Chapter 539: Preventing Disaster
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In this moment in time, Nepherage (while looking like an anachronistic biker girl), was holding onto the wrists of Zhen Ren Fa’s flunkies, Ao Tang and Fan Ying, in order to prevent the two of them from taking Zhen Liu’s weaker cousins as hostages.
Perhaps they didn’t need the help, but it was better to do something preventative than it was to just sit back and let it happen.
Nepherage had observed their lord’s family for long enough time now, to understand that Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue would definitely be thrown off of their game if they had to think about their cousins’ well-being.
Needless to say, the two of them would probably end up horribly injured in the result of such an event.
Thankfully, that didn’t come to pass.
Zhen Yue and Zhen Hai successfully performed their respective arts and from the sound of it, thoroughly overpowered their opponents.
At this point, Nepherage had accomplished her task and could very much let these two flunkies go crawling back to their master…but on the other hand…they could live with one hand each.
‘Okay, cool, looks like milord’s cousins managed to perform their arts with no interference. Time for me to claim some tro-‘
<<[Smog Body!]>>
<<[Phantasm Slip!]>>
‘Ey yo, what the fuck?!’
Before Nepherage could do anything, Fan Ying and Ao Tang each performed an aether art that allowed them to escape from her otherwise iron grip.
The girl had temporarily turn her arm into a black smoke that stink of burnt oil and rotten flesh, while the boy had taken on a form similar to that of a ghost.
Different approaches with different types of aether, but a similar end result of the two of them phasing their wrists through Nepherage’s hands.
However, as their bodies phased through the warrior woman’s hands, they felt as if something was incredibly wrong, but they chalked that up to just being running high on adrenaline and the fact that this woman gave off a very thick killing intent.
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The two young warriors took this opportunity to bounce several steps backwards in order to create some distance between themselves and this strange warrior woman that radiated danger.
Once they managed to retreat and regroup though, they finally noticed something was off.
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During the confusion of being manhandled and subsequently escaping, Zhen Tai, Zhen Xing, Zhen Feng and Zhen Guo had taken that opportunity to get the hell out of the fighting area, taking the unconscious slave girl with them.
It was bad enough that they were being held by this crazy warrior woman, but now the whole reason they were fighting in the first place was gone from right under their noses.
Fan Ying looked obviously pissed by the whole affair, while Ao Tang looked a touch less calmer than before.
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It should be noted that this statement was made, not because Zhen Ren Fa cared about Lei Zhong’s slave, but because they both knew she hated it when her plans failed or they were foiled by outside forces.
Which in this case, was a combination of both.
Ao Tang and Fan Ying knew if they wanted to keep their heads intact, they would have to put in some effort to take out this warrior woman, track down those brackborns and-
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Ao Tang, Fan Ying and Nepherage were all set to rip into each other when all a sudden, all three of them sensed two distinctly powerful yet very different sources of energy rushing towards their position.
In the case of both groups though, one energy felt familiar while the other was an unknown.
Regardless of the origin though, they knew for certain that both of these energies were headed to their position and that it would be in everyone’s best interest to get the hell out of the way.
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[Aight, I recognize one of those power sources as being the maestro, but who’s the other guy?]
[Not…sure…feels…ex…perienced…]
[Yeah, kind of like the old skeleton back at the library…]
[Wait, shouldn’t we be focusing more on figuring out where to hide?]
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“Oh you have got to be kidding me…,” Zhen Hai hissed under his breath, “of course that sour faced girl was hiding her strength…”
“Well…at least we managed to knock her flunkies out of the fight,” Zhen Yue added while trying to catch her breath.
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In a matter of moments, Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue had gotten out of the fryer known as their opponents, Lei Zhong and Gou Huang, and were now in the process of being throw into a fire known as Zhen Ren Fa.
To elaborate, Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue had both managed to subdue their respective opponents via the power of their [Echoing Frost] art.
Zhen Yue managed to overpower Lei Zhong’s [Judgement Bolt], and subsequently freeze over the bastard’s leg as he tried to escape at the last minute. From the sounds the latter made when the freezing occurred, while it wasn’t a crippling blow, it sure as hell hurt like one.
On the other side, Gou Huang had attempted to use brute force and smash his [Punishing Mountain Seal] through Zhen Hai’s attack and subsequently smash the latter into pieces. Unfortunately, this didn’t pan out too well for the mountain man, as Zhen Hai’s attack managed to snake its way into some flaws and cracks that were present in the mountain-like seal and destroy it from the inside out, much like how ice can erode mountains in nature.
In short, the end result of this clash of power was that Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue were victorious while Lei Zhong and Gou Huang were essentially defeated.
Now, normally, this would’ve been the end of it, with their original opponent having been thoroughly trounced and his ally having also been defeated.
Unfortunately, their leader, Zhen Ren Fa, was a bit of a sore loser…and was hiding her true power this whole time.
Once she had saw how her subordinates were defeated, with the other two being preoccupied by the unexpected appearance of that strange looking warrior woman, Zhen Ren Fa had determined that this whole debacle was now up to her to resolve.
As such, she quickly grabbed her two defeated subordinates and tossed them to the side, literally.
Using a movement technique that made her too fast for Zhen Yue and Zhen Hai to react, Zhen Ren Fa had grabbed her two defeated companions and proceeded to toss them towards a pile of cushions that a group of slaves had abandoned when this whole battle started.
After they were removed from the battlefield, Zhen Ren Fa quickly showed that she had the power of a pseudo-Grandmaster, able to manifest her aether armor in a piecemeal fashion, as opposed to a whole suit like a true Grandmaster.
Regardless, this was more than enough power to take out two exhausted Aether Masters of a middling rank…not that Zhen Yue and Zhen Hai were going to take this laying down either.
“Think we can actually defeat her?,” Zhen Hai asked, “that [Echoing Frost] took a lot out of me.”
“Maybe…,” Zhen Yue answered honestly, “but I think our best bet is to do a tactic that you are very fond of.”
“Oh?”
Zhen Yue began to circulate her aether into her fists, the faint shadow of a large jaguar appearing over her.
“Punch in the face, really fucking hard.”
“…right on.”
With their backs up against the proverbial wall, Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue began to channel their aether into their arms and legs, ready to launch themselves at Zhen Ren Fa and hopefully punch her face in at least once before going down.
It didn’t take long for Zhen Ren Fa to do the same.
The trio only took a second before launching their attacks at each other.
[Totemic Strike: Jaguar Rush!]
[Spear of the Marlin!]
<<[River King's Land Carving Palm!]>>
Three distinctively powerful attacks launched at the same time, and if they were to collide, surely someone would end up horribly crippled for life.
However, just before the attacks could do so, two figures appeared out of nowhere and blocked the attacks from making contact.
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“Ey yo, what the fuck?”
The combatants barely had time to even registered who had appeared, before their attacks were rendered moot.
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“Uh…who’s the old guy?”
