“Let’s see our options,” John opened up the Monster List.

“So I still can’t get past the Gap,” he informed her.

“Already knew that. What else is there in that Tier 3 category?” Rave asked and jumped on his back. She peeked over his shoulder and stared intently into the air, like that would somehow make the window visible to her as well. In the meantime, John was struggling to keep his balance. “Ya need to level your strength up a bit.” Rave whispered into his ear. The sudden boner he got from that and her body pressing against him wasn’t helping his stabilizing efforts. “I want to be carried like a princess!”

“Well, maybe you should act like one then!” John mocked as he finally found a steady stand.

“Ruuude!” Rave laughed and rested her chin on his shoulder. “Now out with it.”

“Well aside from Treants, Tier 3 also contains Giant Rats and Half-Orcs.” John read off the list.

“Half-Orcs, huh. I wonder if they are Half-Orc and Half-Human or something else?”

“Well, as before that in Tier 2 there is the Hobgoblin I would guess that they are the other half,” John reasoned.

“Eh, we won’t find out today. I want the rats,” Rave decided.

“Why is that?” John was curious.

“Because I just got a cute little Kitty.” Rave grinned. “What better target than Rats?”

He couldn’t argue with that so he created the instant dungeon (after Rave got off his back). The change was immediate. Like disgustingly so. The other two dungeons had some wind-up or spawn time involved but the rats were right there and the creatures were aggressive.

A swarm of bodies stormed at the trio without a moment of hesitation. Black fur covered their sleek forms, each as long as John’s legs and skinny to the point of malnourishment. Sharp little claws scratched over the branch-covered forest floor as they skittered around like oversized shadows, dragging their long, dark-red tails after them like rotting guts.

Of course, these weren’t particularly intimidating, all things considered. “I got this!” Rave said with a smirk. The copper wristband lit up and Copernicus jumped to the ground. He hissed at the Giant Rats which, intimidated, stopped in their assault. Instead, they formed a giant ring around the group. Come to think of it, John hadn’t looked at the sun cat itself yet with his Skill.

“Wow!” He was amazed. Those were some impressive Stats and Levels. Interesting that he still had Libido though. Apparently even some elementals had a sexual drive. He wasn’t sure, and did not care to find out, how that manifested with a cat. Good to know for the future of anything else he might contract though.

“So, Jane.” Copernicus said and turned to his summoner, “as I said: I am not particularly interested in fighting. You have fun with this.” Out of the cat’s golden fur sprang two waves of light that wrapped themselves around Rave’s legs below the calves. “There you go. I will hang out on that tree over there until you are done.” Copernicus jumped over the mass of rats still held back by his presence with a single jump and then climbed a tree. Once he had found a branch comfortable enough to lay down on, he did so. From there he looked down, tail dangling and cleaned his paws.

“What does that even do though?” John asked but was quickly reminded that this wasn’t the time to ask questions. The Giant Rats, emboldened by the apparent retreat of their natural enemy, started squeaking aggressively.

“Who cares, let’s just punch them!” Rave shouted and jumped into the fray. John thought that was unwise. However high one’s level was, jumping into a pile of gnawing teeth seemed like a very bad idea.

Rave landed and the bands of light on her feet sent out ripples of Light that pushed back the opportunistic jumpers much the same way Moira had pushed back Rave with her shockwaves. Rave swinging her left leg in a direct kick revealed however that these shockwaves weren’t that one-note. Once her foot slammed into an enemy, the trail of the attack lashed out as a band of gold, pushing several lunging rats back before they could exploit the opening.

‘So, it’s some kind of afterimage attack?’ John theorized as he watched her go. The assumption grew in validity with each attack. Every kick and every stomp created a gold-copper shockwave, moving like a disturbed water surface. The strength of each individual ripple seemed to depend on how much energy Rave expended between raising her foot off the ground and connecting with something, be it an enemy or the ground.

When she connected with a target the ripple started along the path that her leg, more exactly the golden addition to her calves, had taken and then spread like a wave away from Rave’s position. If she connected with the ground instead, it just sent out a ring-shaped ripple over the ground.

It was an artful display, now that Rave was fully engaged in the swing of things. She punched and kicked, the latter always filling the battlefield with fresh light. New ripples chased after older ones, all dissipating into golden particles after a few metres. It reminded John a lot of a motion game, just in reverse.

“Master!” Aclysia’s voice pulled him back into reality. The Artificial Spirit necked a Giant Rat that had been leaping at him.

“Whoops, got complacent there for a moment.” John apologized, “Thank you, Aclysia.”

