Chapter 1020: An Aether Imperial Exchange
[So y’all think Tortallion is going to win, because…]
[He’s a defensive fighter, meaning he’s probably gonna block or mitigate a lot of Zhen Xun Tian’s blows. If her past performance is anything to go off of, she loves to use a barrage of fists when attacking, which is the worst thing to use against a giant shield,] Razorstella explained herself.
[Your reasoning has nothing to do with the fact that you spent several days talking with him about…random shit?]
[No.]
[Okay… Nepherage, your reasoning for betting on Zhen Xun Tian?]
[Tortallion may have experience, but I’m assuming he hasn’t fought anything these past few centuries other than rabble and the occasional aether beast. A modern warrior like Zhen Xun Tian has more tricks up her sleeve than meets the eye.]
[The word, “modern”, is doing a lot of heavy lifting in regards to a woman who is several times older than our lord’s grandfather…,] Screamira pointed out.
[Regardless of all that though,] Blazejudicator interjected. [This sort of boils down to one major factor.]
[Which is…]
[Who wants to win more.]
…
‘Three…’
‘Two…’
‘One…’
‘GO!’
KRA-THOOM!
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Faster than lighting bolts, Zhen Xun Tian and Tortallion struck at one another over a dozen or so times.
From the outside, it appeared that the two equally strong warriors were still standing around while the sound of crashing metal and flashing bubbles of light surrounded them. In reality, those flashes of light were actually moments where Tortallion’s mace and Zhen Chn Tian’s fists collided against the each other’s defenses. The latter’s mace was constantly getting redirected by one of Zhen Xun Tian’s manifested arms of ink, while the former’s fists were constantly colliding with a surprisingly agile shield.
Neither side had yet to employ an techniques other than these straightforward blows, because they were still warming up.
Fortunately, Zhen Xun Tian was the first to get ready to try something to change the exchange to her favor. It wasn’t a proper aether art or [Chaos] art though.
Instead, during the exchange of blows, she focused on the tattoo on her back and manifested a pair of inky tentacles that blended into the surrounding darkness and stretched off to Tortallion’s left and right.
Once both tentacles were stretched out enough, she willed them to suddenly bend at right angles and turned the tips into spear-like points.
Zhen Xun Tian had used this trick several times before in the past to throw off the rhythm of her opponents and create openings where she can deliver a solid right or left hook to the face. However, those times were against opponents who didn’t know what [Chaos] was.
‘And…now!’
Clang!
‘What?!’
Just as Zhen Xun Tian’s tentacles were set to strike, set to pierce Tortallion from the back, the turtle kaijin proved himself to be surprisingly agile.
Moments before the tentacle spikes made impact with his exposed back, Tortallion spun himself in such a way that he managed to not only block Zhen Xun Tian’s latest attempts to punch him in the face, but also use the momentum of the tentacles being blocked to launch himself towards Zhen Xun Tian.
This would normally be followed up by a punch, but Tortallion opted to thrust his mace forward instead.
‘Shit!’
Sensing the energy in the mace, Zhen Xun Tian forced herself to fall backwards so that she could avoid the blow to her face. This, unfortunately, gave Tortallion the advantage and enough wiggle room to taunt her.
[Please! The tricky tentacle thing was something Krakelios used to do all the time while sparring!,] Tortallion taunted. [I see he managed to pass down his bag of tricks, but didn’t provide instructions. Otherwise, you’d know what not to do when going up against someone like me!]
‘This motherfucking-‘4+_;&(-‘hold up, what?’
Just as Zhen Xun Tian was about to curse against this turtle kaijin for being a tricky dick, something in her brain began to act up.
More specifically, she felt her back tattoo getting riled up by Tortallion’s commentary, prompting to suddenly infuse her with brand new knowledge on how to leverage her aether and [Chaos].
