The Earth Online

16 Attila the Hen

“So, you’re saying you’re gonna use the Blood-Fighting potion on the chickens to level up faster?” Kedrick slowly asked Thaleos in a questioning tone. When Thaleos nodded his head in a casual manner, the dark-skinned man scrunched up his eyebrows and continued,

“Like real-life chickens? Like the ones that go buck-buck-buck? The ones that don’t actually fly beca—"

“We get it, Kedrick. Yes, those chickens.” Haya cut him off in annoyance, making the bearded man chuckle. The umber man just rolled his eyes and continued his onslaught of questions,

“But chickens are like one of the weakest creatures out there, why would you want to make one of them your battle familiar?” He finished his sentence with a deep sigh of confusion.

As if understanding that it was being insulted, one of the chickens hastily nibbled his pinky finger.

“Ouch, what the hell!” He shouted out in pain, while Haya laughed his heart out seeing the giant of a man weep in pain from a chicken’s peck.

“Nasty little critters, and why are you laughing? You know how painful that s**t can get.” Haya just shrugged at his friend’s overdramatic claims, and piped in,

“This is rich coming from the man who spent the last few days slashing and hacking magical beasts.” Kedrick merely jutted his chin out in pride as a response.

Thaleos was gently petting one of the giant fowls, as he was assessing whether this plan would work out or not. After a few more seconds of Haya and Kedrick just bantering back and forth, Thaleos tried to chip in the fun. He had a small smile on his face when he joked out,

“I get it, the plan might sound unconventional, but I feel like if we endure it, things would get pretty eggciting.”

Haya and Kedrick just gave deadpan stares as a response to Thaleos’ terrible puns — the bearded man could literally see Haya physically cringing at his jokes. After a minute or two of pure silence, they proceeded to give him pitying looks.

“Dude, don’t be like this. We all hated Uncle Gab’s jokes—” Haya sympathetically voiced out, and Thaleos promptly rebutted,

“Hey, I personally thought that Uncle Gab’s jokes were pretty funny and besides—”

“T, they were terrible. You just have a weird sense of humor.” Thaleos just shook his head in embarrassment and went to the barn to take some of the poultry out.

After the two other men set up the large iron cage, they placed two chickens inside the wired structure.

As the chickens proceeded to walk and peck around the mini fighting grounds, Thaleos took out the remaining Blood Fighting Potion from his utility bag.

Haya and Kedrick just steadily watched his careful movements as he fed the chicken's small amounts of the dull-looking potion.

Within a couple of seconds, the giant fowls’ bodies slightly shifted to a new form, as their combs or the things at the top of their heads suddenly turned into steel and their eyes became a bloody red.

“They’re turning into Commander Fowls.” Thaleos said as he explained how this was the level that distinguished beasts from regular NPC beasts that don’t level up—basically, just cannon fodders.

The trio walked a couple of steps back as the two chickens proceeded to size each other up, eyeing each other’s weaknesses with dire bloodlust.

Before any of them could even say a word, the giant rooster on the left swiftly jumped a couple of feet above to scratch the other chicken with its steel-like claws.

The other bloodied fowl came back with a vengeance as it headbutted the floating chicken with its sharp comb. This left a large and deep gash on the chicken’s breast, causing it to fall on its side as it breathed out its last couple of clucks.

“Wow, that was hella intense. Who would’ve known?” Kedrick was slack-jawed at the bloody match. All three of them were astonished at the aggressiveness of the chickens,

“Actually, I kind of expected this since cockfights are pretty common in Asian countries, but damn.” Thaleos muttered as he eyed the pooled of blood surrounding one of the chickens. The other beastly fowl just continued pecking at it, as if eager to get its innards out.

“Seems like it still has the bloodlust in its system, we should put another chicken in there soon.” Haya pensively said as he was noting down the behavior of the fowl compared to Thaleos’ earlier shenanigans.

“Also, it seems like animals react faster to the consumption of the potion compared to human.” The tan man was basically muttering himself to oblivion as the two other men proceeded to get out another chicken.

“I gotta say, T, your plan’s pretty solid. Chickens are hella wild and apparently aggressive, too?” Kedrick said as he handed the chicken to Thaleos. He slowly fed the chicken a couple of drops of the potion and immediately placed him inside the iron cage fight.

As soon as the other chicken spotted it, it completely lost its interest in the dead fowl and ran towards their direction.

Just as it was about to hit the newest chicken placed in the iron cage, it quickly flew upwards and moved a couple of feet away from the aggressive fowl.

It seemed like it was strategizing its movements as it scoped through the area and zeroed on the other chicken, that just seems to be running around and blindly attacking anything it sees.

Thaleos was placing his bet on this chicken since it had this unique black coating that none of the other chickens had, and how it mutated to metal feathers compared to the previous chickens' regular feathers.

While the black fowl swiftly swooped in to attack the orange chicken with its claws and jagged metal comb, Thaleos was lost in deep thought.

He felt like his fundamental principle of being an animal lover seemed rather counterintuitive to the role of a beast tamer, he was gradually realizing that he had no choice but to kill these animals, especially if he wanted to survive in this cruel games of the god.

After accepting his harsh fate, he recognized that he had to sparingly attach himself to animals. Upon looking up again, he saw that the orange chicken was lying dead on the ground with its body almost split in half.

The sleek looking black chicken quietly observed the bleeding chicken and gradually looked at Thaleos’ direction as if asking for more fowls to kill.

“D-did that chicken just look at you?” Kedrick questioned him with a spooked-out voice. He tightly clutched his sword, as he eyed the black chicken back.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s establishing its connection with me as a beast tamer.” Thaleos responded as the corners of his lips curled up in a grin. Haya’s eyes were wide in shock as he saw how the animals, not only got physically stronger because of the blue mist and potions but also seemed to be gaining some form of intelligence.

Thaleos nodded his head back at the beast and proceeded to take out another chicken.

~ ~ ~

After hours of dozens of chickens fighting to the fittest, only three out of all poultry were left standing in the battle. The three chickens fought incredibly well as they basically obliterated everything that was on their path.

As the winning fowls succeeded in stealing the mana centers of the other chickens, they continued leveling up more and more and basically upgrading their skin.

The chickens’ transformation was astonishing as their natural selves slowly turned into a great mixture of steel and bone armor. Most of their bodies turned into steel, save for some parts shifting into rock hard bones, like their beaks, feet, and hackles. 

“Based on James’ diary, these types of chickens are referred to as the Elite Malay Fowl. Honestly, he never said anything about how they became Elite Malay Fowls, he just described how these babies are strong when it comes to fights.” Thaleos explained as he proceeded to focus on his mana core.

Just as the two other men were about to ask more questions, Thaleos was transported into the duel space. The bearded man knew that the black chicken was beyond the other two’s lighting levels, so he decided to take in the dark pitch fowl as one of his battle familiars.

After transporting the black rooster into his duel space, he returned to the Melam Base. The other two men, who were just about to ask some questions, suddenly stopped and Haya slowly questioned him,

“You did that weird duel space thing again, right?” The bearded man just nodded and mentioned how he took in the black chicken.

“So, you named it Attila the Hen?” Kedrick asked with an exasperated sigh, and Thaleos responded with a proud smile as if saying damn right. The two men just rolled their eyes and gave up.

“So, what do you plan to do with the two remaining Elite Malay Fowls?” Haya asked as he saw the two other chickens ready to destroy each other. Since they were smarter and faster, they slowly sized up each other as they were planning how to quickly end each other.

“I need to take their Blood Souls.” Thaleos responded as he abruptly took out his black katana and opened up the iron cage.