As soon as the rats fell on him and attacked him, Nick gritted his teeth in fury.
They had an unspoken agreement!
"You'll regret this!" Nick shouted.
This was different from the Nightmare.
The Parasite only had a limited number of rats, and Nick could cause real damage to the Parasite by killing them.
However, the rats could also cause real damage to Nick. After all, they were real.
Five rats immediately jumped on Nick.
Nick's right hand grabbed one of them and squeezed.
CRKSH!
The rat was squeezed into a thin sock of wet meat.
At the same time, Nick's left hand turned into a fist and punched a second rat.
BOOM!
The rat shot into the distance and hit the water over 50 meters away from Nick, skipping twice on the surface.
However, the other three rats reached Nick and immediately bit into his body.
One of them bit his right biceps, and the other two bit his chest.
At the same time, Nick saw several more rats coming out from the water around him.
Nick gritted his teeth in pain and hatred.
Nick grabbed one of the rats and pulled.
CRKSH!
The rat's body was torn off, but the head remained stuck in Nick's biceps.
BANG!
Another rat was turned into paste by another one of Nick's punches.
The last one let go and dove into the water while the other rats came closer.
Just a second later, three more rats were jumping at Nick.
Nick released several more attacks, but the rats just kept going after him without pause.
Even more, the rats even started to attack him from below the surface.
Nick's rage grew as he kept tearing the rats into pieces.
It was never-ending!
Some seconds later, Nick had already killed over 15 rats.
Yet, they just kept on coming!
The Parasite really went all in!
'I would already be dead without my ability!'
And then, Nick's eyes widened.
'My ability?'
Nick stopped resisting the rats.
'My ability shouldn't be working right now.'
'Yet, I am tearing these rats apart like they are paper.'
'My ability is still active!'
'This can only mean one thing.'
The realization had positive and negative aspects to it.
On one hand, Nick wasn't being attacked by the real Parasite, which meant that he had not actually been injured.
But on the other hand, Nick had spun around so many times during the battle that he didn't even know which direction he was facing.
In the end, Nick could only grit his teeth as he took one of the tubes from his thigh and broke it.
CRKSH!
All the rats vanished as Nick was swallowed by light.
Just now, Nick had been in the "street" of the sewers, but as soon as the light appeared around him, Nick saw that he was still about two meters away from the real street.
Nick had still been in the darkness.
'The Nightmare had made it seem like I had already reached the end when I actually hadn't.'
Nick immediately swam over to the street, which wasn't difficult with only two meters between him and it.
Now, Nick was actually back in the street of light.
'The Nightmare can even create illusions of light,' Nick thought with anxiety and fear.
'This is not something I can compete with.'
Nick looked back at the dark domain he had just left behind.
'At least I'm out now.'
The next moment, he looked around the sewers.
There were over a hundred similarly big domains.
Nick had gone through hell and had used two Arclights after going just through one of them.
'This is beyond my level.'
Silence.
Nick had been down here for several hours now, and he had become quite familiar with the sewers.
But in the end, he had to leave without any gains.
Even worse, Nick had even used two Arclights.
'Guess I'm going to become an Inspector now.'
'It's probably not a bad job.'
'I get to leave the Dregs, and I can probably also get a normal home.'
'Maybe I can even build a family.'
Yet, no matter how enticing the position as an Inspector seemed to Nick, he still felt regret.
For a while, Nick just looked at the ceiling of the sewers.
This would be his last excursion as a Zephyx Extractor.
Wyntor had already used up all the money he had access to.
He had bet everything on Nick.
Sadly, Nick would only disappoint him.
Silence.
Nick just watched the ceiling in silence.
A bird flew past him.
Suddenly, Nick's eyes widened.
A bird?
Nick's eyes immediately locked onto the bird as it entered a black domain representing a block of houses.
Just now, Nick had been set on giving up.
But now, he was hesitating again.
'A bird!'
'That must have been the Dreamer!'
Nick's heart rate rose rapidly as adrenaline shot through his body.
'After hours, its old target must have woken up or died, and it had to go to a new one!'
Nick's eyes locked onto the black domain where the Dreamer had to be in right now.
There were no toilets in this block, and the block was about fifty by fifty meters.
In the center of the block was the ruin of a stony tower, which supported the block of houses above it in the middle.
As Nick looked at the domain, images of what had happened to him earlier reappeared in his mind.
Pain, deceit, horror, death.
Nick was finally free!
He could finally leave the sewers!
He no longer needed to go through the darkness again!
But the Dreamer was right there!
Just once more!
Just one more time!
But what if he didn't succeed?
He might be risking his life for nothing.
After all, the Dreamer was obviously at the ceiling of the sewers.
Nick would need to swim for about twenty meters in pure darkness, climb ten meters of the structure, and then catch the Dreamer.
And he had to do that all in pure silence so that the Dreamer wouldn't notice him and in the Nightmare's illusionary hell.
He couldn't even use the last Arclight since that would immediately draw the Dreamer's focus to Nick, which would deactivate his ability.
At that point, Nick wouldn't be any stronger than a normal human.
In such a state, the Dreamer could probably just kill Nick without relying on the Nightmare or the environment.
If the Dreamer noticed him, he would die.
No matter how Nick thought about it…
It was impossible.