Chapter 7: Spine Blade Rat Nest
Soren approached the body of the enormous rat and inspected it carefully. It had metallic spines jutting from its back, small sharp claws on its paws, and the size of a dog — pumpkin orange in color.
"Spine Blade Rat, you said?"
Audrey nodded. "Even with their short legs, they're quite fast. They live in groups inside burrows, and their singularity is fairly useful. If I remember right, it's a retractable dagger. Given its multiple uses, it could move around ten silver." She said this while crouching beside the body.
A white knife appeared in her palm. It was unsettling. Curved, double-tipped, with a handle bearing a scale pattern like snakeskin. It didn't gleam. It made no sound… and yet it looked sharper than the eye could measure. Soren studied it closely. Motionless, yet it seemed to hold something back — as if the blade itself were waiting. This was no crude tool. It carried the quiet weight of someone who had learned to survive.
"Is that a singularity?" asked Soren, intrigued. "What level?"
"Level two," answered Audrey without taking her eyes off the body.
Soren narrowed his eyes. "And how much could something like that cost?"
Audrey paused briefly. "A level two usually runs around fifty silver coins. But this one…" she turned the blade slightly between her fingers "…is far from ordinary. It could be worth considerably more."
Without adding anything else, she drove the knife into the soft part of the creature's stomach and, with a wet, precise cut, opened it. Then she pulled the blade out and reached inside the flesh, searching through it. The process was messy, but quick. She found the reddish singularity and held it up, her hands covered in thick blood.
Soren took it without hesitating, getting his hands stained as well. The warmth surprised him — a latent, living heat, more dormant ember than open flame. It was a gradient of red bleeding into deep orange. Inside, the galaxy showed tiny metallic spikes rotating slowly — like spines drifting in their own small universe. For a moment, he had the strange feeling that he wasn't holding a sphere… but something waiting to be set free. He handed it back to Audrey.
She left the Spine Blade Rat's body on the ground, stood up, gathered her things, and mounted Sira.
Soren approached the horned Bengal tiger, grabbed onto the fur, and hoisted himself up with a single jump. This time — after resting, eating, and assimilating his first singularity — he made it on the first attempt, butterflies in his stomach, but not from fear… from anticipation.
Sira dug her paws into the ground and accelerated. She burst out of the clearing and back into the dense, shadowy forest. She began weaving between the giant branches of ash trees as if cutting through a living labyrinth. Then she pushed through thickets, following trails carved by beasts. Sira seemed to know exactly where she was going. Audrey didn't need to give her directions — she only watched, attentive. The tiger marked certain areas and avoided others, as if recognizing dangers invisible even to Audrey. She descended a hill blanketed in thick vegetation, pushing deep into the terrain. Finally she crossed a small stream and stopped behind a massive twisted ash tree that curved into the sky as if reaching for the light of the two suns.
The forest, suddenly, went silent.
"Well done, girl," said Audrey, patting Sira.
They dismounted, hid themselves in the brush beside the twisted ash, and peered out into the distance. The first thing they saw was a raised mound of clay-like mud, perforated by hundreds of holes. It seemed to grow over itself, as if the nest were slowly expanding. It had countless openings, and from many of them Spine Blade Rats poured out in large numbers. Several carried food in their snouts — bird carcasses, insects, and mostly fruit. Others simply wandered. From that distance, they looked like ants.
"Damn," Audrey murmured. "There are too many. They usually live in groups smaller than ten… but this is an enormous burrow."
Soren nodded. He glanced at Sira's paws, still cut up from fighting just one. Here there were hundreds. "Is there a reason a nest would grow this large?" he asked carefully.
"There could be many. Beasts don't always behave the same way. But the most likely reason… is that there's a king."
"A king?" he said, frowning. "A much stronger creature?"
Audrey nodded. "It's not beyond my reach. If it's level two, I can handle it. If it's level three, things will get complicated… but what's truly problematic is the sheer number of level ones. There are hundreds. And when they have a king, they work together."
Soren nodded. "So it might be better to fall back?"
Audrey didn't answer right away. "Do you handle any kind of weapon?" she asked instead.
Soren took a few seconds to respond. In his mind, he recalled that he had a basic grasp of boxing — nothing extraordinary, but enough to have gotten him out of trouble more than once. Even so, that knowledge had no place in this world. Besides, he had always preferred using words before resorting to violence. He looked at the nest in the distance. Too many enemies in too open a space. A knife would be useless… but a tool like an axe, on the other hand—
"An axe," he said finally.
Audrey raised her hand and a sphere of green energy formed. The translucent liquid twisted and took the shape of a crude axe. "This is Green Light," she said as she handed it over. "It can take any shape I want. Right now it's an axe because that's what you asked for. While it's in your hands you won't be able to change its form, but at least you'll be able to defend yourself."
Soren felt the weight in his hands and nodded. He kept staring at the green axe, captivated. It was rough and outdated compared to the ones he knew, but functional. He knew he could defend himself with it.
"Stay here," said Audrey. "Sira and I will go in, take out a couple, and bring back their singularities. Wait here and stay alert — we'll need to move fast on the way out. In and out, nothing more. If anything goes wrong, if a rat tries to come at you, at least you have something to fight back with."
Soren nodded, but before Audrey turned away he asked: "Why risk your life for this?"
Audrey held his gaze for a moment. "Because that's what Seekers do."