Alex watched the alpha, and readied an arrow. He was somewhat hesitant, as he had no good way to judge the strength of the alpha, and he thought there was a good chance that releasing an arrow might allow it to locate him. The alpha likely had a significantly higher mana concentration than its subordinates, and while Alex wasn't exactly sure how the benefits of mana got distributed in things without a system, he suspected it would be an even distribution.
'Screw it, there's not going to be much of a better opportunity than in the rain.'
'Plus, if I don't kill this guy, I don't get the spoils of war.'
He aimed at the alpha's body and released the arrow, aiming below its shoulder, where he thought its lung would be. Releasing the arrow, he watched it hit the alpha, leaving an arrow sticking out of the creature's torso. The alpha swiveled its head in his direction, staring at him, before letting out another enraged howl, where its two subordinates took off running towards Alex.
He ignored the two remaining murder chickens and focused on the alpha, who he was significantly more concerned about. Letting off 3 arrows in the span of 20 seconds, trying to turn the alpha into a pincushion.
Unfortunately, the alpha not only seemed more able to take hits from the arrows, but it proved better able to dodge than its underlings, and it ran towards Alex in a snaking pattern, causing two of his arrows to miss. Not to be deterred, he fired off another 5 arrows at the raptor, and managed to land another two, one sinking into its shoulder, and another hitting its flank, causing the creature to slow slightly.
All three of the creatures reached the tree Alex was hiding in at more or less the same time, where they began climbing. While the two smaller creatures slowly scaled the trunk as he'd seen the previous day, the alpha was much more graceful, jumping from branch to branch as it made its way up the tree. He fired off another arrow, as a result of the creature's reduced evasion he managed to get a solid headshot, the arrow sticking into the top of its skull. However, the arrow to the creature's skull seemed to do little to slow it, presumably due to its thick bones.
Watching the alpha slowly scaling the tree, Alex decided on a new strategy - he'd instead try to disable the alpha rather than directly wounding it with arrows. It didn't seem exceptionally powerful or agile, and he was confident he could fight it while it was wounded.
Carefully watching the alpha, he waited for it to jump to another branch, estimating where it would land, he fired off another arrow., missing its ankle by a thin margin. Quietly cursing to himself, Alex nocked another arrow and fired again, repeating the procedure. This time he managed to skewer what he guessed was the creature's calf muscles, causing it to let out an annoyed squawk and lose its balance.
While the creature was off balance he fired another two arrows, one striking the thigh of its wounded leg, causing an irritated shriek, the other arrow struck the alphas chest, but again didn't seem to do much damage. He then reached for another arrow, only to find he had run out.
'Shit.'
At this point, the alpha was only a few branches down, and the other two chickens were halfway up the trunk of the tree - it was time to leave. Alex carefully sprinted down the tree branch and launched himself into the air, aiming for an adjacent tree, where he landed, his hands slipping somewhat from the wet branch.
'With water control I should be able to avoid slipping entirely, I think.'
'No more hydroplaning.'
Grunting, he pulled himself up onto the branch, and turned to look at his quarry, who let out another enraged shriek, seeing that its prey had escaped. Alex quickly descended his tree, landing on the ground, and letting out a gasp of pain, his leg was really not happy right now.
He then started running over to the pile of murder chicken corpses, where he paused for a second, admiring his carnage. Within just a few square meters, he'd managed to create a field of murder chicken corpses, interspersed with arrows. The surrounding forest floor was painted red with a sticky mixture of blood and rainwater.
Stepping through the destruction, he began retrieving arrows, and returning them to his quiver. The creatures didn't particularly seem good at climbing down trees, and he felt that he might have close to two minutes before they made it back over here.
The plan here was to kite, and to keep peppering the alpha with arrows until it was too wounded to fight, and then he would finish it off in the tree. Just as Alex picked out his first arrow, the wounded alpha let out a louder warbling cry from its position in the tree.
