A Core Ship From The Start

The ground collapsed, and Duanmu Huai and the Mouse Troll fell together into the deep pit. The Mouse Troll howled as it plunged into the abyss below, while Duanmu Huai quickly activated his jetpack to stabilize his body. Looking down, under the glare of the searchlight, he saw dozens of sharp stalactites in the depths of the cave, pointing directly at him.

“Hiss——”

Seeing this scene, Duanmu Huai instinctively took in a cold breath, then watched as numerous Ratmen wielded pickaxes, desperately racing towards another tunnel.

“Iron Skin Ghost! Iron Skin Ghost! Iron Skin Ghost can fly! So scary!”

You blasted beasts!

Seeing this, Duanmu Huai became livid, anger rising from his heart, fear gripping him. These damnable Ratmen dared to use such a vicious plan against him! Would he stand for anything less than killing off these bastards?!

With this thought, Duanmu Huai clenched his War Hammer and quickly switched the direction of his jetpack, rapidly rushing towards the Ratmen!

“Iron Skin Ghost! Iron Skin Ghost is coming!!”

Seeing Duanmu Huai charge towards them, the Ratmen shrieked, raising their spears directly at him. Yet, Duanmu Huai didn’t even dodge. He simply rushed into the Ratmen crowd, his War Hammer swinging out like a golf club, knocking all the Ratmen before him away. The spears held by the Ratmen broke as soon as they touched Duanmu’s Power Armor, not causing any damage at all.

“Iron Skin Ghost! Iron Skin Ghost!!”

Duanmu Huai’s attack was clearly terrifying to the remaining Ratmen. Screaming, they turned to run, disappearing into the depths of the tunnel in a blink of an eye.

“Humph, a bunch of useless lot.”

Duanmu Huai snorted coldly, and then immediately activated a mental link to connect with Ogis.

“Ogis, how is the situation above?”

“No problem, master, are you okay?”

“I’m fine…… I found the tunnel dug by the Ratmen over here. These bastards have really dug everywhere……”

Looking at the crisscrossing tunnels in front of him, Duanmu Huai clenched his jaw in a nonchalant manner. Honestly, Ratmen were his most despised enemy. After all, chaos believers are above ground, and you can blow them up if you get pissed off. But Ratmen like to dig underground. It’s not like Dumanmu can blow up the entire planet…hmm?

Upon this thought, Duanmu Huai suddenly came up with a brilliant idea.

If he remembers correctly, isn’t there a river that passes through this city center?

Well…… Duanmu Huai knew what to do.

“Master?”

Perhaps because she had not received further instructions from Duanmu Huai, Ogis again asked, and Duanmu Huai snapped back to the situation at hand.

“Oh, sorry, Ogis, I was thinking about something. Let’s do this; you cut open these Dimension Stones first, then take them out to the Combat Nuns from the Rock Monastery for sealing. As for that box, you take good care of it, I’ll get it when I return. And, I need you to convey a plan to General Pastte…”

Just at this moment, Duanmu Huai suddenly turned around and reached out his hand to grab a Ratman that sprang out from the darkness. It was holding a poisoned dagger, flailing around desperately. Duanmu Huai’s left hand held the Ratman’s head in a firm grip, and he slowly tightened his hold. Alongside Duanmu Huai’s action, the struggle of the Ratman Assassin grew more wild, wildly swinging its dagger, leaving marks on Duanmu Huai’s armoured sleeve without causing any damage; then Duanmu Huai gave a hard grip with his left hand.

“Squelch!”

The next moment, the Ratman assassin’s head was directly crushed by Duanmu Huai, turning into a puddle of mud, and the Ratman assassin’s body twitched a few times before it stopped responding.

It wasn’t until then that Duanmu Huai tossed away the corpse of the Ratman assassin like trashing garbage.

He was determined to completely eliminate these damned creatures.

Duanmu Huai’s solution was simple – this city had a river, so why not divert the river water into the Ratmen’s underground tunnels and drown them all?

After all, Ratmen can only dig holes, they can’t breathe underwater.

Duanmu Huai initially thought General Pastte might hesitate, but after Ogis informed General Pastte, the latter readily agreed to Duanmu Huai’s plan and even offered assistance – these were their canals they were going to blast, didn’t they care at all?

Well, it seems they didn’t care now.

For Duanmu Huai, this was not a difficult task, he just had to send the Reconnaissance Servo Skull to scan the underground environment, then compare it with the surface map, locate the river areas, open a channel by the side and guide the river water in. With his Power Armor, Duanmu Huai wasn’t worried about getting drowned. But the Ratmen had no such gear, and Duanmu Huai was looking forward to seeing them drown alive in the water.

That would surely be refreshing.

Of course, General Pastte wasn’t just sitting idly by. Duanmu Huai had heard from Ogis that General Pastte had dispatched Combat Groups and soldiers to the wharf area and the big bridge ravaged by the Ratmen, partly to recover these two areas, partly to distract the Ratmen and lay the groundwork for Duanmu Huai’s operation.

Wasn’t the General a little too easygoing?

Although somewhat perplexed at General Pastte’s actions, his willingness to cooperate was welcome, so Duanmu Huai didn’t think much about it and started his operation according to his own plan.

Meanwhile, the Ratmen deep in the tunnels were still oblivious to the impending disaster. In fact, their chief was gnashing his teeth at the failure of this operation.

“Bad Iron Skin Ghost! Bad Iron Skin Ghost! Blocking the Combat Group’s plan again and again! He wants to exterminate Ratmen, he is a Bad Iron Skin Ghost! He must be killed!”

Felchi, furiously stamping his foot, chopped off the head of a Scout who had come to bring news. In fact, Duanmu Huai didn’t know that the Ratmen Combat Group hidden in Modheim had a personal connection to him – this Ratmen Combat Group belonged to the Eysin Clan, and the trump card assassin of the Eysin Clan, Death Master Sines, had been chopped into pieces by Ogis during the previous underground battle with the dwarves.

The Murder-Lord, having lost his reliable assistant, was furious, and the Ratmen below took the opportunity to make their move, trying to take up this position in the absence of Sines. That’s why Felchi led the Ratmen Combat Group to Modheim, hoping to win his Lord’s favor by collecting Dimension Stones, and make him the second Death Master.

Unfortunately, his luck wasn’t so good.

As Felchi was raging, he received another piece of news – humans were attacking the Ratman’s strongholds at the dock area and the bridge. So, Felchi immediately found himself in a difficult decision.

To lead his followers and repel the human onslaught, or to deal with the Iron Skin Ghost first, and then take care of these nuisances.

Eventually, Felchi made a decision.

“Kill the human scum, slaughter them! As for the Iron Skin Ghost, he can’t leave the underworld! We will take care of him later!!”

In Felchi’s viewpoint, the humans attacking the strongholds were obviously more threatening. Though the Iron Skin Ghost was powerful, he was alone, and was in the dark underworld – the Ratmen here had countless ways to kill him, and Felchi was even hoping to strip off and offer his Steel Battle Armor to the Murder-Lord, which would surely raise his own status further.

In reality, Duanmu Huai, of course, had anticipated all this. If he had just arrived in this world, he indeed might not know how to handle such a situation. But now it was different, with the World Fragment, Duanmu Huai simply wasn’t worried about getting trapped. If those damned rats were planning to trap and kill him underground, he could just open a teleportation portal straight to the Holy City universe when he felt things were going south, and then find another place to leave.

Each side was confident in their own plan.

But only one could ultimately emerge victorious.