"Chiu chiu."
Qin Shilei nocked and drew his bow, rapidly unleashing a volley of arrows.
The arrows flew true, each one striking down a rat.
But there were too many rats, and some managed to pierce the arrow rain, scurrying towards the main hall.
An Qian and the others also drew their weapons, crouching and chopping at the ground, bisecting the rats that had narrowly evaded the arrows.
Before long, all forty-odd arrows in Qin Shilei's spatial ring were expended.
By then, the rats emerging from the bathroom had begun to dwindle in number.
Qin Shilei put away his short bow, drew his Seven Star Sword, and joined the others in dealing with the remaining rats.
"Ah."
Zhang Yong cried out in pain, his footwork no longer as agile as before. He must have been bitten by a rat.
After a while, the group finally killed all the rats in the hall.
"Damn rats."
Zhang Yong cursed, tearing a mosquito net from a bedroom to bandage himself.
Qin Shilei entered the en-suite bathroom of the master bedroom and found the exhaust fan in ruins, chewed to pieces. The rats must have entered through the exhaust vent.
Unable to find anything suitable to block the vent, he had no choice but to close the bathroom door.
After exiting, he also closed the door to the master bedroom.
Qin Shilei sat on the sofa and said, "This wave of rats has been dealt with, but we don't know if they'll come back. Everyone, share any suggestions you have."
An Qian proposed, "We should find a different place to stay and try to spray ourselves with something that repels rats."
Zhang Xiaoli also suggested, "Could we start a large fire? Don't animals fear fire?"
"Squeak squeak!"
Before they could come up with a plan, a chorus of squeaks echoed from outside.
"Son of a bitch, are they never going to stop?"
In a fit of rage, Zhang Yong smashed a chair with his sword.
He paused, then said sarcastically, "In my opinion, we should have fled the town before dark. Someone insisted on wasting time with a drone. What did that achieve?"
Zhang Xiaoli's eyes narrowed, and she retorted, "Hindsight is twenty-twenty!"
In this world, nowhere was safe. If they ran at every little disturbance, where could they possibly go?
"Let me see if we can find a different location." Qin Shilei walked to the window, turned on his powerful flashlight, and shone it outside.
Outside, the darkness was dense with rats. While not as terrifying as the scene outside the supermarket earlier, there were at least a thousand of them.
Was it worth it?
Just because they killed one of their own?
Qin Shilei was disgusted by the rats' retaliatory behavior.
In a fit of anger, he declared, "Let's kill these stinking rats! Today, we'll burn the rat horde!"
Qin Shilei first gathered the clothes and blankets from the rooms and spread them from the hall up to the stairs to the second floor. Then, he poured several buckets of diesel fuel in various places on the first floor.
"You three go up to the second floor. Once the fire starts, open the balcony door and jump down."
Qin Shilei had the other three go upstairs first. He then brought a table to brace the main door.
He tied a rope to the table, with the other end placed near the staircase.
He turned the lock, wedged it, and relied on the table to hold the door shut.
Still not feeling entirely secure, he brought a rack near the staircase.
On top of the rack, he placed a large piece of bloody eagle meat.
With a pull of the rope, the table toppled backward, and the main door swung open.
The rats outside surged in.
With two swift arrows, he shot out the glass of the two windows next to the hall, causing rats from those areas to pour in.
The rats that entered smelled the eagle meat and scrambled towards the rack.
The rack soon collapsed under the weight of the rats, and the eagle meat was devoured.
More and more rats poured in, piling layer upon layer in the entire hall.
Smelling human scent, the rats began to climb the stairs.
Qin Shilei took a bucket of diesel fuel and poured it down, then took a lighter and ignited it, throwing it down.
The flames instantly engulfed the entire hall.
A pungent smell of burning fur assailed their nostrils.
Qin Shilei turned and went to the hall on the second floor.
Thick smoke was already rising from below.
"Let's jump down."
Qin Shilei opened the glass door of the balcony, kicked away a few rats that had scurried in, and flipped himself over the edge.
An Qian and the others followed suit, one by one.
Having all leveled up using crystal cores, their physical abilities were superior to those of special forces soldiers.
Jumping from a height of over three meters was no problem at all.
As soon as Qin Shilei landed, a few scattered rats squeaked and scurried towards him, attempting to attack.
With a few swift sword strikes, he easily dispatched those stinking rats.
About ten meters away from the building, he turned and saw that the area behind them had become a sea of flames.
A few rats that had not died immediately scurried out of the building, their bodies engulfed in flames. However, as they ran, they could no longer move and were reduced to charred cinders.
A faint, foul smell of roasted meat drifted on the wind.
"Let's go."
Qin Shilei took out the Thunder Dragon from his ring and started it.
Zhang Xiaoli swung her leg over the motorcycle and hugged Qin Shilei's waist.
An Qian also straddled it, sitting behind Zhang Xiaoli.
"What about me?"
Zhang Yong looked at the limited seating on the Thunder Dragon, which clearly wouldn't fit him.
"Hmph, aren't you so capable? Where's your bike now?"
Zhang Xiaoli glanced at him and said irritably.
His motorcycle had been parked in front of the building's main entrance and was now being consumed by the fire.
"Qin Shilei, do you have another vehicle?"
An Qian asked tentatively.
Qin Shilei casually tossed out another motorcycle.
Before Zhang Yong could even start the motorcycle, he twisted the throttle and sped off towards the east.
"Screech..."
They hadn't gone two hundred meters when Qin Shilei braked hard, stopped, then turned around and sped off in another direction.
The motorcycle behind them failed to stop in time and almost plunged into a large swarm of rats ahead.
Zhang Yong cursed and quickly turned around, chasing after the Thunder Dragon.
Qin Shilei rode west for several hundred meters, only to encounter another large group of rats. He had to turn around and head south.
This time, after less than a hundred meters, they reached the edge of town, with no road ahead.
He turned and randomly chose a small path.
However, not long after, they encountered another group of rats.
"Hold on tight."
Qin Shilei increased the throttle and charged directly into the rat swarm.
"Squeak squeak squeak!"
Countless rats shrieked as they were crushed into a bloody pulp by the Thunder Dragon, their lives extinguished.
The Thunder Dragon, after driving over the rats, began to shake and sway.
It felt like driving on a bumpy mountain road, and An Qian, who was behind, almost fell off. Terrified, she quickly grabbed onto Zhang Xiaoli in front of her.
After traveling two to three hundred meters, they finally passed through the rat swarm.
Qin Shilei drove the Thunder Dragon another three to four hundred meters before stopping in front of a two-story building.
After a series of turns, Zhang Yong, who was behind, lost track and was nowhere to be seen.
Pushing the door open, a rat scurried into the shadows.
"Swoosh!"
Qin Shilei, who was already prepared, shot an arrow directly into the rat's head. The creature let out no sound before its life was extinguished.
"Could this be another vanguard of those rats?"
Zhang Xiaoli said with lingering fear.