Now I have a way to win this fight. The question is, how do I reach the faucet with a flaming chicken behind me that won't leave me alone?
Well, realistically, there's an easy way to do this, but it's risky and could very well kill me if it goes wrong. But as they say, with great risk comes great reward. And it'll also be a way to test how weak my body really is to fire and heat.
I'm not at all excited about this, but it's an unfortunate necessity.
The easiest way is to make the rooster destroy the faucet, then just lure him in, which is quite easy. I stood with my back to the faucet and the rooster right in front of me and launched an attack.
"[Shadow ball]"
[Shadow Ball] consumes 2 MP, after the other two I was left with 1 MP, but the time I spent dodging the rooster's attacks was enough for me to recover the mana needed for the attack.
I purposely aimed a little low, right at his paws to irritate him. Instead of moving away, I stayed where I was and looked him straight in the eye.
I made the classic "come get me if you can" hand gesture. I wasn't sure if he'd understand, but apparently the neighbor watched movies with them or something, because he definitely understood the gesture.
I positioned myself as if to say I'd stay right there and take the hit, and apparently he got the idea too. He puffed out his chest with a new type of attack and then sent a torrent of flames at me.
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting that."
I ended up taking part of the blast in my arms. It hurt like hell, but at least in this state he couldn't move. The rooster had to keep its claws firmly on the ground to withstand the recoil of the attack and not fly away like a rocket.
But I could move, despite the searing pain in my arms, and aside from the burst of fire he launched. The rest happened just as I imagined.
As soon as the burst of fire hit the faucet and pipe, the trapped water burst toward the rooster and hens. The hens were far away, so they only got wet, and ended up waking up to a spray of water in the face.
The rooster, however, got the worst of it, as expected.
The fire covering him was instantly extinguished. The water attack caught him off guard, and in his attempt to dodge, he forgot his claws were stuck in the ground, resulting in a nasty tumble.
And it didn't stop with just a no. The combination of the water on the ground, his claws, and the force of the escaping water caused him to lose his balance (again) and fall in a rather comical way, and I'm sure I saw him do at least one somersault.
Not that I could appreciate my successful plan. Both because of the pain I was feeling in my arms, and because the water splashed on me wasn't helping with the pain at all.
I've never been attacked by a flamethrower in my life, and I never want to be, but that's definitely what it's like afterward (if you survive). By comparison, I've been burned several times, and I can say the burns on my arms are easily second-degree.
And maybe it was an illusion caused by the pain, but it felt like the burn was spreading.
Even though it hit me the first time, I was only in contact with the flames for a maximum of 1.2 seconds (yes, I'm exaggerating; there's no way to know just by the sensation of something like that).
So, one of two things: either my vulnerability is more serious than I imagined, or the fire from that rooster wasn't normal fire (of course, it's fire being thrown by a chicken, and so normal doesn't even apply in this case), or both.
Both are bad in their own way, but I can't dwell on that right now.
Even though my strategy worked, I needed more time than I would have liked to overcome the pain in my arms, which the rooster had to recover from. But he hadn't recovered as much as I had; I think the water hit him more than I expected.
The chickens also got up, but stayed away, I don't know why.
Without the gushing water, they might have surrounded me again, but I won't complain if they don't take this chance.
Getting into attack position again, I charged at the rooster. He saw me and tried to react, but he couldn't move quickly enough. I punched him in the lower chest with my left arm, forcing his head down with the impact.
My arm moved faster than I thought possible and forced his head up, stretching his neck wide. I let the pain and hunger take over; I think I was already biting his neck before my fangs emerged.
As soon as the blood touched my tongue, the world seemed to go silent, and almost all my concentration was focused on the taste of blood entering my mouth. I barely noticed any squeaking from the hens or chicks, or the frantic attacks the rooster was making with his claws.
I could feel the cuts he made, but they seemed numb, or my body was numb from the blood in my mouth. All I know is that my brain was focused on the liquid entering my body.
The goblin blood was a beautiful piece of shit that only served to stave off hunger, like the first cereal bars ever created... except with moldy cereal someone dropped in a puddle of water. The rat's blood was like a packet of crackers that helped stave off hunger but didn't satisfy.
But this rooster's blood, that did satisfy hunger. With each sip of blood, I felt the pain in my stomach fade, and the taste of the blood helped a lot with that.
In a superficial comparison, it had the taste and sensation of whiskey (just a little thicker), with cinnamon and pepper. A combination that sounds horrible for the throat, but surprisingly has a slight addictive factor.
The burning and warming sensation that whiskey would give wasn't limited to the throat or stomach. With each sip I felt this heat spreading through every corner of my body, especially in my burned arms that no longer hurt and in my stomach itself.
It was a session like a winter's day, the warmth of the alcohol warming my body during a particularly cold night.
With each sip, I felt my body grow warmer and stronger, while the rooster grew weaker and weaker. After five sips, the sensation of the numb cuts in my stomach disappeared. And the thrashing he made trying to get out of my mouth became almost imperceptible.
Even his heartbeat dropped to almost nothing; it wasn't long before he died.
With great (very great) effort, I managed to open my mouth and let the rooster's body fall to the ground, the wound in his neck still oozing blood. I can't tell if my body screamed at my brain, or my brain screamed at my soul, but I know something deep inside me was fiercely urging me to bite the rooster's neck again until there was no blood left in his body.
I suppressed this urge with every ounce of rationality I had left, and with effort I managed to point at the rooster and cast the spell I wanted.
"[Shadow Healing]"
I had an almost immediate understanding of how to activate the spells and their effects. There's a description, but it's more of a supplement than anything else. Among them, [Shadow Healing] intrigued me the most, and seeing it in action, I think I understood why it's described as a difficult spell to master.
My shadow stirred and "stretched" toward the rooster's shadow. With the overcast sky, it was difficult to tell where the light cast the shadows, but in this case, I could see that mine was apart, and the rooster's was slightly more northerly. Still, my shadow moved toward his, and as soon as they made contact, a violet aura appeared around us both.