Chapter 1103: Stubborn yet Wise
THOOOOM!
“HOLY SHIT!”
“WHY IS THE WORLD SHAKING?!”
“DON’T KNOW, DON’T CARE, GET THOSE FUCKING KIDS!”
“Yeeesh! And they call us stubborn,” Zhen Hai joked with Zhen Feng as they continued to run away from the forces of the Fallen Clan.
“No, they say I’m stubborn. They call you bloodthirsty.”
“Potato, tomato.”
“NOT AT ALL SIMILAR.”
Less than ten minutes ago, the two had managed to land a rather lucky blow on the Fallen elder named Wu Di.
More specifically, Zhen Hai managed to strike at the elder’s face with his [Berserker Fang].
It didn’t do any fatal damage, despite the [Chaos] surrounding the aforementioned club had managed to pierce through Wu Di’s [Regalia], but it did stun him and knocked him away due to the force behind the blow
Needless to say, Wu Di wasn’t happy in the slightest about getting nailed in the face and almost developing a permanent scar across it.
“Gah! You punks will pay for that!”
(Un)fortunately, that retaliation never came to pass.
Instead just as Wu Di was going to retaliate, a massive shockwave had rocked through the [Darkshell Citadel] like it was the end of the world, and had caused most of the Fallen to trip over their feet.
This happened due to the simple fact that despite how much training they had received over the years in regards to dealing with emergencies, none of them had received any training in the event of an earthquake.
An impossible earthquake that should’ve never affected the citadel, but it did.
Regardless, when the Zhen Clan saw that their opponents had tripped over themselves and were now hampered by each other, they took that opportunity to get the hell out of dodge.
Under normal circumstances, Zhen Feng and Zhen Hai would’ve probably fought Wu Di to the death, especially with the power boost being granted to them by the kaijin in their heads.
Unfortunately, these weren’t normal circumstances.
…
‘How’s the city’s guardian holding up?’
[The old turtle is still holding up, but I don’t know how much longer that shield is going to last…]
‘That’s not good…’
…
Unlike the Fallen warriors who could only get updates in a periodic manner via active word of mouth, Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng had the benefit of getting real time information fed into their brains by Razorstella and Screamira, respectively.
Granted, this was a bit of bane as well as a boon, due to being updated on everything that was happening outside of the citadel.
The two Zhen Clan scions were already on a time crunch up until the citadel started shaking, with the timer being directly connected to the [Shadow Sovereign] firing its attack.
But now, they were in a more precarious time crunch in the form of a giant turtle doing its damndest to not die under the burning breath of a giant robotic lizard.
…
*Bing-Bong*
Is this a reference to something? This feels like a reference.
|Only about as referential as knights slaying dragons.|
Fair enough…wait, are you sure it’s not a reference to G-
*Bing-Bong*
…
Not only that, but their objectives had changed dramatically as well.
“Are we sure we don’t want to try and take out whomever was empowering the defensive array?,” Zhen Hai asked aloud to both his cousin and the kaijin. “I think that guy said that we just had to turn to the right up ahead in order to get to the control room.”
Ahead of the Zhen Clan scions was a junction that split to the left and right
“As satisfying as that sounds, we can’t. We don’t know how much longer we have until Tor____ gives out under the pressure, and we gotta get the fuck out of here. Besides, this is more painful to these guys in the long run if the worst should happen.”
“Fair enough…wait a minute… aren’t we technically a group of four?”
“That…huh.”
Once the Zhen Clan scions had come to the same realization, they proceeded to split off into two different directions.
With Zhen Hai going to the left and Zhen Feng going to the right.
…
[Huh…and here I thought, you wanted to take down the defenses yourself. Why the change in heart and direction?,] Razorstella asked straightforwardly.
‘When you hunt a wild boar, you bring a spear. When you hunt birds, you use a bow and arrow,’ Zhen Hai answered. ‘You gotta bring the right tool for the hunt, and send the right people for the right task. I may be strong and my teeth might be sharp, but that crystal woman’s defenses could probably break and bend them. It’s a lot smarter to send a living wrecking ball like Zhen Feng, right?’
[An astute observation.]
‘Besides, something in my gut is telling me I need to go in this direction…’
…Meanwhile…
<
“What’s going on out there?”
•Spirits, protect us…•
<
Several months ago, the Fallen had attacked the Zhen Clan’s place of power during their family tournament. During this event, multiple notable clans from around the world had sent their young scions to participate, either to serve as a training opportunity, establish diplomatic ties or secure rare resources.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Instead, a sizable chunk of these scions got captured by the Fallen and had been used for ransom for the past few weeks.
If they were lucky.
Every now and then a prisoner would be sent back home while a fat pile of supplies and resources would take their place.
But in other cases, only a letter expressing refusal would be sent, leaving the hopeful scion to fall into despair…with some falling a bit too deep.
A vast majority of the prisoners though had neither luxury. Instead, they were forced to deal with the pain of anticipation that could only be found in the border of hope and despair, with all of their worldy possessions piled up in a storeroom that was tantalizingly close…yet far enough to make them hurt.
Whether this was due to laziness or some sadistic ploy to instill the barest form of hope into the prisoners was unclear, but the effect was the same regardless.
That stated, the prisoners were a bit more rowdy this time around due to several changes in routine.
First, their prison cells started shaking like crazy for the first time in months.
Some of the Terraqi inclined prisoners had attempted to use their abilities to determine their location, but failed due to their cells not being anywhere on solid ground. So the fact that there was shaking now was… perplexing.
Second, for reasons beyond them, a whole bunch of guards that were assigned to keep them in line had suddenly left the prison wing when some sort of alarm went off. Due to the language disparity between the prisoners, they were unable to get a clear enough answer, but they did manage to make out the word, “intruder”.
Perhaps one of their factions had managed to locate the Fallen’s headquarters and had launched a rescue operation?
Regardless of who these intruders were though, they were probably friendlier than the Fallen.
Last, and certainly not least, was the fact that there was this sudden surge of weird energy that absolutely none of them had ever felt before.
They couldn’t quite put their fingers on as to why this energy felt weird, but they were certain that it was neither aether, nor anima nor the incredibly powerful yet rare dragon force.
Whatever it was they were sensing, it was just…plain weird.
And things were about to get a lot weirder.
<
BAM!
<
“What the fuck?”
<["EVERYBODY HIT THE FLOOR!"]>
•OH FUCK!•
From the one and only door that connected the rest of the [Darkshell Citadel] to the prison cells, a young man dressed in a [Regalia] that radiated a weird feeling had busted in while wielding a jagged greatsword that mimicked the night sky.
Once he was about half way into the room, and the only guard in the room was about to charge him, the young man swung his sword in a wide sweeping arc.
SCHWIN!
“Buh!”
A series of shooting star shaped projectiles launched forth from the created arc, surging forward and cutting basically everything that was in their path in two.
Which was highly convenient as it slashed open the doors of all the cells in the prison…and mildly annoying due to all of the collateral damage and holes that were now a part of the room.
As for the one guard that had got caught up in the attack…he wasn’t going to die, but he wasn’t in any condition to fight anymore…or possibly ever again.
With his arc completed, Zhen Hai placed his [Berserker’s Fang] into the ground.
‘Okay, now I just need to call out to the prisoners and…wait a minute… didn’t my club have more teeth?’