In response, another cry could be heard coming from the cave, and a second alpha appeared. While somewhat smaller than the other alpha, this one had a coloured crest on its head, giving it a somewhat regal appearance.
'Well, fuck me.'
This had not entered Alex's plans at all, there was only supposed to be one alpha. He immediately dropped his bow and readied his spear, and then untied the cords on the deer stomachs he had, releasing a substantial amount of water to his control - he was going to burn some serious mana in this fight.
The alpha rushed him, and began circling him, sizing him up. Just as Alex was about to rush forward with his spear and stab the beast, it let out a loud cry, and Alex briefly lost control of his faculties.
He suddenly couldn't move, and was really interested in seeing how well the point of his spear fit inside his eye socket, his mind racing he quickly shook off the feeling. After breaking out of his trance, he suddenly registered the presence of the alpha in front of him, as it slashed out with its claws, trying to rip out his throat.
He'd only been under the effects of the compulsion for perhaps a half second, but it had been enough for the creature to close the distance on him, leaving Alex virtually no time to react. He leaned back and lifted his arm, catching the claw across the leather armor on his shoulder, tearing through the armor and leaving a wound on his shoulder.
Alex quickly pushed out a kick, knocking the creature back a meter and ending the exchange. Then he again readied his spear, watching the alpha in front of him closely.
'It has a compulsion ability!'
'No wonder its subordinates were acting unnaturally desperate, they may not even have been acting on their own free will.'
'The grossest part is that it's parasitising its own species. The other murder chickens are weak and underdeveloped, likely because they all die trying to feed this thing before they reach adulthood.'
'I guess this is the primary alpha.'
Fortunately, Alex felt that its compulsion ability would no longer have any hold on him, as he was ready for it now, and knew what to expect. The main issue was that he was now wounded and bleeding, the compulsion ability had been more surprising than anything.
Drawing the water from his deer stomach's and from the rain, he formed two baseball sized balls of water, and floated them beside him. The alpha continued circling him, looking for a good opening, not registering the now strange floating balls of water.
Accelerating one of the balls of water, he brought it up to roughly 160 km/h before he slammed it into the skull of the creature. As he did so, Alex lunged forward and stabbed the alpha through the side of its neck, before the spear tip caught on some bone. The creature had recovered enough from the impact to shift out of the way, causing him to miss its throat.
Alex's use of the water was simple, he just had to get it up to a high enough velocity, he'd been practicing this using his ping pong ball practice method. At high speeds, the fact that the water was a liquid and not a solid failed to matter, as the water wouldn't have time to flow around the target, allowing him to deliver solid impacts.
This first hit had definitely taken the alpha by surprise, giving him an opportunity to injure it.
Another odd thing had happened when he struck the creature with his ball of water - he immediately lost control of the water that came into contact with the alpha. He had no explanation for why this had happened, but he was now working with a single ball of water, as the second one collapsed to the ground.
The creature again rushed at Alex, lunging at his throat with its jaws, only to get pushed to the side by the shaft of the spear, jaws slamming shut beside his head. Alex slammed another ball of water into the creature's skull, disorienting it as he stepped out of range of its claws, again losing control of the water. As he stepped back he rammed his spear into its leg, only driving his spear maybe two inches into its thigh.
'This thing is freaking fast.'
'Its flesh is also way too tough for this spear.'
Again, he and the creature clashed, with Alex repeatedly coming out on top. Between his water control and his spear, he was able to create distance, and continually stun and knock the creature off course.
This time it jumped at him, and he smashed it with two balls of water before driving the spear into its shoulder. The primary alpha's body was now littered with puncture wounds, leaking blood, further contributing to the carnage of the battlefield.
Enraged, the creature lunged, and Alex danced back, putting some distance between him and the alpha.
'They seem to be extremely fast in brief clashes and lunging, but it seems to put them off balance.'
Alex began circling the creature, waiting for it to attack, and just as it seemed the alpha was about to rush him, his water senses detected movement behind him - he'd run out of time, and one of the murder chickens was back.