Risen World

Chapter 574: BBQ Chicken

Now that they had their eyes on the prairie chickens Joshua thought it was about time for them to get to work. There weren't any other threats in the nearby area so they wouldn't have to worry about getting ambushed. Joshua also made sure to push his aura sense as far as he could underground around the area to see if there were any beast that were hiding beneath the area, outside of worms he couldn't sense anything else. With that in mind Henry came up with an idea of attack that would allow them to get the first strike on the large group of birds.

"Approaching the prairie chickens head on would be foolish and have us walking into the perfect situation for them to go on the attack. We might be able to withstand an onslaught of their sonic wave like screeches, but we'd easily be stuck in that position for as long as our shield walls can hold up, especially if they were to try to attack us in waves instead of all at once." Henry explained. Everyone seemed to get the gist of what he was saying and agreed with that idea. Especially considering the prairie chickens were likely to be higher level than the ones they came across in the past.

"Well if we're going with a similar strategy to what we did last time we had to fight the prairie chickens then getting close enough and trying to attack them with spells seems like it would be more challenging this time around." Julia said getting everyone's attention. "With how alert they seem to be I doubt they won't notice the sudden surge in mana nearby. If all of them were to start shooting off their attacks towards our spells then the whole plan will back fire."

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"That's why instead of trying to have the mages get close enough to fire off their spells in the regular way we'll try a different approach." Henry said with a small smile. "It's clear that Imperia can carry a few of us on her back at any time and with her ability to stay up in the air the mages won't be in any danger at all when they fire of their spells from her back. She can even use illusions to make it seem as if there's nothing wrong to all of the prairie chickens beneath her."

"Makes since. I guess we'll be going with fire spells since they will only be stronger in the current environment. We can even have Tails and Cinder contribute after the first wave of spells." Laura said before looking towards Joshua. "Once the first salvo of attacks is done it'll be up to the tanks to help protect the rest of the group while we clear out any stragglers left behind from the explosions. It's not clear how sturdy these birds will be, but better safe than sorry."

"Alright then let's all get in position." Joshua said as Thomas and Aito came back down with Imperia. The bat had clearly heard their conversation with its heightened sense of hearing. Most of the group got on the back of Momo while Laura, Julia, and Ariel all got up on to Imperia who took back to the air. They rode Momo as far as they could until they got within the range of the prairie chicken. The large ferret then lowered its body so that it would mostly be hidden by the tall grass and out of the view of the prairie chickens if they started looking in their direction. Once they had gotten close enough everyone jumped off of Momo as Lily put Momo away and brought out Cinder in her shrunken down form to where she was just a bit shorter than the grass was tall for the moment. Cinder was Lily's stealthiest beast and her flames would be a huge contribution to the initial assault on the chickens.

The tanks got up front just on the edge of the grass from where the prairie chickens were and stayed as hidden as possible. 'Go ahead and start the attack.' Joshua said through the mental link as he took out his scale blade ready to go in at the right moment. It was then that Joshua felt a gathering of mana swirling up in the air above. With the amount of mana that all three of the fire spell users were gathering it was clear that they were planning to cut loose from the start.

Joshua noticed that several of the prairie chickens stopped pecking at the ground and turned towards the air looking for the disturbance that they were sensing. For a moment it looked as if they were alert and they seemed to be confused before they turned their attention back towards the ground and started eating away again. Although the chickens were on edge and alert at all times they clearly weren't all that smart. If they had used this strategy against any other beast in the prairie they would fail easily. Instead the prairie chickens didn't give the odd situation a second thought and unfortunately that would end up being what got the group destroyed in the first place.

When the three mages finished gathering the power for their spells Joshua could see a giant fire ball form above Imperia along with several smaller ones that were circling around it. The combination of spells was shot down towards the group of prairie chickens that were clearly trapped in an illusion where they couldn't see the incoming danger at all. The large fireball was a followed up by a torrent of flames that pushed it down towards the ground even faster and the resulting collision created a massive explosion that Joshua thought would end there, but Henry had other plans.

Lily had Cinder grew to full size while Thomas brought out Tails and both beast companions added even more fire to the flames and increased what was a raging inferno in to what looked like a giant pyre of flames. Amber was the next one to contribute as she created earthen walls all around the area to block of the flames and keep them from spreading into the grass and causing a wild fire. The rocks also kept the heat in to keep the birds roasting for an even longer period of time. Henry then added his own touch as he used a bit of wind magic to send the flames into what looked like a giant tornado that stayed in place and focused on keeping the fire going.

After a minute or so of this situation Joshua could feel several surges of experience come his way and he was certain that the rest of the group felt it as well. It took a while for the fire to completely die down and for the smoke to clear. Joshua had Brook create a torrent of rain with a spell to put out the flames at a faster pace and the resulting scene that they all saw were several dead prairie chickens with only a few still alive, but in no condition to fight. Before the living prairie chickens could die off Joshua saw both Lily and Thomas rush over to tame the dozen or so birds that were still holding onto life. In their condition the moment they felt any sort of bond that could possibly help save their lives the unintelligent creatures latched onto it no matter what it was. Just like that both tamers each gained six prairie chickens that were a bit stronger than expected level wise.

Since they were tamed now and not in the middle of a firestorm it was easy to see their levels and they were all either level eighty-three or eighty-four which was a couple levels higher than what they had been in the first part of the prairie that they had explored already. It explained their size change and also explained how they were able to survive such a powerful combination attack. With the quick battle finished Joshua walked over to both Lily and Thomas while collecting some of the dead bodies of the prairie chickens. They were covered in burns and most of their feathers had been destroyed, but they were still basically giant piles of meat that could be used to create some delicious meals for the rest of the expedition. Outside of that the prairie chickens didn't really have any materials on them that were worth selling or storing up.

"These prairie chicken aren't all that strong and the only abilities they have are a slight speed boost along with their sonic screeches." Thomas said with a sigh as he looked over the stats of the creature rather quickly. "They're fine when they're grouped up but it's not like we can bring out an army of these guys where ever we go. At best we can have them help out in territory wars right? Our enemies will probably not take giant chickens nearly as seriously as some of the other beast that we have."

"If we want them to be useful then we will have to tame a lot more than a dozen." Lily pointed out getting nods from everyone.

"Well our first fight in the new area seems to have gone well, though it's a shame that most of us didn't even have to do anything." Adrian said with a shrug.

"I'm sure you'll get your chance to show off soon enough. After all we've got a whole new area to explore and I doubt the prairie chickens are the only thing around that we will have to deal with." Henry said as everyone gathered up and Lily brought out Momo once more so that they could all get on the move. This time around they were headed to where they saw the marsh like area to see if they could find anything interesting. They also hoped to be on the right track to find the last guardian site..