My Reincarnation as a Chicken

It didn't take long for them to reach the next area, but the place was empty. There was nothing around them. Just a tree root dropping from the dark ceiling. A few glowing orbs floating around and a flowing river, surrounding a tiny Island with nothing but rocks on it.

"Hmm… is there something special about this floor?"

"I don't really see anything special about it though."

"Euk!"

Aeri yelped. Everyone turned to look at her, a bit surprised. She put her hand to her shoulder and grabbed something.

"Tch! I really hate cowards who can't face me up front!"

She backhanded the invisible presence and the monster let out a wail with some teeth flying. It then faded into reality, revealing a beast nearly as big as Aeri. It was hiding itself behind its massive bat-like wings.

"Oi! Aren't you even going to reveal yourself?"

Aeri snarled at the creature. It responded by extending its wings and revealing itself. It was a giant lion with two other heads and a snake head for a tail. Its goat head bleated and its basilisk head hissed. The lion head roared, sending a powerful shockwave that sent chills up the girls' backs.

[Dungeon Floor 3 boss <<Chimera Guardian>> has spawned]

"Chimera!?"

The monster flew towards the invader it felt was the weakest, Kara. It's prey instinct telling it to avoid the other creatures at that moment. It zoomed quickly towards the ogress, but Kawaii jumped in the way with the [Demon Long Sword] she had absorbed and used [Flash Step] to close the gap between herself and the Chimera. The monster's snake head tail lashed at the slime like a whip, clashing with the sword and throwing her into the water. Due to the goat's prey instinct it knew to be cautious when dealing with the slime. One touch from it and something very bad would happen.

Then it proceeded its charge for the ogress once again. However, the battle goddess stood in wait for the chimera. The beast didn't fret in the slightest. Instead, it actually increased its speed, creating a powerful boom that gave Ulva trouble maintaining her footing. Still, to a battle god, the wind was just a breeze.

With an excited grin, she punched the lion head right in the cheek, a large crack resounding through the area. The gears on the gloves she wore shifted and turned. Steam blew out of it and a second impact that was twice as powerful as the original punch was sent to the monster's face, within less than a second, sending it flying backwards. Under normal circumstances, a monster should have died from that, but it managed to balance itself then flapped its wings to get to higher ground. Its regenerative abilities were on a completely different level and it had more than one head capable of thinking. So even with the loss of one, it would barely be affected.

"Um… Ok, I love these gloves!"

Aeri roared but just then, the Lion head was returned to its original state and its snake head hissed at her. It spat out a green liquid – poison – at Ulva, but Ulva stretched out her hand out of sheer instinct and her [Basic Ice Magic] activated, freezing the liquid before it could touch her. This allowed her to shatter the poison and jump right through the shards, going for the monster’s neck.

Kawaii threw her blade at the chimera, stabbing it in the foot. It let out a pained screech, then fired off a stinky breath of fire at the slime. Kawaii also shot a powerful volley of water using [Water Cannon], by absorbing the river with her lower half and shooting it out of her mouth. Her water had a little spice to it, that being her highly toxic attribute. The monster’s fire though was still powerful enough to cancel hers out, forcing her to avoid the attack. However, she was hit from behind with the snake head tail. The chimera smashed into the ground, and the whole room trembled, pieces of rocks fell from the sky.

“Now Kala!”

Aeri screamed. The war ogress had been preparing a spell this entire time, and was finally ready to activate it. Dark clouds gathered above the Chimera, followed by a barrier that surrounded it, trapping it inside a tiny enclosed space.

The chimera’s heads turned about, curious as to what was happening. It tried to penetrate the barrier but received a great shock that forced it to stay back. The scent of roasting goat filled up the room quickly.

The others slowly gathered up around Kara.

“I don’t know why, but it seems to be targeting you, Kala.”

Aeri said, taking up a defensive stance in front of everyone. The chimera glared at them all from the confines of its cage.

“It shouldn’t be able to get out of there.”

BOOM!

A lightning bolt from the clouds hit the chimera from the top, followed by the ear deafening roar of the chimera’s pained cry. It shook its head after receiving the first bolt. Little did it know, this was the first for this little lightning hell Kara had conjured up.

The second thunder bolt struck it right on its head. Followed by the third, then the fourth. Next the fifth, the sixth, the seventh and more and more lightning bolts struck in increasing rapidity. Booms and cries came out in a horrifyingly organized manner.

After the 50th, the chimera had had enough. Escaping the lightning barrier was the most important thing here. No matter how painful that was, it wouldn’t match up to the pain it felt in the moment. So, it ran through the lightning after covering itself up in scales in an attempt to reduce the amount of damage it was receiving.

“Ah! It broke free!”

Ulva crouched to ground herself. The release of energy that came with the chimera escaping the lightning barrier was simply too much and even gave Aeri a tiny bit of trouble. She could ignore it though. Kawaii on the other hand found this release to be interesting and started to absorb all of the magical energy that came out, forming something like a huge shield in front of the others.

Once the shockwave died down, Aeri threw a punch at the unaware Chimera; its body was half burnt with some raw flesh sticking out and black, dried blood all over. She felt her arm stiffening and her movements slowing down, causing her punch to lack the amount of power she expected it to have.

"Aeri! Wait! Your arm!"

"Huh?"

She glanced at her shoulder and that's when she realized that her hand had started to turn to stone. She couldn't move it anymore and the chimera's claws were right about to slash at it. The kind of force being that slash would have definitely torn the battle god's arm off.

BOOM!!

A powerful explosion rocked the tomb.

***

'Tch… what is this? W-why is it so cramped in here? I'm having a feeling of déjà vu right now.'

I squirmed around in the confined space I found myself in.

'Wait! T-This is just like that time when… D-don't tell me! Am I in an egg? N-no way, right? I-I have already passed that stage, haven't I? I-I can't go through it again. No! I'm going to get assassinated again!? Noooooo!'

[Congratulations! You have evolved into the Arcane Demonic Twilight Shadow Bird] Successfully]