Chapter 141 - Beware Of…
We made it most of the way back to the farm without further incident.
We followed Dorset Street for about half of the trip, until we reached the spot where it crossed with the interstate, and then we just climbed the bank and switched roads. The highway and major streets were still cluttered with dead cars, although I had the Abominations clear away a few of those, generally improving our ability to move quickly. Eventually, I figured most of those cars would be repurposed, the usable metals from them melted down to make weapons and armor. In the meantime, they were just in the way.
From when we entered Interstate 89, it was smooth sailing all the rest of the way home. There were more gaps between the cars, out on the highway. The path was easy, and we made excellent time.
Right up until when we could see the farm, off in the distance.
And the smoke rising from the farm.
And the…I wasn’t quite sure what that was, attacking the place. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Is that a…chicken?” Farnsworth ask. His voice sounded as incredulous as I felt.
“I think that is indeed a chicken,” I replied, still staring and trying to process what I was looking at. “Clay, get everyone home safe as quick as you can, okay? I’m gonna do my up, up and et cetera, see if I can lend a hand at home.”
“Go. I’ve got this. Holy shit, this is weird even for the way things are now.”
“No arguments from me!” I replied. Then I shot skyward, leaving Sue and the rest behind for Farnsworth to ride herd over. He’d get them home fast. We should have been half an hour away; he’d cut that down to fifteen minutes, was my guess. I passed mental commands to my undead to stick with him and follow his commands, then I soared forward, rocketing toward home base as fast as I could go.
Because I was definitely needed. Home base was seriously hen pecked. I giggled a little inside at that thought. The puns just kept coming.
The creature attacking my Domain looked for all the world like a white-feathered chicken, not too different from the other ones we’d recaptured. Before the event, the farm had chickens, and some had survived. They all ran off when Lyonius’s zombies attacked, but we’d recovered a good number of them, and they were all laying eggs like mad. I had hopes that enough of those eggs would hatch that we could rebuild a good-sized flock.
Good-sized. That one made me laugh again while I poured on the speed, heading for home as fast as my Flight could carry me. I was burning mana like mad, but speed mattered.
Anyway, this creature looked just like the chickens we’d recovered. For all I knew, it had been one of them before whatever happened to it…happened. Because it was definitely not your ordinary, everyday chicken. Not anymore, anyway.
The thing was at least twenty feet tall.
It wasn’t mutated in other weird ways. It hadn’t grown extra heads, wasn’t breathing fire, and didn’t have dragon scales or anything like that. It looked exactly like the other chickens, from what I could see. It was huge, though!
As I got closer, I realized what it was doing. The rotten animal was eating my zombies! It pecked at the ground like it was going after a kernel of corn or a grub, but what it scooped skyward was one of my zombies, locked tight in its beak. A quick gulp and the zombie went down the hatch. I swore, frustrated. I needed those zombies to help complete the construction we had going. How many of my laborers had the damned thing eaten?
I skimmed my powers list quickly, trying to figure out what approach might work best. If Sue were here, I’d consider Fireballing the thing until it ran away or I won the Guinness record for the world’s largest roast chicken, whichever happened first. But with Sue still over a mile down the road, I was going to have to make do with what I had.
Magical Stones
Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Control Undead
Point 1, Second Ring: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Augment Undead
Point 1, Third Ring: Black Stone (Tier 10) - Animate Dead
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Point 1, Fourth Ring: Black Stone (Tier 3) - Dark Pulse
+
Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 7) - Animate Dead
Point 2, Second Ring: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Heal Undead
Point 2, Third Ring: Black Stone (Tier 2) - NightVision
+
Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 6) - Drain Life
Point 3, Second Ring: (Tier 3) - Health to Mana
+
Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Will
Point 4, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Agility
Point 4, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 7) - Stamina
Point 4, Fourth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Strength
Point 4, Fifth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Intellect
Point 4, Sixth Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Will
Point 4, Seventh Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Charisma
+
Point 5: Yellow Stone (Tier 2) - Flight
+
Point 6: Green Stone (Tier 3) - Stoneskin
+
Control Stone (Tier 2) - Domain Active
Spare Stones
Black: Animate Dead x11, Augment Undead x5, Contagion, Contagion (Tier 3), Control Undead x22, Curse (Tier 3), Curse x2, Drain Life x4, Harm (Tier 2), Harm x15, Heal Undead x2
Clear: Strength (Tier 5), Strength x2, Agility x1, Intellect x7, Will x3, Charisma x8
Green: Healing Infusion (Tier 2)
Brown: Alchemy x2
Control Stone (Tier 1) x1
Nothing stood out as being an automatic win against Chickenzilla over there, and kaiju chickens were way outside the realm of my experience. I was gonna have to play this one by ear. Fortunately, I’d been doing a lot of that over the past month, so I figured I’d mange.
