Expensive-looking quilts and gold trinkets were scattered under the heavy feet of rats. A huge swarm covered the buildings back as far as the eye could see. With rushed steps, David entered the building; akin to a force of nature, he slammed open the double doors.

  The earlier doubt had left him. He only sought to right a wrong in this gym. To help as many as he could was his singular goal. While David had done them wrong, he would not sacrifice himself to the rats to lessen the burden on his mind. There had to be another way he could repay them, and this would only be possible if he was alive after the countless rats had been defeated.

  Without conscious thought, his eyes scanned the entrance. The cheap scraps of cloth, doubling as beds, covered sickly-looking forms that were wiggling about in terror.

  The sight made him sick. Unequal treatment was one way David would describe the scene. Calculated was another. If something breached the gym from the front, the unfortunate souls would be the first to fall prey. He would never be able to reconcile with a person who dictated such treatment, but David also knew this was not the time for contemplation.

  He sprung to action with the force of Mother Earth herself. His sword unsheathed with the loud screech of metal on metal, and he hefted it on his shoulders. Ready to strike, he marched to battle.

  " Get the sick out of here! " David roared at the top of his lungs, not even turning around to see if the rag-tag group had followed him back into the gym.

  David jerked his shoulder upwards. The simple motion was the beginning of his fight. It minimized the need for strength to lift the heavy blade slightly. Next, he swept it out in a low-reaching arc, cutting down a score of rats at once.

  His action gave him some room, but the never-ending tide still advanced on him. Unbroken in rank, they closed the gap between them and their prey.

  David's pride surged as his gaze narrowed, entering a frenzy he never thought capable of before. The madness bubbled from his stomach, but his cold, calculating head kept it in check as fire and ice warred in his body.

  " Today, " David began over the loud screeches. " There will be no end to you, but today, there shall be no end to me. This I Vow. The Covenant is sealed. "

  The words carried a heavy meaning, and David felt determined. Joy erupted from the depth of his heart, as if his heart and soul finally connected with his brain, and everything clicked in place.

  Contrary to his thoughts, David defended alone against the swarm. He refused to step down as his sword took the lives of rats by the scores in the dozen. In the few short breaths that had elapsed since the fight began, scores of rat corpses littered the floor around him, leaking blue life-giving liquid onto the floor.

  Akin to a wave, the rats shattered on David, unrelenting and final in their approach. It was clear that either David was broken, or the wave would never die out.

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  David lost his footing as he slipped on the blood-slick floor. Previously untouched, three rats latched onto his legs, tearing the flesh underneath their bites.

  He knew the pain would come, but he had not expected the intensity of the cold that threatened to tear his focus away from the battle. David knew deep within him that he could not hold against this wave in his current condition. He would tire, swinging his sword around. Quick and precise strikes needed to be more definitive; David needed to kill more with simple swings.

  He grabbed the beasts assaulting his legs and freed him of their bite with a quick jerk.

  David felt a new sting as they took pieces of his flesh with them. But he was not worried; this was the moment. He could hold nothing back, so he simply let his body think for itself.

  A divine song began to echo off the walls as green energy emerged from streams of David's feet. The fog it condensed into wrapped his legs in splendor and mystical wonder.

  His legs were healed, but his reserves had dipped another 10%. At 70%, he was in dire need of a refill, but he had to achieve unity before he could.

  Next, his blade began to connect to the right side of his chest, and a mystical river of silver and white light created a path leading from one to another.

  His path of Sciath was one of might and calculation, and David was a great performer in both.

  With a raised sword, he trampled rats close by as his sword swung into enemies at the midpoint. He would give them no respite.

  David tried to reach the wall, but rats had begun to see their errors. They attacked him in waves. Four to eight rats, at most, could attack his legs, and they realized somehow that something had to change. Without more bodies at once David would not break.

  They should have been creatures that ran away or fought when cornered, but their next display made David's eyes reevaluate his perception. Moving together as if their mind were one, they stacked on top of one another.

  The mass of rats kept on building higher and higher as David wiped the sweat off his brow in the short respite their actions had caused.

  His mind felt fear, not at the mass or their new tactic but at the sheer intelligence his enemies displayed. Nervously, he eyed the four masses of rats on his front. But David would not, no, could not retreat. He wouldn't allow it.

  A real wave began its woobely march towards hi. Insteadd of wate,r it consisted of rats, threatening David's life. The biggest bundle of rats had initiated their plan. They would crush him from top to bottom at once.

  David's crystalline heart leaked out more silvery energy, which connected with his sword. With a heavy flick of both wrists, power surged into the blade. The energy departed from the sword in an arc, flying through the air.

  These energies were unrefined and crude compared to the splendor that Brahan had once displayed to him, and they wouldn't travel far. But what they were intended to do, they accomplished with unwavering might.

  As the sword light collided with the first wave, the wave broke apart. Energies of cold steel ran through the beasts and froze them from inside out.

  David's path of the Sciath displayed the coldness of steel to a frightening degree. Everything they passed would become sluggish with little energy or frozen with higher magnitudes.

  After the arc passed through the first wave, it exploded with a final bang. With its energies spent, the arc broke apart with a last flash of light.

  Hundreds of rats were frozen. But thousands still crawled the walls and floor of the gym.

  A mound of rats closed in and jumped at him. Scores of rats latched on all over his body. With a quick stride, David retreated a few steps, kicking bodies away as he went, and ripped off the rats that kept mauling his flesh.

  He felt it then as fear settled in. There were too many. David could not keep up his healing for a longer time lest his reserve bottom out. Something Brahan had warned him off.

  A divine hymn unlike his own sounded out, and a bolt of fire flew by as it broke apart another hill of rats. David turned and nodded to Vanessa, who had come to his aid.

  Six of the previous guards had joined the fray as well. Three of them summoned daggers while the other three sang a song. More and more balls of flame zipped past David, devastating the incoming assault.

  Hope, there was hope. David thought. The Sciath with daggers and David built a line, not letting any rats pass. They were the shield, the protectors of the Aiodos, and the regular folk behind.

  The wave of rats assaulting the gym ebbed. No new ones emerged from the small holes they had chewed through the concrete walls.

  With a quick glance, he sought out his comrade's eyes. A silent nod of understanding passed between them. The battle was won.

  .