Chapter 267: Oh joy, I’m a time bomb
‘Elaborate please,’ Zhen Liu requested as he swallowed his frustration. Getting angry wouldn’t help, he needed answers and had the feeling there was more to that statement.
‘No shit, I think I might have angered some form of divinity by now.’
‘What was that?’
=What my illogical counterpart is trying to say, is that without you the kaijin can’t exist. So even if they get a bit stronger than you, they won’t rebel because it leads to a fate worse than suicide. That said, much like how the zako have a max limit they can reach based on your level, so do the kaijin. They can only go a stage above you at most.=
‘Well that’s good to-hold the fuck up,’ Zhen Liu paused, ‘you are implying this is a “I die, they die” situation, which I get, but what do you mean by worst than suicide? I mean…that’s death, game over, done. What’s worst than that?’
Unusually, Zhen Liu could now feel that both Logos and Pathos were in deadly serious moods.
=The Kaijin Lord serves as an anchor for their kaijin, in more ways than one.=
‘Undo?’
=In the rare event a kaijin lord dies before their kaijin, the kaijin will survive but will slowly…fall apart.=
‘Fall…apart,’, Zhen Liu repeated, slowly realizing the implications of their words. It didn’t stop Logos and Pathos from explaining.
=Even if the kaijin in question reached the cultivation stage of Aether Saint where they can leave a spirit behind after corporeal death, the lack of a core means even those rings will eventually erase themselves one by one.=
=Secondly, their minds become undone. Every art forgotten, every memory erased and any trace of knowledge or personality completely scrubbed.=
‘That’s horrifying…’
=Lastly, their bodies become… unstable.=
‘They turn back into the materials they were made of?’
=The alternative is that their bodies degenerate and twist themselves, turning into demented shadows of their former selves, with the savagery and power to match.=
‘Well that’s, wait, little one?’
=Sometimes the sheer amount of power inside of them is too much for their normal bodies to contain, so they grow…bigger.=
‘Huh…’
This was a lot of information to process for Zhen Liu.
When he asked the question he was under the assumption that maybe he was built different from previous lords or something, maybe that “his” Aether Master was actually a normal person’s definition for Aether Grandmaster…but no.
Turns out he was the equivalent of a human flood gate or chain that holds back an apocalyptic beast…granted these apocalyptic beasts were smart mouthed, sassy and essentially his…more than friends, less than family?
Then again… technically his current family wasn’t “his” family….
‘Wait, now’s not the time for existential dread…well additional dread, so bottom line is that I shouldn’t die, because the lives of my kaijin are dependent on me not dying and by so some absurd extension, the fate of the world too?’
‘Fuck you, anyways, I know there were other kaijin lords before me, has any of them died in such a manner that led to their kaijin getting…undone? Like the battle drunkard? Is it possible to re-anchor the kaijin of previous lords?’
=The Battle Drunkard’s kaijin are all either dead, hibernated or sealed away. Although with his soul still lingering on this plane, they’re considered stable.=
‘Foreshadowing!’
‘What the fuck…’
=And that last question…honestly? We don’t know.=
‘…what?’
‘Hmm.’
Zhen Liu was mildly disappointed at this answer, he was kind hoping to go on a whole dramatic adventure to reawaken some ancient kaijin warrior to be part of his retinue…and also tap into that old school kaijin power to probably skip some levels and cheese some future battles. He was just about to give up on the idea, until he remembered something that Logos and Pathos mentioned about the fates of previous kaijin.
‘Wait a minute…you guys just said some of the Battle Drunkard’s kaijin were sealed away somewhere. Does that apply to the other previous lords? Could those kaijin still be…stable in their sealed states, even if their previous lords are now dead?’
=<...huh.>=
For the second time in his new life, he had somehow manage to stump the two beings of unusual power and knowledge with what he felt was an obvious question.
‘I’m just gonna take a massive shot in the dark here..have you guys checked on the status of any of those sealed kaijins?,’ Zhen Liu asked. Only this time, he got a pretty quick answer.
‘Why?’
=Because their lords are dead, and no Kaijin Lord mean no connection.=
‘So…I’m a kaijin relay station, power supply and leash…all wrapped into one?’
‘I…I’m just gonna ignore this question for now,’ Zhen Liu stated while filing this info dump under the “WHY THE FUCK WASN’T THIS MENTIONED BEFORE” folder in his head.
‘Back to the topic about Frosttusk…so is he able to do armor thing too then?’
=Oh…no.=
‘What?’
‘What?!’
Everytime Zhen Liu got one question answered, he always seem to run into more…
