Chapter 482: Punching Otters
During the moment Zhen Liu was trying to figure out how to heal Hurricroak and Zhen Shi and Frosttusk were still holding back the dragon force lightning attack…
…
*POW!*
“Direct hit!”
“Right in the face!”
“Oh that’s got to hurt! Wait, is that a tooth?”
[Hey! I’m supposed to be the show-off here!]
“GRAR!”
Once Nepherage broke free from her boulder coating, she leaped out of its center and punched the Thunderscale Dragon Otter square in the face with her stony fist.
As stone fist met soft face, a powerful burst of electricity was instinctively released by the Thunderscale Dragon Otter at an intensity that would injure even a peak Aether Grandmaster in full regalia.
(Un) fortunately, the lightning did absolutely nothing in regards to injuring Nepherage.
Due to being essentially made of stone, the lighting blast did nothing more than leap once onto her skin before listlessly fizzling out as it expended it’s charge.
‘WHAT?’
This was the first time in a very long time that the Thunderscale Dragon Otter had ever faced an opponent that was actually capable of hurting her, without suffering the consequences in the form of electrical punishment, and this fact simultaneously annoyed her and excited the everliving hell out of her.
[Break!]
Nepherage geared herself up to send another punch into the dragon otter’s skull after the success of her first one, but before she could do so, the Thunderscale Dragon Otter had managed to release its counterattack first.
[Shit!]
Before Nepherage could launch her second attack, the Thunderscale Dragon Otter proceeded to twist and turn its body in such a way that it could use its tail to knock into Nepherage. Whether this was action was meant to just push the jade warrior back or an attempt to shatter her with sheer brute force was unknown, but the end result was that the Thunderscale Dragon Otter had successfully disengaged with Nepherage as the latter was sent flying backwards.
[Bitch!]
Nepherage used a burst of aether and effort to forcefully stop herself midflight and steady herself in the air. However, this turned out to be an anticipated action on the dragon otter’s part.
Immediately after Nepherage had stopped her flight path, the dragon otter proceeded to surge forward and open its jaw wide open, aether and dragon force reinforcing its inside.
In the past, the Thunderscale Dragon Otter had used her formidable teeth to crack open the shells of giant river turtle beasts, the scaly hides of alligator beasts and countless shell mollusks.
Those monsters were at least ten times the size of this little horned opponent, who cares if it was made of rock?!
However before it could do the deed of crunching down, the Thunderscale Dragon Otter forgot on important detail.
Nepherage wasn’t fighting alone.
“All together now! [Howling Shadow Kick!]”
“[Tempest Drop Kick!]”
“[Inferno Kick!]”
[Star Piercer!]
POW!
“GRARHG?!”
As the Thunderscale Dragon Otter was about to chomp down on Nepherage, the three Grandmaster elders and Razorstella had coordinated an attack and slammed all four of their arts into the side of the dragon otter’s face.
Unexpectedly, despite having entered close quarters combat with the dragon otter, none of the participants of this attack ended up getting electrocuted by any reactive counter measures.
None of them were really sure how or why they didn’t get electrocuted, but it felt damn good being able to land a hit on this gigantic bitch of an otter, especially when they saw how the force of their attack had sent it flying off into the distance with some actual injuries, instead of superficial scratches that amounted to jackshit. Granted, once the three Grandmasters had a chance to catch their breaths and reconvene for a second round of fighting, they would immediately notice how and why their attacks actually did something for once.
As the Thunderscale Dragon Otter recorrected it’s midair orientation, the fighters from the Zhen Clan prepared themselves to go on the offensive.
“As weird as it sounds, coordinate with Zhen Liu’s puppet! It’s the only thing we got on hand that can even land a hit on this damn thing,” Zhen Long informed his brothers while keeping his eyes on the Thunderscale Dragon Otter.
Zhen Lao and Zhen Yan both nodded in agreement, but before they moved to attack, the both of them had single question that threw their eldest brother for a loop for just how out of left field the question was.
“Of course, big brother, but…when did you coat your limbs in a Terraqi art?”
“Pardon?”
“Look at your arms and legs-oh shit, we have them too, the fuck?”
