Chapter 1096: Rampaging Through the Halls
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“T-that way,” the Fallen warrior answered, not wanting to get slammed into a wall by the boar warrior, like his burly companion.
“Thanks,” Zhen Feng said with a distorted growl, before making a gesture to Zhen Hai to come along.
Once they were given a clear direction, both Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng went charging down the halls.
This left the glass-wearing warrior along with his friend.
“Hey…make a noise if you’re not dead.”
“Mmph…”
“Okay, I’ll pry you out…”
…
“Damn, dude! I didn’t know you had that in you,” Zhen Hai praised.
“Yeah, well, let’s just say I finally got out of my own head,” Zhen Feng replied.
Following the Fallen warrior’s instructions, the two of them barrelled down the directed hallways without stopping or pausing for a second.
The faster they take out this defensive array from the inside, the faster the others coukd deal with the bullshit on the outside.
Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones who understood this fact.
“Where the hell are those intruders?!”
“Over there!”
“Stop them!”
“Here they come…”
From hallways and rooms unseen and dotted across the entire citadel, dozens upon dozens of Fallen warriors of various cultivation levels began to pour out into the hallway that Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng were charging through.
A majority of the forces that appeared were peak Aether Acolytes and several handfuls of Aether Masters.
Under normal circumstances, this would’ve been enough to stop Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng dead in their tracks.
While they were being empowered by [Chaos] though…this was merely an inconvenience.
“Zhen Hai, get behind me.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it!”
As the pair of scions from the Zhen Clan got closer and closer to making contact with the Fallen, the latter began to take up defensive positions in order to intercept.
“Shield troopers, form a wall! Now!”
“Sir, yes sir!”
Several Fallen warriors armed with large iron shields began to link up and form a solid wall, not just physically, but through the power of aether as well.
Each of the shields were inscribed with parts of a defensive strengthening array that increased in power for each linked shield involved, in an exponential manner.
Five shields linked in this manner made their defensive strengthen equivalent to that of a castle rampart as thick as a foot!
Unfortunately, this defensive boost was heavily reliant on aether.
Once Zhen Feng and Zhen Hai got close enough, the former began to circulate [Chaos] into his [Taboo], causing it to grow in size and the image of an undead boar monster to manifest around him.
[Demon Boar’s Death Charge!]
With this declaration, Zhen Feng rushed forward and crashed directly into the iron wall, much to the shock of the Fallen warriors.
“What the fuck?!”
They had anticipated Zhen Feng’s charge to break the moment he made contact with the iron shield wall’s defensive array, only to be flabbergasted as the charging boar warrior’s attack not only dispelled the array but sent the shielding warriors flying in multiple directions.
It took the Fallen this instance to realize what had happened.
“Wait a minute, they’re hitting just like-FUCK, THEY’RE USING [Chaos]!”
“Get the dragon venom!”
“Someone contact an elder!”
“What about a Grafted?”
“We only have the one left, and they’re after her!”
During Buzza’s stay amongst the Fallen, the latter had been given a quick crash course on how to deal with [Chaos] wielders in the event that they encounter any such foes. More specifically, he had warned the Grafted what they should be avoiding, and those guys shared the info with the rest of the Fallen.
Unfortunately, this information was only partially useful.
“Outta the way, assholes!”
As Zhen Feng continued to crash through the Fallen warriors, the Fallen did their best to figure out a means of fighting back.
But their options weren’t great.
“Fuck! That guy we sent in to infiltrate Undertow took the last of the dragon venom with him!”
“Shit!”
Dragon Force was inherently rare as hell, and any weapons or items that contained it was already in-use elsewhere.
“Is it at all possible to free up that Grafted girl?!”
“No! If we do, then the [Shadow Sovereign] will be under assault.”
“Gah!”
[Chaos] was a relatively new piece of knowledge to the Fallen, so anyone who could use it as an effective means to fight off the invading scions were limited.
However, there was one, technically two things that the Fallen had that they could use against the rampaging Zhen Clan scions.
“Step aside, you talentless hacks.”
“Huh? Oh! Make way, elites on deck!”
