Chapter 171: Godoku Roach Tyrant
Any aether beast has the potential to reach the status of Progenitor and be able to create a whole new race of Bloodliners at any point in time. That being said, the bloodliners could be divided into subcategories reflecting the types of animals, namely mammalian, reptilian, avian, oceanic and finally insectoid. Out of all of the types of bloodliners though, the insectoid types we’re considered…the weirdest.
Not asthetically mind you, some people were into that…a lot of people were into that look, but rather it was in the terms of ancestral abilities.
Some were strange yet elegant, like the Illusions Monarch’s children being able to exhale a breath of dream dust that could cause people to hallucinate, or they were straight up body horror moments like the Skeletal Centipede King’s children being able to grow an excessive amount of bone-like structures from their bodies.
But out of all of these powers though, the title of the grossest belongs to the Godoku Roach Tyrant’s children.
The Godoku Roach Tyrant was infamous for one thing: his appetite.
Now, gluttonous aether beasts weren’t that weird, as evidenced by the Void Hippo King, the Carrion Swallowing Eagle King and the Abyssal Toad Lord, what made the Godoku Roach Tyrant weird was his bodily constitution, the eponymous ability: [Godoku Body].
The Godoku Roach Tyrant was the first to have the [Godoku Body], which gave him the ability to copy the abilities of any creature he had eaten down to the finest detail. There was just one massive drawback to this ability: he could get replaced.
Whenever someone with [Godoku Body] devours anyone, dead or alive, there was a chance of the devoured to take over the body like a demented ghost.
Every meal a [Godoku Body] wielder had was basically a spiritual showdown to the death,with the rewards being surprisingly high.The funny part was, nobody knew about this drawback until the first of the Roach Tyrant’s descendants failed to win this internal contest. The resulting gestaltic conscious proceeded to make a massive nuisance of themselves on the Umbral Spider Continent until they were slain by a collaborative effort done by the rulers of the contient, the Seven Lords of Shadow.
Ever since this incident however, many bloodliners of the Godoku Roach have been attempting to curb their appetites or find safer, less dangerous, creatures to consume. Of course, not all of them followed this idea.
Every now and again, a rumor would pop up about strange insectoid bloodliners suddenly showing up and eating the local hegemonic beast of a location or the local powers that run a town, city or sometimes whole states and suddenly becoming incredibly powerful.
Granted, it had been over sixty years since such incidents had occured across the world, but who knows when such a thing can change at a moment’s notice…
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[Ya know, it just dawned on me that this guy just drank that Boss Must dude like a juice pouch and is now much stronger than when he initially showed up,] Zhen Liu noted, [Should we even be fighting him or should we try and find a way to bail with Bellona, like right now?]
[That depends, can we summon the others to help us out here?,] Hurricroak asked while formulating a plan of action.
[I want to say…no. We’re essential knife fighting in a cupboard right now and I’d rather not bring out the two walking natural disasters in an enclosed space. I hadn’t swapped out their AoE arts for more single target arts yet. Plus, the Razor Maiden might be too weak for this.]
[In that case, it is completely dependent on whether or not this next attack we’re gonna do does anything substantial to him. Let’s see how shock absorbent this buggy boy is.]
[Physical or electrical?]
[Yes.]
[Fair enough.]
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As Leech’s palms came flying towards Zhen Liu’s head, the latter was shocked to find that this movement and attack didn’t use any aether at all, it was just pure brute force. That being said, Zhen Liu was no stranger to just using brute force to take a guy out, he just didn’t like being on the receiving end of such things.
‘Huh. Someone else with a freaky physique. Great…,’ Zhen Liu mentally grumbled. [No worries maestro, I got this.]
The heavy feeling palm strike whizzed right by Zhen Liu/Hurricroak’s face as they dodged the attack by leaning their body back at an almost one-twenty degree angle and moving alongside the flow of the palm. This moment gave Zhen Liu/Hurricroak an opportunity to use this momentum to try and land a spin kick to insect man’s head, but instead, the two of them proceeded to crouch down and circulate aether into their crouched legs and head.
[Leaping Bolt Tackle!]
Electricity wreathed around Zhen Liu/Hurricroak’s body as they shot themselves upward and slammed their skull into Leech’s abdomen, launching them upward and into the ceiling above.
“Oof!”
The insect man slammed into the ceiling with a satisfying boom and cracking sound, as he was embedded into it…which wasn’t exactly the intended effect. Zhen Liu/Hurricroak were hoping their attack would crack through the bug man’s shell or at least damage his internal organs to the point of him coughing up blood. They saw neither blood cough or armor crack, so they knew this situation wasn’t exactly good.
[Welp, I’m pretty sure that didn’t do jack shit to him,] Hurricroak commented, [He didn’t even spasm or anything when the electricity hit, and we’re about half way through the time limit. Let’s get the hell out of here and disappear into the crowd, because we gotta about twenty seconds before he falls out of that hole for round two.]
Zhen Liu/Hurricroak proceeded to turn in the direction of the exit to the surface, lining up their body to be in a straight path with Bellona on the way, and started to channel aether into their back.
A pair of ethereal looking wasp wings suddenly formed as more and more aether was condensed along their back, which then began to violently and rapidly flap as Zhen Liu/Hurricroak flew out of the tunnel like a…wasp out of hell, making sure to grab Bellona as they did.
Bellona just had this perpetually shocked look on her face as she saw this entire thing go down.
“I thought you couldn’t use arts!,” she exclaimed in a sincere tone. She technically heard everything going on in Zhen Liu’s head so she was aware of some of the details, and how he was basically possessed by…a thing, but he didn’t need to know any of that.
“Let’s just say I learned a weird trick to circumvent my condition for short periods of time,” Zhen Liu replied, “and that this time limit is why we’re bailing instead of fighting!”
“…fair enough.”
With this short exchange out of the way, the two of them proceeded to get the hell out of dodge and back into the sunlight.
Just in time too…
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‘Unexpected, unexpected, unexpected. I thought this fish was gonna try and fight me like a hot headed shark!,’ Leech thought to himself as he watched his prey escape him…for now.
That unexpected tackle to his blind spot had embedded him thoroughly into the cavern ceiling in such a manner that he could only get by allowing gravity to pull him out. Whether this was by design or coincidence he wasn’t sure, but he did find it…fascinating.
‘The fish’s flavor had suddenly changed when the horse came upon him. Now lamb is fine and dandy, but I wonder if there are any other tasty flavors he’s hiding in his flesh, flesh flesh.’
Drool began to dribble down from Leech’s mouth, pooling on the floor below, and eating away the minerals that composed it. A little bit later, Leech was now fully out of the hole and was now scheming of a way to find Zhen Liu once more.
‘The horse had mentioned, mentioned, mentioned that this fish was a member of one of the local, local, local powers in charge. Perhaps I should provide some…service to their rivals?’
While Leech wasn’t sure about who the “Wolfes” and the “Corradas” were exactly, he was at least fairly certain they wouldn’t turn their service of an Aether Master.
‘Maybe I can…sample their flavors too…BAHAHAHAHAHAH!’
With this delicious thought in mind, Leech proceeded to exit the caverns in his own way, leaving behind the bodies of Boss Must and his gang members.
It wouldn’t be until several hours later that they would be found by a passer-by, none of them were found to be dead though.
The four Aether Acolytes were found to be beaten and bruised but would eventually heal.
Unfortunately for Boss Must…the wounds he suffered were deeper than the flesh and a tad more…esoteric.
This little event would soon cascade into a larger narrative of a horrible vampire rampaging through the city, but that would be a story for another time in the…near future.
