The rumbling did not stop, and with each passing second, it felt more and more like it was the prelude to an earthquake. Lynn and Qiu Yue wanted to teleport the rest of the penguins back to their world (of course, to the temporary holding area previously allocated for the Farm Rats.)
Still, the Chieftain insisted on staying in this room no matter what was to come until the saviour of his village were to appear. “Don’t be stupid, Chief!” Elder Perate berated him as he could feel that the rumbling was approaching closer.
Suddenly, the gigantic wooden door was smashed open with such a force that it nearly made the whole team fly backwards and into the bed of charcoal and burnt wood. At the same time, a large furry figure appeared as it rolled into the house with two Horned Chicken double its size chasing behind.
“Sir HAMATAROU!” Chieftain Skitter shouted even though the others figured that it was in vain. Surprisingly despite the oversized hamster being four times their size managed to hear him.
“Skitter! You did arrive as promised! Your timing is great!” Hamatarou spoke as it skilfully evaded the horned chicken’s charge by rolling towards the cooking area. “Don’t worry! It’s only two of them that noticed my presence!”
“I do not think that is the point!” Qiu Yue argued while Hamatarou took out a similar looking totem that had been hidden in his fur. He pointed it towards the two horned chickens and within an instant, the feathered horned birds gradually shrunk down to the size of the four clawed scorpion.
“Skitter! Deal with it, while I close this door before any more of those cursed birds appear in front of us. By the way, you should hurry. The shrinking is only temporary.” Hamatarou turned the totem towards itself and grew half as large as the size of the door before proceeding to close it.
Meanwhile, the horned chickens became terrified of the newly transformed giant attempting to retreat. Too bad, Hamatarou had been able to close it in time, and the chickens were stuck with their prey turned predator.
“You are more than enough to kill it with that size!” Qiu Yue complained some more, but at that moment, Hamatarou jumped up and returned to his original size. Only now, the hamster jumped with a body enhanced ability and grabbed hold onto the edge of an open cabinet to watch the fight from afar.
“Hmph! Sir Hamatarou is testing us! Colwaski, Perate. Time to show our saviour that we are capable of surviving this trial!” The Penguin Chieftain roused the battle morale up among the penguins as they were going to fight a monster they had continuously been avoiding in the past. “Lady Lynn! If you could, please handle the other one with your friend.”
“Qiu Yue, let’s get going! Kido and the rest, assist your chieftain and elders. We will kill it if possible, else distract it until you guys kill yours.” Lynn commanded, and Skitter was grateful for her enthusiasm.
“Let’s separate the two horned chickens so they will not be distracted by each other’s prey!” Qiu Yue suggested as she took out her mobile phone. Some clicks later, she held onto her newly purchased RPG rocket launcher. The Empire Building Sub System had given Qiu Yue the ability to buy almost anything from Jin’s armoury stocks as well as the black market on the go. (It gave her an advantage against Jin who needed to go into the stores to buy them.)
“I agree!” Lynn summoned her combat bike out as well as an ornated chest and told Qiu Yue to get on the bike before firing at one of horned chicken. Qiu Yue instinctively obliged and fired her rocket propelled grenade at the horned chicken, only to realise she did not have a helmet on with her. But the moment the red panda cultivator shot the RPG rocket, Lynn had already started the engines up and began to move. Qiu Yue was in such distress that she let go of her new toy (despite it being spent) and grabbed onto Lynn tightly.
“RIDE CAREFULLLY!!” Qiu Yue shrieked as she had one hand grabbed on Lynn’s chest and the other on her waist. The horned chicken only noticed the unknown projectile when the rocket hit it. While painful, it was sufficient to destroy it, but more than enough to piss it off. The horned chicken saw Lynn running away from it and figured that insect sized being was the one that inflicted damage to it. Thus, it began to divert away from the penguins and moved to chase after the other.
“I see, so Skitter found himself some new allies too. Interesting.”
Hamatarou thought as he walked around the open cabinet and partook on the food that was left there. (His secret stash) The overgrown hamster wasn’t too worried about the time limit since the shrinking would be effective for around half an hour, and Skitter and his penguins appeared more than capable of handling it. Hamatarou’s thought was more about those new allies. He had never before seen such creatures, nor the weapons they seemed to wield.
Meanwhile, with one less horned chicken currently chasing after Lynn, the penguins felt slightly relieved, though still on edge against the impending disaster they had to fight.
“Kido, Perate. Aim for its eyes when it pecks down. Skitter, you are ‘unfortunately’, the juiciest among us. You will have to be bait. The rest of you guys come with me after you pick up the equipment, we are going for its legs!” Colwaski, their Elder Genius commanded the group.
Apparently, the ornated chest was filled with the familiar weapons that the penguins had used in the service of Lynn. Smoke bombs, caltrops, shurikens, grappling hooks and several ninja scrolls were waiting in that chest. All the penguins instinctively knew what to take from that chest while Colswaki personally handed the more specialised ones to certain penguins.
“You sure this is not revenge, Colswaki?” Chieftain Skitter asked sheepishly, and Colwaski shrugged its shoulders as he threw two ninja scroll to his boss. “Sand Drift Scroll and Fire Breathing Scroll!” Colwaski shouted and the moment Skitter picked up the two scrolls, he activated the Sand Drift Scroll immediately.
Chieftain Skitter murmured a short quick chain of chants, and the scroll unwrapped itself, causing the long piece of paper to turn into a pile of moving sand which increased the mobility of the Chieftain. Next, he undid the seal on the Fire Breathing Scroll, but instead of chants, Skitter seemingly compressed the scroll, and like a magic trick, it disappeared.
