Chapter 1047: New Generation, Old Grudges
[Twin Ink Magnum!]
Crack!
“Damn!”
Before the imposter could finish his little speech, and possibly decapitate the head counselor, a pair of tentacles made of ink had surged forward and attempted to pierce the man’s head and stomach in a simultaneous manner.
Unfortunately, moments before the tentacles could make contact and turn the man into a kabob, a strange bubble shaped shield formed around the imposter. While the shield wasn’t strong enough to outright block the attack, it lasted long enough for the imposter to get out of the way unharmed but rattled.
“Tsk! Missed!”
It took a second for the imposter to recover from the shock of the surprise attack, but once he did, he turned his attention towards his attacker to see who this would-be hero was.
“Who the hell dares to-you?! How?!”
“Because fuck you, that how.”
Standing with her arms folded and a proud smile on her face, Zhen Xun Tian stared at the imposter with a look that practically begged him to try and throw a punch at her. At the same time, tentacles made of ink were squirming from her back, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
Of course, it should be noted that it wasn’t just the imposter that was confused as to how she was able to avoid being rendered unconscious from his poisoned wine gambit.
“Zhen…Matriarch!,” the head councillor managed to squeak out. “How…did…you…”
“Well, if everybody really wants to know how I managed to avoid it and why I was ready for this moment…let’s just say a little birdie was keeping an eye on things and noticed this little fucker,” she began to explain while pointing at the imposter. “Was meeting up with members of the Fallen in an area that was far from the main gate. A breach, was it? Mister…Hu Ken?”
At the mention at both his name and the way he and the rest of the Fallen managed to sneak in, Hu Ken’s eyes went wide.
“Hu Ken,one of the many sons of the Flowing Khan, Hu Fang,” Zhen Xun Tian began to monologue as if reciting a rap sheet from memory…which she technically was.”When the Flowing Khan went missing, his empire crumbled as his sons ripped apart in a bid to fill the power vacuum left behind. This was fine for all his adult sons, but his little brats, well…couldn’t exactly get a piece of a pie that was slowly being ripped apart, now could they?”
Hearing his life story being expounded upon like this was viciously uncomfortable for Hu Ken, but he was still an aether warrior, so he managed to keep his cool long enough to make a secret hand gesture towards the guards that were assisting him. Granted, he wasn’t the only one in the room making secret gestures.
“Which leads us to you, Hu Ken. Born from a concubine from the Swamp Federation, you developed quite the lengthy reputation as a ruthless bandit lord before getting apprehended,” Zhen Xun Tian continued to explain. “Thievery, bribery, extortion, poaching and illicit pill manufacturing on the low end, while the high tiered crimes include rape, murder and cannibalism. Not to mention the time you tried to kidnap and ransom an Imperial Princess. Huh…kind of makes sense why you would join up with the Fallen after being busted out of prison.”
“Alright, what’s the point of bringing all of this up?,” Hu Ken asked, finally getting the feeling that something was rather off about this exposition of his criminal past. That and he noticed that his men hadn’t returned to being behind him with a bunch of hostages.
“What’s the point? Well…it could be I find it absolutely hilarious that you’re trying to instigate a war for the purpose of making yourself the hero and sole profiteer from the venture,” Zhen Xun Tian answered while finally unfolding her arms. “Or maybe, just maybe…I was distracting your ass long enough for my tentacles and son to do their things.”
“Wait, what?”
“OOF!”*4
Immediately after the word, “what”, left Hu Ken’s mouth, all four of the Fallen warriors assisting him at the time crashed into him.
Off to the side, Zhen Xun Po had finished securing the last of the councillors after punching the everliving shit out of those aforementioned guards.
“They’re all yours, mama!”
“Thanks, sweetie!,” Zhen Xun Tian called out while performing a hand seal with not just normal hands, but a pair of ones made from ink.
