Assassin Crow Evolution

Chapter 19: The mantis has a weapon, the crows are seductive

The crows looked at the sky, and jerked their heads up and down as they cawed. They were laughing.

"Stupid boy," one of them said, "He thinks necromancy is a mating call, hahahaha!"

Jimmy did not understand what they were laughing about, and at some point, he stopped caring. He figured that as long as the crows didn’t pose him a physical threat, it made no difference to him if they were there or not.

Instead, he focused on the mantis. He tried to communicate with it, but alas, the mantis only saw a giant bird cawing and jerking its beak around as if it was a god demanding a sacrifice.

The mantis was willing to fight god, but this time, it was too conflicted to attack. The crow, as weird as he may seem, healed the mantis, and grew its leg back. It wasn’t wise to fight a healer.

The situation was confusing overall, but at some point, their awkward encounter was interrupted.

A bird swept through the alleyway, screeching and squawking, but it was not a crow.

Jimmy jerked his head to the right, and spotted the bird charging towards him.

"What the fuck is that?" he said.

With a single flap of his wings, he flew several feet backwards, so as to widen the space between him and the bird, but this creature was far too fast. It ran across the alleyway twice as fast as any human could.

Jimmy could fly away, but he decided to stand his ground. He clung on to his kitchen knife tighter, and tried to calculate the best timing to cut the bird’s head clean off.

"Why does it look like a demon chicken..." he held his breath.

The ’demon chicken’ was about his size, so he knew he could have a hell of a fight on his hands if he wasn’t careful.

The demon chicken didn’t have mere, soft feet. It had talons.

If those talons tore through his feathers, he could suffer wounds that could dig all the way into his bones!

Jimmy took a swing. His body arched backwards as his leg stretched out to deliver the blow.

His kitchen knife whistled. A couple ounces of blood from his previous kills had dried up on its blade.

To his utter shock, he missed!

Failing to hit anything solid, his momentum, coming from the swing, made him spin like a ballerina.

"Oh... I’m fucked..." he panicked.

However, as he gathered himself and faced what he described as a demon chicken, he was surprised to see it on the ground. Blood poured out of numerous spots around its neck and head.

"What?" he squinted, confused.

A second later, he saw that praying mantis jumping off from the creature’s back. The mantis had a weapon in its front legs, maneuvering it with ease.

"I didn’t know they made chains that small," he said. "Thank you, green sir."

The mantis was holding a sickle tied to a long chain. Long compared to its body, at least.

This was the first time he saw the mantis holding this weapon, and he had no idea where the mantis hid it before, but he was thankful for a multitude of reasons.

"You could’ve killed me as well..." he said, "God damn it, even I wasn’t so sure if I could kill this demon chicken, but you turned it into a bloody mess!"

"Thanks for sparing me," he bowed.

The mantis, at last, understood what Jimmy was trying to say, at least slightly. It bowed down in response, reflecting their shared respect.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

The mantis did not answer. Of course not.

Either way, he spotted a moth flying a few feet above their heads, and so he took off, and slapped it down with his wings.

The mantis leaped towards the moth, and started eating it. Hunger was a feeling that was easy to communicate.

Jimmy was hungry as well, so although he was a bit disgusted by it, he landed near the bird, and started pecking at it.

Despite the fact that he struggled to push through its feathers with his beak, he discovered that its neck was surprisingly meaty. Delicious too. It was a good meal.

[Feathered Rage skill added.]

[Level: 1 out of 5]

"Eh?" He swallowed a mouthful, "I got that from the demon chicken? I didn’t even kill the fucker."

[You consumed its flesh, so you absorbed a fraction of its main skill. This is why your newly acquired skill is only at level one.]

[The demon chicken, as you call it, is actually a Cockatrice. It’s a half bird, half reptile species, distinctive for its violence.]

"Oh," he nodded, "I remember reading about that a few days ago. Rage won’t do me good around here, though, cause I’m getting in trouble even when I’m peaceful."

[The Feathered Rage skill gives you the ability to inflict psychotic rage on other birds, not yourself. Use it with caution, because a bird suffering through psychotic rage will attack anything in sight, you included.]

"Got it," he said, "I’ll look into it later. My guts are screaming for food right now."

Moments later, he saw those two crows landing nearby, and walking towards him.

"Can we eat too?" one of them asked, and tried to sound as seductive as a crow could sound.

"Why would I let you eat?" he asked, "You called me a dumb neck romancer."

"That’s because you keep talking about romancing necks, stupid boy," the other crow said, "We were talking about necromancy, dark magic? Like reviving the dead."

"What?" he raised his head, "I never raised the dead, ladies."

"What about the cricket?" One of them asked, "You raised it from the dead."

"I did not," he shook his head, annoyed, "The mantis was already alive, I just healed its leg."

"Okay, you’re not stupid, then," She said, "Can we please eat? We’re sick of eating bugs."

"You can, I guess," he sighed, "But you better not spread bad rumours about me after this. Crows already avoid me, but I don’t want them to start hunting me because you can’t tell healing apart from necromancy."

"That’s fair," she said.

Jimmy couldn’t resist their feminine charms after all. The ladies may have offended him a few times, but they were decent specimens, smaller than him in size, even if older. They were attractive enough for him to ignore a chunk of their rude behaviour.

Anyway, the crows tore the carcass apart. One peck at a time, they exposed its bones after an hour into their long lunch. Yet despite their best efforts, they couldn’t eat it all, and had barely gone through half of the carcass.

"Damn... chicken meat really hits the spot." He said, "I never felt this full."

All the meat he ate made him sluggish. He waddled around like a newly hatched penguin.

Nevertheless, he was ready to greet these lady crows, and the mantis, and then take off. He felt that he had been in this alleyway for far too long.

Before he could’ve greeted anyone, however, he saw a human charging towards him and the ladies.

The human was waving a stick around, and he was yelling his lungs out.

"Watch out!" Jimmy shouted.