Chapter 391: Groaning Kaijin, Wild Brawl
[Oh fuck me sideways, did they get their brains back together?,] Hurricroak complained while staring at the encroaching Blue Shadow leaders.
As of this moment in time, Hurricroak, Frosttusk and Nepherage were all in rather compromising positions. Whatever the hell happened while they were in the [Five Shadow Kings] formation, had considerably drained them of their stamina, their aether and even [Chaos].
While they weren’t rendered unconcious from their experience, they weren’t exactly feeling all too great at the moment and could only lay paralyzed as the four Grand Masters they had mentally tortured were coming straight towards them.
Surprisingly, the four of them still had their aether armor activated but from just how incredibly ragged/broken it looked in places, it was clear that they weren’t in the most stable of mindsets. Mixed with the fact that they were still repeating certain phrases like broken records did not do anything to counteract that point.
“Just…a little…faster…”
“I’m sorry…please… I’m sorry…please…”
“Don’t stop…keep…going…”
[Don’t…think…so…they still… mumbling…]
[Hah! Looks like all those decades of desensitization and emotional erasure can’t do shit on a spiritual level, assholes!]
What made this moment darkly funny to the kaijin was that due to their mental/spiritual shenanigans, they had a glimpse into the memories of the four leaders of the Blue Shadows, and learned how they were the sixth generation of a long line of weird indoctrination assassination bullshit, that normally involved taking in orphans and turning them into murder machines.
While the kaijin’s hands weren’t exactly clean, the ones coming towards them with broken armor were absolutely filthy.
[I think they just recognize that we’re the reason why they’re currently feeling like shit both mentally and physically,] Nepherage noted, [and are now running on instinct to try and kill us. I imagine having your empathy and ability to feel emotions again after years of suppression is a massive sense of whiplash.]
[Yeah, alright, quick question,]Hurricroak interjected, [but when did you start getting smarter? Because I thought your stats were geared towards fast action and violence.]
[They are, I have just been reading more to round it out.]
[Ah…by the way, when do y’all think those four will notice the two angry lady kaijin coming towards them like arrows from hell.]
[That…]
[Venom Lance Assassin!]
[Tornado Buster!]
[About five seconds.]
“Huh? Whoa!”
“Bitches!”
Despite having their brains and spirits poked and prodded at for gods know how long, the four Blue Shadow leaders still had enough wits to them to avoid the sudden attacks coming from behind them.
The four of them narrowly escaped as a barrage of lances made of poisonous aether and a tornado impacted the position they were in just moments prior.
[Fucking hell! I told you we should have AoE attacks!]
[Oh it’s fine, we got them off of the others anyways. Are you three alright by the by?]
After their attacks had missed Archanidame and Lacerage landed squarely where their attacks had impacted, facing off two warriors each. They could have just grabbed the other kaijin and ran, but that might have invited their opponents to strike them while they were running, and frankly put, they didn’t want to deal with that.
[Oh we’re fine,] Hurricroak answered, [sensory deprivation just sucks balls.]
[Good to know.]
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“There’s another demon?! Who the fuck did Miss Venus piss off?!”
“Who the fuck cares?! We got monsters to fight!”
“Uhh, speaking of, is it just me or are these guys even tougher to take down then before?”
ROOAAARRR!
“GAH! THEY HAVE SONIC ATTACKS?!”
ZAP!
“And lightning apparently!’
“They were holding back?!”
Prior to Razorstella’s rather dramatic debut, the zakos summoned by Archanidame and Lacerage had a singular objective instilled in their minds: disrupt the formation, free the others.
Now this sounds like a fairly straightforward task: find the guys maintaining the formation, kick them in the balls, run, unfortunately, zakos aren’t exactly the brightest creatures in existence.
They’ll fulfill any task you give them, but how they do so will be rather crude and primitive, unless otherwise directed.
Your average zako will straight up ignore other objectives and/or distractions in order to fulfill their objectives, while also fail to leverage some of their innate weapons and abilities in order to fulfill their objective.
Unless their ability is explicitly connected to what they’re needing to accomplish, they will not use them.
As such, when Archanidame and Lacerage left them to go deal with the formation while they themselves left to fight with Fia, the zakos proceeded to throw themselves like zombies to a car alarm. Granted, unlike zombies, they were significantly tougher to put down.
