Chapter 379: Five Minutes Free-for-All
=Yup.=
=I want to say…two to ten minutes.=
=Well, applying “Conservation of Ninjutsu”, two minutes if they realize that they’re horribly outmatched, five minutes if they fail to realize that poison doesn’t work on inhuman kaijin made of various inorganic materials and/or technically have the livers of five different animals, and ten minutes if that creepy trafficker bitch turns out to be what we think she is…that or she is actually packing some super powerful aether tool.=
=Basically.=
=We could…but I don’t think those three are gonna be a problem anymore.=
=The sheer fear in their eyes as the kaijin, to quote, “squared up” with them…I know that look very well.=
=In-wait…”innit”?=
=Got it…=
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‘Well shit, looks like they decided to rip and tear… Archanidame, Lacerage. Need y’all on extraction in case shit goes side ways.’
[Huh? Aren’t those five like super dangerous battle savants? Why you need us to do extraction?,] Lacerage asked
[Because they’re about as subtle as freight trains with nitro boosted engines,] Archanidame answered, [I believe he wants us on standby in-case there’s additional collateral damage.]
‘Exactly. Door opens in two, get ready.’
[As you will.]
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“Go go go!”
“Shit!”
“Fuck!”
As soon as the possessed demon child and the shadow leader’s fists collided with one another, an explosion of Caligos and thunder aether rocked the warehouse and shocked the senses of many of the participating fighters, throwing off any coordination, planned or otherwise.
Granted, the battle between the demons and the shadows was so chaotic and messy that coordination was very hard to do…unless you could communicate telepathically and being quite literally made of the same energy that was produced from this insanity.
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[Gah! By the aether, Hurricroak! Control thy output, I almost blasted Razor Maiden with a blast of lava!]
[If you’re going to do that, please fire it at the mammoth man, he’s the only heat absorbent one around here.]
[It’s fine…starting to get…a warm-up….they keep trying to stab me…]
[Well excu~se me~, but most of my powers pertain to sound, mi amiga. Big and loud is kind of the name of the game for me.]
[ I thought it was…shape-shifting.]
[It’s both, I am a multi-talented individual who’s abilities no known bounds.]
[Stop humble bragging and get back to fighting! I need someone to throw a person at the shadow chain asshole! Gah! Someone just shot me in my fucking eyehole! That one’s gonna die.]
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Victor, Simos and Graff were doing their absolute best to get the hell out of dodge and away from this warehouse. Thankfully their meager aether signatures were masked by the sheer power of the arts being exercised in this moment.
“How the fuck are we going to get out of here?!”
“I don’t know, but keep your head down. Don’t want an errant weapon getting deflected our way to accidently land in our noggins-”
“AHHHHH!”
“-Or get bonked in the head by a person being tossed.”
“Fuuuuuck!”
“Oi! Looks like the door we used to enter is being left alone, we go through there and get to the streets. Move!”
Normally the three of them at this juncture would have been stopped by either the floor beneath them being turned into magma, getting cold blasted into icicles, electrocuted into submission or…straight up stabbed.
(Un)fortunately, the ones capable of performing such feats of entrapment. for that kind of thing were bit preoccupied dealing with significantly more competent/murderous versions of what this trio technically were.
The three of them eventually made it to the promised door, feelings of hope bubbling inside them as the thought of them being able to escape this madness took root in their minds.
“Okay, once we get through that door,” Victor began to explains, “each of us will go in separate directions and until everything is quiet. After that, we’ll meet up in Rot Oyster. Agreed?”
“Yeah, yeah!”
“Better than anything I can cook up right now.”
“Alright…three, two, one go!”
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The first strike between Hurricroak and the shadow leader ended in a stalemate, as neither warrior could overwhelm the other with their attack. Once this fact became clear, the two of them immediately disengaged with one another, in order to prevent the other’s respective allies to interfere, and think of an alternative plan of attack.
That and also traded barbed words with another.
“What’s the matter tall, dark and grusome? Need a timeout or something?”
“I just figured the child deserved a little time for a snack break.”
“Oh how thoughtful, I’ll be sure to recall that while I snack on your fucking soul.”
If any other being said that last threat, it’d be considered an exaggeration.
The shadow leader took this time to not only figure out his own plan attack, but also consider the status of his subordinates.
So far…it wasn’t good.
‘What is taking them so long? This farce should have ended not even ten seconds ago… unless…oh no…’
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As the battle between the shadows and the kaijin raged on, the former were starting to get less and less confident about their chances of victory.
At the start of the encounter, they had already suffered casualties in the form of one of their elite members getting absolutely bodied by a child’s punch to the gut.
They figured it was due to a sneak attack or something, otherwise he wouldn’t have been taken out so easily.
But as they began to exchange blows with these so-called demons, they began to realize that maybe it was less sneaky and more…brute force.
While they couldn’t confirm it in regards to the purple armored child fighting their boss, they could confirm that the demons he had control over were essentially overpowered.
Between the red horned woman that seemed to have a reactive battle instinct stronger than even the most blooded veteran, the mammoth man that seemed to be as sturdy as a wall made of steel and freezing blows that hit harder than cannon balls and the creepy ballerina made of swords, the shadows weren’t exactly having a good time.
Making matters worst, they realized that one of their greatest trump cards was being rendered moot.
Multiple times the shadows managed to get the glancing blows necessary to make sure their weapons made contact with “flesh” and deliver their poisonous payloads.
The kusarigama wielding Aether Masters managed to land spinning slashes on both of the red one’s arms, the mammoth man had been stabbed multiple times at this point and the ballerina even got shot in the eye with a crossbow bolt.
Unfortunately, nothing seemed to have happened as the red horned woman used that opportunity to entangle the chains pull in the users and deliver devastating palm blows to their sternums, the mammoth man grabbed one of the shadows and threw him at another shadow, while the ballerina merely pulled the bolt out of her and rushed towards the shadow who shot at her and proceeded to almost decapitate the man with a single kick.
Granted, it was equally demoralizing hearing the distinctive pop of their Bronze grade defensive aether tools breaking due to a single blow from these demons.
The only solace they could take was that none of them had died…yet, but it was rapidly becoming clearer and clearer that they needed to do something drastic to turn the tide of battle, lest they were wiped out or humiliated.
As such, one of the shadows on the periphery of the scene disappeared in order to request permission for something…big.
As well as warn Miss Venus about what they were planning to do.
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‘How the fuck are the Blue Shadows losing?! They’re supposed to be elite killers!,’ Fish thought to herself as she saw the battle before her unfold.
In all her years as a smuggler/illicit trafficker, Fia could attest to the fact that the Blue Shadows, the elite assassin unit within the grand organization she worked for, were top of the line in terms of killing opponents, capturing targets and maintaining defensive secrecy of their wards.
Which is why it was absolutely mind-boggling to her that a child and some “demons” could somehow overpower them.
For the past five minutes, these elite warriors were getting their asses handed to them. If Fia hadn’t had success with them in the past, she’d think they were just weaklings.
‘That tears it!,’ she thought to herself, ‘its about time I ditch the waiting and get involved my-.’
“Lady Fia.”
“Huh?”
Before Fia could get involved herself, one of the shadows suddenly appeared to her side.
“What are you-?”
“Lady Fia, please clear the premises. It has been deemed that the current battlefield is unsuitable for our warriors. As such, we’re going to be…readjusting it.”
“Oh… very well then.”
With the warning received, Fia took one last look at the child and the demons, a cruel smile on her face.
‘You all said you came from the darkest pit of Hell? Then I suppose this should be a nice trip home…unless you were lying…’
