Ford collapsed on the ground, exhausted. They had been protecting the egg for the past two hours! The egg had grown to six meters tall and finally stopped in a large clearing atop a plateau. Luckily, nobody but Ford got seriously injured, other than a few cuts and bruises. “Alright, hopefully, we don’t have to protect it anymore,” Ford said through heaving breaths.

One last booming, hissing noise resonated throughout the forest and echoed in the glade she now lay in, dashing her hopes. Lilly leaned on her staff of healing and looked over to Ford, “Ye jus’ had to say somethin’, didn’ ye?”

“You really need to learn to shut up, Ford,” Farah added.

“Agreed,” Max said angrily.

“It’s not my fault,” Ford defended, then stood sword in hand.

“Sure, it’s not,” Max mumbled under her breath.

Ford gave her a side-long glance, then immediately turned her attention to the crashing sounds coming from the forest. Then the trees fell forward, nearly crushing everyone, if not for Morgan’s quick reflexes throwing up a large dome shield at the last second. The trees shattered against the shield, and Morgan screamed in pain as his arms and shoulders made a snapping sound and fell to his sides.

Lilly quickly cast a healing spell and repaired his arms. ‘Good,’ Ford thought, ‘She can heal without issue. At least it looks like no issues.’

“Best to check in after the fight,” Wrath suggested, “Can I kill this thing?”

Ford looked up at the monster before them; it was a night stalker ten times the size of a normal one. It stood seven meters tall and had three long tails with massive quills on its tips. Its lithe body rippled with muscles, and the skin flaps on the back of its head stuck straight up as it snarled. The skin where the monster’s eyes should be rippled as it looked directly at them, and Ford realized it had hundreds of thousands of eyes.

“What’s the plan?” Benet asked.

“Right now, not die,” Ford said as she sprung into action, creating a massive ball of light. The shield dropped around them, and Ford fired it at the monster for one hundred mana. When it got close to the beast, it opened its mouth and swallowed the light. Then shot it back at them as a concentration of black mana. Everyone scattered, and no one got hurt, but it put a hole into Ford’s plans.

“Ligh’ spells won’ work on it! It’s an alpha Night stalker,” Lilly said over comms.

“Would’ve been nice to know a second earlier,” Ford responded as she got back up.

“Sorry, we need more sunlight,” Lilly said.

“Alright, Benet, stack it with afflictions. Kii, Mizu, get some altitude. Max, Lilly, trap it. Morgan, Gimble, Farah, Ace, and I will distract it,” Ford hastily said, laying out the plan.

“Heard!”

Ford charged at the monster and sent several slashes of light and dark blades at the beast. As they struck, Benet appeared and disappeared multiple times as he stacked it with afflictions. The alpha roared in pain and swiped at Benet, only to be stopped by a well place exploding spear or wall. Then Farah launched herself off of Gimble and punched the monster with a flaming fist. The alpha stumbled back further, and Farah screamed as her arm fell to her side limply. Morgan caught her, and Lilly cast another healing spell from a distance.

Ford dashed forward and stabbed her sword into the monster’s neck, eliciting a screech from the depths of the beast. It shook its body, trying to shake her off, but she held on, summoning her Willful dagger and stabbing it into its neck. Lilly fired off another volley at the alpha, getting its attention long enough for Ford to climb onto its back. She looked up at the back of the monster’s head and saw the flaps covered two more eyes, massive and black. She knew they stared right at her.

“Sunny, we need some light,” Ford said.

“On it,” Sunny responded and flew out, creating as much light as possible. The alpha roared and closed all of its eyes as its skin began to sizzle and smell. Ford took the opportunity to summon the rest of her swords and bring them down on the monster’s neck. They traveled through its flesh as easily as butter, and the alpha fell silent as its head slowly slid and fell to the ground.

Its body toppled over soon after, and Ford along with it, but she didn’t get seriously hurt. Then a notification appeared. Quest complete: chicken or the egg?: escort the egg to its nest; ensure it receives little to no damage; reward: two-hundred EXP. Then a loot bag full of Night stalker cores fell on her face, which she put into her void storage.

“Yay, we did it,” Ford said unenthused, “and it’s only seven P.M. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m tired and hungry.”

“Agreed,” Morgan said, “let’s rest and do the boss tomorrow.”

“Aye. I’ll get some firewood,” Lilly said.

A loud crack rang throughout the clearing, coming from the egg. “Uh, Ford,” one of the Twins said.

“We are going to need some help at the egg.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s cracking.”

“And moving.”

“Shit, it’s hatchin’!” Lilly said, “Kii, Mizu, run!!”

Another loud crack echoed throughout the clearing; space bent and twisted as the Twins appeared before the group and then returned to normal. “Nice teleportation,” Ford said as the cracking got faster.

“Thanks. What is that,” the Twins asked.

“No idea,” Ford said, summoning her segmented blade and readying herself for a fight. Crack, a massive split in the egg, appeared, shining light upon them. Crack, the split grew wider, and heat rolled across the grass field, pulling the humidity out of the air. Crack, the egg exploded in a burst of light and heat, causing Ford to cover her eyes.

The light dimmed, and Ford dared to look at what had emerged from the egg. A massive, majestic bird stood in its place. It had a long neck like a pheasant and had four legs and two wings. Its feathers were blue, green, purple, red, orange, and yellow. They shimmered and shifted as it breathed, radiating light. The bird had a plum of flaming feathers that made no noise, but Ford could feel the heat coming from it; above the majestic bird floated an HP bar and the name Giant flaming cock.

Ford read this and burst out laughing; Benet took a look and also burst out laughing. Everyone else who read the name just rolled their eyes at Benet and Ford, and Ace didn’t understand the joke. “Ye really shouldn’ be laughin’ righ’ now,” Lilly said, taking a few steps back.

