Kazuki barely had the time to check out his new skills, before the dust and smoke settled from it revealing glowing-golden-dim eyes cut through the haze, locking onto him with unmistakable fury.
"Alright, alright, don't be mad! I know the exploding egg thing was a bit much—" Kazuki yelped as one of its heads lunged. He activated Feathered Footwork instinctively, his legs blurring into motion. With unnatural agility, he darted to the side, narrowly avoiding hydra.
The hydra's jaws snapped shut on the stone where he'd been standing, shattering it into rubble. Kazuki didn't stop moving. He zipped between the crumbling pillars, using his new speed to weave through the ruins like a lunatic bird escaping a predator.
"Okay, okay! This is fine! This is—AH!" A second hydra head smashed through a wall, forcing Kazuki into a desperate slide beneath a half-collapsed archway, tumbling behind a moss-covered pillar, he rolled into a crouch.
His breath came in ragged gasps. He wasn't going to outrun this thing forever. He needed an actual plan. Something—
His system chimed.
[New Skill Available: Call of the Flock (C)]
Kazuki stared at the notification, then at the raging hydra tearing through the ruins. "I really don't like how that sounds."
He didn't have much choice.
Taking a deep breath, he activated the skill.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the air shifted.
A distant chorus of frantic clucking echoed through the ruins. The ground trembled—not from the hydra, but from something else. Something many.
Kazuki's stomach dropped. "Oh no."
The first bird appeared over a crumbled wall. Then another. Then dozens.
Chickens, glowing with barely-contained explosive energy, swarmed into the ruins like an incoming tide of chaos.
The hydra hesitated.
Kazuki's brain short-circuited.
The chickens did not.
They launched themselves with terrifying velocity, the feathery projectile rocketed toward the hydra like an intercontinental ballistic missile, detonating with each impact, it's six head let out high pitched wail as explosions rippled across the beast's scales, echoing through the ruins.
The hydra screeched, reeling as its many heads flailed against the onslaught. Smoke and debris stilled the air. The ground quaked beneath the sheer force of the devastation made by chickens.
Kazuki, still crouched behind the pillar, could only stare in horror. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!"
[EXP Gained!]
[EXP Gained!]
[EXP Gained!]
The messages flooded in.
Then, just as suddenly it ceased.
A strange silence descended upon the debris. The last of the flames dissipated, revealing the hydra—or what was left of it. The mighty creature groaned, smoke curling up from its charred scales.
Two of its heads twitched weakly before slumping to the ground.
It wasn't dead. But it wasn't getting up anytime soon.
Kazuki slowly, carefully, stood. He felt the system notification before he even saw it.
[New Title Unlocked: Harbinger of Fowl Destruction]
His eye twitched. "I hate this system so much."
With the hydra incapacitated and his mind still reeling from the poultry apocalypse he had unleashed, Kazuki did the only reasonable thing left.
He ran.
Because no way in hell was he sticking around to see what else his system had in store for him.
The crumbling buildings, archway and pillar blurred as he sprinted, feet pounding against the shattered stone, the hydras tortured, distant bellows boomed behind him, shaking the air like an earthquake, he didn't dare slow down, as the monster so much as moved his direction he would be a dead man.
The ruined structures gave way to the dense, tall trees of the forest. He gasped in torn breaths as he struggled forward, weaving between the massive trunks, using Feathered Footwork to render his step light and quick.
His head was still reeling.
Exploding chickens.
A chicken army.
A hydra.
And now, a desperate sprint through a cursed forest because of all of the above.
"I hate this so much," Kazuki wheezed, vaulting over a fallen log.
The forest stretched endlessly ahead, its shadowy canopy swallowing most of the light. Every snapping twig, every rustling leaf made his nerves coil like a spring. He half-expected another monstrous nightmare to jump out at him.
But nothing did.
The only thing that chased him now was the distant, furious howling of the hydra—an enraged, echoing sound that sent shivers down his spine.
But it wasn't following him. Not anymore.
Maybe it was too injured. Maybe it had finally given up.
Maybe, just maybe…
He was actually getting away.
The realization struck him like a sledgehammer to nail. He wasn't dead. Not even close—against all the odds, orcs, hydra, system and the chickens, he had made it.
A hysterical laugh got caught in his throat as he coughed and stumbled, "No not now", none the less he sprinted as the last stretch of trees, the thick bushes and insect buzzing, finally quitted down. His muscles ached, his legs felt like jelly, but he pushed forward, adrenaline carrying him the last few meters.
Then—
The trees broke.
Kazuki stumbled forward, nearly collapsing as he burst into the open.
He had made it.
Before him stretched a vast, rolling landscape—golden fields swaying in the wind, with a dirt road cutting through the tall grass. In the distance, he could just barely make out the outlines of buildings. A village. Civilization.
Safety.
Kazuki fell to his knees, gasping for breath, his heart still hammering.
Then, as if on cue, his system gave one final ping.
[Congratulations! You have successfully escaped the Forest of Fangs.]
[EXP Gained!]
Kazuki groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "I swear, my system is mocking me."
But he didn't care.
For now—just for now—he was safe.
And that was more than enough.