Zhen Long did as his younger brothers instructed, only to be absolutely shocked as he saw that his arms and legs were covered in a thick layer of rock that had been shaped into a pair of gauntlets and matching boots.
Even more shocking was the fact that his brothers had similar looking attachments to their limbs, with the exception of the bladed ballerina puppet that seemed to have thin layer of rock applied to their legs and claws, in order to maintain their cutting edge.
As they looked over their new rock-coated extremities, it didn’t take long for them to figure out that this was probably the reason why they weren’t electrocuted when they decided to coordinate their attacks.
The rock coating had acted like insulation and prevented the lighting from spreading to their much more conductive bodies.
The three of them tried to wrap their heads around how and why this event had occured, until the source of this sudden change must outright said it.
“The rock armor would be my doing.”
“HOLY SHIT! THE PUPPET TALKS!”
“Wait…why does it sound like Zhen Liu?”
“Xiao Liu? How are you-”
“I am able to convey my senses and speech through my aether puppets,” Nepherage lied, “it’s all part of my cultivation formula.”
“See?,” Razorstella added in order to solidify this half-truth as a “whole truth”.
The three Grandmasters were still a bit shocked at this revelation, namely due to having only heard about this quirk of Zhen Liu’s formula without actually seeing it for themselves. Now that they did…it was still really shocking.
“Moving on,” Nepherage continued, “I made use of an aether art I learned recently called [Rock Armor] and slightly modified it to be able to bestow it to you, my father and uncles. The only draw back being I could only coat your limbs and not your whole bodies, so don’t get hit by the otter’s electrical attacks, please.”
Zhen Long, Zhen Lao and Zhen Yan still looked a bit shocked at the fact that Zhen Liu’s aether puppets were actually able to transmit things like voices, but they still had enough wits to them to nod in understanding.
“Good. Now then,” Nepherage said, still in Zhen Liu’s voice, as she flew towards the dragon otter, “let’s show this otter why you don’t mess with the Zhen Clan!”
________________________________________________
Now, after Hurricroak got fixed up and Zhen Shi was freed up from defense duties…
The battle between the Thunderscale Dragon otter and the Zhen Clan fighters had reached a bit of a stalemate after Nepherage had enhanced their attacks with rock armor.
Both sides knew they were able to land decisive hits on the other in one go, with her dragon otter knowing she just had to hit one of them with a lightning bolt once to take them out of the fight, while the Zhen Clan fighters knew they had to get in close in order to make sure their attacks actually did something.
Unfortunately, since both sides knew what they had to do in order to defeat the other, they both made sure to avoid doing anything that would facilitate such a situation from occurring.
The Zhen Clan fighters made sure to call out when someone was about to get hit with a lightning attack and even used arts to push each other out of the way, meanwhile, the Thunderscale Dragon Otter made sure to always twist, turn and move in unexpected aways to avoid the attacks and make liberal use of area of effect attacks to prevent the fighters from getting closer.
In essence, a disruption of some kind had to occur if either side wanted to eke out a victory from this stalemate.
Both sids needed to either pull off some kind of desperation play in order to forcefully turn the tide, or they needed reinforcements to try and change the flow of the battle.
(Un)fortunately for those involved, it was going to be the latter.
[Here I come to save the day!~]
“INCOMING!”
As the Zhen Clan fighters tried to figure out their next course of action, two distinctive auras appeared behind them.
One felt ice-cold like an artic ocean, in which, hid a gigantic sea serpent that could hold or break the world with a flick of its tail.
The other was like a thunderstorm, an orchestra of beasts and madness and joy.
These two auras belonged to Zhen Shi and Hurricroak respectively, granted the reception of both’s arrival was very much dependent on who saw who.
“Father!”
“Hell yeah!”
“Wait, what about the shield?”
[About time you showed up!]
[Looks like our lord figured out a healing trick!]
“Grrr…”
The Thunderscale Dragon Otter had an ugly look when it saw the arrival of new opponents, especially ones that seemed a touch fresher than the ones she’s been facing this whole time.
In fact, it was so annoyed by this sudden turn of events, the dragon otter let out a strange clicking sound, one that could only be heard by the otters of its gang…
