Chapter 209: If you can’t coerce them, ANNIHILATE THEM
KA-BOOM!
“Whoa!”
“What the fuck?!”
“What is that thing?!”
Catching quite literally everyone off-guard, Hurricroak suddenly materialized out of thin air, turned her arm into a muscular bear-like one, and suddenly elbow dropped Leech into the ground. A powerful jolt of electricity coursing through her arm and straight down Leech’s throat.
[Done already? I was hoping to do an encore,] Hurricroak mentally taunted. She would have said it out loud, but she had appearances to keep.
Leech looked positively toasted in the eyes of the crowd and Hurricroak, so none of them expected him to suddenly jerk to life and grab Hurricroak by the arm and suddenly throw her to the side and towards the crowd.
As she was airborne, the smoke coming out of Leech’s mouth was quickly sucked back in by the cockroach bloodliner, who was now looking a tad…neon blue.
“Strange…taste, taste, taste! Not bad though…”
The would-be onlookers quickly reacted and scattered, clearing Hurricroak’s flight path as she was flung into a courtyard pillar.
[Oh fuck! This is gonna hur-!]
‘You have wasp wings!’
[Oh! Right!]
As quick as she could, Hurricroak manifested her wasp wings and began to flap as hard as she could. The appearance of the wings caused the crowd to stir.
“Holy shit! What kind of aether puppet is that?!”
“I don’t fucking know, but I’m getting the hell outta here! It looks like the Zhen Clan and the Wolfe family is about to brawl, and I for one do not want to end up becoming collateral damage!”
Unfortunately, Hurricroak did not whip out her wasp wings fast enough to fully reverse her trajectory, but it did give her enough lift and force to make it so she landed feet first against the pillar, making it so she could leap off it for a counter attack!
[I may not have a wrestling ring rope to bounce off of, but this will work just fine! Lightning Lariat!]
Hurricroak leaped off of the pillar and swung a lighting coated bear arm at Leech, prompting the latter to stand firm and throw up a defensive art.
[Iron Beetle Guard!]
In an instant, a round shield that mimicked a beetle’s shell condensed in front of Leech and caught the attack for him. However, this did not stop the physical momentum pushing him backwards.
[Alright then, let’s see who taps out first!]
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Back at the Zhen Clan estate…
[Meteor Swing!]
[Needle Gale!]
[Moon Rabbit’s Kick!]
[Eruption Knuckle!]
BOOM!
CLANG!
CRASH!
Nepherage, Zhen Yue, Gregory and Sieger were locked in an explosive and deadly two vs two death match as they exchanged blow for blow, or rather, the two warriors from the Wolfe Family were trying to damnedest to kill Zhen Yue and Nepherage, but their opponents were too stubborn to die. They even kept counterattacking.
“Damnit! How the hell are we losing the initiative already?!,” Gregory complained as his iron ball was knocked away by Nepherage’s exploding knuckle. He made sure to the jerk in such a manner as to prevent it from going wild.
“Who cares!,” Sieger exclaimed after being knocked back Zhen Yue’s unusually strong kick. Apparently they didn’t know that moon aether formulas get a lot more potent during the night. “Just grab one of the-wait, where did all the hostages go?!”
Evidently, the Wolfe warriors were so preoccupied dealing with Zhen Yue and Nepherage, that they failed to notice Razor Maiden, Spring Brawler and the injured Master Ricardo grabbing the unconcious Zhen clansmen and moving them to a more secure location…well, secure in the kaijin’s head.
They just sorta dumped them in the banquet hall. Ricardo was initially confused but then kinda saw the logic behind keeping everyone safe in what was essentially a big empty room that had an obvious escape route. Assuming the Wolfe Family didn’t have any other surprises.
“Oi! You fucking eunuchs! Keep your head in the fight,” Zhen Yue said as she and Nepherage closed in on Gregory and Sieger while they were arguing, “or else we’ll fucking take them!”
[Huh…she talks kind of like how milord does when he trains. Odd,] Nepherage observed while charging up an attack.
At the same time as Zhen Yue swung out her sword, the image of a strange owl beast with razor sharp feathers overlaying with her own, towards Sieger, Nepherage recreated that battering ram of lava from earlier,but this time with even more spikes of molten rock, and swung it at Gregory. From outside point of view, it looked as if the auras coming from the two of them were merging into one.
The two Aether Masters did not shirk away from the attacks, but decided to meet them head on.
“Fucking fine! We’ll kill you then take back the hostages! [Tornado Needle]!”
[Comet Crusher!]
________________________________________________
KA-BOOM!
CLANG!
[Father! Some strange looking bloodliner just attempted to kill Xiao Liu!]
[I noticed…and I think I know who was behind it.]
As the chaos unfolded in the aether projector’s display, and the failed assassination attempt in the ballroom turned into a brawl, the tension in the meeting room turned razor sharp as the killing intent of the leaders began to sharply increase.
Zhen Shi already wasn’t happy about his family almost being captured and used as leverage against him, he was now even unhappier that the Wolfe Family had just attempted to kill his grandson while he was still in the same fucking room as their leaders. Power disparity be damned, he was going to kill them even if it killed him.
“Did you just attempt to assassinate my grandson?,” Zhen Shi asked, knowing full well the answer. Zhen Shi had noticed Jacob Wolfe looking out into the ballroom from the meeting room, it didn’t take too much effort to put two and two together. In response, Harold let out a deep sigh.
“You know, I was actually hoping to bury this feud between our families in a bloodless manner,” Harold began to say with a thoughtful look, “I realized on my journey that while it is fine and dandy to bury those who oppose and offend you with pure brute force. It is significantly more…profitable to make them kneel before you and sign their lives over to you.”
“A fine offer…but I’ll pass. I’d rather die on my own two feet, then live as your subordinate,” Zhen Shi replied.
Propelled by the instinct to battle, Zhen Shi and Harold both lept from their seats and onto the table, circulating their respective aethers into a frenzy. Patriarch Jacob was about to get involved as well, but was stopped when Orgo pointed the flat of his pickaxe towards him.
“The Diggers Union bows to no one you fucking dogs,” Orgo cursed at Jacob, “but if we’re going to war, I’ll throw my weight behind the Zhen Clan. At least they didn’t send my boys into a death trap!”
“Well then, that’s two out of three against my reasonable proposal,” Harold mused aloud, “what say you, Telana? Are you with me or against me?”
“Hmmm…,” Telana hummed as she weighed her options in this moment.
While she and the Wolfe Family had some mutual agreements here and there, much of it was clandestine to the point that Zhen Clan and the Diggers Union assumed that the Corradas and Wolfe Family were neutral at most.
Should she honor this clandestine alliance of theirs and possibly ruin her reputation and lose her life on the chance that Harold loses, or forego them entirely and gamble on the opposition somehow winning and gaining a lot due to the inevitable power vacuum.
Decisions, decisions…