“I do enjoy engaging my prime directive,” she answered with a slight smile. It stemmed from being praised, but when she broke the Rat’s neck between her fingers, the smile took a slightly different form for a second. A sharp, broad form that John could not quite place. It vanished alongside the corpse. Left behind was only a $5 bill.

“Okay, so you take this.” John handed her the Sword of Glory. Next, he triggered Gnome’s materialization and finally used Possession on a nearby tree. All of which cost him a combined amount of 17 Mana per Minute. He still wanted more mana. He always needed more mana. “Aclysia, you attack them but stay close enough to come to my aid. Gnome you protect me, with your powers if need be. Have at it!” John declared his strategy and the tree he possessed bent over.

Thick branches swiped away Rats like the oversized pests that they were. How effective that strategy was at killing them John didn’t know but he guessed fairly that sending dozens of rats flying was bound to inflict at least some damage.

Rave remained the centre and origin of a storm of light. The difference between before and after the contract was evident in her reaction speed and in how far her punches catapulted the rats away before they dissolved into ash and dust.

It was a very one-sided battle but the rats just kept coming. Aggressive little monsters that they were, they stormed into their own demise with only the thought of food in their pitch-black eyes. Aclysia, to the left of John, pushed them back with relative ease herself. She swung the Sword of Glory in wide attacks that always killed at least one of the attackers, while denying others the chance to pass and assault John. In front of him, Rave held the field. To his right, Gnome had erected a wall (using his mana of course) with the only opening being where she stood. The rats had no choice but to try to go through her and she shoved them back dispassionately.

Well, actually he should Observe Gnome as well while she was still corporeal.

Her Strength continued to impress. Pretty much what he expected from an earth elemental – slow but sturdy and powerful. ‘Those rats really die in droves though’ John thought as he whipped away another swarm with his tree body as his actual body yawned, ‘Boss Spawn shouldn’t take long at all.’

And there he was. The instant the window opened, the rats suddenly stopped. They raised their heads into the air, sniffed a couple of times, then streamed back into the forest. For a moment there was silence, then the reverberation of massive steps filled the air. The source did not remain unseen for long.

John spotted a giant humanoid waltz towards them. It was at least five metres tall and had grey fur. Its arms were long, its legs relatively short, giving it a gorilla-esque stature. Both arms ended in clawed rat feet like extremities. It turned its rodent head at the group and let loose a deep warcry, revealing its teeth that reminded John more of a shark than a rat.

 ‘No epics? Disappointing.’ “Okay, so…do we even need a strategy for this?” John asked but Rave was already on the move. She jumped up to the Rat Ogre’s face and delivered a mid-air roundhouse kick. The Rat Ogre stayed on its feet, which, as it turned out, was exactly what Rave wanted. The Lightbearer used its face as a platform to jump at the branch where Copernicus was sitting. “Let me cuddle ya!”

Copernicus, not having expected that at all, was suddenly ripped from his lying position by Rave’s fondling hands. John found the whole scene amusing but it also left him to deal with a giant Rat Ogre while his girlfriend was busy patting her elemental. Luckily, he did not have to deal with such things himself. The perks of being a summoner.

The Rat Ogre reared its head, unsure what to attack next. When it lurched forward towards the trio, Gnome sucked away half of John’s mana. The giant’s feet sunk into holes where treadable ground was a moment ago. Before it could lift itself out, the pits quickly refilled, cementing him in the ground.

“Well, let’s see if you run out of life before I run out of mana,” John said and pointed his palm at the creature. The first wind-up time saw the beast struggling and screaming as he tried to free his stubby legs from their prison. Gnome had done good work and the dirt she moved was indirectly infused with her power. It wouldn’t have been quite as impressive if it was just regular old dirt.

The Rat Ogre failed to free itself and so the first beam hit it directly in the chest. Fur burned away under the impressive strength of the attack. The Rat Ogre seemingly didn’t care, painless as it was, but still thrashed as it felt its time running out. The second wind-up began and three seconds later the Rat Ogre was struck in the chest by the second Mana Ray. This didn’t kill it but the creature was barely even struggling against its binding anymore.

“Actually outlasted my mana. Aclysia, finish him off, please,” John instructed.

“Affirmative.” Aclysia stepped forward and delivered a plunge straight to where the two Mana Rays had already exposed the monster’s rib cage. The one stab was all it took for the creature to fall for good.

“Jane, I thought you wanted a fight!” John shouted across the forest.

“I decided cuddles are more important!” she shouted back.