Chapter 189: The Drunkard’s Lesson.
Zhen Liu stared a tad flabbergasted at the bravado of his apparent predecessor.For whatever reason, the man had climbed onto the table to give a rather dramatic speech. He also swore he heard the roars of kaijin coming from Anton or at least from the portrait behind him. While he could appreciate the dramatics to an extent, it was still a lot to a process in a short timespan.
With his speech now over, Anton dropped back into his seat and switched from drinking with a glass to just straight from the bottle.
Several heady, audible gulps could be heard as Anton chugged the wine jug at this point, somehow acquiring significantly more wine than what should be stored in a bottle of that size.
Buurrrrp!
Once he was done, he let out a hearty belch and somehow turned back into a skeleton.
“Now then,” Anton said as he placed the bottle back onto the table, a distinctive thud and sloshing sound occuring, “I do believe I made a promise to you, some months ago.”
“You did?,” Zhen Liu asked, mildly confused. He remembered that this guy mentioned about the location not being right or whatever, but not that he made a promise with him.
Anton knocked on the meeting table between them twice, causing it to suddenly disappear and the room to turning into an empty looking sparring room, complete with padded flooring. Zhen Liu was a initially shocked at the sudden disappearance for the table and appearance of the padded floor, luckily he caught himself before falling over, but he had a sneaking suspicion that people or beings other than Logos, Pathos and the kaijin had access to his head.
‘Huh…wonder if a neon color haired lady will skate through my head next.’
Anton walked over to Zhen Liu’s position, and with a wave of his hand, summoned the [Veteran’s Bone Club] and began to wield it like it was the most natural thing in the world to him.
“So, I assume you have been practicing that first technique associated with this thing, right?”
“The one where I bounce back an opponent’s art back at them?”
“That’s the one!,” Anton said with a smile, “back when I was alive, I barely had the power to fight back against opponents who had deeper reserves of aether than my own, but those spiritual foxes outside helped to me figure out to turn their hubris into my advantage…but, there were few other tricks I learned when I was still wielding this thing. Can you summon any of your kaijin right now?”
“Huh? Oh, let me check…”
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‘Hey guys, status check, is anyone free right now to do…I’m assuming a “how to use abilities, you dummy” lesson?
[Practicing right now, sorry maestro.]
[Read…ing…]
[Apologies milord, I am occupied.]
[I can come and help. Take a few minutes though. This place is very big.]
‘Thank you, Razor Maiden.’
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“Does a proto-kaijin work? She’ll be here in a few minutes.
“Yeah that should be fine,” Anton nodded, “for now then, I shall show you the first move you can use with this.”
Anton proceeded to wield the club like it was a two handed sword, the air around him suddenly getting a lot more agitated. As he held this stance, a training dummy appeared on the other side of the room.
“As an Aether Master, you can now make use of [Infusion], but you should probably know that we wielders of [Chaos] are unable to channel this energy into normal objects.”
“Uhh…why is that?,” Zhen Liu asked, genuinely stumped. Out of all the new abilities he got from ranking up, he never got around to trying to figure out how [Infusion] worked. He kinda got caught up in testing [Possession] a lot more.
“Simply put, normal objects would explode when injected with [Chaos].”
“Of course they would…what’s with all of the explosions?,” Zhen Liu grumbled.
Paying no mind to Zhen Liu’s grumbling, Anton continued his lesson.
“However, treasures like this bone club of mine are able to handle the strain of [Chaos] and let you release power like…well this.”
Anton continue to hold his stance for a couple more seconds, but as he did, streams of [Chaos] energy began to flow out of his body and into the club, causing it take on a more rainbow colored hue. An innate feeling of danger began to well up in Zhen Liu as he stared at the increasingly more colorful rainbow bone.
“That should be enough, [Imperial Crusher]!”
Anton swung the club like it was a baseball bat, causing it to release a swirling ball of energy that briefly looked like a charging calvaryman moments before slamming/piercing/slashing the opposing dummy to pieces. The skeleton looked a bit winded after using that weird move.
“Phew! It’s been ages since I had to use that trick,” Anton sighed as he stretched his bones. Zhen Liu on the other hand looked shocked at the damage done to the dummy. Most aether arts he knew could cause blunt force trauma, burn damage, slashing, piercing, etcetera, but they would only do one or the other. There were some elemental weapon arts that could both form of elemental damage and physical damage in relation to the weapon, and that there were weapon mastering maniacs that could use all sorts of weapon based art combos, but he never anyone that could cause multiple types of weapon damage at the exact same time in a single move and in the exact same spot.
“H-how?”
“[Chaos] is a formless, shapeless mess of an energy that can be everything, everywhere at once…or so I was told,” Anton explained, “honestly, I’m not sure either. And it looks like your proto-kaijin isn’t here yet…well then, time for you to try it out.”
“Huh? What do you mean try it out?”
Without saying anything else, Anton just tossed the bone club for Zhen Liu to make use of.
“Shouldn’t I get a manual or something for this?,” Zhen Liu asked bewildered. Most of the arts and skills he learned were very book/scroll based, he did not expect to copy a move straight from the supposed source.
“No need for that, it’s easy. All you need to do is copy my stance, channel [Chaos] into the club, and focus on your concept of [War] and [Rebellion].”
“I’m sorry, what now?”
Zhen Liu had heard those first two steps and was about to just do what he was told, that last one threw him for a loop.
“Focus on the concept of…war and rebellion?”
“Yeah. [Chaos] can’t be controlled, but it can be guided, namely by understanding what things are inherently chaotic. [War] is the chaos of violence and ambition, [Rebellion] is the chaos of injustice. By combining these two thoughts in your head, you can guide [Chaos] into certain forms…at least that’s what I remember being informed about by the guy before me…,’ Anton said as he scratched his jawbone.
Zhen Liu was now just curious about how many other kaijin lords came before him, but decided to keep that question for later.
‘Focus on the concepts of [War] and [Rebellion]…the fuck does that mean?’
