A Rattling Monster

Chapter 138: Failure and Provocation

From the darkest holes, the ratmen left their lairs to destroy that planet. That was the general history of the countless worlds destroyed by Salazar. Depending on the climate on the world, he would use one of his deadly servants to bring down the Hero of the defending god and therefore, achieve a total domination. If the climate was too hot for the mammals, he would use his nagas or snakemen. But, the ratmen were his greatest creation. The number of times they failed him is far too low compared to most of his conquests.

The biggest reason is the sheer number of them. Dispersed across the universe, their fervor and belief grant more power to Salazar that one can possibly imagine. Besides the orcs and some beastman races, the ratmen are one of the best races to grow an army very shortly. Not a very strong army, but numbers make up for the lack of quality. Also, they are capable of manipulating magic and creating destructive devices, to them and their enemies. The rate of explosions provoked by one of their most powerful weapons is a true threat to the ratmen working near them. At best, the weapon will just lightly explode and spread a poisonous fume around it, not really be threatening to anything.

And this was what should have happened on Astria a long time ago. First, it was an empty planet, so no need to use a lot of resources. Just a handful of djinns, a ritual to turn the planet into a desert and it should have been over. But who would have thought that those humans just South of his army would counter his ritual for no reason? Salazar discovered after that it was the forces of Oslo, a strange god that no one really knew what is his specialty. Except for survival, since he was even older than Salazar or the bloodthirsty Krieg. At such an old age, he should have already joined the ranks of the Nine Heavens but he was still struggling to survive.

Seeing the failure of his forces, Salazar decided to not care about that planet anymore and just destroy other worlds. He forgot this world for thousands of years until a new god was appointed. When his djinns told him that, he decided to teach a lesson to that arrogant young goddess. The gift that she received was a poisonous meal, looking fine from the exterior, but deadly inside. And so, he sacrificed a lot of his djinns to allow his ratmen inside the world called Astria. And soon, he discovered something that managed to make him laugh.

Right next to this world was the one controlled by Oslo. Seeing the possibility to use that, he consumed the forces from his conquered worlds to invade Forslo. After that, he waited. On one hand, the ratmen were free to do anything they wanted and that stupid goddess didn't even bother hunting them down. That made the poisonous god laugh again. While he was taking very discreet actions against Oslo, because he knew him for being paranoiac. He wouldn't waste his forces for anything.

Hundreds of years passed, and when the time was good, he decided to create a portal between the two. For that, he had to sacrifice a large part of his nagas on Forslo, since his main objective was the young Aria. And it worked beautifully. Salazar watched as the demon protected by Oslo died by the hands of the human. In truth, he was shocked by that, but, Oslo probably still had other worlds to protect him. While Aria was far too young to have a stable foundation.

Following this, he began his attack on everyone, inflicting heavy damages on Forslo and nearly decimating Astria. He just forgot something that shouldn't have been possible. Astria was a former empty world, but all the races on this planet, except the humans of Aria managed to survive the permanent battles for thousands of years. And that was the downfall of the ratmen.

In their mind, the only real threat was the humans. But who would have thought to create an oath against the ratmen and that all the other races would have hunted them? Undead working with the humans? Even Salazar didn't see that often. All his ratmen spread across the world were hunted one after the other. He managed to kill the Hero, but that was not useful at all. In fact, the humans were nearly useless, it was the world himself that was defending them. Orcs in the North, Dwarves in their mountains, Spiders in their lairs, Vampires in their corrupted coast.

The lizardmen, the dark elves beyond them, the Tomb Kings, and the forest elves were all destroyed or reduced to such a pitiful state that they were too weak to resist. But for the rest, they were still strong enough to resist against his entire army of ratmen. Seeing this, Salazar had to stop everything on Astria and ordered his troops to hide.

After that, he regretted his hurry to attack the world. Normally, the army of the god in charge is the strongest, but here, it was not even close to the rest. But it was far too late. He had lost too much, he needed to wait. But that forced him to pause the rest of his conquests because he had overextended his power in that case. The only good thing was the death of both Hero, or that was what he thought.

Oslo didn't betray his expectation. The moment he was strong enough, he destroyed his last force on Forslo, after years of hunting. The poisonous one cursed him for that, but that was fair, it was not the first time one or the other tried to hurt the other. But the behavior of Aria was baffling. Barely a dozen of years, and she proclaimed that she destroyed the ratmen. Like seriously, who do you think you are? Salazar was really angered by that sentence. Normally, gods are scared of him or at least respected his strength. But here, a stupid baby is saying that she destroyed him?

And he waited, and this time, he personally appeared in front of his ratmen. He said that if they failed that time too, death will be a pleasant dream. And he ordered them to not appear at all before they are strong enough to destroy that weak human kingdom. The only bad news was the timing, it took far too long to create another army and weapons, especially when they had to hide. Couldn't steal as much food as before, couldn't hunt enough monster cores.

And then, a lone ratman appeared in a city inside that kingdom. Salazar was truly baffled, but he nonetheless checked that. But, even his assassin couldn't even see that ratman. And no matter how he tried, he couldn't see that rogue sorcerer with his vision. The Hero of Aria should already be trained and armed, and something that stupid thing came out from nowhere. He had to start the war now before the old alliance was created once again.

After that, he still launched many assassins after that supposed ratman from one of his clan. Even if he knew it was not true, otherwise, he could have just seen it anywhere in Astria. But what he saw was the army of the dwarves and humans marching toward his ratmen. He was relatively scared because he couldn't see the Hero and find his weakness in time. And the army was just big enough to potentially destroy 80% of his forces. And after that, if someone else came, he will truly have lost the war on that planet.

But nothing wrong happened. In fact, only good things happened. A ghost shaped as a ratman, something that never happened in front of him, destroyed the capital of the kingdom of Aria. Provoking the defeat of the army besieging his capital. And allowing him to fight on even ground. He will be able to spread around the world, and immediately start to destroy all the forces of Aria. And potentially even killed her. In fact, if destroying Astria was not enough, he will try to find her and annihilate her other planets. That's how angry Salazar was. No one insulted him and survived.

And everything would have been fine if it wasn't for that ghost. The poisonous god was baffled by his capacity of creating undead and strange powers. He even began to start thinking that it was the Hero of Hades, coming here just to have fun and destroy anyone in front of him. But normally, that Hero should be shaped as a human, not a ratman. And after that, he saw through the eyes of an assassin that ghost with the dwarves. His assassin didn't survive after that sight. But now, he had to fight something that shouldn't be here in the first place. He nearly cursed the Nine Heavens for that. What he saw was also the remnants of the human army with the dwarves and so, he ordered his Apostle to personally destroy the dwarves. With his entire might.

As for the weird Hero, he was still thankful for his presence. The ghost was probably the reason for the absence of Hero coming from the kingdom of Aria. A battle should have been conducted and the Hero of that stupid goddess was already dead. Otherwise, Salazar had no idea why after a century, Aria didn't bless another Hero.

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