Caught unawares, Lin Tianhe and Chen Linyu stepped onto smooth Ice Crystals. Their footing gone in an instant, they both crashed heavily to the ground.
Han Ning, however, had no time to worry about his two roommates behind him.
A snow-white shadow was rapidly approaching him.
In the blink of an eye, it was already overhead.
A bone-chilling cold radiated out, causing even the surrounding white mist to partially freeze and stagnate.
"Yin Yi, stop it!" Han Ning shouted. Watching the rat swarm draw ever closer, he knew the three of them couldn't outrun the encirclement. He decided to stop and try to buy time with his and the other two Silver Lotus Woods.
"Tianhe, Lin Yu, command your Silver Lotus Woods to block the other rats!"
"POP! POP!"
Yin Yi leaped down from Han Ning's waist, brandishing two slender Vine Whips and lashing them upward.
The emerald-green Vine Whips tore through the white mist, letting out a sharp shriek.
WHOOSH~
With a nimble flash of its body, the White Rat King easily dodged Yin Yi's Vine Whip attack.
But Han Ning wasn't flustered in the slightest. He glanced at a white figure rapidly approaching to Yin Yi's left and spoke urgently:
"Now! Target the white rat to the front left! Yin Yi, kill!"
As he finished speaking, a blue screen of light appeared before Han Ning's eyes. He converted three points of Energy into 3 Attribute Points and immediately added them to Yin Yi's Physical Attribute!
At the same time, a cyan light erupted from Yin Yi's body.
"POP!"
A wave of excitement from Yin Yi transmitted through their link in the Spiritual World.
Its tense body suddenly spun. In an instant, a thick green spike shot out like a bolt of lightning, leaving afterimages in the air as it flew like a cannonball toward a white rat behind the White Rat King and to its right.
BOOM!
A deep thud of impact rang out.
The completely unprepared white rat took the full force of Yin Yi's ferocious Silver Thorn. It let out a muffled squeal and toppled backward.
The wooden thorn plunged into the rat's relatively soft abdomen, and a thick cyan light surged from the thorn into its body.
In an instant, arcs of cyan light danced across the white rat's body. It trembled uncontrollably as if electrocuted, and then abruptly exploded.
In that moment, it burst like a watermelon, splattering red and white fluids all over the faces of the two white rats coming up behind it.
"Good! We'll kill as many as we can before they get into formation!" Han Ning drew the Anti-Riot Stick from his waist, his eyes wide as he stared intently at the approaching rat swarm.
"POP!"
After the strike, Yin Yi quickly steadied itself, brandishing its long whips to protect its body.
"SKREE!"
The White Rat King, realizing Yin Yi's attack on it had just been a feint, let out a furious shriek.
CRACKLE~
A frosty white aura rapidly enveloped Yin Yi's body.
The next second, with just a slight struggle from Yin Yi, the surging Power within it erupted. The Vine Whips on its sides instantly grew a size thicker, shattering the layer of white ice that covered it.
Yin Yi swung its Vine Whips. With a dull whoosh that carried a sharp pressure, they leaped over the dodging White Rat King and struck the spot directly behind it.
Two other white rats, caught unawares, were pierced by the thorns on the tips of Yin Yi's Vine Whips and hoisted into the air!
In just half a second, two palm-length Silver Thorns trailing faint cyan flames precisely struck the bodies of the two white rats.
BOOM!
The white rats were powerless to resist; their bodies shattered instantly. The undiminished force of the Silver Thorns continued onward, crashing into the swarm of Monster Rats behind them and sending several of the black ones flying.
In just a few seconds, Yin Yi had exploited the white rats' different speeds to fight one against four, instantly killing three of them!
Yin Yi retracted its Vine Whips, preparing to finish off the White Rat King.
"SKREE! SKREE!"
But then, a relentless tide of black Monster Rats arrived. They easily broke through the defenses of the other two Silver Lotus Woods and, under the command of the White Rat King, leaped toward Yin Yi like a flood.
Yin Yi relentlessly swung its Vine Whips, cyan light flashing from its body as it fired a barrage of Silver Thorns, frantically slaughtering the Monster Rats swarming it.
"POP!"
Its body suddenly convulsed, sending a dozen Monster Rats flying. Five more Silver Thorns shot out, blasting away another five Monster Rats.
But there were simply too many Monster Rats—at least a hundred of them. When one died, another would fearlessly take its place. Soon, Yin Yi's body was covered in a writhing, dense mass of them.
"POP... POP...!"
The gruesome sound of gnawing, along with Yin Yi's agony transmitted through the Spiritual World, flooded into Han Ning's mind.
"Tianhe! Lin Yu! Get your Silver Lotus Woods to help Yin Yi clear the rats off it!"
Han Ning roared. He hadn't been idle while Yin Yi fought; he was furiously swinging his Anti-Riot Stick, knocking away every Monster Rat that lunged at him.
After a second of silence with no reply from his roommates, he couldn't stop himself from darting a glance to the side.
He saw that Lin Tianhe and Chen Linyu were already covered in the claw marks of the Monster Rats. They were drenched in blood, their faces pale and silent. They could only hide behind their two Silver Lotus Woods, gritting their teeth in a desperate, passive defense.
'I have to help them. I need to pick up the Monster Rat corpses on the ground to increase Yin Yi's Attributes.'
Suddenly, an intense sense of danger washed over him from the front.
Han Ning instinctively dove to the ground.
An icy white mist shot past where his head had just been, turning the spot where he stood into a patch of Ice Crystals.
"You beast... I'll kill you."
Yin Yi's agony screaming in his mind grated on Han Ning's nerves. Now also covered in blood, he scrambled to his feet, his face grim, and stared coldly at the White Rat King hiding behind the swarm.
Meeting Han Ning's gaze, the White Rat King's scarlet pupils revealed a shockingly human-like expression of mockery. It slowly opened its mouth, and a cold white light began to rapidly gather.
VWOOM!
The white light shot through the air, impossibly fast. The hair on Han Ning's body stood on end as that strange intuition flared up in his mind again, compelling his body to roll to the right.
Snow-white Ice Crystals coated the ground, turning everything in their path into ice sculptures.
'This is bad...'
'The White Rat King has me pinned down. I can't pick up the Monster Rat corpses to boost Yin Yi's Attributes, and I can't support Tianhe and the others.'
Han Ning's face was expressionless, but his heart sank. He dodged another of the white rat's Frost Freeze attacks and felt a wave of dizziness; those two uncanny dodges had consumed a great deal of his stamina.
"SKREEE!!"
The White Rat King looked excitedly at the three humans and three Silver Lotus Woods, all of them now at a disadvantage. It shrieked, white light once again gathering in its mouth as it prepared to launch its final attack on Han Ning.
Suddenly.
A black shadow cut through the faint mist, plummeting precisely toward its head.
"Skree...?"
The White Rat King instinctively dodged, easily avoiding the black shadow. The white light gathering in its mouth faltered for a moment.
Immediately after, a series of whooshes tore through the air from above.
THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!
Dozens of black arrows rained down like dark hail, blanketing the spot where the white rat stood.
The expected Frost Freeze attack never came. Seeing the dense rain of arrows, Han Ning couldn't help but look back.
The figures of several hundred humans filled his vision.
"Reinforcements are here!"
A thrill shot through Han Ning. He got to his feet, an excited glint in his eyes, and picked up his Anti-Riot Stick again. He let out a great roar.
"Kill!"