Elemental Cats

Like most rat type beasts, the Scorched Earth Rats have the capability of somehow producing a Rat King. This king of rats takes different shapes and comes into being in various ways depending on what species it comes from. Sometimes a gathered clump of rats is controlled by a generated hive-mind that identifies itself as a rat king. A similar type of rat king is transformed from resurrected rat corpses that have fused together in death.

A few more magic-inclined rat type beasts can innately use a sacrificial ritual to summon a rat king. There were a few times a rat king had been recorded to have been created by the rats. They first made a large face-less statue of strange materials that they then prayed to, infusing their wills into it, the specific rat king had even gotten the nickname of 'Rat God' despite there not being any divine activity.

Then there are the rats who, during the right circumstances, grow without inhibitions, at first only surpassing their peers, after that, their elders, and finally, the rat becomes a giant unmatched beast with unequaled dominance over its origin species.

With innumerable types of rat beasts, there will be at least as many types of different ways for a rat king to develop. The same species of rats might even have had several rat kings during history, who have developed in different ways.

Every rat king is unique, and the circumstances of its birth differ from specie to specie and from case to case. But despite the overall differences, the rat king's strength is reliant on and proportional to the entire mischief of rats' strength.

However, according to the notes that the manager had found, the Scorched Earth Rat King was different, even from a series of beings who were all different from each other. Unlike most rat kings who grew stronger based on the number of members their subordinate species had thanks to the connection between them, the Scorched Earth one got stronger each time it consumed one of the energy packets in the shape of first level worker rats.

Based on the short encounters humans had with the species and their king in the past, it seemed that it was possible for the king to grow without limit as well. All it needed to do was eat more of its people. During one encounter it was even hypothesized that it needn't be only first level rats that were consumed either. After a prolonged campaign the first level rats were dying faster than they spread but the king's strength continued growing uninhibited until there was no further hope.

The theory said that the second level ones in charge of increasing the population would be consumed when the first level ones couldn't provide enough food, or the king got bored. It was the same with the third level ones, that were usually in charge of organizing and controlling the weaker ones.

In front of the king, everyone else was nothing more than food. It was to the point where higher level rats had never been recorded because the rats all got eaten by the king before they could reach that level. In most other species, especially rat type ones, who were codependent with their king, that would be a huge flaw since it would lead to a serious lack of high level combat strength.

But that's not the case for the Scorched Earth Rats since the King's might is overwhelming enough to not need any strong subordinates to support it. With its special method of growing stronger that went against the norms of the universe, with how almost everyone progressed through the levels, one at a time, it was impossible to estimate the strength of the king.

Without any proper way to gauge its strength sending enough force to kill it was difficult, or devise effective measures of stalling it, and by the time someone strong enough to subdue the king had finally been brought out, the plane would be doomed.

Since the value of a high level mage capable of surpassing the Scorched Earth Rat King can easily surpass that of a low level plane, not many of them will risk their lives or waste their time for something that can't pay them their due.

With internal strife and various organizations and guilds competing to escape the guild through all available portals, it isn't uncommon for there to not be enough influence from outside the plane to help out either.

Besides, after the king's appearance, the plane won't last long enough for everyone to cooperate and pool their resources fighting against it, especially not since the king will die eventually of starvation if it gets stuck in a barren plane.

On most occasions that the rat king has appeared in history, it hadn't even been defeated when still alive. Instead, while evacuating as many humans as possible, the portals connecting the struck plane to other ones were severed, and the rats would be trapped with eventual remaining creatures on the plane. Then after enough time to guarantee that the rats have died of starvation, someone is sent to investigate and see if the plane can be repopulated, or if it's completely destroyed with only a single large skeleton decorating it.

None of the records that the branch manager found went into detail about the king's arrival. If it happened every time the rats prospered, or at which stage it appeared. The manager had a rough idea about how far the rats had spread their influence on First Ignition thanks to the reports he got regularly, but he couldn't compare it to the situations in the documents in front of him.

Aside from the story of a Rat King mysteriously weakening and being defeated by a rag-tag group of mages and fighters, all the others only said that when the Rat King appeared, it was already too late, and the best possible solution was to abandon ship like shipwrecked sailors.

While the manager was sitting in a tiny office dumbstruck, staring at pieces of paper in front of him, Hugh, his Forest Janitors, and all the other explorers continued turning the wasteland into something that could hardly use the word land to describe itself.