Varian calmed his mind.
The red-scaled rats stared at him. On a one on one, Varian could win. If his injuries were healed, then Varian was confident to take them down with a price.
However, he had to make do.
'I can't beat them with strength.' He sprinted towards the white barrier.
"Roarr"
"Roarr"
"Roarr"
'I can't beat them with my speed.'
They soon caught up and leapt at him.
Varian repeated his previous tactics and dodged all attacks, save for two.
This time, instead of punching them back, he just guarded one attack and hurled his sword at the other rat.
This left him exposed to the paw of the rat he attacked.
"Screech!"
It was a suicide move and thus, caught they rat by surprise. However, it was too late.
Right as his sword plunged into its eyes, Varian blocked one of the attack with his arm.
He slowed the other attack using space binding.
"Screech",
The paw of the rat paused for a moment as it screamed from losing its eye.
Coupling this with his space binding, Varian found enough time to just dodge.
Boom!
However, blocking the paw of a rat meant taking a strong blow.
"Cough" Varian staggered nearly to the edge of the white barrier. Blood flowed down his lips. But hearing the pleasant sound, they curled up.
Thud!
The sword was plunged towards the rat's eye and the rat itself was rushing towards him. This ended with the sword reaching its brain due to its own speed.
One red-scaled rat died.
Varian cut down the head of the rat in no time and held it in his head.
"Roarrr"
"Roarrr"
"Roarrr"
Varian's move enraged the eleven rats.
They bolted towards him, baring their fangs.
Their intention was obvious. Tear him to pieces.
He was at nearly at the edge of the barrier and he didn't have much room to dodge.
'This is it. My hope.' Varian didn't flinch.
He couldn't repeat the early tactic due to the obvious reason. The sword was gone.
Varian focused on the eleven creatures approaching him at breakneck speed and locked one of them.
Since he was just one person, and each of the rats had a huge body, not of all them would fit around him.
Only five would actually reach him while the rest would encircle in case he tried to escape.
Varian didn't
'You!'
"Roaar"
"Roarr"
As they leapt at him, Varian ran backward while showing the dead rat's head.
"Roarr!"
"Roarr?"
"Roarr?!"
They chased him to the white barrier and with him, they, too, jumped out.
Varian once again witnessed the dark space. There was a suffocatingly dense aura in it. The space was also way harder.
Varian knew that he wouldn't be able to influence it with his current powers.
But more importantly, the black swirls attacked each and everyone one of them.
Boom!
Varian and the eleven rats were blasted back into the dungeon.
"Roarr!"
"Roarr!"
"Roarr!"
The black swirls wrecked havoc in the rats's body.
They ran a bit, but suddenly slowed down. They raised their paw, but struggled to put it down.
Varian collapsed on the ground, saw all this with a smirk.
'Success!'
The black swirls seemed to be space particles of sorts. They influenced the space around them.
Varian focused on his space power and, unlike last time, he removed the black space swirls with ease.
His body was heavily bleeding, and he was badly injured. He broke quite a few bones and tore many muscles.
But there was a big grin on his face.
He walked to one of the red- scaled rats. It opened its mouth to bite him. But suddenly stopped. The space was frozen.
After a moment, it could move.
Crack!
Just then, Varian's gauntlet broke its skull.
"Roarr!"
"Roarr!"
The remaining ten rats were enraged and charged towards him.
But—
"Crrr"
"Shrr"
The space suddenly tightened around them, and their moments came to a halt. They broke the space and continued charging.
"Crr"
"Shrr"
It repeated. Again and again.
Unlike Varian, these rats had no space powers. They couldn't just remove those black swirls and hence suffered.
Varian didn't waste the opportunity he got after many risks.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
….
"Roar!"
Thud.
With the last roar, the twelfth rat was also slain.
"Ha!" Varian smiled widely but the next moment, collapsed on the ground.
"Ouch!" He landed straight on his most injuries.
Looking at the corpses, he still couldn't believe it.
He survived.
"Thank you." He muttered. "I will never lose hope."
Even though he was spent, he didn't dare to linger any longer.
He begrudgingly got up and searched for a safe place.
This time, he took care to cover his tracks.
Varian's efforts paid off, and he secluded himself in a remote cave in a desolate area.
Without constant fighting, the healing medicine finally began to show its effects.
In a few hours, Varian's injuries were completely healed.
His flesh had regrown, and his bones were fixed. All in all, Varian was back to his
peak.
He opened his comm in a glimmer of hope.
As expected, there was no connection to the meta net. He also tried to contact others and failed.
Varian didn't give up and browsed through the database of the lost dungeons.
Under Current Lost Dungeons, he found a long list.
"Thanks?" He chuckled nervously and checked them.
In fact, he was quite nervous.
There were quite a few Dungeons with monsters in Body path.
Out of curiosity, Varian picked the 'Starchild' Dungeon. It was a Thunder Dungeon, but also had some monsters that specialized in Body Path.
'I haven't seen any Thunder monsters yet.' He shrugged and closed the comm.
'Let's assume the worst: I can't get out.' Varian rubbed his chin.
'Then I can aim to become a Level 9. Or Sovereign. The System also gives some promises that I get stronger the more I advance. Maybe becoming a Sovereign can change things?'
'But what if... there is a way to get out? Maybe I just don't know.' He held his breath and continued.
'Then I'd need to be strong enough to check every part of this dungeon. Maybe it will have the clues to returning, if any.'
'Then there's only one thing I can do now.'
"Get stronger."
His eyes narrowed, and a cruel smile formed on his face. "Rat. In the process, I'm coming for revenge."
The Mother rat didn't know a tragedy was about to befall on its children.
And the monsters in the dungeon didn't know a human was about to shake everything up.