Chapter 437: One thing after the other.
[Wow, maestro. Your family is surprisingly handy in dealing with all of these pseudo-zakos,] Hurricroak praised.
‘Psuedo-zakos?’
[I mean yeah, we’re calling them fake zakos anyways and “pseudo: means fake so…pseudo-zakos.]
‘Huh…aight, I’ll allow it.’
[Milord, it appears your father and Grandmaster ranked uncles are making their moves,] Nepherage interjected, [Should we get involved now?]
‘Hold on for now, Nepherage. The bastard who sent these coral zombies haven’t made their own move yet, so neither will we. That being said…’
Zhen Liu was silent as he gazed at the inky depths, the moonlight barely illuminating even the faintest of waves. Not even all of the lights radiating from the steamship was able to pierce through this darkness.
‘I can’t help but wonder…what kind of kaijin was this abomination?’
[Does it matter if we’re going to have put them down?,] Razorstella asked.
‘Perhaps not,’ Zhen Liu answered promptly, however, the emotions that laced those words could best be described as…complicated.
It couldn’t be helped, after all, it’s not often one can see a proper example about what could happen to one’s abilities once one passes on…
________________________________________________
“By the hells, how many of these bastards are there?!,” Zhen Hai shouted as he shoulder threw yet another coral monster over the ship’s railings and into a a very unlucky group of coral monsters just as they were bout climb over and walk on the deck.
“Don’t know!,” Zhen Yue replied as she palm slammed a coral monster into pieces, “but I do know that we can’t keep this pace up forever.”
“Bah! We’ll be fine!,” Second Elder Zhen Hou said in an effort to put his daughter’s mind at ease, all while using one coral monster to bludgeon another to death. “These bastards may have us outnumbered, but we have them outmatched!”
At some point during this midnight raid, Zhen Hai had managed to regroup with Zhen Yue and a few of their uncles, including Zhen Yue’s father.
With their powers combined, the Aether Masters of the Zhen Clan managed to defeat several dozen of these brainless coral brutes. The only issue was, that there were still at least several hundred more.
There had been no causalities for the clan and crew yet, thanks in a part to smart coordination and timely action on the Aether Masters’ part, but the former reason could only apply for so long while the latter factor was dependent on the Masters having the stamina to last.
Either the flow of monsters had to be cut off from the source or the the intervention of even stronger fighters was needed.
“Ya know, I feel like I’d be less annoyed by these guys if they didn’t turn into mundane coral when defeated!”
“Zhen Hai, look out!”
“Oh shit!”
*Crack!*
“Xiao Hai, are you alright?”
“Phew! I am now, thank you Father.”
Luckily for the Zhen Clan, they had that latter option in spades.
Zhen Hai almost got blindsided by a large-sized coral monsters that appeared to have been covered in enough jagged seashells and broken coral pieces that if it had grappled anybody, it’d be the physical equivalent of getting hugged by an Iron Maiden.
Thankfully, his father Zhen Long managed to intervene in time and smashed the lumbering beast into pieces, as well as several dozen others with the same attack.
Similar scenarios like this was happening all over the ship as the Grandmaster elders, Zhen Yan and Zhen Lao intervened to prevent the deaths of their clansmen. Even Zhen Wang was getting into the swing of things, albeit, he didn’t really coordinate with the side branch elders.
Fully donned in their [Aether Armor], the three of them looked a bit like the heroes one would read about in old storybooks, especially when they were eradicating the coral monsters in such rapid succession.
“Wait…father, where is grandfa-uh, the patriarch?”
“Father’s getting ready to release a big move.”
“Oh.”
At the top of ship, above the fray yet still under his gaze, donned in his aether armor and wielding his armament, Zhen Shi was gathering up aether to let out a big move.
‘Need to get this right or I might hit someone that I shouldn’t…’
As an Aether Lord, it would have been incredibly easy and fast for Zhen Shi to gather up and condense a huge amount of aether and just blast everything to pieces with a single attack. However, he didn’t want to do that.
Instead, he opted to go a more complicated route and try to path his attack in a way that it gets rid of all of the invading coral monsters, without any causalities or collateral damage.
