Chapter 453: Pearl Scale on the Horizon
[Dammit!]
[Told…you…]
[In retrospect…this outcome does make the most sense.]
Evidently, the kaijin, Logos and Pathos had all placed bets on who amongst Zhen Liu’s current love interests would be the first to ask him how to use [Chaos].
=Unfair advantage, Pathos. Lady Jin Fang is our lord’s girlfriend and is basically by his side practically everyday. Of course she’d be the first of the consorts to make that request.=
=Offering to teach someone “forbidden” knowledge is proper courtmanship material!=
=Bah!=
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Pear Scale Harbor.
Located in the Pearl Scale Empire, embedded as a part of the Shining Coastline, Pearl Scale Harbor wasn’t the biggest port in the entire empire, but it was the most prestigious.
The reason being?
Nobody knows exactly.
Supposedly, if you believe the history books provided by the imperial government, Pearl Scale Harbor was the very first place that the Pearl Emperor arrived to when he came to the surface world from the depths of the Undersea Kingdoms.
Hence why this was the only harbor in the entire empire that carries the same name.
One of the more hearsay beliefs is that when the harbor was just a small fishing village some several hundred years ago, it was slowly built into what it is now via the instruction and guidance of a powerful aether warrior, who’s origin was shrouded in mystery.
Was this warrior born in this village, wanting to make it as grand and majestic as possible out of a sense of community and gratitude?
Did he come from across the sea and wanted to raise the place up out of falling in love with the view and maybe a peasant girl who lived there?
Powerful aether warriors did all have habits of building up urban locale for the sake of creating havens of safety and learning for themselves, their kin and even their friends.
But there is one more supposed origin about why Pearl Scale Harbor exists that is a touch more…tragic.
Supposedly, centuries ago, Pearl Scale Harbor was once known as Whirl Stone City.
It was a grand old place, where merchants from all over the world would come and sell their wares, giving the locals and other visitors access to all sorts of exotic goods that could only be found on other continents.
However, one of the greatest treasures one could find here also happened to be the city’s namesake, whirl stones.
Whirl stones were small, cyan colored stones that didn’t look all too impressive at a glance save for a distinctive whirl that decorated their surface.
But what made these stones truly special was the fact that these stones could be infused with aether, anima, dragon force or any energy that was warrior has accessed to and be released as a blast in the shape of a whirl.
This doesn’t sound all too impressive on its own, any warrior can launch a spinning blast of aether or anima no problem and there were plenty of treasures out there that allowed one to store away their power with ease, but it’s a different story if someone has access to multiple types of energy.
The thing about whirl stones were that they could store multiple types of energy and even combine them into creating new types of energy based on what was inputted.
The most commonplace combination was aether and anima being mixed together into something owners of this stone called “whirl energy”.
Not the most creative name in the universe, but the effects more than made up for it.
This strange combination energy could be used to enhance the properties of arts and attacks of any type, provided the aforementioned attack happened to involve one of the component energies.
It was thanks to this unusual treasure, found only in this particular city that the place prospered into a beacon of civilization and commerce for all the world to see.
At least, for a little awhile.
Nobody knew what happened or how it happened, but one faithful day, the entirety of Whirl Stone City just…disappeared.
No rubble as proof there were buildings, no wreckages as proof of vehicles being present, there weren’t even any bodies to prove anyone had live there.
Just an empty coastline for miles and miles to see.
Most people would associate such disappearances to warriors fighting, the aether going wild or if they’re really unlucky, a wandering ruin manifesting right on top of the place for a brief moment before disappearing.
But the strange thing was, there were no energy signatures either.
No traves of aether, anima, dragon force, not even that weird energy associated with wandering ruins.
It was like the whole place was just…erased from reality.
However…there is one story, one figure, one title that gets brought up again and again and again when it comes to the Whirl Stone City story.
It’s a title that is both reversed and feared.
It is a figure that no one can get a clear view of.
It is a story that many can’t help but wonder if they were real or not.
The one person that would know anything about Whirl Stone and Pearl Scale’s history as a whole…The Invulnerable Storm Queen.
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“Xiao Chang…why are we here?”
“Like…do you mean that philosophically or physically, Gan Gan? Because if it’s the former, I am of the belief that we are on this world for the sheer purpose of trying to figure out your question in the first place.”
“Have you been hanging around those Buddhist monks again?”
“…maybe.”
“Bruh.”
In the early morning, just half mile or so away from the shores of Pearl Scale Harbor, a pair of fishermen, Xiao Chang and Gan Gan, were busy plying their trade…mostly.
It was an hour before sunrise and this pair of fisherman had been out on the water, in a not-so-great fishing boat, about two hours before even then.
Frankly put, their fishing weren’t exactly good right now.
“Anyways, I meant physically jackass,” Gan Gan complained.
“We’ve been out here for like…three hours and we haven’t gotten a single bite. I’m pretty certain even the fucking fish are sleeping in right now.”
“Dude, just trust me,” Xiao Chang said to mollify his friend, “we gotta up this early in order to get ahead of the curve man. Besides, I figured something like this would happen so I brought this with me.”
Xiao Chang went inside the ship’s cabin for a moment before opening a chest inside to bring out what appeared to be a melon size metal contraption attached to a rope.
Gan Gan looked confused the moment his friend brought it out.
“What the fuck is that thing?”
“This, my foul mouthed friend, is known as an amplification bomb,” Xiao Chang said with pride, “Rust Tortoise from the clock shop gave it to me as a gift for helping him out.”
“Okay…what’s it do?”
“Check this out. All we gotta do, is press this button here, record a loud sound, and then when we toss it in the water, it’ll release a super loud sonic blast that’ll stun everything in like…two hundred feet or so I think? The range is very much dependent on the sound we record.”
“That make sense,” Gan Gan nodded, “did you remember to record a loud enough sound for it?”
“No, that’s what we’re going to do now.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah man, just let me get the thing ready to go…”
Xiao Chang began to fiddle with the device for a moment until it was positioned in such a way that the device could clearly record both him and his friend’s voices at the same time.
“Alright, so after I press this button, the two of us are gonna scream as loud as we can. Ready?”
“…”
Gan Gan looked at his friend like he was an absolute idiot, all while wondering why they couldn’t have just used firecrackers or go into a concert hall for this shit.
“Ready??”
“…fine.”
Xiao Chang and Gan Gan prepared themselves both physically and mentally to scream as loud as they could at the strange looking device, the latter fully aware of must how stupid this whole thing was.
“Okay now, three…two…one!”
*Click*
“AAA-”
*BWOOOOOOOOM! BWOOOOOOOOM!*
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
“HOLY…ship?”
Before Gan Gan and Xiao Chang could properly scream into the device, the sound akin to a war horn but three times louder, ripped through the air and shocked the both of them silent.
The two immediately turned to see what was the cause, assuming the thing that caused it was looming over them.
Instead, they saw that a comfortable distance away from them was the strangest looking ship that the two of them had ever seen.
*Bwooom! Bwooom!*
And lo and behold, it was the source of that loud sound that just ripped through.
“Bro…what the fuck am I looking at?,” Gan Gan asked his friend.
“I have…no fucking idea,” Xiao Chang answered, “but…I think we just recorded the sound that thing made.”
“Huh…”
