Master of Dominion-Chapter 74:The Withered Vermin tide

Rael, on reaching the first boundary ward sigil, couldn’t help but feel baffled and, at the same time, terrified by what he saw.

He saw both Ayobe and Yasmin at the helm of the array, obviously prepared to face this swarm. However, this didn’t seem like any ordinary withered swarm.

For unlike others, these didn’t attack; they all just stood there, staring from a meter away. There were so many that Rael couldn’t even count them; his mind could only come up with rough estimates of eighty to one hundred and thirty withered, if not more.

And this particular swarm was made up entirely of the creatures he hated the most: rats fucking Aether rats now mutated and transformed into hellish horrors by the withered parasites.

What truly sent a chill down the spines of everyone present was the fact that the withered vermins didn’t attack. Even when Yasmin threw several fireballs into their midst, they just stood there, staring at the territory, which made the entire scenario more horrifying.

"They’re not supposed to do that, are they?" Rael posed the question to no one in particular, knowing full well that the withered he’d heard of don’t just stare at Aether beings like a delicious meal without charging madly.

"No, they are not," Iyvre replied warily, her cold eyes filled with caution.

"There is no way any of us can take a step beyond the array; we’ll get swallowed up by that many," Yasmin spoke seriously

"I guess we’ll have to stick to long-ra—" Rael was just about to add, only for him to immediately frown as he quickly turned his head toward the back of the territory.

"What is it?" Iyvre noticed Rael’s change in expression and his gaze that had turned cold.

"They are... they’re attacking the other side of the array," Rael said in slight astonishment and annoyance, before turning and rushing toward the other side of the fences.

The sisters and Xaphxan were shocked by what Rael had said, with Xaphxan being downright terrified as a horrifying thought crossed his mind. He gazed at the Withered Vermin, which seemed to be getting active all of a sudden after Rael left.

"Shit, I’ll go with him." Without wasting time, Yasmin turned and rushed after Rael, having immediately come to the conclusion of sharing their power on two sides, with Iyvre and Ayobe on this end and her and Rael on the other.

Ayobe wanted to protest, but Iyvre’s raised hand stopped her as she pointed at the Withered Vermins. They had started shrieking in a cacophony of rhythms that even made the array flare up, showing that this was obviously a sound attack.

Iyvre’s gaze turned cold as she turned to Xaphxan. "You’ll go from one end to another and provide support when needed. I suspect we’ll be needing a lot of that," she said, before charging outside with Ayobe drawing her blades and following behind.

"You’ve got to be shitting me," Xaphxan muttered, shaken by what he’d concluded within his mind. This swarm..., this very swarm was intelligent that’s if it was even still a swarm at all.

Rael quickly sensed Yasmin following after him, but his focus was drawn to the countless Withered Vermins gnashing and mawing at the array, causing it to flicker continuously in several parts.

Rael didn’t want to use the sigils’ rebound attacks just yet, since that consumed way more energy. So, before even reaching the barrier, he immediately slashed his sword horizontally, sending a red arc straight towards the unfortunate Withered Vermins.

It sliced through a dozen, creating a gap within the swarm, into which Rael immediately leaped. He sent two more arcs to his left and right, slaying dozens more.

As he immediately slipped into his WarMaster’s Precision state, he swung and twirled his sword in multiple directions, dissecting and decapitating several in his path before Yasmin finally reached him, hissing in disgust at the abominations.

She lit her palms in flames, rapidly sending five basketball-sized fireballs toward the ones about to pounce on Rael.

BOOM!

The Withered erupted in flames as more charged toward Rael, with some veering for Yasmin.

Yasmin immediately smashed a vial onto the ground, causing greenish smoke to erupt. She clasped her hands together as a blue, shimmering ball started spinning within her palms, swallowing up the green smoke and turning the sphere green. She blasted it into the mass of the Withered Vermins.

BOOM!

The ball erupted in a green sweep of wind that blasted the Withered back before sizzling into their rotten, corrupted flesh.

’The poison works, but it’s not effective enough,’ Yasmin thought, seeing that her concoction hadn’t had the impact she expected on the Withered. Regardless, she moved, occasionally dropping seeds on the ground before leaping onto a tree branch while sending two fireballs crashing into the vermin swarm mid-air.

BOOM! BOOM!

She slammed her palm, which held three seeds, onto the bark of the tree she stood upon, immediately causing the tree to groan and creak as several roots ruptured out of its trunk and pierced into multiple withered vermins.

Swish.

"Thirty-five."

Swoosh.

"Thirty-seven."

Rael thrust his sword upwards, plunging it into the chest of another rat before slamming it heavily onto another, smashing them both into a bloody pulp.

"Thirty-nine."

Rael had slipped so deep into the WarMaster’s Precision that he became basically a blur of gore and wind, slashing and cutting several rats into pieces. But even with his mind so focused on slaughtering what he’d come to believe was a relentless wave of withered, his senses were constantly on alert for any sort of ambush. He didn’t know why, but he felt a hint of dread.

The Tier 3 quest that kept glowing red told him that this obviously coordinated attack was not done by some mad withered husk, and that thought terrified him.

He stomped on the head of a vermin with countless maws, crushing it before leaping into a backflip while spinning his sword around, cutting several that tried to lunge at him.

He turned his attention to the feedback from the sigils and could sense that Iyvre’s side was having it rough too.

He ducked to the side as a bigger maw gnawed at him, before the creature rammed its spiked body into the sword Rael used to shield his exposed flank. It forced him backwards until he skidded to a stop, while stabbing continuously into the heads of other smaller Withered. Then, a large fireball crashed into the bigger Withered rat, bursting it into flames and organs.

Rael’s eyes turned to Yasmin, who nodded at him from above before sending a spinning blue ball downwards, blasting several Withered rats that tried to crawl up the tree.