Chapter 481: Rock and Brawl
=Yeah, about that, when, how and why did you make that guitar for her? Because I do not recall being present for this particular gift.=
=Okay…still doesn’t explain the guitar…=
=Being as they’re mostly made of aether and [chaos]?=
=Huh…why didn’t she ask me to make her this thing?=
=Not sure if I should consider that considerate or not…wait, you remember to give her some arts she can work with, right?=
=Fair enough.=
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‘Wait…didn’t one of my younger cousins dabble in musical aether arts? Maybe I can get them to help? Wait…we’re in the middle of a battle and that kind of shit usually attracts unwanted attention, so I can’t do that…’
As Zhen Liu was thinking about who could possibly provide him with any form of “musical aid”, Jin Fang had already pulled out what Zhen Liu would have recognized as an acoustic guitar.
Granted, Pathos had also put in painstaking effort to make this guitar look significantly prettier than it absolutely needed to be, given the painted black body, the gold embellishments and a stylized version of the seal that was embedded in Zhen Liu’s hand. In essence, this guitar was extra as fuck.
“Now I put my fingers like this…,” Jin Fang muttered to herself as she prepared the chords necessary to perform the art she had in mind. As she settled her fingers in the proper chord placement, her strumming hand began to glow and hum with the power associated with aether art channeling.
“Now I just…strum?”
Evidently, Zhen Liu was so lost in thought that he failed to notice what his girlfriend was literally doing behind his back. Hurricroak noticed though.
[Uh…maestro?]
“Huh? What is it Hurricroak?”
“I suggest you ready your brain and body for what’s about to happen next.”
“What?”
[Healing Chord: First Note!]
*TWANG!*
“WHOA!”
[WOOOO BAMBINO! THAT’S THE STUFF!]
The art Jin Fang had just employed was a technically only a minor Ethereal art, the kind that was mostly effective on minor wounds at best.
However, in the case of Zhen Liu and the kaijin under his command the effects were a bit more…exaggerated.
For starters, Zhen Liu’s arm pain immediately disappeared and he felt as if all of the sinews, muscles and nerves that made them up had somehow doubled in vitality and strength.
‘Welp, I am pretty sure I can punch in the skull of a seventh tier dragon now…probably an exaggeration but it sure as shit feels like it.’
As for Hurricroak, the effects of chord caused her to feel as if she had been given an adrenaline shot directly to the heart, due to a surge of energy washing over her and encapsulating her body. The only downside being her arms were starting to get incredibly itchy.
[Well this sucks. My arms are feeling like they got fucking fleas, but I can’t scratch them due to my arms being also incredibly-] *pop* [-oh fuck.]
As the surge of energy continued to work its magic on Hurricroak’s body, her injured arms suddenly detached themselves from her body and disappear into aether and other weird bits of energy, as brand new, freshly healed arms rapidly grew and took the place of her old ones.
It took a few seconds for Hurricroak to adjust to the fact that her limbs just rapidly fell off and grew back like it was nothing, but once she acclimated, a devious smile formed on her face.
[Well then, since I appear to be back in fighting form…I’m going to go give the rodent who gave me this opportunity a “thank-you” gift.]
Hurricroak proceeded to crouch down for a moment as a pair of large wasp wings sprouted out of her back.
[I’ll be back maestro~.]
With that declaration, Hurricroak launched herself back into the fight, where an unexpected development occurred.
Because as it turned out, Hurricroak and Zhen Liu weren’t the only ones affected by Jin Fang’s musical trick.
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“Damn! I didn’t expect this lightning blast to take so much effort to fucking block!”
As Zhen Long, Zhen Lao, Zhen Yan and Zhen Liu’s two puppets were busy fighting the Thunderscale Dragon Otter, Zhen Shi and Frosttusk(Zhen Liu’s other puppet) were still trying their damndest to hold back the dragon force lightning blast from coming any closer. The only problem is that their shield wasn’t going to last much longer.
The annoying thing about dragon force based attack is that there were only three ways to get them to end their effects, only one of which was somewhat easy to do, with the other two options not being good ideas.
The first and easiest option was to use the “natural” weakness of the attack to negate it.
For example, when facing an Ignati dragon, it is mandatory to learn Aquarii arts or find someone who can use them.
In this case, Zhen Shi needed someone who had Terraqi aether, but the only one with them that fulfilled that criteria was his son Zhen Xi and that would be suicide due to the power gap.
‘I wonder if I can get Zhen Liu or his master to do that possession trick on him,’ Zhen Shi wondered for a moment as he doubled down on the ice shield.
The second option, which sucked the most, was to tank the hit.
This wasn’t impossible, warriors that had a stronger cultivation to their dragonic opponents had pulled this off in the past, however, this wasn’t an option in the current skirmish.
Zhen Shi could sense that if he tried to tank this particular hit, he would end up grievously injured. This was not an ideal outcome, especially with the upcoming meeting with his former main clan counterparts.
‘Then again, it would give me an excellent excuse not to see them…what am I saying, I need to bury that hatchet. Its been long enough!’
The last option, which was technically happening right now but at a rather slow rate, was to beat the ever-loving shit out of the caster of the attack, i.e., hit the dragon otter hard enough that it was no longer able to fight properly.
Zhen Long, Zhen Lao and Zhen Yan were doing an admirable job in fighting the beast, especially after Zhen Liu’s puppets got involved, but it wasn’t enough.
Zhen Shi could sense that his sons hadn’t gotten injured yet due to their experience fighting off other beasts before, but he could tell that this leading to nothing more than a stalemate.
He had to get involved in the fight directly, he had to break this stupid ball of lightning…but how?
*Twang!*
“Huh?”
As Zhen Shi tried to rack his brain for a solution, he heard something unexpected coming from the distance, a musical note from a stringed instrument.
Understandably, he was confused.
“Who is playing music no-” *CRACK!* “WHOA!”
However, his confusion grew even greater when he saw that his ice shield had suddenly tripled in size and strength, pushing back the lighting blast even further.
When Zhen Shi tried to figure out who or what could have caused this, he noticed the spike in cold and energy emanating from the mammoth-man puppet by his side.
Whatever the hell just happened, his grandson had suddenly amped up the strength of his puppets to the point that Zhen Shi wasn’t needed to maintain the defense anymore.
“Huh…”
Zhen Shi stared at the puppet maintaining the ice shield for a moment, a strange feeling of deja vu coming over him again, before deciding now wasn’t the time and that he had better make his way to the front in order to involve himself with the fight proper.
Before he did so however, he bid the aether puppet farewell.
“Keep up the defensive, I’ll go and make sure this bastard pays for attacking us!”
“…”
“Right.”
With those words shared, Zhen Shi was off.
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[Good luck…old man…]
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
Might change the name of “dragon force” to “longqi”.
ANYWAYS
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