Chapter 169: Act 2: Lost in the Rhythm, with Lone Digger
[What’s wrong maestro? You feel upset,wait no…annoyed?]
[Nothing, it’s just…how much of my mind does the magic library voice have access to, and subsequently you guys.]
[Well I was made from all of your memories in regards to music, remember?]
[Oh right. Oh shit. Uh…do you even have the memory of-]
[Yes, even those…]
[…]
[…]
[They weren’t bad.]
[Let’s focus on the fight please.]
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As the strange song continued to echo throughout the cavern, Zhen Liu/Hurricroak kept moving and grooving to the rhythm like it was the most natural thing in the world. An added benefit was that it also forced Boss Must to move along with the best as well…well, with the beating.
“You-ow-stupid-fuck-asshole-oof!”
No matter how many times Boss Must attempted to attack, counter or evade, Zhen Liu/Hurricroak was always one step ahead of him and would always greet everything he did with an electrically charged elbow or foot to the head, stomach, sternum or back. Needless to say, Boss Must was thoroughly sick of this shit by now.
“Hateful swine! I will trample you,” Boss Must shouted as he tempted to crush Zhen Liu with a heavy stomp. Unfortunately, he was just way too slow.
“Oh pony boy, you just need to sway to the sound, tap tap tap your feet as you move on the floor,” Zhen Liu/Hurricroak taunted while singing and dancing. “Otherwise you’ll be dancing till you die~.”
To emphasize this point, Zhen Liu/Hurricroak grabbed Boss Must’s shirt collar about half way through the fight and head-butted him in the center of his horse face. A cracking sound could be heard, but nobody was sure who’s skull was cracked from the heavy sounding blow.
Spoilers, it wasn’t Zhen Liu.
If one were to observe Zhen Liu closely at this moment, they would notice that his forehead was covered in a thin layer of aether condensing into armor like a crab.
However, whether it was due to Boss Must’s personal constitution or the vitality that all Aether Masters seem wield, he did not get knocked out from Zhen Liu’s attack. He got a pretty nasty bump out of it though.
“Bah! That’s it, no more holding back! [Cyclone Cloak]!”
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As Zhen Liu was basically mockingly beat Boss Must like he was a training dummy, his minions were trying to figure out their next course of action.
“Man, I’ve never seen Boss Must pushed back against the wall like this before! Well, except maybe against the Gold Lion, but…”
“Hey shouldn’t we be getting in there to help Boss Must waste this guy, or at least get pass them to secure the girl? We’re just acting like freaking roadblocks here”
“Yeah, we probably-”
[Cyclone Cloak!]
“Never mind, everybody just steel yourselves and hold your ground as hard as you possibly can!”
This warning came just in time, because as soon as Boss Must formally activated the art, powerful winds began to blow and attempted to suck them in.
“That kid is gonna get reduced to meat paste!”
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Zhen Liu/Hurricroak immediately leaped backwards when Boss Must activated his [Cyclone Cloak] art and dug into the ground as soon as possible, making use of Hurricroak’s tiger and bear claw manifestations to lock themselves into place. As they did, a passing bat had ended up getting caught in the crosswind if the art and was subsequently sucked in. It was reduced to a fine mist the moment it hit the cloak.
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[Of course this guy has a weird defensive/offensive art that makes it hard to attack him,] Zhen Liu mentally griped, [we may be at the Aether Master level as well, but I’m fairly certain that cloak will just rip us to shreds. Or at the very least, make it more trouble than what it’s worth. Any ideas?]
[I got one maestro, but it’s dependent on one factor,] Hurricroak answered.
[What factor?]
[Whether or not he is dumb enough to just charge at us again. Side note maestro, I will be changing the song now.]
[Dare I ask which one?]
[You’ll know it when you hear it!]
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“Haha! Now there’s no way for you to touch me! You’re finished!,” Boss Must proclaimed as he began to charge towards Zhen Liu, increasing the sucking force that was acting upon.
[Cyclone Cloak] was a minor grade Ethereal class defensive art that made use of Aeroqi aether to create a cyclone sphere around the user, protecting them from harm by using the force of the wind to just launch attack up into the air. However, Boss Must figured out a more offensive application of the art.
By using [Cyclone Cloak] in a closed space like a cavern, he discovered that not only would the resulting cyclone sphere be even more powerful, but that it would create a vacuum effect that would force his opponents to either resist or risk being sucked in so that he could punch and stomp them to death. Granted, he didn’t actually know about the scientific principles behind this effect, he just knew it helped him fight and kill people better.
As Boss Must charged towards the crouched Zhen Liu, he began to tap into his ancestral power and focus a deadly whirlwind into his fist, ready to bring it down on the latter’s head. He expected the whelp to just hunker down, intimidated by the encroaching storm!
He didn’t expect Zhen Liu to suddenly let go and come flying towards him.
“Are you serving yourself on a platter for me?!,” Boss Must shouted, unaware that the music had suddenly changed to some rather intense horns and vocals.
As the singing went on, Boss Must could distinctly hear the words “ready, set, go”, followed by some strings…and then a horrible shocking, piercing pain as Zhen Liu had somehow bypassed his cloak and landed an electrically charged kick straight into his guts. If he had been paying attention, he would have noticed that Zhen Liu had cloaked himself in lighting to use [Flashing Storm Kick], and had used the force of Must’s vacuum to accelerate himself even further to just straight up rocket through the cloak. There was no clever bypass, it was just pure brute force.
“Hold up! Did the fucking cripple use an art?! I thought he could only do that with puppets!,”one of Must’s henchmen shouted once it had registered what had occured. Up until this point, Zhen Liu/Hurricroak weren’t using any explicitly flashy arts, or at least ones with a notable aether release. This whole time, they had assumed all of the aether flowing around was their boss’s overwhelming presence.
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[Did…did you just time the kick to the climatic bits of-]
[Lone Digger, yes.]
[Huh… how’d you know he charge in like that?]
[To be fair, the man’s been acting more like a bull than a stallion, it was an educated guess.]
[Fair enough.]
