Chapter 1011: Scouting Parties
“There are two ways to catch a runner. One is to be faster than them, the other is to be smarter than them.”
-A Quote from the Divine Jailer, an Aether Demi-god.
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‘Archanidame, Lacerage. Feel free to inform Jinju Ren and Jin Fang that we’re still floating in the middle of the [Abyssal Lands].’
[Really?]
[Y’all haven’t decided to make a beeline for the Undertow Kingdom? Why?]
‘Because the matriarch sort of forgot which way it was and I can’t come up with a good enough lie to explain why I know.’
[Ah…]
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Unsurprisingly, the Zhen Clan expeditionary force didn’t immediately come into contact with the Fallen Clan.
If the Fallen were in a stationary fortress, the Zhen Clan forces would’ve easily pulled in and attacked the place by now. However, due to the simple fact that the Fallen’s home base was a literal moving fortress, the Zhen Clan had to deal with their headings changing every couple of hours.
Due to their compasses towards the Fallen’s location being Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian’s and Zhen Liu’s senses, their headings were accurate, but the Fallen seemed weirdly active in their movements.
One minute they’d be heading east. The next minute, they had to pivot a hard ninety degrees south…only to have to course correct by a full one hundred and eighty degrees.
This wasn’t so bad for the [Luminescent Ark Serpent], since sea creatures like it were able to turn on a dime. It was, however, a massive pain in the ass for the [Storm Queen’s Galleon] due to it being a big lumbering vessel.
On the plus side, nothing in these waters were aiming to attack the aforementioned galleon due to the sheer amount of power radiating off of them, so they could take their sweet time doing so.
However, this wasn’t exactly a sustainable development. While the warriors wouldn’t have to worry about anything like running out of supplies while down here, the branch clan portion were in a bit of a time crunch.
The world had a habit of moving despite the lack of participation of others. Which meant that the longer the branch clan scions spent their time down here hunting the Fallen, the less time they had to help their family with dealing with the incoming beast tide.
Evidently, after the twentieth or so time of being turned around because the Fallen wouldn’t stay the fuck still, Zhen Xun Tian had enough.
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The aformentioned aether tools were what most people who weren’t as [Chaos] inclined would use when trying to navigate the [Abyssal Lands]. The [Light Compass] was a simple Luxarii aligned tool meant to always point back to the nearest source of light while situated in pitch black darkness or other some such situations, while the [Light Skimmer] was a small vessel meant to cloak one’s presence while in the [Abyssal Lands].
Zhen Xun Tian’s plan at this time was to send out the scouts to try and see if they could lock down a general trajectory of the Fallen and their [Darkshell Citadel], basically, see if they could predict where and when it was going to pop-up next, as opposed to actively chasing it down like after it had settled in.
However, this wasn’t the only measure.
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Quickly scanning over the kaijin, he settled on exactly the two that could technically do so in these conditions: Hurricroak and Razorstella.
The former because she could use echolocation, glow and was technically the only aquatic kaijin in his roster, a shortcoming he really had to address at some point soon. While the latter was due to the fact that she could also glow in the dark and was technically the most proficient flier in the group. Of course, whether or not they were willing to go was up to them.
‘Hey, Hurricroak. Razorstella. Are you two okay with going out and exploring the [Abyssal Lands]?’
[Danger expedition, let’s go fucking gooooooo!]
[If you so wish, director. I suppose being the only shining star in this dreary place would be interesting.]
‘Sweet.’
With their consent given, Zhen Liu could give his great grand aunt a proper answer.
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“Wait, what?”
“He can make more? Now?”
At this moment in time, Zhen Feng and Zhen Hai were on the deck of the ship, trying to keep a lookout for any changes in the environment…that and they didn’t feel like spending time in their surprisingly comfortable cabins without doing anything.
“Doesn’t it take a long ass time to make just one normal aether puppet?,” Zhen Hai asked.
“Usually, but this is Zhen Liu we’re talking about. None of his puppets are normal in the slightest.”
“Right…”
Hearing that the answer to her question wasn’t exactly a “no”, but a “needing materials” question, Zhen Xun Tian decided to dig down on this question.
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“Dafuq?,” Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng asked simultaneously. They were both aware of Zhen Liu’s puppets and how weird their material mixes were, but they didn’t expect that to come out of his mouth.
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With a quick swipe of her hand, Zhen Xun Tian called forth a variety of bones, scales and the occasional fish head from her spatial storage treasures. Over the past few days of traversing the [Abyssal Lands], the Zhen Clan expeditionary force had to deal with attacking beasts…and also ate them.
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Sound of scales being plucked
“Hiss?!”
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As an added measure, Zhen Xun Tian plucked a couple of scales from the [Radiant Ark Serpent], and then moved the entire pile to the [Storm Queen’s Galleon].
Once everything was set, ZHen Liu prepared himself to do his thing.
“You guys are just gonna sit there and watch?”
“This is the first time we’ve seen you make these puppets of yours so…”
“Yes.”
“Okay…”
Zhen Liu looked over the pile of sea creature carrion before picking up the scales, some of the smaller fish heads and few choice teeth from the larger sea creatures. Once everything was in his hands, he began to channel [Chaos] into them to create more…aquatically inclined zakos.
‘Okay, let’s make these zakos look like…gillmen and maybe divers?’
That stated, from an outside point of view, it just looked like Zhen Liu was just palming his hands together and pumping energy into them, until the aforementioned carrion pieces were now solid spheres made of bone or other organic materials.
“What the heck is Zhen Liu-”
Fwoom
“Whoa!”
“That’s how you make them?!”
It wasn’t until Zhen Liu threw the spheres down that a group of clearly amphibious looking zakos appeared one after the other.
‘Okay, it’s kind of obvious which ones are the elites…’
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Zako Type: Bone (Fish)
Appearance: Skeletal fish-men.
Combat Strength: Acolyte
Abilities:
Amphibious, Fangs
Description:
Foot soldiers made from bones and the nascent [Wrath] found in all life. Abilities determined by subject bones are acquired from.
Evolution chance: 10%
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Zako Type: Corpse (Fish)
Appearance: Rotten looking Gill-men.
Abilities:
Amphibious, Venomous Bite
Description:
Foot soldiers made from fish-heads and the nascent [Gluttony] found in rotting flesh.
Evolution chance: 5%
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Zako Type: Scale (Radiant Ark Serpent) – Elite
Appearance: Glowing robotic lizardman
Abilities:
Shining Scales, Vice Crush
Description:
An elite zako made from the living body parts of powerful aether beasts. Abilities are dependent on the original source.
Evolution: 25%
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‘Alright, zakos. I want y’all to go out there and find out where the Fallen Clan is going to pop up next. If you agree just dive right in, no need to nod or anything.’
Splash
At Zhen Liu’s instructions, the newly crafted puppets all proceeded to jump off the sides of the [Storm Queen’s Galleon], either diving or just straight up cannonballing into the water. Once they were in the water, they all either began to swim with powerful breaststrokes, moved like fish or began to churn water in their insides like they had water turbines built-into their bodies. Of course, nobody but Zhen Liu could feel and see this was happening.
At the same time, Razorstella and Hurricroak peeled off in opposite directions, with the former skating into the air while the latter just grew wings and flew away.
The people who weren’t Zhen Liu could see which way these two were going based on the simple fact that they were glowing and appeared like stars in the distance.