Because of this reckless behavior on the zakos part, the lesser ranked members of the Blue Shadows managed to hold them at a stalemate, taking out a few of the zakos and turning them back into the random pieces of junk that initially made them, by making use of their superior tactics and coordination to keep the beasts at bay…but then Razorstella showed up.
Her sudden appearance inside of the [Five Shadow Kings] Formation and subsequent breaking of both it and the shield array had essentially completed the only objective the zakos had to think about.
As such, the zakos were then freed up to focus on the one thing they were designed to do: rampage.
Untethered by the need to fulfill some vague objective, the zakos were free to fight like the monsters they were made to be and leverage the abilities they were born to use.
Whether or not this was a good thing was to be determined.
On the plus side, zakos could also be leverage for construction and repair purposes if directed properly, but that was a worry for another time.
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“Shit shit shit!”
“Keep your head down, keep your head down!”
“Incoming!”
“RAH!”
“GAH!”
Simos narrowly dodged a wild swing coming from one of the weird skeletal monsters that had appeared after the arrival of those weird insect demons.
Now the normal reaction for a brave warrior in this situation would be to swing back and try to knock the skeleton’s head off.
However, Simos was definitively not a brave warrior.
“FUCKING, WAIT UP FOR ME!”
“MOVE FASTER!”
“BOTH OF YOU, SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
After he had managed to dodge the attack, he immediately kept running forward and towards his companions, Victor and Graff, who were also dodging and ducking every attack that came their way.
The moment Fia Venus decided to ditch the three of them to go exercise some violent catharsis against the new demons that showed, they decided it was a good idea to get the hell out of dodge, real fast.
However, absolutely none of them expected even more monsters to show up out of nowhere, specifically of the undead variety.
They had each heard the rumors of undead monsters being found in wandering ruins or in tainted battlefields, but they had never been in either one in order to confirm such claims.
Granted, if they were going to stop doing crimes for a living, such information was going to be helpful…sort of.
It was a known fact that wandering ruins tend to lead to money and power, so it wasn’t a terrible idea to go hunting for one if one wished to have a more direct form of a life changing experience…provided one survives such an experience.
Speaking of survival…
“Are we even remotely close to the district’s exit, yet?,” Graff asked Victor, who was technically leading the trio, “because I swear the fighting is getting crazier by the second.”
“Think so, whoa!,” Victor answered while deflecting a scream-based attack coming from one of the ghost monsters, “But there’s a possibility Miss Venus and that crazy knife demon is gonna be in that direction.”
“Uhh…why?”
[Falling Star Kick!]
[Bone Devil’s Claw!]
BOOM!
The sound of two aether arts colliding in the air several dozen feet above them, followed by an unusually dark colored explosion, served as a means to answer Graff’s question.
“That’s why.”
“Shit.”
________________________________________________
Bang!
Clash!
Clang!
“Come on ya washed up diva! Don’t you got anything more interesting in your reptoire!”
“Insolent whelp!”
From the moment the insect demons handed off the battle to the demon calling herself, “Razorstella”, Fia had been rendered thoroughly miserable.
“Stand still and die already!”
“Fuck you!”
“Rargh!”
Fia could detect that she was significantly stronger than this infuriating new opponent of hers, by at least several rings worth and a stronger formula to boot, but for some inexplicable reason, she couldn’t land a single fucking hit.
[Howling Golden Phantom Strike!]
SKREEEE!
Fia swung her axe with wild abandon as a golden screaming phantom made of aether manifested around her axe for a moment before being sent flying towards Razorstella.
“Oooooh! What a flashy move!,” Razorstella praised, “too bad it’s all flash with no bang!”
The phantom flew towards Razorstella’s position and, normally, it would have easily enveloped her in a horrifying embrace that would have shocked this demon down to it’s hypothetical soul.
Just as it was about to hit however, Razorstella immediately strode directly towards it and merely pirouetted the attack around herself, redirecting the attack back towards Fia like she it was the most natural motion in the world.
As Fia dispelled the attack to avoid getting hit, her mind began to churn for an idea.
‘Fucking fine! If “Fia” can’t break you, then I’ll guess I’ll have to let someone else take the stage…’
Far away and out of sight of this current brawl, a strange trunk tucked away in a dressing room closet, began to rumble…