The chicken was tier eight. That meant it was strong enough to be a serious threat, and I was going to need to watch myself. Even with one of my skills up at tier ten, most of my stats and such were a lot lower. Tier eight meant it was probably something I could solo, but it wouldn’t be an easy fight.
I saw people on the ground pointing as I came soaring in toward the thing, sword drawn and ready, for all the good I figured it would do. My sword’s blade was less than three feet long. I wasn’t sure it was even going to cut through kaiju chicken’s feathers, let alone do serious damage. Maybe if I stabbed?
My spells were probably going to be the main damage dealers in this fight. I cast Health to Mana as I got close, just to top off most of what I burned flying there. Then as soon as I got in range, I slammed down Drain Life on the chicken to recover my lost health. The black blast shot from my hand and slammed into the chicken’s flank, staggering it. It didn’t go down, of course, and when it swung its head around looking for the source of that pain, it looked mad.
I fired off Dark Pulse at point blank range, just seconds before it caught sight of me.
This time, the chicken did go down. The wave of necromantic magic pulsed outward from me, slamming into the side of the creature with enough force that it stumbled, tripped, and went down. It was easy to see why, now that I was up close. While the chicken had been making lunch out of my zombies, they hadn’t been just letting it eat them. Hundreds of zombies swarmed around the monster, stabbing at whatever bits of the monster were within reach.
Which had mostly been the legs. The chicken’s claws were riddled with small wounds. Some were bites, others rips from zombie hands. In a few cases, bright red blood splashed from larger cuts where someone had managed to get through the scaled legs using a weapon. None of the wounds were too serious by themselves, but collectively they’d done enough damage that my Pulse tipped the balance—and the chicken—over.
It didn’t linger on the ground, though. The chicken was back on its feet faster than I’d expected, flinging aside zombies which had tried to clamber up its feathered body. A few still clung to it here and there, but the creature ignored them. It must have realized where that last spell came from, because it only had eyes for me, now.
“BUWKAWK!” the chicken roared, the sound so loud it actually sent me spinning back through the air a few feet before I stabilized myself.
“Noisy one, aren’t you?” I called out as it stomped nearer. I kept backing away. The more I could do to get this creature away from the farm, the better. It had already demolished a couple of the new houses, and it had almost gotten to the barns before I arrived. Those were old, pre-Event construction, and we wanted to keep them in one piece as long as possible.
This was one fight I wanted to move away from home base. Fortunately, the chicken was perfectly willing to play chase! It rushed toward me, again moving far faster than I’d expected from a creature that size. It was those massive legs—they carried it a lot further with each stride than I’d thought likely, and the thing didn’t lumber forward with careful steps. It ran.
I shot away from it, leading the thing toward the highway. Sue ought to be coming up that way before too long, and it was a good place to battle the thing. Plenty of space to maneuver, no easy way for it to corner me.
Staying out of reach was getting tough, though. The chicken sped up, racing after me. I had to dodge sideways, barely avoiding the thing snapping me up in its beak.
But I was behind it now, so I did what any self-respecting hero would do in a case like this.
I darted forward and grabbed hold of the feathers right behind the thing’s head, then yelled “Gotcha!” as I stabbed my sword into the feathered neck, hoping to slice through into something vital.
My sword didn’t reach. I felt it hit flesh, but it wasn’t long enough to reach bone, so my vague notions about stabbing it in the spine and killing it that way were toast.
Even that small wound was enough to piss the thing off mightily, though. It stopped in place, jarring me against the back of its skull, then started shaking its head side to side as quickly as it could, like it was saying ‘no’ over and over. I held on for the first few shakes, but then it twisted its neck once more, even harder, and I went sailing off.
My flight was still on, which saved me from doing a face plant into a tree or the highway. I caught my momentum, slowed myself down, and rose back up to face it…
…only to see the open maw of a giant chicken slicing down toward me!
