Something felt wrong. The woodland was too silent—too empty. Franco and I had been looking for a second monster for almost two hours now, yet there was no sign of them. We were currently making our way towards the more central parts of the forest in the hope of meeting something—anything we could hunt.

Silently, we marched over the muddy ground—ready to take on anything the forest would through at us. Our caution was unheeded, however; we pushed further than we ever did, still, there were no monsters to be found.

“Do we keep going?” Franco asked.

I wanted to say yes if only to satiate my curiosity over where the monsters had gone, but I didn’t. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I instead told him, to which Franco nodded.

We were just about to turn around when a cock-a-doodle-doo tore through the silence of the woods, giving us pause.

Franco turned to stare at me, incredulous. “Was that a chicken?” he asked, not knowing what else it could be.

“I think so. I don’t know of any monster going that way… Do you want to check it out? I think I got where it came from,” I added after a short pause.

“Why, of course! If there is a giant monstrous chicken, I want to be the one to put it down.”

Taking the lead, I Mana Stepped in the direction where the strange call had come from, Franco quickly following behind. I tried focusing on the ambient mana and anathema to get a read on what exactly we were dealing with, but my control and understanding of the conflicting energies were too shallow to allow me to.

The effort wasn’t a complete waste, though; I could see the anathema’s saturation rise the closer we got to whatever had made that sound, which meant we were about to meet a monster. I willed a stream of mana to bring me behind a particularly thick tree before hurriedly gesturing for Franco, who was lagging behind, to keep silent—we were close.

Franco and I stalked the flank of the enormous trunk until seeing our quarry. There were two monsters squaring one in front of the other. One, I recognized. It was a basilisk—a giant serpent capable of turning other living beings into stone with its eyes alone. The other, I had never seen. It was a weird mix between a chicken and a wyvern, with the head of a cock and the body of a bipedal dragon. The monster was covered almost entirely in midnight plumes, leaving only its thick and muscled tail protected by iridescent green scales. Along the ridge of its back, starting at its head and ending at the tip of its tail, was also a set of protrusions I was hesitant to call comb, as more than a rooster’s crown, it resembled a stegosaurus' plates.

The creature danced agilely on a pair of elongated legs, which ended with a set of sharp recurve talons. Whenever the basilisk tried to close the distance between them, the second monster retreated, using its large leathery wings to move farther away then it would have been capable of by jumping only.

Franco and I quickly got down, hiding between the net of twisting roots feeding the massive tree in fear of capturing the two monsters’ attention.

“It’s a cockatrice,” my friend whispered to me excitedly. “They haven’t been seen since their progenitor was slain.”

The name didn’t ring any bells, but I was too afraid of what would happen were the monsters to hear me ask Franco for elucidations on the rare creature. I brought my right index to my lips, gesturing for my excitable friend to keep silent, as neither he nor I could handle B-ranked monsters, which was precisely what the corruption inside the basilisk and the cockatrice suggested they were.

The basilisk lunged fangs first and mouth wide open, covering the short distance separating it from the second beast in a heartbeat. The cockatrice was waiting for it, however, and like it did many times before, it jumped back, using its wings to move further away while also kicking at the serpent’s snout. Its hooked talons sheared through the scales like knives through apple skin, drawing blood and a furious hiss from the enormous snake.

While the cockatrice glided back, the basilisk crashed to the ground with a sonorous thump, writhing in pain and impotent rage.

The cockatrice chose that moment to attack. It jumped once again, taking to the air for a short few seconds before diving with its prehensile talons outstretched. Like a bird of prey, it harpooned its claws in the creature’s flesh, ripping hard scales and thick muscles as if they weren’t even there. Basilisks were tough monsters, though, and this one was just as hardy as any other; as the cockatrice’s talons sank into its flesh, it twisted on its adversary, biting down on one of the legs.

The plumed beast screamed in pain as the powerful jaws of the basilisk sank its long and serrated teeth further in, crunching tendons and bones. With a powerful beat of its wings, the cockatrice rose from the ground, also managing to raise part of the basilisk’s body with it. Just as it was to do so a second time to try and free itself, however, the basilisk’s maw slackened, unbalancing it. The enormous snake wasn’t retreating, though, and it sprang from the ground with its jaws as wide as it could manage, latching on the cockatrice’s right wing and bringing both once again to the ground.

The two fell in a mass of twisting green coils and black feathers, fighting fangs and beak until, with a victorious cock-a-doodle-do, the cockatrice’s head emerged victorious from the confusing tangle of bodies; skewered on the lower segment of its beak was the neck of the basilisk.

“Unknown threat. Jealousy of friends. Forget everything foretold for your victory is enjoyed over a table laden with food not in your honor. Song of Destruction; 3rd Poem, 6th Stanza—Treacherous Blade.”

Mana twisted as the spell commanded, forging itself into a smoldering azure blade right behind the victorious, yet grievously wounded, monster. I willed it, and the magical weapon hacked down, cutting through the cockatrice's thick neck.

Bright red blood spurted from the severed appendage as the lifeless body slumped over the downed basilisk, dying the two monsters' dark green scales the color of crimson.

“Jesus,” exclaimed Franco. “When did you learn to do that?”

“First, second and third Poem Stanzas aren’t that hard to cast,” I told him. “The spell practically summons itself.”

“I think you are oversimplifying things. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be people incapable of casting 2nd Poem spells even after having being awakened for years.”

I shrugged. It was for me. We moved closer to the yet to cool corpses, keeping clear of the spreading pool of fetid blood.