Chapter 1044: Rallying the Troops(2)
Alright, with the actual soldiers taken care of though…Logos, Pathos. You two mentioned that Jin Fang, Jinju Ren and Cornelius were on the way to the Library?’
‘That…seems redundant, but helpful.’
=It is, but they still got here regardless. They’re just waiting on you to open up a door.=
‘Right on. But on an important side note…Logos, Pathos, do you guys have any idea what the goal of this attack might be? Because it seems… unnecessarily loud.’
<=We're still trying to figure that out milord. For the time being, just keep them occupied.=>
‘Right.’
…
‘Now which way do I go?’, Zhen Liu thought to himself as he continued to fly over Undertow alongside Nepherage.
After dropping Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng off to deal with the Fallen soldiers keeping the Zhen Clan troops sealed up, Zhen Liu had sped off to try and deal with the other issues occurring in Undertow at this moment. Namely, the Grafted warriors that had arrived on a literal tidal wave.
*thack*
‘I knew there was probably more than what I picked up last night, but this is absurd,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself.
Aside from one of his zakos being compromised the night prior, the rest of his scouts had managed to pick up some interesting, read:disturbing, details about what would happen today.
Namely, he learned that one of the Undertow councilmen was actually an imposter working with the Fallen, that the Fallen were going to try and pin the blame of today on the Zhen Clan and that they were going to attack Undertow, today.
The only issue was that Zhen Liu didn’t have the “when” or the “how” in regards to how these events would play out. As such, he was blind sided when the actual Grafted showed up to make things worse.
‘Alright, of my current situation, Frosttusk and Hurricroak are engaged with two of these Grafted weirdos, with Tortallion and Terra dealing with the Fallen War Elder. There’s still the old guy with three eyes, the girl that looked like she came out of a demented dating sim and an angelic motherfucker who wields light…why does that last one feel like foreshadowing?’
Under normal circumstances, Zhen Liu wouldn’t worry about a numbers disparity.
He could easily whip up a whole bunch of zakos to take care of all of the grunts, while the kaijin would be enough to deter these Grafted psuedo-kaijin. But alas, prior choices and current circumstances made that prospect tricky.
*Thack*
If he summoned the zakos, then the Zhen Clan wouldn’t have the opportunity to clear their names themselves. If anything, the people of Undertow would assume something along the lines of “All hail the new Kaijin Lord! He has slain the invaders and proven that the Pearl Scale Empire still sucks” or something like that. Normally he wouldn’t care about such reputational politics, but he was engaged with a princess from the Pearl Scale Empire.
As for the kaijin, while he technically had the right number of them to deal with the Grafted, Razorstella and Screamira had to stick around Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng so that they wouldn’t get iced by the Fallen warriors, while Spring Brawler was still only a proto-kaijin…for some reason.
At some point, he had to address that.
This meant that in terms of fully fledged kaijin who could probably take on the remaining Grafted, were Nepherage and Blazejudicator.
The former he wasn’t worried about, due to Nepherage being… Nepherage, but Blazejudicator was a different story.
As a “spiritual body” kaijin, they were significantly stronger when enhancing someone but there was one other drawback that Zhen Liu learned when he sparred with Terra.
*Thack thack*
And that was…the damage he felt from the feedback effect was slightly stronger with Balzejudicator than it was with other kaijin. While it was only slight, like maybe a ten percent increase, he didn’t want to see what would happen if Blazejudicator got hit with something like that time Hurricroak got her arms electrocuted by the Dragon Otter.
Either way, the long and short of it was that Zhen Liu was lacking numbers, meaningful numbers this time around and he needed…
*Thack, thack, thack!*
Wait a minute.
‘Alright, what the fuck?,’ Zhen Liu asked aloud as he stopped midair. As soon as he did, Nepherage followed suit.
She had yet to receive orders other than to follow Zhen Liu, so she had yet to actual go and join the fight…yet.
[Is something wrong, milord?]
‘I don’t know, it feels like my hand has been tapping my-BWAH!’
The next thing Zhen Liu knew, his left hand, the one that had both the ring connected to the [Library of Nowhere] and the [Chaos Body Forge Seal] suddenly jerked forward and began to drag him along in a direction opposite of the ongoing conflicts. Not wanting to get dragged off without reason though, Zhen Liu managed to stop himself from being pulled away by his left hand by using his right hand to hold it back. Granted, he looked like a crazy person but he was midair and no one else was paying attention so…whatever.
[Milord?!]
‘What is happening?!’
<=What the fuck?!=>
Zhen Liu was confused, the kaijin was confused…hell, even Logos and Pathos were confused.
However, the latter duo managed to get an answer before anything could be speculated.
An answer that came in the form of alarm bells going off in Zhen Liu’s head.
‘What the fuck alarm is this?!’
=It’s not a vault breach…it’s a vault breakout! Milord, that empty core you picked up from Marlancer awhile back, it somehow activated itself and is now trying to teleport to you!=
‘Wait, what? How?! Why?!’
<=We don't know, but we get the feeling that's why it's causing your hand to act up.=>
‘Oh…in that case… Nepherage, can you go and assist the others in dealing with the Grafted? Blazejudicator, you’re with me.’
[As you wish, Executor.]
[Of course milord, but are you sure now is a good time for such orders?]
‘It is, because I get the feeling that the reason this thing is acting up is related to their goals, so with that mind…’
Throwing caution to the wind and gritting his teeth, Zhen Liu released his left hand and allowed his body to go slack. In turn, his left hand jerked forward and launched him like a rocket towards a direction he wasn’t exactly sure where.
‘I’ll try to keep in contact via the connection, but I make no promises.’
[Of course, milord!]
And with those parting words, Nepherage was left floating midair and a choice to make.
[Wait…do I go about assisting the others by actually helping them win their battles or dealing with one of the other Grafted…meh, I’ll just fly over there and see which I hit first, I guess.]
…Meanwhile in a part of Undertow not being actively rocked by a riotous war…
The funny thing about war is that it is not an all encompassing riot as many stories make them out to be.
In reality, there are these small pockets of calm that exist in conflict, that some people actually make use of to do something as absurd as watch the whole battle unfold without getting involved.
In the case of the ongoing conflict of Undertow, one such pocket of calmness was currently being occupied by two for the main instigators of the conflict.
Cloaked in presence concealing aether treasures and hiding in a spot above the fray, the matriarch of the Fallen and Buzza were watching the ongoing battle with interest.
The latter because of all the data being generated, the former due to the possible benefits that could be reaped. However, both of them were focused not on their own soldiers, but the kaijin that had appeared to oppose them.
“Zzzo thezzze are the kaijin of the current lord…how interezzting. It appearzzz they have no rhyme or reazzon to their creation. Almozzzt feel…improvizzational.”
“It does, doesn’t it? But that said, these new Kaijin as you call them feel much…weaker in comparison to Tortallion but at the same time…untouchable. Why?”
“An active lord enablezzz the kaijin to get a steady flow of [Chaos]. That flow makezzz them much harder for external forcezzz like yourzzz truly to affect. Which is why we must look elsewhere.”
“Indeed…”
From her pocket, Gao Shen Yuan pulled forth a compass-like tool with a strange looking needle that hummed to life as soon as she opened it.
The compass spun for a bit before pointing in a direction that was away from both of the ongoing conflicts. If anything, it seemed to point to a spot in the middle of nowhere.
“Hmmm. I figured someone as boisterous as the Storm Queen would be buried somewhere closer to home…”