“I’m sorry! Hahaha! But! Haha! Giant flaming cock!!” Ford said through fits of laughter.

“Sure, a hilarious name for a phoenix!” Lilly snapped.

“A what?” Ford stopped laughing.

“A phoenix,” Farah said, “Closest monster to an actual Dragon.”

Ford looked up at the majestic bird, then back to Farah and asked, “Is it a cousin of yours?”

Farah punched Ford hard enough to dislocate her jaw, “No, you asshole.”

Ford’s jaw relocated itself, and she said, “Sorry, sorry. Do you have any idea how to beat it?”

“Keep our distance and destroy the body entirely. It has redundant everything, so it’ll come back from anything short of total annihilation,” Farah quickly explained.

The stone beneath the phoenix began to bubble and melt, then collapsed under the phoenix’s sheer weight. The phoenix screeched and toppled over, impacting the ground and sending a wave of fire at them; the fire, oddly enough, didn’t burn any of the plant life around the phoenix. Gimble and Morgan quickly reacted and shielded everyone from the fire, and Ford had to stifle a laugh at the monster’s clumsiness. But she immediately stopped as she saw the wave of fire brush against Max’s arm and completely disintegrate her arm from the elbow down.

Max screamed in pain and fell to the ground clutching her stump. Ford and Lilly quickly rushed to Max’s side and caught her. Before Ford could ask anything, Max slapped her and Lilly away, yelling, “STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

“What?! Why? Let Lilly heal you!” Ford said.

Max gave Ford a deathly glare with tears in her eyes and said, “Stay away from me,” then she stood and hobbled away toward the forest as fast as she could.

Ford lunged at her to stop her, and a pillar of stone impacted her midsection with enough force to tear her in half. Her legs fell to the ground limply while her torso flew through the air leaving behind a line of entrails and blood, and she landed on Gimbles back. Gimble flinched and looked over his shoulder, seeing Ford’s limp torso hanging on his back and sliding down to the ground.

Ford groaned, and Gimble screamed, taking a few steps away from her. She then looked at her HP bar seeing the number three flashing there. “Lilly,” Ford weakly said over comms, “I need my legs.”

“Clearly!”

“Bring me my legs. I can’t regenerate from this.”

“Oh, righ’,” Lilly said, then Ford heard dragging sounds as her legs were pulled across the ground.

Ford looked up from the ground and saw the phoenix struggling to get up, “Kii, Mizu, keep the pressure on the monster. Make sure it can’t regain its feet.”

“On it,” the Twins said and began firing at the phoenix.

Ford felt Lilly push her legs against her torso and her HP began climbing as pain shot through her body and her nerves reattached themselves. “Lilly, get an ice ray going. Make it big. Farah, can you get close to the phoenix?” Ford asked.

“Yes, but not for long,” Farah answered.

“Then do what you can,” Ford said, getting up from the ground, “Once Lilly releases the spell, you and I will finish it off.”

Farah nodded and waited for the signal to attack. The phoenix screeched again and got to its feet. It then flipped its wings sending several waves of fire at them. Ford cursed and began making her ice ray going. When it got to the correct size, she looked over to Lilly, who nodded, and then Morgan and Gimble took a quick step aside as they released their ice rays at the phoenix.

Ford’s mana quickly dropped by half, then began to recharge. The ice struck a wall of heat and created a shock wave as the air rapidly cooled and expanded again. Ford cursed and began firing a volley of ice arrows at the monster, and Lilly did the same. While she did that, she made essence enforcement with water, dark, and air essences, then put all her stamina into it. Ford stopped her volley and said, “Farah, let’s go. Kii, Mizu, Lilly, keep up the fire. Morgan, Gimble, keep everyone safe. Ace, find Max!”

“Heard!”

Ford ran forward with her sword in hand and Farah close behind. Ford could feel the heat emanating off the phoenix as she got closer, and she felt glad she had made the ice essence enforcement. Once they got close enough, Ford could feel the heat physically impact her body, making her stumble. The phoenix screeched again as it looked down and saw the two people approaching it slowly. It created a ball of fire in its mouth and fired it at them.

Ford and Farah quickly dodged and got free of the fireball’s blast radius. Farah ran around to the other side of the phoenix, and Ford did the same on the other side. Lilly fired another ray of ice at the phoenix, bringing the temperature down significantly and creating another shock wave as the air contracted and expanded again. Ford fired more ice spears at the phoenix to keep the temperature down, while Farah attacked from the other side.

Farah came down on the phoenix’s wings and severed one of them from the main body. Causing it to fall to the ground with a loud thud. The phoenix screeched in pain and flapped its other wing furiously to rid itself of the troublesome pests. Ford’s essence enforcement could barely withstand the wave and her sword melted into a pile of molten scrap, leaving nothing but the handle.

Ford cursed, recharged her enforcement, de-summoned her sword, and summoned her elemental sword. She then jumped and sent three water blades at the last wing, doing nothing but create steam. Then she sent three blades of darkness at the wing. The blades struck the wing’s joint, and it fell to the ground. The phoenix screeched in pain again, and another beam of ice hit the invisible wall of heat, breaking through and striking the phoenix. The massive bird fell silent as ice raced along its once glamorous body, turning its feathers from a beautiful rainbow to a dull blue. Then it fell over and shattered on the ground into hundreds of different pieces, leaving nothing behind.

Ford panted and fell to the ground, “Ace, where’s Max?” she asked over comms.

“I have found her trail. Want me to follow?” Ace responded.

“Lead the way. Lilly, with me. Everyone else set up camp and get some firewood so I can start cooking when I get back,” Ford said, then followed Ace and Lilly back into the forest.