Chapter 1090: Expected, but also Why?
‘Well then, looks like I’m three for three? Or is four for four, did that Wandrring Ruin count?,’ Zhen Liu sardonically joked in an attempt to prevent himself from freaking out.’Honestly, I should’ve seen this coming.’
In the past few months, he had met a woman who came from a world where psychic eugenics was a thing, a man who came from a world where one of the biggest tech companies was named after a tropical fruit and a tribe that was living in an entire apartment complex that looked like it came from a certain country where plastic surgery was a graduation gift and being an idol was a full-time job and a half.
Honestly, he should’ve expected that at some point in his life, some crazy sci-fi weapon would come crashing down on him.
He just wasn’t expecting it to be today!
“What the fuck is that thing?!,” Zhen Feng asked with noticeable fear in his voice.
“I don’t know, but it’s rubbing me the wrong way,” Zhen Hai answered while circulating his [Chaos] and aether, in defiance to the the aura pressing down on him.
‘Wait a minute…is this…is this the thing that almost destroyed Undertow? The thing that killed the Storm Knights and the Storm Queen? That…makes way too much sense.’
In the distance, rising from the depths, was a giant monster that was illuminated by a pair of titanic crystals embedded in it’s body.
Because of this illumination, Zhen Liu could vaguely make out that the general shape of this thing was like that of a certain breed of bipedal lizards that were infamous in his old world’s movies, while some of the details he could make out include glowing lines of energy that seemed a bit too rigid to be veins and segmented metallic skin that looked way too artificial to be mistaken for scales or anything else. On top of that though, he could make out that the head of this thing seemed to be the skull of a giant dragon that…looked a bit out of place on the entire thing’s body structure.
…
Wait a minute.
…
‘Logos, Pathos…why the fuck does that head look…incredibly different from the rest of the body? Like, everything up until that head and those crystals looks pretty uniform. Granted, I’m pretty sure you guys are gonna tell me you don’t-‘
<=Believe it or not, we have an answer this time.=>
‘You do?!’
‘I have words in relation to the magical girl thing by the way, but I’m saving it for later.’
=Back to the matter at hand, we know what that thing is because not only have we seen it now and while we were running with the Storm Queen, but because we can across records about it in our books. More specifically, from several journals and history books related to the aether puppet capital city-state of the world.=
‘Is…is the place called Puppet City?’
‘Why does it sound vaguely British?’
=It’s actually located on an island between Stampeding Bison and Dozing Salamander, but that’s besides the point,= Logos interjected to get the conversation back on track. =The important detail is that the reason why they’re able to become the puppet capital of the world is due to a special ruin that got anchored there.=
‘What’s it called?’
<=The [Automaton's Graveyard].=>
‘Ominous ass name with ominous implications, please continue to explain why this is important.’
=Records indicate that during the Storm Queen’s era, someone managed to extract from the ruins a massive mechanical corpse, for lack of a better term, that the extractor called “a giant lizard that shot beams of energy that could melt mountains”. It should be noted that he decapitated the thing before he extracted it.=
‘Does that mean he was the guy who slapped on the dragon’s skull?’
‘Explain?’
=The aforementioned slayer out the corpse on auction, representatives of the Floating Khan bought the thing in exchange for a crate of seventh tier elixirs. After which, the Floating Khan had an aether puppet master under his command modify and turn it into, as Pathos described it earlier, big and ugly over there.=
‘And now, for reasons beyond me, the Fallen have managed to dig up this rusted fossil and is now going to be used to kill us all in an attempt to do what the Floating Khan failed to do years ago? Great…’
<=On the plus side, you're gonna have some time to figure out a plan of an attack.=>
‘How? That things looks like it’s ready to blast us to smithereens.’
<=You have a boat and four unaccounted for kaijin.=>
‘…oh.’
…
Kkkkkyrrruuuu
[Incoming!]
[Defensive maneuvers, now!]
