Chapter 590: Bravado is only false if you can’t bring it
Zhen Liu let out an internal sigh of relief as soon as he saw the marbles he and his cousins had drawn from the strange aether treasure.
While he could make out the look of worry appearing on the faces of his cousins, it was daunting to fight five on one after all, it was better than any of the alternatives…mostly.
That and he was fairly certain that the power boost he gave them would probably make them significantly more dangerous threat than some family honor guards.
‘I am not gonna lie, I honestly thought that with my luck that I’d have to fight that dragon otter or one of my cousins or that one dude with dragon force, but a bunch of normal ass soldiers should be easy as pie!’ Zhen Liu told his kaijin, ‘any volunteers or do y’all wanna go all out at once and make a show of kicking their-why am I getting feedback in the form of embarrassment and awkwardness?’
Normally, by now at least, the kaijin would’ve been eagerly volunteering to fight, or at least come to a consensus of some kind after some unspoken agreement happening in the back of Zhen Liu’s mind, but this time they were awkwardly silent.
But it was for a good reason.
[Not willingly, mind you,] Hurricroak added.
‘Wait, what? Why?’
=To put it in more understandable terms, that aether treasure has a specification lock. Basically, it’ll only allow what the user wants to allow inside of those spatial marbles, and forcibly reject anybody else.=
‘And since you guys are technically your own individuals and not really aether puppets taking on the form of accessories, the moment that marble activates, y’all are gonna be left here,’ Zhen Liu concluded based on the earlier statements.
<=Precisely.=>
‘Shit…wait, what about Nepherage? What happens when I’m possessed by a kaijin when that treasure activates in earnest?’
=Well…=
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‘Ah, there’s the reaction I was hoping for,’ Zhen Xun Po thought in amusement as he saw the “branch” clan descendants draw the crimson marbles containing the elite warrior volunteers.
‘Apologies, children, but for the sake of the clan and its honor, you will need to lose quite gloriously against our well-trained soldiers…at least some members of this group will be able to pass on to the next round though.’
Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see that the foreign nobles had drawn easier match-ups in the form of aether beast encounters, which he assumed would be an incredibly easy fight for the two of them, while the last member of this semi-random group of ten managed to grab a golden marble and was allowed to skip to the next round.
‘And with those three, the total amount of entries so far should be…twenty-two. Just forty-two more contestants to go and we can end the event for the day.’
Out of the original one hundred and twenty eight entrys, eighteen had been eliminated through bad luck draws, while about twenty-two contestants managed to qualify for the next round, forty of the contestants were in the middle of combat rounds while the remaining forty-four were waiting for their chance to pull a marble from the treasure and determine their fate in this tournament via random chance.
Well…mostly random chance.
As the owner of the [Myriad Marble Garden], Zhen Xun Po had slightly nudge the results in such a way that a few key contestants, that just so happened to be inner disciples and allies of the Zhen Clan, could pass on to the next round without having to showcase their abilities too much. Of course, he also made sure that some of those contestants didn’t immediately draw a golden marble, but instead nudged them into grabbing the marbles that contained “lesser” challenges in comparison to the others.
For everyone else he did indeed let the contestants determine how lucky they were, to the point that even he was surprised by the sheer luck of some of the individuals who passed through. But for the members of the “branch” clan, Zhen Xun Po made sure to provide them a more…meaningful challenge.
After all, they were family.
‘The only one among the branch children that might be an unknown though is that Fourth Young Master, Zhen Liu. Mother detected that something about him was off, and the reports state that he was a cripple turned aether puppet genius. If that’s really the case, then I will have to keep a close eye on him and see exactly what kind of aether puppets this so-called genius commands.’
*Clack*
“Huh?”
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[Minn…Jarl…? What…are….you…doing…?]
‘Faking bravado, Frosttusk. Faking bravado.’
[Uh…how does removing us from your person, count as bravado, maestro?]
‘You’ll see Hurricroak, you’ll see.]
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“Zhen Liu? What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking off my accessories.”
“O…kay…”
Under the gaze of his cousins, the foreign nobility and the Hero Elder, Zhen Liu proceeded to remove a series of accessories from his body in a methodical manner.
Normally, such an action would be considered unimportant by most people, since the removal of accessories that weren’t aether treasures was a normal practice before throwing oneself into the fray.
However, in this particular scenario, everyone couldn’t help but stare because the accessories being removed were actually aether puppets in a very convenient “carry mode”.
In other words, Zhen Liu was removing his most powerful, and debatably only, method of fighting he had available to him.
In the eyes of Zhen Liu’s cousins, this was the equivalent of watching someone purposely break their own wrists before a battle, or in the case of Zhen Liu, this was like watching him slice his own hand off with a rusty saber. They were absolutely baffled in trying to figure out why he was doing this.
Zhen Liu’s cousins were silent the whole time as they watched their cousin take off and neatly place his aether puppet accessories in a neat pile in front of his feet. They had no idea how to respond to this action while it was ongoing, but they had plenty of questions after he was done.
“Wait…Zhen Liu, you know that you’re allowed to use your aether puppets for this qualifier match, right?,” Zhen Hai asked with concern.
“I mean I can see like…four different puppet masters doing so right now.”
Zhen Hai was a bit hinky about the idea of himself being able to fight off an Aether Master and a squad of high tiered Acolytes, but he also had the utmost confidence that Zhen Liu would easily defeat this challenge due to being essentially a one-man army.
However, he wasn’t expecting Zhen Hai to take that “one-man” part so literally this time around.
“Oh no, I am well aware of that, Zhen Hai,” Zhen Liu answered in a nonchalant voice as he began to do stretches.
“I just believe in having a fair fight for once.”
“A fair…fight?,” Zhen Xing asked incredulously while Zhen Liu kept doing stretches.
“See, if I used my puppets, I could easily defeat all five of those soldiers as easy as a child punches through a paper screen door,” Zhen Liu answered while finishing his stretches and making it a point to speak loud enough for the Hero Elder to hear him.
“Which is why I am being oh-so generous and removing my puppets before I get into the ring with them. Those soldiers are going to need all the handicaps they can get anyways.”
“Uh…”
Zhen Hai and the rest of Zhen Liu’s cousins were shocked at Zhen Liu’s sudden display of condescending confidence…however, if they could hear what was going on in Zhen Liu’s mind in this moment, they would be having a very different reaction.
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[…]
<=...=>
‘…what?’
[Director…what the fuck was all of that?]
‘What? I needed to put on a brave face and try to justify why I decided to remove what most people think is my biggest combat potential,’ Zhen Liu justified to his kaijin.
‘When people think you’re an arrogant prick, they have a tendency to either try and ignore you as hard as they physically can and/or attempt revenge in an incredibly elaborate scheme. That or they just get angry enough to try and go for your throat with a butcher’s knife…regardless! Nepherage, are you ready for whatever the fuck happens next?’
[Ready as I’ll ever be milord. And I must say, your bravado act was very believable.]
‘Thank you very much!’
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‘Youthful bravado, how marvelous! Now…lets see how long you’ll last though…’
*Snap*
With a snap of his fingers, Zhen Xun Po had activated all of the marbles in this group and proceeded to send the resulting spatial bubbles up into the area where all the other orbs had gathered.
The on-lookers briefly skimmed through the newly added orbs, noting minor things in regards to physical appearance, until a majority of them settled watching one orb in particular.
The one that contained Zhen Liu.
“Oi! Take a look! That kid is already facing off against the Zhen Clan elite and the soldiers! He’s outnumbered!”
What the on-lookers failed to realize though, was that Zhen Liu wasn’t outgunned.
‘Well this is handy…who do I take out first?’
