Chapter 1004: War Roster
<=All you have to do, is to take off this wheel.=>
“Seriously?”
<=Seriously.=>
“Huh.”
At this moment in time, Logos and Pathos had guided Zhen Liu to where the ship’s wheel for the [Storm Queen’s Galleon] was located, and gave him very simple instructions on how to make this big ole galleon portable. And how this meant that Logos and Pathos could be bringing other types of vehicles into existence
“Say what?”
=We figured that you’re more than likely to go on a globetrotting adventures and would require the existence of vehicles.=
‘What kind of key ways?’
<=Well...=>
What followed was a long technical explanation that could be summed up with the words, “when the wheel comes off, the boat will shrink alongside the wheel.”
As for what happened when Zhen Liu did as instructed and actually took out the wheel, he couldn’t help but to notice how his brand new galleon and universal wheel looked a little…toy-like.
Again.
“I can’t tell if you guys are screwing with me in regards to most of my weapons and tools looking like collectibles or not.”
“Of course…”
And with that out of the way, Zhen Liu finally felt prepared for the one thing he never thought he’d have to deal with.
War.
________________________________________
Couple hours, a return trip home and one portal to Roaring Tide later…
“Damn…I knew our family was technically involved in military affairs back in Roaring Tide, but this is insane,” Zhen Hai commented to Zhen Liu and Zhen Feng. “Feels kind of weird that we’re the only ones from home here though.”
After several weeks of preparations, a month or two of recovery, and the successful evolution of a [Luminescent Wolf Eel] into a [Shining Ark Serpent] thanks to the power of alchemical soup, the Zhen Clan was finally ready to mount a proper expedition into the [Abyssal Lands].
However, this wasn’t an expedition to acquire resources or explore the unknown. Instead, this was a military expedition.
The target: The Fallen Clan.
For many years now, the Fallen had been a thorn in the side of the Zhen Clan, the Wood Scale Kingdom and the Pearl Scale Empire as a whole. Their latest stunt during the Zhen Clan tournament was the final straw.
Freeing prisoners.
Killing civilians and clansmen alike.
Damaging their reputation across not only the Empire but the world at large.
These were not things that could be apologized for or compensated easily.
In order to wash away such shame, blood was needed.
And that blood would come from the Fallen.
Gathered on the coast of Blessed Willow Island, several dozen elite soldiers and masters of the main Zhen Clan stood ready.
While the main branch of the Zhen Clan could’ve technically mobilized more troops, doing so would’ve been strategically and economically disadvantageous.
Plus, the smaller the force, the less likely someone or something can leak the information of this upcoming expedition.
That stated, standing alongside the main clan soldiers were members of the branch clan as well.
Since they were the ones who discovered the [Abyssal Lands] entrance the main clan planned to use, they were allowed to tag along. However, not all of the elders and scions could come along with this particular war effort.
Whether it was due to bad timing or outside interference was unknown, but around the same time that the branch clan were preparing to send their elites to aid in the war effort, a sixth tier Whirling Dust Devil Tyrant appeared out of nowhere and started stirring up the local aether beast populations in a frenzy.
Many frontier villages got annihilated as a result of this beast, forcing waves upon waves of refugee heading towards the one city in the region that had yet to be affected and has developed a reputation as of late of being a safe haven due to the presence of…unusually powerful aether puppets, literal swathes of spider type aether beasts and even more powerful mercenaries and the like.
In other words, Stone Claw was dealing with an administrative crisis on top of an incoming crisis that had been labeled as a “beast tide”, by the beleaguered refugees.
As such, the only members that could make an appearance for this military expedition were the scions Zhen Hai, Zhen Feng and Zhen Liu. All of the elders, including the patriarch, had to stay behind to deal with the ongoing and incoming crisis. If Stone Claw City got destroyed due to its strongest defenders suddenly disappearing to deal with another issue, that would’ve been a tragedy unto itself. Additionally, Princess Jinju Ren and Hermit Zhong Wei went along with the military expedition due to this matter pertaining to the wellbeing of the Pearl Scale Empire.
That and Princess Jinju Ren wanted to give her newly tamed companion a spin in a more…forgiving environment.
As to why these four scions were chosen in particular to go, the reasons varied.
Zhen Hai was chosen due to having the same aether formula as Patriarch Zhen Shi, so it was deemed that a journey through the [Abyssal Lands] would be beneficial to his development. The [Abyssal Lands] were vast and full of monsters and medicinal plants that were more than likely to be beneficial to both him and Patriarch Zhen Shi.
Zhen Feng was being sent as a reward for being the one to transform the eel that they were going to use to explore the [Abyssal Lands]. Additionally, due to his sudden expertise in all things in relation to [Gourmet Alchemy], he was the perfect person to act as both support and enhancer to the chosen warriors. And if he could, somehow, find some stuff that just so happened to be beneficial to Zhen Hai and enhance the everloving hell out of it into being a dish that could help with a breakthrough, that was just a happy coincidence.
As for Zhen Liu, well, the reason to include him was kind of obvious.
Aside from being the strongest of the scions in terms of cultivation, he was also a one man army in the form of his crazy aether puppets that could fight as hard, if not harder, than most of the elders. Technically speaking, he could’ve stayed behind to keep Stone Claw City safe while the patriarch and the elders went into the [Abyssal Lands], but the matriarch insisted he come along for some reason.
That being mentioned, the branch clan was also okay with it because Zhen Liu had developed a reputation as of late of wandering off on his own into dangerous situations and then coming back with either a huge bounty of goods or a lot of injuries. As such, they figured it would be smart to have him in a controlled group for once and not risk him doing something that indirectly affected their military operations on either front.
Which was honestly a smart call, because Zhen Liu was definitely going to go and break into the [Abyssal Lands] by his “lonesome” when everyone else wasn’t looking and use one of the kaijin as his stand-in back home. Because out of all of the members of the Zhen Clan, he had the most reasons to go down into the [Abyssal Lands].
He promised the Strange Bloods tribe that he would help them reconnect with their ancestral roots.
He was the current [Kaijin Lord] of this era, and he felt it was his duty to reclaim any lost legacies of his predecessors, lest they end up in the wrong hands.
He also felt that the kaijin would benefit greatly from getting in touch with the kaijin that were technically their ancestors.
He owed it to a lost abomination who went out in a blaze of glory, whose core he hung on to even to this day.
However, on top of all these reasons, there was one reason that Zhen Liu found a bit more compelling than the others.
It was a reason that involved someone who was near and dear to his heart, because she had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember.
It was a reason that prematurely ended the conflict between the Zhen Clan’s Matriarch and the Fallen’s War Elder.
It was a reason that could arguably be the reason why he ended up as the [Kaijin Lord] in the first place.
To put it in simpler terms, Jin Fang’s inheritance and past was somewhere down in the [Abyssal Lands], being guarded by the last Storm Knight.
And would it not be appropriate, for the current Kaijin Lord to reunite the daughter of the previous one with her own legacy?
While it isn’t mandatory for everyone to learn about their past, doesn’t everyone deserve a chance to learn about where they came from?
These questions danced in Zhen Liu’s head as he stared at the gathered Zhen Clan soldiers…but that came to a stop, as he finally saw the leader of this expedition herself, had come to address the group.
