to dig into the blurry memories he had. But to be fair, this was the most badass present he had ever received. Maeve always gave him gigantic weapons he could not even lift, talkless of wielding them, but Rowan guessed it was her way of showing her care. He remembered he blood bound these poisonous clouds of death, but had to keep them away in the red box because they were too dangerous. When he began collecting weapons, his first instinct was the red box, it was the most dangerous thing he owned. The rest of the poisons had their special effects and these would be the barrier he used against the charging rats, his expectations were not high, but if they could delay for a minute, it would be a steal for him. As he watched his soul point exceed 130 points, his heart began to hammer in nervousness. The rats were now a few hundred feet from him, he ran the simulation multiple times, and he threw the box, as he did, he shifted one of his thought processes to the formation beneath him, there were twenty-three seconds left before it was ready. That was not a long time, the box began to fall fifteen feet from him, and as though they teleported, the rats appeared at the very moment. There was no indication of their movement, they were just there. Two balls of muscles and dread, with blue eyes that burned like acetylene flames. One of them snapped at the descending box, and it exploded in a wave of red fog, covering the rats, Rowan watched in tense expectation, as the one that bit the box sneezed and looked around in visible confusion and simply inhaled the poison fog, shook its head and disappeared, only to reappear with its mouth clamping around Rowan's leg. The other rat seized his hands, and they began to chew as they dragged him in opposite directions. His limbs did not survive a single bite, they simply vaporized under the unearthly force, but his shell was intact. Rowan did not mind the pain, for his worries were not that he should not be moved from the formation and that his shell would hold, his sight could see a couple of microtears appearing on the shell, but thankfully, the shell could repair itself and the microscopic tears healed fast, but it was only a matter of time before the rats would chew through them. He was not drawn away from the formation because the rats dragged his body in opposite directions, each of them wanting the prey only for itself. Rowan checked the formation, ten more seconds. The rat chewing on his hand got tired of gnawing at his tough shell and with his spatial sight, Rowan, could almost anticipate where it was going next—his neck. He pushed his hand to shield his neck, and that instant the jaws of the rat clamped on it. If he had waited a single moment, he would have been beheaded. The other rat went for his waist and he was cut in two, but his shell did not give. The pain was beginning to build, but it was still within Rowan's threshold, as long as his head was not crushed, he would not die. One second. Done. Rowan poured his spatial sight furiously into that dim passage and existence winked out, and he reappeared inside the passage. He was ecstatic and began to laugh, his body was mending faster than he could even catalog the damages done to him, he heard a couple of long shrieks and his awareness burst out of his body and he saw two giant rats twitching beside him, they were frothing at the mouth and their tails were slapping the ground, the sound was like gunshots. Well. What do we have here? He rapidly pushed himself back, any motion from them could disintegrate his body or his head. When he was as far away from them as he was comfortable with, he stopped and looked at the agitated rodents, by now they had begun to bleed from their eyes and ears. If they were going through the same experience as he did before he gained Spatial Sight, then he pitied them. The rats screamed, and they began to thrash madly, perhaps they sensed the presence of death for in the next moment, they exploded into pieces, Spatial sight showed Rowan a particular sharp piece of bone zooming towards his head and he barely moved out of the way, but it still impaled him through his neck and out the back. He choked in his blood for a short while before he got back to his feet. He had begun to feel a strain on his senses, and he pushed his sight to the green door behind him and found himself on the floor of the guest room. Rowan lay on the floor for a while, his burning lungs a soothing pain from the chaos.