[Ocean Array: Kraken’s Grasp]
The ground beneath Hu Ken and his warriors suddenly exploded into a flurry of inky tentacles as an aether array made itself visible right there and then. Needless to say, Hu Ken and the rest of his warriors were blind sided as the tentacles ensnared and entangled them together into one congealed mass.
“You bitch!”
“That’s Missus Bitch to you, motherfucker!,” Zhen Xun Tian gloated as she performed a gesture she learned called “flipping the bird”.
“Don’t even bother trying to break out of that formation, it’s made with bonafide [Chaos]! No amount of aether in the world can break something like that,” Zhen Xun Tian mocked as she turned away from Hu Ken and his merry band to bring her attention to the still conscious Head Councillor Bing Fang.
At this point though, Bing Fang looked ready to pass out at a moment’s notice.
“I…I can’t…I can’t believe you…would risk…”
“Hey, I need y’all to be alive for proper diplomacy to take place,” Zhen Xun Tian said with a cheeky tone. “Xiao Xun Po, do you still have any antidote left?”
“I do, mother.”
From his pockets, Zhen Xun Po produced a jade vial that he tossed over to his mother with ease.
“Now just take one of these and you’ll be right as rain in-”
Sound of a sealing array breaking like a glass window being smashed in with a baseball.
“Of fucking course it’s never that easy,”
Zhen Xun Tian griped in an annoyed tone of voice.
…Brief explaination of what had occurred…
Hu Ken was seething as he and his warriors were ensnared in Zhen Xun Tian’s dumbass array.
‘Wait, dumbass? Why would I…oh, right….[Chaos]…’
As one of the Fallen Warriors chosen to participate in this assault on Undertow, he was given a brief rundown on the weird power that was prevalent in the city, [Chaos].
From what he was told, any attacks, defenses or arrays made with [Chaos] had the ability to nullify aether made abilities of the same cultivation stage or weaker.
However, he was also briefed that dragon force was one of the few things in the world that could break through [Chaos] with ease.
And lo and behold, Hu Ken just so happened to have a means for gaining dragon force, hidden in a fake tooth.
Ages ago, during his heyday, Hu Ken once got his hands on a [Purple Miasmic Dragon Pill], a medicine that was able to bestow its consumer the powers of a [Purple Miasma Basilisk Dragon], a nasty aether beast known to breathe out clouds of toxic smoke.
For years, he had told himself he would sell the damn thing due to it being too powerful and wasteful for himself to consume…but as the saying goes, desperate times called for desperate measures.
The moment Zhen Xun Tian and her son has turned their attention towards the unconscious and poisoned councillors, Hu Ken proceeded to use his tongue to pop open his fake tooth and swallow the pill.
As soon as he did, he could feel a surge of strange power coming over him, compelling him to take a deep breath.
…
The moment Zhen Xun Tian turned toward her now broken array, she expected to see another outside force getting involved and breaking the seal. It made the most sense to her, since that was something she would do.
Instead, she saw in real time as Hu Ken went from looking like a lithe beanpole of a man, to several hundred stones worth of muscle, scale and pure spite.
From his mouth, Zhen Xun Tian and Zhen Xun Po could see a dark purple cloud of Miasma pour out of it like a waterfall.
This miasma carried a hint of dragon force to it, but was still strong enough to wipe out the [Chaos] array that Zhen Xun Tian had made, and erase the tentacles that was holding them in place.
Granted, that not all the miasma did.
“Uh…ma. Either my senses are screwy or-”
“Hu Ken’s fodder is starting to develop dragon force, too? Your senses are still working right.”
“Great…”
One after the other, the Fallen Soldiers grew larger and stronger as scale-like patterns began to form in their skin. Once the transformation was done, Zhen Xun Tian was staring down the spears of four dragon-blooded warriors, and one very large and angry dragon-blooded Hu Ken.
“You’re dead meat, matriarch,” Hu Ken taunted.
Zhen Xun Tian however, responded with a single phrase: “Bring it”.
