Assassin Crow Evolution

Great Tits, although menacing, were hardly a gourmet meal.

They were more fluff than flesh. Vorin had to pluck plenty of feathers to get to the meaty part.

Unlike his brother who ate the birds whole, Vorin felt weird about this, and did not eat more than he had to. As a crow that could put two thoughts together, this imitation of cannibalism was not something he actively wanted to indulge in.

One little peck at a time, he consumed enough meat to trigger a skill absorption.

The Great Tits didn’t have Beast Cores, from what he discovered, so he had to settle with whatever he could salvage from their flesh.

"I think I stole it," Vorin said, "How do I know for sure?"

"You should think about stabbing something," Jimmy answered, "From what I understand, the Phantom Beak skill is mostly about stabbing with your beak."

"Phantom Beak..." Vorin parroted. "Interesting..."

As he shook his head, Vorin felt something weird. His beak felt tighter, snug, but it didn’t cause any pain. He didn’t see anything unusual, but he could tell that something had changed.

"Looks like it worked," Vorin said, "I stole its skill."

"Okay then," Jimmy nodded, "Eat those couple other birds as well. You can strengthen your new skill, level it up. I’m sure it’ll come in handy if you get cornered. Stabbing with your beak can be quicker than stabbing with your blade."

Vorin did not want to eat the two other birds, but he was inclined to cooperate. His brother was trying to teach him something, and although the ability to stab better didn’t seem powerful, the concept of leveling up the skill got him interested. He could sense the value behind honing one’s craft, or in this case, stolen skill.

With that said, he swallowed every bit of meat he could find within the Great Tits, and in the end, he could feel that the Phantom Beak skill got stronger. He couldn’t pinpoint how much it leveled up, he just knew that he could stab with his beak even better now, and it was only a matter of experimenting with the skill to get a better idea of its level up.

Jimmy, on the other hand, had the system to tell him exactly how much his skill leveled up. He had eaten four Great Tits whole.

[Phantom Beak skill: Level 1 >>> Level 3]

"Nice," He nodded, "Okay, let’s get back to following those crawlers. The trees couldn’t have gotten too far."

The team caught up to the Crawler Trees in a matter of minutes. They watched them from a distance, floating from one branch to the other.

Another half hour into the chase, they realized that the trees were traveling down the other side of the mountain. Whatever was important about this mountain was beyond the top of it. Jimmy knew that much.

Past the top, they noticed something weird about the forest. It looked nothing like the fauna they left behind, a mere hundred meters away.

The fauna over here, in a word, looked alien.

"What the fuck is that?" Vorin asked, pointing at a giant mushroom.

"A mushroom," He answered, "Though, I never saw one this big, or blue."

"That’s my point," Vorin said, "I know what mushrooms are, but this place looks like a rainbow pooped on it."

Jimmy chuckled, "I didn’t think you’d know what a rainbow is, but you’re right."

"Every crow knows what a rainbow is," Vorin shook his head, "I never cared for its colors, but I think our great grandfather used to worship them. I think he’d lose his mind if he saw this place."

"Probably," He nodded, "But let’s stay focused. This has to be the place we were looking for, because it doesn’t get any weirder than this."

Further down the mountain, the Crawler Trees got in a fight.

Unsurprisingly, they were fighting a couple of other walking trees.

The trees they were fighting were disgustingly green, and quite plump, as if they had skin tissue. Not mossy, just plump green, as if they were from another time period.

Jimmy tried to take the battle seriously, but the more he watched them, the harder he had it to hold in his laughter.

"They walked all the way here to square up with other walking trees?" He held his breath, "I never thought I’d see racist trees."

"Is that what they’re doing?" Vorin shook his head, "I thought they’re going after their Beast Cores or something."

"It could be the case," Jimmy raised his head, curious, "But we don’t know if we can consider the crawlers, beasts. We don’t know what they are."

Subconsciously, Jimmy knew that he was closer to finding a Sentient Feather. This fauna looked like it was the place where curious feathers may float into.

However, for a moment, he was very curious to understand why the trees were fighting. He was prompted to ask a resident about it.

The resident, being a one-foot wide and tall, rock-like beetle. He didn’t know what species it belonged to, and he didn’t care to know either.

Tick tick.

Bzzz!

Vrrr.

Jimmy landed near it, and spoke to it in its own language effortlessly.

His question was somewhere within the lines of, "Hey there, can you tell me why the hell are those trees fighting?"

The beetle was stunned. It had never expected a bird to speak its language, for one thing, but other than that, the question itself was confusing the beetle.

"What do you mean?" It asked.

"I mean, why would those walking trees be fighting? What’s the reason? If you don’t know it, that’s okay." He added.

"I don’t understand your question," It said.

Jimmy stopped trying. He moved on to another insect. There were plenty of them here, and they weren’t hostile like the giant mantises.

Frrr-rt!

Charr-rrt!

Zzz-clack!

The next insect he talked to was a six-inch long Dragonfly. Apart from its size, it looked normal enough, but if it had been bigger, he pictured himself fighting the thing rather than asking it questions.

Thankfully, the dragonfly understood his question, and answered, "The tall pointy-heads come here every summer to fight. I saw pointy heads kill, and take the branches of the plump trees they killed."

"Hmm..." He squinted, "So they’re after the branches? Thank you, dragon, you may go now."

"No one ever called me a dragon before," It’s eyes lit up in joy.

As Jimmy turned and spoke to his friends, the dragonfly followed him around. He didn’t pay any attention to it, but he could hear it yapping in the background.

"You were right, Vorin," He said, "Well, the crawlers are not after Beast Cores, but they’re most likely harvesting the branches of what the locals call... Plump Trees."

The team watched the battle go down. They didn’t care to interrupt it, and at some point, they got bored, and stopped paying attention to the trees altogether.

The trees came here to fight, and that was about it.

Jimmy realized that the alien fauna itself was what he and the team had been chasing after all this time. The fauna itself was what was unique about this place, and the trees led them here. What the crawlers did after this point hardly fell in the scope of his interest.

"We’re at the right spot, and we ought to find a Sentient Feather here, but I still don’t understand what those giant mantises were protecting." He said, "We don’t know what giant they may, or may not have tried to keep us away from. Let’s fly for a while, we should get a better view of what’s going on."

With that little plan in mind, they did in fact get a better view. He didn’t know if he could consider this other side of the mountain forested, it was hard to categorize it, but as far as he understood, the overlay of normal trees wasn’t as dense around here. They had a great view of what was below if they simply glided through the sky.

After an hour of mostly gliding in circles, they spotted something unique. In the sense that it was giant, big enough to stand out in this odd fauna, that is.

"Do not land," Jimmy said, "We can’t fight that thing even if we tried."

The team finally found the giant. To everyone’s surprise, the giant was not mammalian, or avian, which messed with their perspective quite a bit.

They saw a colorful, giant centipede, digging through the ground, breaking rock, and tearing through trees alike.

"Too big," Jimmy held his breath.

The sheer size of the centipede was difficult to grasp. It may truly be a Beast of Legends that the elders back home talked about once in a blue moon to get their hatchlings to sleep.

From head to tail, it had to measure at around a hundred meters, or over three hundred feet!

Not a single law, be it scientific, or magic-based, supported its existence. The colorful centipede was a giant even amongst this fauna of otherwise big insects!

"Maybe this was the rainbow the elders worshipped?" Vorin chuckled.