BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thunderous explosions rocked the Malayan wilderness, the earth shuddering as dust billowed, mingling with the acrid stench of scorched timber and pulverized soil. A crimson glare from the inferno danced across the pale, terrified faces of the adventuring party, now cornered and broken.
"Agh! Damn it all!" Lucas, the party leader—a burly youth clad in heavy plate—spat blood as he drove his massive greatsword into the earth to steady his trembling frame. "We just came here to farm some low-level mobs and rank up in peace. How the hell did we hit the jackpot and pull a Rank-S Infernal Drake?!"
Towering before them was a gargantuan reptilian nightmare, its hide covered in obsidian-hard crimson scales and its wings casting a shadow of death. Its eyes burned with a primordial fire, and every huff of its breath distorted the very air with searing heat. This dragon was an anomaly; it unleashed a relentless barrage of fireballs as if its mana pool were bottomless. Its raw power was staggering.
ROAR!!!
The beast bellowed, raining down dozens of flaming spheres. Ancient trees were snapped like dry twigs, and the ground was gouged into a scarred landscape of smoldering craters.
"Don't panic! Hold your ground!" Lucas roared over the cacophony of destruction. "We're in deep, but we can't retreat! Miel! It's up to you!"
"Understood!" Miel, a petite girl with a heart of iron, charged forward. Clad in tanking gear, she slammed her shield into the dirt and chanted, "Stone Aegis! Protect us!" Her skin instantly took on the dull, rugged hue of granite. The fireballs slammed into her shield and body with the force of a hurricane, but she stood firm—an immovable monument amidst the chaos.
"Elina! Now!" Lucas shouted.
Elina, the stoic mage, raised her staff high. A freezing mist swirled from its tip. "Glacial Bind!" High-tier ice magic surged toward the drake, catching it off guard. Thick frost crawled up its talons, snaking up its neck and sealing its maw just as it prepared another breath, freezing the beast in its tracks.
"Kill it!!!" Lucas and Klass, the archer, yelled in unison.
Lucas launched himself like a cannonball, his greatsword carving a deep, bloody arc through the dragon's ankle. As the beast collapsed under its own weight, Klass drew his bowstring to its limit, his arrows glowing with empowered mana. "Arcane Shot!" The projectile whistled through the air, piercing the drake's eye with surgical precision.
ROAR!!!
The Infernal Drake shrieked in agony, but it was far from finished. Its eyes bled into a frantic, murderous crimson as an immense aura condensed within its chest, making its scales glow with a terrifying amber light.
"Oh no... what is it doing?!" Klass screamed in terror.
BOOM!!!
A colossal shockwave of pure thermal energy erupted from the dragon, leveling everything in sight. The four adventurers were tossed like ragdolls. Miel, who took the brunt of the blast, lay mangled, her left arm severed. Lucas, Klass, and Elina were on the brink of death, their broken bodies scattered across the charred earth.
"So this... is the King of Monsters... what a joke we were..." Lucas wheezed, the light fading from his eyes as hope withered away.
But amidst the dying embers and the creeping silence, a sound echoed...
Cluck... Cluck... Bawk-AWK!!!
Suddenly, a small, pale-yellow blur streaked past them at the speed of light—so fast it was nothing more than a golden smear.
"W-what was that?" Elina struggled to open her eyes.
What she saw was a chicken. A tiny, common chicken, yet it was wreathed in a radiant golden aura so brilliant it blinded the senses. It landed squarely in front of the Infernal Drake just as the beast prepared to finish the party off.
The chicken craned its neck, its golden eyes twinkling with a mix of mischief and unbearable arrogance. It glanced at the massive dragon with a look of pure disdain, as if staring at a common insect.
"Lowly humans..." A voice rang out. It wasn't a squawk, but a deep, resonant tone dripping with authority and hubris. "How dare you force me, a Sublime God, to lower myself to the level of common dust!"
The chicken flicked its tiny wings, yet the motion generated a localized gale that swept the dust aside.
"You, filthy lizard!" it barked at the dragon. "How dare you disturb my slumber! Pay for this insolence with your life!"
"Physicality: Ten Percent!"
The chicken declared its intent and lunged. There were no flashy spells, no grand incantations—just a single, sharp peck of its beak into the dragon's underbelly.
KABOOM!!!
An impossible force detonated. The Infernal Drake's massive body disintegrated into a spray of gore and scales, repainting the area in a grisly red. The once-lush Malayan forest was now a wasteland of viscera.
The chicken landed gracefully, preening its feathers with an annoyed huff.
"Confound it! My beautiful plumage is ruined!" It turned its gaze toward the stunned adventurers