While Dur’kor and Blaer were doing their thing, Vaile had been engaged in a bit of combat of his own. While almost all of the Bestiral Kingdom’s surviving military might had rushed off to avenge the humiliation and subsequent death of their now-lifeless queen, some had stayed behind on King Laiyun’s orders in order to act as the Base Defense Force and, if necessary, the cavalry.

There were not nearly as many Werean in the base as there were attempting to assault the Beastmen, and as the fighting dragged on, the forces not in the base began to be pushed deeper and deeper into the Karnarous Forest, eventually vanishing from sight entirely as they passed beyond the point of no return. Still, the men and women of the Base Defense Force would not leave their posts. They had not received any signals indicating that their comrades were in trouble, but little did they know that this was due to the deployable Message Jammers that Vaile had deployed before the battle had started.

While designed to keep Players from contacting each other using in-game chat, the Message Jammers were also quite useful at blocking any NPC chatter. Vaile had lifted these from a handful of Artificers back during the game and had used them to great effect when in Raids. These tools had made it all the easier for him to sneak past the Raid Groups and snatch Bosses and Unique Mobs, because when the entire group can’t communicate through in-game means, the sneakier Players can move around with far greater ease.

Now these tools were being used to keep his opponents from noticing their comrades’ predicament, and Vaile was now ready to take the fight to the Werean. With speed only a max-level Player or a suitably leveled entity could produce, Vaile bolted from the tree line and plowed straight through the flimsy wooden barricades that the Werean had hastily erected just a few days prior. The impact of his body slamming into the dried wood sent shards and shivers of timber flying like an oversized shotgun blast, but this only killed and injured a handful of the Werean within the base.

Having spread their numbers out all over the structure in order to spot any potential attacks, the garrison was unable to respond to Vaile’s assault in time. In fact, the men and women on the section of wall that Vaile had smashed his way through were sent flying and landed with a meaty thudding sound, the wooden shrapnel that once was their fortifications now imbedded within a few of them.

Vaile wasted no time with making a monologue, and instead went to work demolishing the walls bit by bit. A swatting of his walking stick here and a tackle there and Vaile had punched exactly 26 different holes in the walls. It was at that point he started actively attacking the Werean soldiers. He of course started the melee with his new signature move, speeding over to the commander in charge of the Base Defense Force and kicking him in the groin so hard that those nearby expected that the crunch could be heard over a mile away. The transference of force into the Bear Werean was nearly perfect, as once Vaile’s foot stopped moving the giant of a man was sent flying into the air in a parabola, eventually coming down to the ground and snapping his neck on impact.

The stunned defenders barely managed to draw their weapons before Vaile had once again crotch-punted another Werean, this time a far more fragile Duck Werean, off his feet and down the nearby water well. A few more crotch-punts after that, and the Vaile got tired of crushing the flesh and bones of his foes with a well-placed application of his foot, instead deciding that he should use his walking stick instead, as it was his primary melee weapon in the game and thus had far more combat-oriented bonuses than his shoes and socks did.

Stopping in the middle of the now heavily damaged encampment, Vaile twirled his walking stick around for a bit before pointing its tip at a single Werean. From behind his mask, Vaile modulated his voice to sound deeper and more gravely and also far more intimidating. He knew full well his voice was already disturbing to the members of the Races that were not aligned with his Tamed Beings and their descendants, but he was ever the one to introduce a bit of theatre to any situation he could.

“Tonight….” he growled. “You.”

The smell of urine began to flow from the people around him and was soon accompanied by the stench of another, far more filthy form of waste. The Werean he had pointed his stick at, cowered in a mixture of disgust and terror and finally ran like hell as his nerves shattered like an egg dropped from ten stories up.

“No tears.” Vaile said as his modulated voice continued to give those around him a reason to flee. “Only dreams.”

With that haunting and bizarre declaration, Vaile lunged at the fleeing Werean and with a swing of his walking stick he smashed the spine of the fleeing being and then proceeded to accidentally move his staff all the way through the body of his foe, cutting the poor fool in half through sheer force alone. As the top of the Werean’s body danced in the air, it sprayed a mixture of blood and other fluids/materials, some of which landed on Vaile’s white and red ensemble. Vaile looked down at his gore-covered walking stick and shook the nastiness off with a single fluid motion before turning to look at the rest of his potential targets.

“Who is next on the chopping block?”

At that question, the rest of the Werean lost their will to fight and fled like the devil himself was on their heels. Vaile decided not to chase them, as they really had nowhere that they could run to that wasn’t a place where they would eventually meet a terrible end. If they tried to hide in the shattered impromptu fort, they would be found and killed by the Beastmen. If they ran into the woods, they would either die of hunger, thirst, the elements, the flora or the fauna.

Content with this knowledge, Vaile collected the Message Jammers before he disrobed and began to clean his outfit. Unlike the Beastmen and some others among his Tamed Beings and of course their descendants, Vaile really did not much care for having the remains of his enemies all over his body and clothing, nor did he find the smell all that appealing to begin with. Besides, if he left the gunk on it could possibly have a chance at staining his attire, and Vaile was quite proud of his clothing and thus he did not want it to be blemished in the slightest.

As he finished cleaning his clothes and reequipping them, he felt a chill crawl up his spine and smelled a certain unforgettable odor.

“No. No, no, no…” Vaile said with growing despair as he slowly turned around.

Behind were he stood was a single being that stood taller than he was and had the features of a large anthropomorphic black rat. The clothes that she wore were an outfit made of the tanned faces of tens if not hundreds of people of various species, a testament to not just her sadistic tendencies and genetic predisposition towards malice, but also to her moniker of ‘Face-stealer’. The rat woman was smiling, if only in a way that was akin to that of a sexual predator trying to lure a small child into the back of their windowless van, and Vaile knew that this was the moment that he had to get the fuck out of Dodge.

“Please, husband-king, don’t try and run-flee. Come-come with me-us, and we will take you back to our nest-lair. All that you could ever want-need is waiting for you, and no one will take-steal you from us ever again.”

Vaile was not about to become a studhorse just yet. No, not just not now, but also not ever. Thinking fast, he activated the Random-Destination Teleporter and immediately blinked both out of sight and out of reach of the Skwiik, which sent the Rattan into a blind rage that kept her from noticing that she was being watched from place both above and afar.

…

As Skwiik screamed and raged in frustration, Blaer watched on with a mixture of annoyance and schadenfreude. While she had wanted to conceive children with Vaile, she had realized many weeks ago that anyone who claimed Vaile for themselves would earn the ire and wrath of all others who sought him. Thus, in a rather intelligent move, she had decided that she was content to wait until Vaile had made up his mind about what to. Although, she was aware of what she thought was an inevitability.

She knew that Vaile couldn’t keep running forever, and once everyone connected to him knew of his presence on the world and had, in some way or another formed a bond with him, he would have to eventually accept the role they all almost certainly would give him. Maybe he wouldn’t be a studhorse like some would have wanted, but the affections of so many would invariably make him the King of The World, surrounded by a de facto harem, whether he wanted it or not.

While not immortal, she felt she could afford to wait things out. Besides, she had a territory to run now that the war was effectively over. As for the Rat who tried to take what was not exclusively hers? Well, the blow to the ego that Vaile had delivered was more than enough in her eyes.

She turned her eyes towards the fleeing Werean and flew off in their direction. She would make sure that none of them had a chance, and after that? Well, there were many things she had to do to the Werean in order to repay their sins against her kind in equal measure, and she had all the time in the world to enact her vengeance.