The large pile of sand drifting did attract the remaining horned chicken attention, and it proceeded to catch the juicy fat penguin that was gliding on the sand. However, as it tried to peck it, Skitter managed to manoverure on the sand fast enough to evade the attacks while moving the chicken into position as ordered by Elder Colswaki so that Kido and Elder Perate could simultaneously blind the chicken.
In the meantime, Qiu Yue was complaining how selfish the hamster was despite Skitter’s insistence of it being a saviour. “If it’s really a saviour! Then why doesn’t it just make the penguins big so they can kill the chicken easily!”
“If every mentor thinks that way, men would probably starve for not learning how to fish,” Lynn replied as she noticed the horned chicken was moving closer at a much faster speed. Its beak was close to the ground as if it was ready to snap at them any moment when it had the chance.
“Any great ideas, Ms Tactictian?” Lynn asked, and indeed Qiu Yue did have one trick under her sleeve.
“If you can get us under the horned chicken or at least close enough, I might be able to do something about it. Just trust me on this.” Qiu Yue offered, but Lynn preferred to have an explanation rather than being kept in the dark.
“Man, you are not fun at all! Let me be cool once in a while” Qiu Yue replied.
“Save it for Jin, not me. So what’s the plan?” Lynn questioned as she drifted her bike so that she can turn and ride towards the chicken.
“I bought some C4 explosives. As long as we are close enough, I can throw the C4s, it should deal some damage, probably at least cripple it.” Qiu Yue replied.
“That’s a rather boring plan. I was expecting more excitement from you.” Lynn commented as she accelerated herself towards the chicken. The chicken was a bit confused why its prey decided to come towards it, but nevertheless quite happy, that the snack decided to deliver itself into its beak.
“You can’t blame me for not being able to do anything else than holding on to your waist! Besides! I am already risking myself by throwing the bundle of C4 onto that chic- KYAAA~!” Qiu Yue stopped her explanation as Lynn was utilising her rocket boost.
“Don’t throw, just drop it! I’ll give you the signal.” Lynn instructed Qiu Yue as she did not want to take the chance of the chicken pecking it or squashing them just because Qiu Yue needed Lynn to ride slower so that she could throw it.
“FINE!!!!” Qiu Yue prepared the bundle of C4 explosives in one hand, and the other was grabbing on to Lynn with the remote detonator. The penguin cultivator noticed how flimsy Qiu Yue’s grip was and seized the detonator from Qiu Yue when she kept hitting her with it, asking her to take it. Thus, allowing the red panda cultivator to grab onto Lynn’s waist rather tightly.
“NOW!!!” Lynn shouted as she zoomed passed the horned chicken’s legs and Qiu Yue did what was commanded. The Red Panda Cultivator somehow managed to drop it on the top of the chicken’s feet before holding onto Lynn as she moved off at top speed.
The chicken had tried to peck them but had not gotten anything, as it never predicted its prey to have the ability to accelerate. It had stopped and looked confused at where its prey had gone. Lynn took that opportunity to hit on the detonator the second they were at least dozens of metres away from it.
“BABOOOOM*
A loud explosion ensued following the detonation, and Lynn even had trouble controlling her bike despite having activating her stabilisers when the shockwave came. “What kind of C4 was that?!!” Lynn asked as she continued to outrace the explosion so that they would escape the subsequent shockwaves.
“Inscription enhanced explosives! Meant to bring buildings down!” Qiu Yue screamed as she continued to grab hold of Lynn.
That explosion was a sight to behold for Hamatarou as he clapped while chewing on some (giant) sunflower seeds. (Not to mention Peppers would have been slightly proud for the use of explosives.) It also distracted the horned chicken, which the penguins were fighting, and they seized the window of opportunity with greed. Chieftain Skitter controlled the mobile pile of sand to rise and subsequently jumped upwards.
The horned chicken was surprised that its prey came into its sight as it opened its mouth to bite it down. That was when Chieftain skitter made his Fire Breathing ninja scroll appear and activated it. A burst of intense fire came out from the scroll and directed it into the beak of the chicken, burning its insides, while Kido and Elder Perate finally had the chance to release their multiple shurikens into the eyes of the horned chicken. The bird screeched and panicked while Colwaski and the rest of the penguins threw their bolas towards the chicken feet.
The bolas were not made with mere stones but had explosives attached to them too. (Just not as strong as the explosives Qiu Yue had used.) They knew that the Bolas would not be large enough to deter the chicken, so they detonated the explosives. That act alone, caused the legs to give way, making the horned chicken to fall to the ground, which the penguins proceed to stab and injure the chicken at its vital joints. It was better to immobilise it than to attempt at a slim chance of hitting its vital points.
Kido even grabbed a few smoke bombs with a small bag of caltrops and threw it into the chicken’s mouth as Elder Colwaski used a grappling hook to tie the beak up along with the aid of Skitter. The rest of the penguins subsquently went forth to its neck and kept stabbing at it while the horribly injured horned chicken tried to get up from the consecutive attacks by flapping its wings in terror, but it was in vain.
The penguins had already immobilised its movements. Its legs were terribly injured, and the articulation of its wings had been severed by the penguins due to their knowledge of cutting chicken meat up.
Lynn and Qiu Yue eventually came to their aid, and with a bit of stat boost from Qiu Yue’s Sub System (by spending money), the Red Panda Cultivator managed to enter into the fray and cut its neck deep from top to bottom for its blood to spill on the floor.
While slightly slow, the remaining horned chicken eventually died a pretty horrible death.
