Chapter 479: First Blooded
[Damn that’s a big blast of lightning!,] Razorstella noted, [I’m honestly surprised old man Shi can hold his own against it.]
[That maybe the case for now, but look,] Nepherage pointed out, [The ice shield is breaking. Without interference, it’s gonna break. Razorstella with me!]
[Whatever you say, volcano woman!]
[I…will…help…Zhen…Shi!]
‘Thank you, Frosttusk!’
[Bueno, everybody! While you guys handle that, I’ll take care of the lightning ball! I bet I can absorb it no problemo!]
‘Wait, Hurricroak, don’t touch that thing!’
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*Bing-Bong*
The following announcement is to remind the readers that from outside perspectives, the kaijin are perceived as aether puppets.
However, for the sake of clarity, the kaijin will be referred to by name.
Thank you, we now return to your regularly scheduled chapter.
*Bing-Bong*
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“Hey, those weird puppets are moving!”
“Damn they’re fast!”
“Wait, he made most of those himself?!”
Soon after Zhen Shi intercepted the Thunderscale Dragon Otter’s attack, the people at the front of the caravan proceeded to get the hell out of the way on the chance that the attack was too much for the branch clan patriarch to handle and he ended up getting overwhelmed.
However, amongst the people that retreated from the battle, several other figures took this opportunity to charge forward instead, seven to be exact.
Three of the figures that flew forward were none other than Zhen Long, Zhen Lao and Zhen Yan, the First, Third and Seventh Elders respectively.
“Come on, we gotta run distraction, otherwise that titanic bitch might do a follow-up!”
“Right!”
“Right behind you, elder brother!”
The other four brothers/elders would have charged in as well, but they couldn’t fly yet, so they had to make do with escorting people to safety. Although, two out of four them were feeling as if they were close to being able to fly…or perhaps that was just the stress talking.
As for the other four, they were Zhen Liu’s “puppets”, Hurricroak, Frosttusk, Razorstella and Nepherage. Granted, unlike the three elders, they did not all go immediately to the frontline as one big group, instead, they went in separate directions in order to facilitate aid better.
“Hey, it looks like your son is sending his puppets to help us out.”
“Wait, didn’t that one with the sword legs look different last time?”
“I think he upgraded it recently.”
Meanwhile, Frosttusk went to go and assist with Zhen Shi’s defensive efforts and escape efforts.
*BWOOOOO*
“Huh? Why is it suddenly so cold?”
“I don’t-whoa! There are literal platforms of ice on the river now!”
“I think its that over-sized puppets doing! Lets just take this opportunity and get the fuck out of here!”
“Oh, right!”
With a deep inhalation, Frosttusk proceeded to sap the heat out of the river below, producing several platforms of ice that the rest of the non-combatants used to get the hell out of the combat zone.
It was significantly easier to walk on ice platforms than it was to navigate through water, especially when the aforementioned water was still infested with Ravager Otters.
Lastly, Hurricroak didn’t go and assist in the counterattack against the Thunderscale Dragon Otter, nor assist in empowering the defensive art of Zhen Shi.
Instead, the froggy fighter decided to beeline for the giant ball of lighting in an attempt to absorb the damn thing!
Unfortunately, this would turn out to be a very, very bad idea.
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‘Wait! Hurricroak, don’t touch that thing!,’ Zhen Liu mentally called out in a panicked voice as he watched the reckless purple toad kaijin flew directly towards the ball of lighting with the utmost carelessness, faster than he could physically react.
[Oh no worries maestro, it’s just a little lightning!,] Hurricroak assured Zhen Liu jovially, as she got above the ball of lightning and proceeded to thrust both her hands downwards, her planning being to absorb the lighting and then use it to kick the dragon otter’s ass. A touch but disrespectful but also hilarious.
[What’s the worst that could-]
However, the moment Hurricroak’s hands made contact with the lightning, her jovial tone turned into echoing screams of pain.
Screams of pain that Zhen Liu echoed down to a T.
“[AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!]”
As Hurricroak’s hands made contact with he lighting, a sharp, searing pain began to rip through her arms causing a pain she had never felt until this very moment, and due to the spiritual connection she had with Zhen Liu, he felt every bit of pain as well.
It was in this split second if painful realization that Hurricroak, and the rest of the kaijin, learned that it wasn’t just musical aether arts that could affect them and it wasn’t just pure sensory deprivation that could cause them to go haywire, but that dragon force, this one type of energy exclusive to dragons, their offspring and the absolutely insane buggers who transfused themselves with the stuff, was able to hurt them.
Why?
