Chapter 316: Coincidental Thy Name is Thee
“GAAAAAAAAHHHHH!,”Grub screamed in pain while thinking, ‘wait…why does this feel so familiar?’
As Grub flailed in pain, a long faded memory began to stir, about a moment similar to this one… granted the details were a tad… different.
‘It… can’t…be…!’
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*Bing-Bong*
The writer would like it to be known that technically the next few scenes are happening in-sync with one another with small differences between them due to differences in time.
Please think of the next few scenes as a “spot the difference” and not the writer being a lazy piece of-.
|STOP BAD-MOUTHING ME!|
Make me, bitch.
|Why, you-!|
CHOKING ONLY MAKES ME STRONGER!
*Bing-Bong*
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“You annoying little gnat! I’ll crush you and swallow you whole!,” Frederick yelled while bringing down a fist enhanced with [Chaos] down like a meteoric hammer.
Unfortunately for him, his opponent saw this coming a mile away and then some.
{Jump to the right and spin!}
‘Right!’
*SLAM!*
*SLASH!*
“GAAAAAAAH!”
Following the saber’s advice, Rocko narrowly avoided Frederick’s meaty hand and struck at the latter’s arm with a burning spinning slash.
Rocko had no idea where the flames were coming from exactly since all the aether arts he knew were Corporeal class, with his own aether expression being Aeroqi, but he had thrown the idea of caring about any of that out of the metaphorical window after his saber started talking.
“You fucking little-huh?”
Frederick was just about to swing his arm down again, but as he retracted his hand from it’s position, he noticed that his limb wasn’t regenerating like it was before. Instead, it was now significantly more…limp.
Frederick stretched his senses out to determined what had happened to his hand, or more specifically the tarantula acting as his hand. His face turned downright ugly as it dawned on him that one of his “hands” was now dead.
“Your hands are actually misshapen Rock Biter Tarantulas, right?,” Rocko suddenly answered, compelled by the sheer confusion on Frederick’s face.
“Imma guess you probably incorporated them for their tough shells and strong grasp, but you should probably know that one good slash at about…three hands passed it’s eyes? It’ll instantly kill them, because that’s where their brains are. Wasn’t entirely sure if their anatomy was the same because of the deformities, but hey, I was right,” Rocko answered in a strangely smug tone.
‘The aforementioned brains also mixes well with honey, but he doesn’t need to know that,’ Rocko thought to himself while still trying to look smug.
Evidently, it was goading kinda worked.
“You! You detestable little prick! [Swarm Barrage]!”
Instead of trying to smash Rocko again, and risk losing the use of his other hand, Frederick decided to be a touch more clever this time around and manifested several hornet-shaped projectiles from his flesh and fired them at Rocko in a rapidfire manner.
‘Oh shit, how am I supposed to dodge all of that?!’
{You don’t. Double-handed overhead chop, now!}
‘How is that going to-?!’
{Just trust me!}
‘Bah! Fine!’
Rocko grabbed the saber by the handle with both hands and swung it straight down overhead into the floor beneath him. As he did, a wild energy he couldn’t identify began to stir and caused a massive pillar of flames to form in front of him.
Before even a singular wasp could touch him, they were incinerated by the flames.
‘How the fuck did you do all of that?!’
{No idea! But let’s go use the fact that he’s also flabbergasted to attack!}
‘Flabber-what?’
{It means confused, now get him!}
‘Okay!’
Spurred on by his saber, and perhaps feeling a tad cocky from how this battle was going his way in a surprisingly easy manner, Rocko rushed forward and readied himself to slice this giant bug-like bastard in two…well, at least kill the insects acting like his torso muscles.
‘Those are either Grey-Horned Atlas Beetles or Black-Wing Hercules Beetles and there’s no way to tell which in this lighting…alright then, let’s light this place up!’
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“Yuuu FUCcKkkInG DeGenerateee!,” Grub screamed while swinging down a tentacle made of centiepedes down on Zhen Liu’s position like a giant falling pillar of pure insectophobia.
‘Fucking nope!,’ Zhen Liu thought as he prepared to dodge the attack. While he might has been able to block the attack, he really really didn’t want to risk punching or touching this thing without gauntlets.
‘Things to invest in later…wait, maybe I should get claws instead?’
