Free Web NovelChapter 18: [18]: Entering the Blight, The Plague Rats
Levi stepped off the stone bridge and felt his boots sink into a layer of rotting, gray sludge.
The Blighted Marches looked exactly like a toxic wasteland. The trees here were completely dead, their branches twisted and dripping with a foul, yellowish sap. The ground was covered in bubbling puddles of sludge, and a thick, green miasma hung heavily in the air.
The VR helmet simulated the smell of rotten eggs and decaying meat. Levi actually gagged for a second before his brain adjusted to the sensory feedback.
The second he crossed the zone boundary, the game system immediately kicked in its environmental hazard mechanic.
[-1]
A tiny red number floated above Levi’s head. A second later, another one popped up.
[-1]
The toxic air in the Blighted Marches was designed to drain 1 HP per second from any player who didn’t have specialized poison resistance gear. It was a massive gear-check meant to keep low-level players from wandering in and exploring.
Levi just smirked. He opened his menu and toggled on [Siphon Aura].
The warm green light wrapped around him. His mana started draining by 2 points every second, but instantly, the system recognized he was taking damage from the environment. Because he was officially taking damage, the game registered him as being "in combat."
[+15]
A bright green healing number floated up, instantly erasing the tiny environmental damage and locking his health securely at 420/420. The toxic air mechanic was completely nullified. As long as he managed his mana pool and kept chugging the top-tier potions he bought in the city, he could stay out here forever.
He walked deeper into the rotting wasteland, his eyes scanning the dead trees for movement. He didn’t have to wait long.
Rustling sounded from a nearby pile of decaying logs. A massive, horrifying creature crawled out of the sludge. It was a rat, but it was the size of a large wolf. Its fur was patchy and covered in glowing green pustules, and its front teeth were easily a foot long and dripping with venom.
[Plague Rat] [Level: 18] [HP: 2,000 | ATK: 100 | DEF: 60]
Levi stopped and gripped his scythe. He ran the math carefully. This wasn’t a dumb beetle or a squishy mage. This was a mob six levels higher than him.
The six-level gap meant he was going to suffer a massive 30% Level Suppression damage penalty.
Math check: The rat had 60 Defense. Levi’s Silver-tier scythe ignored 15% of it, effectively dropping the monster’s Defense down to 51. Levi’s Total Attack was 125. 125 minus 51 left exactly 74 raw damage.
Now, apply the brutal 30% suppression penalty. 74 multiplied by 0.7 equaled exactly 51 Final Damage per basic strike.
"Fifty-one damage a swing," Levi sighed, doing the division in his head. "The thing has two thousand health. That’s roughly forty basic attacks just to kill one mob. This is going to be tedious."
He calculated the incoming damage next. If the rat bit him, its 100 Attack would go up against his 46 Defense. That meant every single hit would deal 54 damage to him. With 420 Max HP, he could survive about eight direct hits before dying.
The rat let out a disgusting, wet hiss and lunged forward!
Levi didn’t use Phantom Step. He needed to conserve his mana for his aura. He relied entirely on his 43 Speed. He easily sidestepped the rat’s lunge, the creature’s massive teeth snapping shut on empty air.
Levi swung his scythe, carving the silver blade across the rat’s infected back.
[-51]
He immediately followed up with two more strikes before the rat could pivot.
[-51] [-51]
The scythe’s passive triggered. The small bleeding teardrop icon appeared over the rat’s head.
[-5] [-5]
The Bleed dealt 5 true damage per second, completely ignoring the rat’s defense and the annoying 30% suppression penalty. Levi knew this was the key. He didn’t need to burst the rat down; he just needed to keep the bleed active and outlast it.
The rat spun around and thrashed wildly. Levi tried to backpedal, but his boot slipped on the gray sludge. The rat’s claws scraped across his Obsidian Carapace!
The VR pain engine flared, delivering a sharp stinging sensation to his chest.
[-54]
His health dropped to 366/420. But immediately, his Siphon Aura pulsed.
[+15]
His health bounced back up.
Levi grinned. He could comfortably trade blows. The combat devolved into a slow, grueling dance. Levi would weave around the rat’s bites, landing three or four strikes at a time, constantly refreshing the bleed. When he took a hit, his aura and his massive health pool absorbed the shock perfectly.
It took him nearly thirty seconds of relentless hacking and slashing to finally zero out the rat’s health bar.
The monster let out a final, gurgling squeak and shattered into blue polygons.
[System Notification: Slain 1x Level 18 Plague Rat. Gained 1,500 XP.]
Levi’s eyes widened. "One thousand five hundred? For a single mob?"
The base XP for the rat was probably around 500, but because Levi was fighting an enemy six levels above him, the game applied a massive underdog multiplier.
He looked around the rotting wasteland. There were dozens of Plague Rats crawling around in the sludge. It took thirty seconds to kill one, but the payout was absolutely insane.
"Alright then," Levi laughed, popping the cork on one of his top-tier mana potions to refill his fuel. "Let’s commit a genocide."
Levi fell into a methodical, almost hypnotic rhythm. He moved through the Blighted Marches, pulling rats one at a time. He didn’t want to get swarmed, taking 54 damage from three rats at once would overwhelm his healing so he played it smart. He threw rocks to pull aggro, isolated the rats, and chopped them to pieces.
Dodge, slash, slash, slash. Keep the bleed ticking. Take a hit, let the aura heal it. Drink a mana potion. Repeat.
The sensory isolation of the VR helmet made the real world fade away completely. Levi was just a machine processing math and movement. He spent several hours navigating the toxic fog, turning the wasteland into a massive graveyard of digital rodents.
After slaying exactly sixty Plague Rats, the massive XP modifier completely flooded his progression bar.
A blinding golden pillar of light erupted from his avatar, clearing the toxic fog for a brief second. All his simulated fatigue vanished, and his health and mana pools instantly refilled to the top.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 13.]
Levi stopped walking and rested his scythe in the mud. He let out a long, satisfied breath.
Slaying mobs six levels higher was a massive grind, but it was mathematically the fastest way to break the game’s progression curve.
He opened his status menu. He had 5 new free stat points to spend.
He looked at his resources. His raw damage was fine, and his speed was still out-pacing the rats. The only bottleneck in his farming routine was his mana pool. He was burning through his expensive potions way too fast because he had to keep Siphon Aura on constantly to negate the toxic environment.
He took all 5 stat points and dumped them directly into Intelligence.
His INT bumped from 10 to 15.
Because each point of INT granted 10 Max Mana, his mana pool instantly expanded from 100 to 150. That gave him fifty percent more fuel for his aura and his Phantom Step. He could fight much longer before needing to chug another potion.
"That feels much better," Levi muttered, closing the interface.
He checked his map. He was making good progress through the zone, but the deeper he went, the denser the fog became. He knew the rats were just the trash mobs. The real prize of the Blighted Marches was waiting for him near the center of the zone.
He gripped his scythe, ready to push deeper into the rotting woods.