Because dragon force could negate [Chaos], a fact that Zhen Liu learned when a certain pair of assistants forcefully installed a very truncated explanation of what dragon force was into his brain just moments before this battle began.
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Aether is the energy of order and nature.
Anima is the energy of the mind and will.
Chaos is the energy of pure randomness.
Dragon Force is the energy of absolute order of nature.
While that doesn’t sound that much difference from aether, that’s the point.
If aether is the energy that is present in a natural phenomenon, dragon force is the energy that forces a phenomenon to occur, regardless of circumstances.
Keyword here being “will”
Fire dragon force means something will burn, water dragon force means something will drown, wind dragon means something will…blow.
As such, when [absolute order] meets [chaos], the former will absolutely annihilate the latter…however, there is a caveat.
Due to dragon force being absolute natural phenomenon, it means that when a particular type of dragon force meets its natural opposite, it can be cancelled almost immediately.
Water can’t burn.
Wind can’t drown.
The earth doesn’t get electrocuted.
As such, it’s advised that when one faces off dragon force, find someone or learn something that is known to counter the type of dragon force being used.
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“Xiao Liu!”
“Zhen Liu!’
The sudden scream of pain was so surprising that both Rianna and Jin Fang, who were still by Zhen Liu’s side when they retreated to allow the kaijin to take over, were absolutely stunned.
Nobody else in the area heard or reacted to this verbal screaming, part and partial due to the ongoing battle or the buzzing sound being released by the ball of lighting.
As such, Jin Fang and Rianna quickly shook themselves back into action and proceeded to see what was causing Zhen Liu to scream in such agony.
“Xiao Liu, what’s-WHOA!”
“What’s going on with his arms?!”
Throughout Zhen Liu and Hurricroak’s screaming, smoke began to emanate off of the former’s arms as the latter couldn’t remove herself from the ball of lightning.
The two of them should have actually been totally electrocuted at this point, but due to her natural lighting resistance and a small amount of [Chaos] circulation, Hurricroak was able to mitigate the lightning damage to be more of a gradual development than all out at once.
[Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!]
Unfortunately, this measure wouldn’t last long if there wasn’t any form of outside intervention soon, as the pain of electrocution slowly began to crawl up both hers and Zhen Liu’s arms.
Thankfully, there was outside intervention.
[Hurricroak! Hold on! Razorstella, keep going with the elders!]
[But-!]
[Just go!]
As soon as she heard the screams of pain, Nepherage immediately pulled away from the attack formation and moved as fast as she could towards Hurricroak’s position.
With exactly zero thinking and running on pure impulsive instinct, Nepherage barreled directly into Hurricroak, knocking her away from the ball of lighting and forcefully removing her from contact with it. Surprisingly, Nepherage wasn’t also electrocuted in the process.
“[Ah…]”
The moment Hurricroak was no longer in contact with the lightning ball, the pain had immediately stopped. Granted, Hurricroak’s hands were still a bit shaky after going through all of that.
[Aish… gracias mi amiga. I think this is the first time I’ve ever been electrocuted…that sucked absolute ass. On the plus side-wait…fuck, am I the first injured kaijin on our team? That blows!]
[Don’t worry about it,] Nepherage reassured her as she carried Hurricroak in her arms to where Zhen Liu, Jin Fang and Rianna were standing.
Once she had gotten close enough, Nepherage proceeded to place Hurricroak down by the trio.
[Milord, are you okay?]
‘I…think so? My arms aren’t smoking at least…well, not anymore at least.’
There were still some small, very thin wisps of smoke coming off of Zhen Liu’s arms at this point, but nothing a good salve wouldn’t fix.
‘I’ll be fine, and don’t worry about Hurricroak, I will make sure she is okay.’
[That’s…good, now then.]
Having resolved this one crisis involving her comrade and her lord being horribly injured, Nepherage turned her gaze towards the source of it.
Not the ball of lighting that had caused the injury, but the overgrown lizard rat that had the fucking audacity to attack them in the first place.
As she kept her gaze focused on, her body began to glow with fire and fury.
[Milord, if you don’t mind, can I borrow your voice?]
‘Huh? Go ahead?’
[Thank you.]
The moment she was given the okay, Nepherage’s body immediately became surrounded by a thick layer of stone and the kaijin launched herself her towards the Thunderscale Dragon Otter, looking like something launched out of an erupting volcano.
Once the meteoric Nepherage got close enough to her destination, she called out in Zhen Liu’s voice.
“Honored uncles and father, please haul ass so I may SMASH THIS FUCKING RODENT TO PIECES!”