Once it had registered in the minds of the warriors defending Undertow that this strange monster was about to fire an attack, they immediately went about preparing their most powerful defensive measures.
Waves of [Chaos] and aether surged through atmosphere as they prepared their own defensive techniques.
Well, all except two people.
[Terra? Terra! Are you okay?]
[No…not again…not again…wait, why am I saying “again”?]
At this point in time, hearing that ear piercing scream, something in Terra went…haywire.
Terra had only heard this sound once as a baby, at a time where it shouldn’t even register.
But something about this sound caused her very soul to quake in fear. Then again, it might’ve been due to the fact that she was getting a series of flashbacks to memories that were never hers.
Of a pain she never felt before, but could remember with vivid detail.
Either way, this caused her to stiffen up and unable to act, prompting the kaijin to gather around her to help defend her.
[No worries Smolheel, we got your back.]
[Are you sure that’s an appropriate nickname, dear slug?]
[Don’t know, but it feels right.]
[Both of you, hush,] Wavebreaker chided. [This technique of mine is less of a shield and more of an attack.]
As for the second person that wasn’t preparing to defend himself, that honor went to Zhen Liu.
Who was currently standing mid-air like he was some kind of final boss in a video game.
Evidently, it took a couple of seconds for his cousins and girlfriend to notice this odd behavior, but once they did, they immediately flew over to see what the hell was going on.
“Zhen Liu, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“I get that you’re mostly invincible, but the kaijin in my brain knows that you’re weak to Dragon Force and that is the densest concentration of Dragon Force I have ever felt. Do you have death wish?!”
“No, but some are about to be fulfilled.”
“Xiao Liu,” Jin Fang said in a tone of voice that was less panicked than his cousins and more curious. “What do you have planned?”
At this particular question, Zhen Liu actually smiled.
“Just wait for it…now.”
“Huh?”
After saying “now”, Zhne Liu directed the gaze of his cousins and girlfriend towards the direction of the giant mechanical monster about to blast them with a powerful attack.
Until…
BOOM!
“Whoa!”
“What the fuck?!”
“Holy shit!”
…a massive explosion bloomed on the side of its face and caused the attack to suddenly falter.
“Excellent timing guys” Zhen Liu praised aloud. “Weird not having to keep these words in my head.
…The aformentioned guys…
[BOOYAH! DIRECT HIT, SUCKERS!]
[Nice landing, by the way.]
[That was hot enough to get more talking like normal.]
[Thank you, thank you, but do you think we go the Fallen’s attention.]
[Probably.]
[In that case…let’s give them a Frontier Friendship gesture.]
[Agreed!]*4
…Meanwhile…
“I just realized something important,” Zhen Shen Yuan stated as she kept watching the display about to show the [Shadow Sovereign] annihilating Undertow.
“Yes, matriarch?”
“This is the first time we’ve actually fired this thing, yes?”
“In a live battle, yes.”
“How do we know it works?”
“Well, when we first discovered it it had blasted-”
BOOM!
“What the fuck?!”
Before their very eyes, a massive explosion impacted the side of the Fallen’s new ancient weapon and had its attack unceremoniously interrupted.
Needless to say, Matriarch Gao Shen Yuan was pissed.
“Who or what the fuck did that?!”
“Matriarch! We’re picking up a condense collection of aether on our port side on the surface.”
“Bring it into view!”
“At once.”
Following her commands, the Fallen clansmen in charge of the visualing array made the necessary adjustments to see what had caused the mammoth explosion from earlier.
Once they did, they immediately noticed two things.
“We found them ma’am!”
“Good, bring it to full…what the fuck?”
Firstly, that the condensation of energy came from a very strange looking ship filled with kaijin.
Secondly, they noticed that the Kaijin were doing an unfamiliar gesture…that felt incredibly insulting.
“Why are they holding their middle fingers like that?”
“I don’t know…but I’m pissed.”