Luckily for him, he had a couple of factors working on his favor in order to facilitate this surgical task.
First, having spent several days just wandering the ship, Zhen Shi managed to memorize every nook, cranny and corner that composed the ship and recreate an almost perfect mental map of the entire vessel. He didn’t have any details about how all the rooms looked, but the monsters were attacking from outside anyways so it didn’t matter.
‘Gotta make sure to thread the needle there…’
Second, his aether armament, the [Leviathan Pounders] were one part gauntlet and one part giant magic chain that could stretch almost infinitely. As long as he knew what he was aiming for, he could essentially manipulate the chain anyways he wished.
‘Almost done…’
And last, but definitely not least, he wasn’t doing all of these crazy calculations alone.
{…}
‘I did not take that stove into account, thank you for reminding me….okay, I think that’ll do it.’
Zhen Shi took a deep breath as he focused his aether into the very ends of his chains, holding them in the middle, causing the shadowy silhouettes of sea serpents made of energy to manifest around them.
________________________________________________
[This feeling…]
Far beneath the waves, not too far away from the steamship, a strange figure was sitting and watching as the coral monsters it had raised were attacking the hateful vessel above him. By his side, a harpoon made from the bones of whales and coated with shark teeth. A weapon worthy of a [knight/vagabond] of the deep.
[How much longer…]
Patience was a virtue, but that was another’s purview, not his.
So when he felt the flux of aether above him, one tinted with a familiar energy, he felt his “heart” throb.
[Yes! This is it! There’s the big catch! Now I can finally reclaim my honor and some glory along with it!]
The figure proceeded to stand up from his seat and grab the harpoon embedded in the ground next to him.
As he did, he made sure to force his aether and [Chaos] into rapid circulation.
[How long has it been since I fought? How long has it been since I earned some glory?! Now I can slake my hunger for both!]
________________________________________________
Once he felt that his aether was properly suffused, he let loose his attack.
[Wild Hunt: Nidhogg!]
HISS!
Zhen Shi proceeded to drop his chains like he was releasing wild snakes, but instead of hitting the ground, the two shadow serpent chains proceeded to rush forward as if they were swimming in air.
The chains flew out for a couple moments before suddenly making sharp U-turns and flying straight towards the ship’s exposed hallways.
“Whoa! What the hell are those?!”
“That’s Patriarch Zhen Shi! He’s making a move.”
“Everyone, hit the deck!,” Zhen Shi commanded with an aether empowered voice.
“Ah fuck!”
Following his orders, everyone who was even mildly affiliated with Zhen Shi proceeded to stop whatever they were doing and dropped to the ground.
Once they did, a serpentine-like chain ripped through the air above them and proceeded to pierce through every single coral monster in a single pass.
“Holy shit!”
Weirdly enough, the coral monsters didn’t immediately fall apart when they got pierced by the chain, but they couldn’t exactly move either.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
Eventually, the chain stopped moving as it had pierced through the very last coral monsters that was invading.
“Pull!”
In a fluid motion, Zhen Shi rewound all of the chain he let out, pulling in all of the coral monsters like they were fish on a line and gathering them into two big, midair clumps on either side of him.
“Fly for me!”
With a wave of his hands, Zhen Shi launched the two balls of coral monsters far and away from the ship, back into the ocean below and causing two large splashes to occur simultaneously.
Zhen Shi let out a sigh as soon as the deed was done and was just about to let his guard down, but then…
Splash!
“Finally! A worthy opponent!,” A strange gargling voice called out.
“What in the nine hells?!”
{…!}
Moments before Zhen Shi could do so, some strange fish-man warrior, radiating the power of a peak Aether Grandmaster, suddenly leaped from the ocean and lunged at him with a harpoon made of whale bones!
Now if this was an ordinary Grandmaster, Zhen Shi wouldn’t have cared and just swatted the warrior away.
However, a certain voice in his head relayed to him something rather…unsettling.
{ThIss…oNeeE…IssSS…liKeee mEe…ChAosss…bLessssed…}
‘What?!’