*SLAM!*
*Scratch*
“Gah!”
Before the tentacle could completely crush him, Zhen Liu proceeded to cartwheel to the left as a means to quickly avoid the incoming attack. As an unintended consequence, Zhen Liu had also accidentally slashed part of the tentacle with the rusty machete in his hand. That being said, Zhen Liu’s current weapon of choice wasn’t looking too hot right now.
‘And this thing is already chipped, great! I only got maybe a dozen or so more attacks with this thing before it breaks into a million tiny pieces, ‘Zhen Liu thought to himself as he quickly glanced at the rusted blade. Perhaps he could ask Logos and Pathos to help make him some weapons other than that weird Godoku Gourd…which he still hasn’t tested yet.
He was initially planning to do that tonight but then all of this shit happened. It was a pretty good excuse, but an excuse nonetheless.
‘I need to figure out a system to remember to do shit…wait, daily planners even a thing in this world? …Wow, going from multiple voices back to one is incredibly lonely.’
“REEEEEEEE!”
‘And then there’s this asshole!’
“Fooookiinnngggg Paraasittteeee!”
Grub retracted the tentacles that failed to squash his opponent and began to undualte as it’s body underwent some form of internal change that Zhen Liu couldn’t figure out, visually at least.
He could smell something nasty was brewing, literally.
‘Ugh, smells like rotten fish…oh wait, hold up…’
That being said, he also noted that the undulations and increasingly more rotten smell was accompanied by a steady increase in aether activity…and what felt like weakened [Chaos]?
‘Oh that can’t be good.’
Once the aether and [Chaos] reached a peak, the many, many faces that decorated Grub’s bulbous body began to open their mouths one after the other.
[Bile…Buster…Barrage!]
*PLORP!*
“OH FUCKING GROSS!”
“DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEEEEEEEEEE!,” Grub screamed as ball after ball of hardened bile fired off one after the other.
While Zhen Liu wasn’t sure if insects had bile, he really didn’t want to correct the giant mass of grossness.
‘Shit! I can’t even dodge them in a predictable-wait.’
The attacks weren’t even being aimed in any particular direction, he just fired haphazardly in every direction, making it hard to predict where and when a particular projectile will make impact.
Making matters worst, Nausicaa was definitely in the line of fire of at least several of those projectiles!
In this moment where someone else’s life was on the line, Zhen Liu’s brain went into overload as he tried to think of a solution.
‘Oh fuck me! If she dies from fallout then that would make this entire battle pointless! But there’s no way I’m gonna make it in time to get over there and get her out of the way! I’m only one per-hold up.’
Evidently, Zhen Liu was so focused on “quality” of his kaijin, that he forgot that “quantity” could work in a pinch….and he happened to have something in his hands that he could turn into numerous pieces of “cheap material”.
‘This had better fucking work!,’ Zhen Liu cursed as he smashed the rusty machete in his hands to pieces and grabbed a handful of the metal sharapnel that formed as a result.
He channeled as much [Chaos] as he could into the metal shards before throwing them in Nausicaa’s direction as hard as he could.
As the shards of rusted metal flew through the air, they suddenly began to expand in size and develop into vaguely humanoid shapes.
‘BLOCK THE ATTACK AND GET HER ASS TO SAFETY, NOW!’
“Groooaaaannn.”
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“DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!,” Grub kept screaming as the bile balls kept firing.
He would have honestly kept screaming as the balls of bile kept flying, but then he noticed a spike in energy happening near him that he hadn’t felt in years.
“WaaIITtt…cHAaaOsssS? Isss tHaaat…Noooo, It’sssss DiFFerenT?!”
When Grub had fired off his barrage of bile, he had closed his eyes in order to focus on fermenting the energy necessary for this attack, and then kept them closed as he fired it.
But now that he sensed [Chaos], he had abruptly opened his eyes to determine the source, only to his eyes go wide when he saw that amount of combatants on the battlefield had suddenly changed.
“FiRRSssT TwOooOo, nowwwws TeN?!”
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Zako Type: Metal(Weapon)- Rusty
Combat Strength: Novice
Abilities: Nasty Scratch – Brittle Reborn
Description:
A foot soldier created from the nascent [Wrath] found in all weapons. This particular type is also tainted with the [Sloth] of rust.
Evolution chance: 15%
