Chapter 378: A moment of mercy, before a merciless slaughter
‘Huh…on the one hand, I feel somewhat honored and happy that the kaijin weren’t going to just murder everybody in the building and leave devastation in their wake, on the other… their delivery could use some work.
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What the fuck?
As soon as the purple armored child finished his question, not a single person knew how to react, let alone, respond to this one very weird moment.
This wasn’t the first time the shadows had outnumbered and surrounded somebody before.
Normally, such encounters would end with the target’s complete and total surrender, they’d fight to the death as they succumbed to the poison coating the shadow’s weapons, or… that was it.
They never had anyone offer them mercy, especially when the person making the offer was definitely outnumbered and was a nine year old child. Granted, the aforementioned child was accompanied by literal demons but they were surrounded too.
Honestly, if they weren’t brutally indoctrinated as hard as they were, they’d probably find the situation funny and laught about it. Of course, there was one person who could laugh about the whole situation.
“Hahahahahahahaha! Are you-are you toging kidding me right now?,” Fia asked in disbelief, “you’re offering us, mercy? Are you aware of what kind situation you’re truly in or are you just plain and simple stupid?”
Geo, however, proceeded to just ignore her and repeat his question with some details added.
“Y’all sure you don’t wanna heed my words. I know at least some of y’all must have families, secret lovers, illegitimate love children or a…fucking cat or something.”
The shadows maintained their silent demeanor with their weapons held tight, and coldness in their eyes.
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[Huh…think they’re a bunch of child soldier converts, or…]
[I was going to go with extreme mind break tactics.]
[Cultists…]
[Either way, I’m going to give them one last chance.]
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“Last chance y’all, free mercy card. Take this opportunity to leave your life as creepy shadow guards behind and go back to the loving arms of friends and family…or ya know…pet stray cat,” Jasper asked one last time.
“Enough of your blathering! Do you seriously fail to comprehend the situation that you are in, you arrogant child?!,” Fia screamed, this being the second time tonight she had lost her cool.
It was one thing to have someone interrupt her business deals, it was another thing entirely when the aforementioned interupter was ignoring her and being a continual annoyance.
At this point, it became abundantly clear that these shadows were either unmoved by the suggestion of mercy, thought that their opponent was full of smoke and bullshit, or, tragically, didn’t have any form of social life outside of their work as creepy shadow assassins.
Jasper and the others felt bad for them…at least for a moment.
“Okay….high impact violence it is!,” Jasper declared as he caused his aether to rapidly flare up, and launching himself forward with a balled up fist
Sensing the immediate threat, Fia gave the order before preparing to fight herself.
“Kill them all!”
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[Beheading Shadow Strike!]
With the orders given, a pair of shadows armed with sabers proceeded to coat their blades with a layer of Caligos aether and swing at a speed faster than any mortal eye could register.
They aimed to end this farce as quickly as possible…too bad for them, their opponent was thinking the same thing.
[Magma Impact!]
*BOOM!*
*CLANG!*
“What?!”
Before the blades could come into contact with Nepherage’s neck, small concentrated explosions occured at her palms and shot her arms upward directly into the path of the incoming blades, blocking and deflecting them as if they were swinging at a stone pillar.
Not wasting this opportunity for a second, Nepherage retracted her arms for a moment before sticking them back out with her palms facing their abdomen while entering into a horse stance.
[Jade Cannon]
The next moment, a pair of spiked ball shaped chunks of jade the size of bowling balls manifested in the palms of her hand and proceeded to launch towards the exposed abdomens of the saber wielding shadows.
The shadows were sent flying in opposite directions into several large shipping crates The distinctive sound of an energy shield being popped could be heard from their respective locations.
“Two down…” Nepherage muttered as two more shadows with significantly denser aether leaped down from above armed with kusarigama shaped weapons, swinging the blades down in Nepherage’s head.
“Two to go. [Rockadillo Strike!]”
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[Piercing Darkness!]
From four different directions, four bronze spears coated in darkness struck forward, looking as if they were invisible and attempted stabbed directly into Frosttusk’s sides.