‘Huh…been awhile since this happened…’
A long time ago, when Zhen Xun Tian first applied the squid tattoo to her back, her mind was flooded with all manner of ways to leverage her new powers. These tricks mostly consisted of ways on how to inflict a lot of damage at once or how to manifest multiple arms for her favorite punching techniques, which suited her just fine.
However, in this moment, her mind was being bestowed with multiple ways on how to fight Tortallion and fighters like him.
In essence, opponents that were too tough to crack with a punch and needed to be befuddled before fighting.
‘Normally not my style…but why not?!’
Thankfully, she accepted the new information fast enough to react in time to Tortallion’s follow up.
In the time that Zhen Xun Tian was falling, Tortallion pulled his mace back upwards in preparation of swinging it down. As he did, he began to circulate aether and [Chaos] into his arm and mace, causing the latter to glow with a dark green light.
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Evidently, whatever Tortallion had planned, it was radiating enough power to cause the observing Zhen Clan warriors to worry.
Well, most of them.
…
[Oh shit, looks like he’s getting serious.]
[Yeah, that’s definitely gonna…wait a minute…Zhen Xun Tian is about to do something weird.]
[Weird, how?]
[I don’t know, but I think the multiple auras of Chaos is causing the professionals to falter.]
…
[Ship Sinker Strike!]
With a roar, Tortallion swung his mace down towards Zhen Xun Tian’s position, launching an attack that looked like a giant snapping turtle made of bubbling water.
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Despite knowing how powerful Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian was, the Zhen Clan warriors couldn’t help but panic at the sight of the incoming attack. They could sense that the power behind it was equivalent to the a major Ethereal Art, but what got them really riled up was the presence of aerated water.
They knew from experience that making localized pockets of air near ships, enemies and aether beasts was enough to sink them to the bottom of the depths faster than they could ever hope to escape.
So seeing what was essentially a mobile version of that, over an ocean of [Shadow Water] was really bad news.
Splash!
<
Especially when the matriarch just got impacted at point blank.
Panic and adrenaline flooded the Zhen Clan warriors senses for a moment as they saw their leader suddenly get swallowed up…only for the greatest sense of relief to fall over them.
<
Because, as the bubbling turtle construct began to splash down into the waters below, the Zhen Clan warriors noticed that the matriarch inside of it had suddenly dissolved into black ink.
[Huh?! Where’d she-?!]
<
[Huh? Bah!]
Moments seconds before Tortallion could even question where she had gone, Zhen Xun Tian had reappeared out of nowhere and bonked him on the head. Of course, she made sure to fly away after doing so to prevent retaliation.
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…
[Wait…how the heck did she do that? Can she teleport?]
[Didn’t…feel…like…it…]
[From what I could see, she somehow cloned herself using aether and Chaos, moments before turning all of the tattoos on her skin pitch black as a form of camouflage,] Spring Brawler observed. [A surprisingly clever trick for someone who punches first and ask questions never.]
…
[Huh? Been awhile since anyone managed to smack me like that…how nostalgic!,] Tortallion roared with delight. [Makes me want to go all out!]
After making this declaration, Tortallion began to circulate his [Chaos] and aether with such intensity that the faint shadow of a giant turtle monster began to slowly materialize behind him.
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The last time Zhen Liu saw Zhen Xun Tian’s avatar, it looked like a tattooed covered giant. This time though, it appeared the giant had developed six arms and two more faces.
As the two warriors began to square up for round two, ripples began to form in the waters below them. Which made for a rather unsettling sight due to them being several hundred meters above it.
‘Guys…’
[On it.]
Up until this moment, neither the Zhen Clan warriors nor Zhen Liu’s “puppets” felt it was necessary to actually defend their respective vessels. Neither Zhen Xun Tian nor Tortallion had done anything to warranted doing so despite how heavy their blows were.
But now, they were fairly certain that there was no choice other than to-
[Well, that’s enough that.]
<
“Huh?”
[What?]
But then, without warning, Tortallion suddenly stopped.
