Chapter 20: Mechanical Traps

"Squeak... squeak..." Qinghe Village was filled with the sharp cries of rats; over a thousand large rats had almost completely clogged the main streets and small alleys of Qinghe Village.

The large black rats swarmed over like surging tides of black water; such a terrifying scene made many villagers tremble with fear.

The rats the villagers usually saw were only the size of a palm, typically just stealing a bit of food and scurrying away in a panic upon seeing people.

These large rats charging over were at least the size of watermelons, five or six times larger than ordinary rats. Their eyes were blood-red, and they were not afraid of humans at all. Instead, they looked at the villagers of Qinghe Village as if staring at chunks of fresh, delicious fatty meat, charging over frantically, wanting to feast.

"Release the Rolling Logs!" Meng Yifan shouted loudly. On the hillside near the second line of defense, the four elderly and frail villagers stationed there received the order and immediately used kitchen knives to cut the ropes holding them in place.

Four tree trunks, each as thick as a person could embrace, rolled down from the small slope, gathering speed and emitting a rumbling sound.

These four tree trunks were studded with dense, long nails, making them look like four giant maces. As they rolled from the hillside into the rat tide, a large number of rats were directly impaled by the long nails, hanging onto the trunks as they continued to roll downward. Before long, four blood-blurred paths appeared in the rat tide.

"Ding! Team hunt killed one Unranked rat, gained 0.1 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunt killed one Unranked rat, gained 0.1 Experience Value."

"Ding! Team hunt killed one Unranked rat, gained 0.1 Experience Value."

The notification sounds from the Game Panel in Meng Yifan's mind rang out incessantly, as if his screen were being flooded. He only gained 0.1 Experience Value for killing one Unranked rat, which seemed like very little, but he couldn't resist the sheer number being killed.

As the four Rolling Logs crushed everything in their path, Meng Yifan discovered with pleasant surprise that his Experience Value on the Game Panel was rising continuously. After a moment, he had harvested 12.8 Experience Value. By this calculation, these four Rolling Logs alone had eliminated 128 large rats.

The kinetic energy of the Rolling Logs was exhausted, and they came to a wobbly stop. Their long nails were covered with a large number of rats; some rats had been crushed into pieces, as if they had been thrown into a meat grinder and beaten into minced meat, dead beyond any doubt.

Some rats were still alive, their bodies pierced by the long nails. As they struggled slightly, their bodies became like blood gourds, spurting blood everywhere. They were near death, spitting blood from their mouths and emitting bursts of miserable, mournful cries.

The Rat King was given a huge fright. The lethality of these four Rolling Logs was too great, causing at least one hundred and fifty large rats to lose their combat effectiveness. Although it had many subordinates, it also felt great heartache at such large-scale slaughter.

"Roar!" While the Rat King was somewhat hesitant, the Flying Tiger Demon in the sky roared again, urging the Rat King to continue the attack.

"Squeak!" Forced into a corner, the Rat King could only order the rat tide to continue charging forward.

Although the Rat King was only a First Grade low-tier large rat, it had been enlightened by demon arts. If it wanted to continue evolving, it could not do without the support of the Flying Tiger Demon, so it had to execute the Flying Tiger Demon's orders.

The rat army bypassed the four Rolling Logs and continued to charge forward, but after only a few steps, they triggered the animal traps buried on the second line of defense one after another.

"Click! Click!" As soon as the animal traps were triggered, they would snap shut with sharp jaws. These animal traps were prepared for large animals and were normally used to trap the legs of Wild Beasts.

However, these large rats were only a dozen centimeters tall. After triggering the traps, the sharp, saw-toothed jaws closed from both sides toward the middle, clamping exactly onto the rats' necks, causing many rats to be directly decapitated, their heads rolling onto the ground.

Meng Yifan had led the villagers to bury fifty-eight animal traps outside the second line of defense. It wasn't that they didn't want to bury more, but they had searched the entire Qinghe Village and only found this many.

The rat tide charged over in a dense mass, and all fifty-eight animal traps were stepped on, resulting in sixty-two large rats being caught. Four of the traps had clamped onto two large rats at once when they closed. Meng Yifan gained another 6.2 Experience Value.

Another sixty-two large rats were killed. The other large rats could not spare the time for grief; they stepped on the corpses of their companions and continued to charge forward. Just as they were about to approach those damned humans, the ground beneath the feet of the large rats in the front suddenly gave way, and dozens of large rats fell directly into a two-meter-deep pit.

The pit was filled with sharp spears, and after the large rats fell in, their bodies were directly pierced through.

The Flying Tiger Demon watched from mid-air, dumbfounded. The area in front of the human defense line had looked perfectly flat, but only after the large rats stepped over did it realize that a pit one and a half meters wide and two meters deep had been dug there, covered with straw. As soon as they stepped on it, they would fall into the pit.

The large rats were charging too fast and could not stop their momentum at all, falling into the pit one after another. In this short moment, another hundred-plus large rats were wiped out.

Out of over a thousand large rats, more than three hundred had been wiped out by various mechanisms and traps before even making real contact with the humans. How had the humans of Qinghe Village suddenly become so cunning?

Since the start of the battle, its subordinate Wild Beasts had suffered heavy casualties, yet the humans on the opposite side remained unscathed, which made the Flying Tiger Demon burn with rage.

The Flying Tiger Demon had a mind to launch an attack from the air, but Meng Yifan had arranged for people to operate six Elm Cannons, pointing them in its direction. If it flew over from the sky, it would have to face the bombardment of the six Elm Cannons first.

Although the Flying Tiger Demon was a Third Grade Demon Beast, it did not dare to use its body to forcefully resist the Cannon attacks, so it chose to let the rat tide continue charging forward regardless of casualties.

It did not believe that the humans' mechanisms and traps were inexhaustible. Even if these large rats were all wiped out, as long as the humans' mechanisms and traps were destroyed, it would be worth it.

Upon receiving the Flying Tiger Demon's order, the Rat King, though very reluctant, still urged its subordinate large rats to continue charging forward.

The large rats did not have high intelligence; they obeyed the Rat King's orders completely. Even seeing the pit in front of them, they still charged forward wave after wave.

Seeing this scene, Meng Yifan frowned. Although these large rats had very average strength, this momentum of charging forward without regard for life after receiving an order was indeed something to be admired.

When Meng Yifan was a mercenary, he had seen many human soldiers who, when facing death, would tremble all over and lose their human composure. From this point of view, human soldiers were not as useful as these large rats.

Three minutes later, the large rats had lost another two hundred-plus, having literally filled the pit with their bodies to create a passable path.

Only five hundred-plus of the rat tide remained, but the mechanisms and traps Meng Yifan had set outside the second line of defense had all been used. Gunpowder was limited and had to be saved for critical moments; from here on out, everyone would have to rely on close-quarters combat.