Zayden didn't want to use his oblivion flux to touch the chicken, because unlike nulls, the mutant beasts don't break into golden light particles; rather, their corpses remain the same and can even be eaten. The flesh of mutant beasts has a way of enhancing human strength slightly. And from the experiments he did with his oblivion flux, Zayden found out that his oblivion flux has the tendency to act as an acid and corrode things.
In the fire breath attack, Zayden found out that this ability of corrosion also applied to energy. His oblivion flux was corroding the fire breath attack, but it wasn't fast enough to corrode the attack before it reached him.
After a nanosecond of thinking, thanks to his blessing, Zayden charged at the next chicken.
The group a few meters away could see the team of four beating up the chickens with so much precision that they couldn't believe it. Valeria, for one, had her eyes on Zayden. She didn't notice it, but a spark had just ignited.
"I'm going to become stronger than him," she muttered to herself.
It was as if watching them fight ignited a desire in their heart, just like it did with Aiden. Even though it was gradual, their thought process had begun to change from wanting to survive to wanting to get very strong.
Amara, looking at her once timid brother who had eight spider-like arms extending from his back, attacking the chicken, was speechless.
She had been taking care of her junior brother for years now. Their family wasn't very rich, so she did all she could to help the family, reading and even doing extra work. Her brother was timid, so she also had to take care of him.
By a stroke of luck, they managed to get into this college, but she didn't stop; she climbed up the ladder and joined the student council, all to take care of her junior brother. So seeing him change so much in just six days, Amara didn't know when a smile appeared on her face.
Before long, the chickens were all killed off. From this battle, Zayden managed to reach level twelve while the rest of the team managed to reach level eleven.
With a wave of his hand, he called the group over.
"Pick up the corpse and put it in your rings," Zayden said
"Are we going to eat them later?" Isara asked
"Yes"
"But they might be poisonous, after all, they are mutants."
"Would you rather take your chances with something that might or might not be poisonous or starve to death?"
"But we are going to get more food."
"If it runs out, what then?"
Isara couldn't say anything anymore and had to agree with Zayden. Ignoring her for now, Zayden continued.
"Dare scout ahead at all angles," Zayden said, "let your bots be at most six meters away from the group in all directions. Everyone else, keep your eyes and ears open for any sign, no matter how minute. This place can be crawling with mutant chicken and null for all we know."
"Level tens and above, get ready to attack at a moment's notice," Zayden said in finality.
"Let's move out."
They entered the canteen hesitantly and walked slowly.
The canteen was very large, larger than the gym by a great margin. Scattered chairs and tables everywhere, broken kitchen utensils, and bloodied cutlery. This was exactly the scene of how an apocalypse would look.
"Let's head to the storage room," Zayden said
They started walking towards the storage room, their eyes looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. Thankfully, nothing happened, and they got to the storage room that was sealed shut by a metal door, so thick that even the marginally stronger people from the apocalypse would find it hard to break down.
Channeling a bit of his cosmic energy into his hands, Zayden formed a long pin made out of oblivion flux and cut open the lock on the door of the storage room.
The door to the storage room swung open with a loud screech, like a metal door grating against the floor. But that didn't matter at the moment, because in front of them was a large storage room, half the size of a volleyball court, filled to the brim with all kinds of perishable and unperishable goods.
As if by previous agreement, Tyrel, Darian, and Dare put all their stuff into Zayden's ring and gave their empty rings to Zayden. Zayden held the rings in his hand and gave them to Veyron. He was one of the seven people who were being power leveled to level ten, but could only stop at level eight due to the lack of time.
"These are spatial rings; inside are bags. Hand out all the bags and have everyone fill them with food. Of course, we can't collect all the food, but there should not be an inch of space inside this ring that is not filled with food," Zayden said and turned around.d
He headed towards the door and stood there with his back facing the door to the storage room.
"All level tens and above come out of the storage rooms, we are going to have to face off against the chicken," Zayden said
The eight of them nodded their heads and came out of the store room, standing in front of the store room like a wall, ready to take on whatever was thrown at them.
Dare's hologram was projected in front of them, and they could see a team of chickens coming in their direction. They would be here in about five minutes or so.
"Seems like the sound of the door attracted the chicken," Valeria said
"Ding!!"
The system chime was heard in the ears of everyone.
[New Quest]
[Defeat the mother hen and her chicks]
[Reward: EXP gotten would be transferred into EXP crystals for later use]
Seeing this system notification, the team couldn't help but smile slightly.
"It won't be a waste of EXP anymore," Aiden said as he wielded his sword and shield in front of him.
A few breaths later, the team could hear the footsteps of the chicken, and a few breaths after that, it appeared in front of them.
There were about twelve white feathered chickens with red horns on their head, and behind the human-sized chicken was one other chicken.
The only difference was that this one had a female feel to it, and instead of just one red horn, it had three red horns.
[Mother Hen]
[Level 17]
"Well,... This was unexpected," Tyrel said
"We will go for the chicks first and try to clear them out. But if the mother hen attacks us, Darian and I will break off and try to hold her back while waiting for you guys," Zayden said
"Sure," they all answer.ed
"Don't worry, fighting beasts at a higher level brings a lot more exp," he added as if trying to lift their spirits.
"Let's do this!!" Aiden suddenly shouted
"Yeah," the rest of the team responded and charged at the chicken. Zayden could only smile wryly and followed them from behind.
"Ice Spikes"
"Holy Aura"
"Stealth"
"Create"
"Lightning Charge"
"..."
A myriad of skills were activated as the team reached the chicken. Amara swung down one of her daggers into the eye of one of the chickens. Red blood spurted all over her body as she disappeared. Not actually, but blended into the shadows in some way.
The chicken entered into some kind of rage and started spitting fire breaths everywhere. Aiden appeared in front of the chicken, his metal shield in front of him to block the attacks of the chicken.
Taking the opportunity from Aiden's defense, Valeria appeared in the air, from the blind spot of the now bleeding chicken. The grandmaster's sword that Zayden gave to her was glowing a bright golden glow as she swung it down on the chicken.
Like a hot knife through butter, the sword easily passed through the body of the chicken, killing it.
A white crystal appeared over the heads of Valeria, Amara, and Aiden, floating there silently.
Seeing this, the three smiled slightly and continued with their battles.
Zayden was watching this from afar. From the way they handled the chicken, one wouldn't know that all three of them were three levels below the chicken. After a few battles against nulls together, it was like they had formed some sort of bond with each other, knowing the sequence of attack each person was going to make and knowing how to follow up.
"BKAAAW!!!"
The loud crow of the mother hen drew their attention. Zayden and Darian nodded at each other before jumping into the air.
Some red aura covered Darian while Zayden activated his flux coat on his hands.
One of the horns on the head of the mother hen glowed a fierce red color as the mother hen opened her beak, ready to unleash a fire-breath attack on the people who killed one of her children.
But before she could do anything, Zayden and Darian appeared in front of her.
"Wassup Chicken Nugget"