First, in this one instance, they had sufficiently powerful enough aether warriors that could simply overpower the debilitating effects of [Chaos].
As made evident by the appearance of a man fully dressed in his [Regalia], stepping right into the path of Zhen Feng’s and Zhen Hai’s charge.
“Huh? Who’s the weedy looking motherfucker?,” Zhen Hai asked while keeping up with Zhen Feng’s rampaging charge.
“Don’t know, don’t care, going to smash him!”
“Phrasing!”
Second, and more importantly, one of those aforementioned powerful warriors were trained in using musical aether arts.
Moments before Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng could make impact with the new arrival, the latter had drawn from his person a rather ornate looking flute that was carved from some type of ivory.
What happened next was literally mind-boggling.
[Harmonic Confusion!]
FWEEET!
“[Gyaaah!]”
“[My brain!]”
Under normal circumstances, [Harmonic Confusion] was a minor Ethereal aether art that caused an opponent to miss their attacks by a decent margin about thirty or so degrees.
However, due to Zhen Feng and Zhen Hai being empowered by Screamira and Razorstella respectively, both of which were kaijin that were significantly more affected by the effect of musical aether arts, the effect on them had increased by about fifty to sixty percent.
Crash!
“What the fuck?”
This manifested as Zhen Feng and Zhen Hai suddenly turning ninety degrees to the right and going over the edge of a hallway balcony they were charging through, and their respective [Taboos] actively glitching and tweaking as if they were bugged gaming assets.
“Bah!”
“Urgh, my head…”
Shortly after their crash, the two of them ended up impacting the ground floor of a large circular chamber. Thankfully, there were no Fallen warriors down here, due to the alarms redirecting them to the upper levels of the Citadel.
“Buh…where the fuck are we now?,” Zhen Hai asked as Razorstella’s [Taboo] readjusted itself back to normal.
“I don’t know,” Zhen Feng answered while picking himself up and fixing his boar-skull helmet. “But I think that weedy motherfucker is about come down here and try to kill us.”
“Technically, my name is Wu Di. And there is no ‘try’, I am going to kill you.”
From above, that aformentioned weedy flute wielding aether warrior came floating down like an imperious judge from heaven about to punish some demons.
Granted, these particular demons weren’t going down without a fight and a half.
“You two don’t seem as monstrous as the Kaijin out there…are you those [Possessed] warriors that Buzza was talking about?”
“Good guess,” Zhen Hai sarcastically praised with a voice that sounded like singing blades while drawing his [Berserker’s Fang]. “Needless to say, we won’t be giving you our names though.”
“No problem,” Wu Di capitulated.”It doesn’t take a genius to guess you guys are probably Zhen Clan dogs or Undertow bottomfeeders. And you lot will be taking mine to the graves anyways.”
“Blah, blah, blah! Enough talking, let’s get to rocking!,” Zhen Hai roared as he drew his own [Ogre Cleaver], readied his [Permafrost Boar’s Black Ice] and prepared to use an attack that was recently carved into his brain.
[Draugar’s Ice Saw!]
With a roar, Zhen Feng infused his cleaver with as much [Chaos] and aether as he could before throwing it at Wu Di’s head.
As the cleaver flew through the air, it began to freeze over with black ice that radiated this feeling of death. Halfway through its flight path, the cleaver transformed into a buzzsaw made of ice.
“Hmmph! A parlor trick!,” Wu Di taunted while choosing to dodge out of the way of the ice saw while charging forward. He has initially thought to block the attack, but changed his mind when he saw the cleaver grow in size.
However, this turned out to be a trap!
[Flying Manta Slash!]
“Oh?!”
While Wu Di was in the process of dodging out of the ice saw ‘s path, Zhen Hai used the opportunity for a follow up with his [Berserker’s Fang], swinging it low and into the direction of Wu Di’s face.
The power of Aqurii aether and a type of [Chaos] that glimmered like starlight, radiated from the shark toothed club as it was swung.
[GET BENT, MOTHER-]
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“Are you going to run away again, or are we finally settling our grudge here and now?”
“Might as well. Although, it probably won’t go as you expect it to.”
