By the end of the third day, Jin had seen the participation from the Pandarens growing evermore, just a little shorter compared to the first day’s opening which goes to show that the deadlock they encountered had indeed caused the rate of participation to dip.
While a few would argue that the difficulty level could be too high to the point they were not enjoying it, Jin believed that the main reason for the drop in participation was mainly due to the fact that there was no progress made.
With live streams showing that the Demon Rat Undercity had been in constant siege allowed the Pandarens to feel as if they were finally able to participate in a big and crazy fight instead of being overwhelmed by the Demon Rats and stuck in a fortress bidding for time.
And the crazy part which they yearn for, was no doubt playing a huge part in this fight. The Demon Rat Generals had finally decided to release the even more Chimaera Rats into the fray and both the cultivators and Jin’s Army were dealing with new threats which they had never seen before.
It seems like the Demon Rat High Command had already predicted how Jin might use monsters as fodders such as the zombies growing in numbers with every dead Demon Rat that was on the floor. So, the High Command had released a particular variant of Birth Mother into the battlefield as well.
According to what the System had overheard, it was codenamed Brood Rat Mother and the rats that were released from this Chimaera Birth Mother were equivalent to a Queen Bee on steroids. Pumped with hormones and accelerant, by the Chimaera Master beside it, the Brood Rat Mother continuously pumps out eggs from her orifices. Instead of giving birth, these Brood Rat Mothers had been fused with genes from a Queen Bee, causing them the ability to lay eggs.
And through these eggs, all it took was a minute for the embryo to grow and break out of the thin shield that was protecting them, taking in their first breath. After which, their instincts based on their smell and sense would enable them to hunt for prey. As if this was not insane enough, Jin’s minions and cultivators who saw the broodlings were astonished by its figure.
It was nothing like a rat and more like a mutated creepy crawly that had a rat face been slapped on it. Its size and figure were nothing like Demon Rat at all and these …monsters were all out searching for blood. If anything they were similar to the Zurglings which Jin had fought against in the Southern City.
The System and him could only conclude that within the randomness of the creation of the Demon Rat resources, there could be a genetic code that allows them to copy something close to the Zurglings that they had encountered. And for them to grow in such numbers justify that they managed to acquire a genetic code similar to the Zurg Queen.
While it might seem the overall situation to be hopeless to fight against several Zurg Queen variants, there was a silver lining to the current predicament. Jin was able to pinpoint where the Zurg Queens were with the System’s Deep Scan. Their signature signal was rather unique when the minions finally caught a peak of it and also through deduction. The Rat Zurgs that were rampaging the streets were all coming in masses and by following their signals, the System was able to have a generalised location where it could pinpoint where the Zurg Queen was, allowing the minions to search for it.
So all Jin had to do was to request the Pandarens to make WARE events on those pinpointed locations and they could concentrate on fighting against these Brood Rat Mothers. However, the numbers themselves had proven to be numerous and even the zombies were unable to cope. The Rat Zurgs were fast enough to evade the attacks of the enhanced zombies and the only defence those zombies had were self destruction.
This allowed the Rat Zurgs to cut down the numbers of zombies within the fields rather easily since the production of the Rat Zurgs now exceeded the zombies on the field. The only way to stop was to kill off the producer so that they could achieve the advantage in this attrition.
And to Jin’s surprise, the number of Pandarens that were on the field had become more active with the WARE events, as if allowing them to concentrate on this crazy fight they were in. (Not to mention everyone was off work after the day!) Not to mention that the Pandaren numbers were higher compared to the day before, allowing most of them to coordinate. Also, the urban city environment allowed the Pandarens to fight better compared to an open field with some of them using guns while others slyly used their cultivation with the aid of cover.
Slowly but surely, the Pandarens were able to collectively defeat one Brood Rat Mother with the aid of a few Dark Templars within the vicinity as well as a hell lot of firepower to suppress the Rat Zurgs.
Yet, the Rat Brood Mother was only one of the many variant Chimaeras that were now released out in the open. There were like mini bosses Chimaera Demon Rats on the battlefield slaughtering the Pandarens. But even when dead, the Pandarens were relentless in their information gathering. During their recuperation within the Recovery Instance, the cultivators quickly sent information to the forums as well as an interactive map that the System had created in the forums.
This allowed Pandarens to place markers where the Chimaera variant was last seen. And because it was the ‘System’ they were working with, the Pandamonium App even added the screenshot of the Chimaera Variant, allowing Pandarens to either avoid it when they spot it or work together to hunt them down.
After all, everything is about points and the customers were all greedy for the rewards that were sitting in the redemption store, waiting to be collected.