Much to the shadows’ confusion, the mammoth man didn’t even attempt to block or dodge the incoming spears, he just stood there.
Crack!
“What the fuck?!”
The four spear-wielding warriors expected to hear scream of pain, armoring being pierced or flesh being torn…they did not expect their spears to be broken as the shafts bent beyon their breaking points and the spear heads being rendered into dull paperweights as they made contact with Frosttusk’s skin.
“My…turn…,” Frosttusk rumbled as he lifted a singular foot, “[Icicle…Flower]!”
Crack!
“Gah!”
With an earth-shattering stomp, the ground beneath Frosttusk’s feet exploded into a dozen or so icicle spears that shot towards his former assailants like a spike trap.
Two of the shadows managed to throw up their guards in time to avoid getting stabbed, being bounced away by the sheer concussive force of the spears making impact, while another one managed to narrowly dodge as several icicles ripped open several frosbitten wounds into his flesh.
As for the last…well, he wasn’t repeatedly stabbed by the spears, he was unfortunately got caught in the “freezing” part of the attack.
Blood could be seen dripping from the shadow’s leg stump, while a leg encased in ice could be seen mixed in with the icicles.
“Come…on…make…me…feel… something!”
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[Binding Darkness!]
Several small arrays of aethers manifested around a singular caster as he made several hand seals.
Once he was finished, several chains of made of darkness came shooting out of the miniature areas and attempted to entangle Razor Maiden like a fish in a net.
Fucking hate sneaky types!,” Razor Maiden hissed as she sliced through the chains with a swing of her claws. As she did however, a second shadow launched an aether manipulated chakram at her neck in an attempt to decapitate the distracted puppet kaijin.
However, she could hear it coming before it even had a chance to get too close for her liking.
Going with the flow of the chakram’s rotation, Razor Maiden proceeded to pirouette herself in a manner that caused her neck to gently spin around the spinning bladed disk and giving her the opportunity to catch it in her claws instead.
As the chakram spun around her finger, she kicked up a leg and threw the chakram back at whoever threw it.
“At least fight fucking fair, you shadowy bastards!,” Razor Maiden shouted as the chakram went flying back to it’s bewildered thrower. The would-be tosser had to juke his head to the side as his own weapon almost struck him right between the eyes.
“Alright you shadowy fuckwads! You ready to put on a show for little ole me? At least try to be a bit more eye-catching!”
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*Bing-Bong*
The author of this work would like to make it known that for the upcoming scene that while it’s technically Hurricroak possessing Jasper’s body for the entirety of this fight, that for the sake of easier reading, they shall be referred to as just “Hurricroak”, but the pronouns used will be “he”…was this reminder really necessary? Most of the people reading this have some form of object permanence.
|It helps with being called out for plot holes.|
Ah.
*Bing-Bong*
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As Hurricroak rushed towards Fia’s face, he began to concentrate more and more aether into his fist, causing the aether armor around that portion to bulk up and look more formidable…and subsequently look like speakers were forming around the base of his wrist.
Fia was just about to throw up her down armor and intercept the attack, but was stopped by the appearance of the shadow with the more detailed mask stepping forward and blocking her.
“This brat has dishonored my shadows with an impudent sneak attack and then offer us mercy. Apologies milady, but this cannot go unpunished.”
“…very well, have at it.”
“Much obliged. [Armor On!]
The shadow leader quickly donned his own aether armor, looking downright demonic in his own right as the blue mask on his face seemed to merge with the armor, making the man look like an oni.
Once it was fully equipped, the shadow leader rushed forward as dark energy concentrated into his fingertip.
“Die for me!”
“You first, bitch!”
[Black Aether Finger!]
[Bass Blaster Knuckle!]
Bwwooooooom!
An explosion of sound echoed through the warehouse as the collision of shadow and thunder occured in the middle.
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“Welp, this is clearly my opportunity to escape. Simos, Graff! We’re getting the fuck out of here!”
“Huh?”
