Chapter 593: Who says wrestling is fake?
[Hold the fuck up you emotional puta,] Hurricroak interjected, [The bet was for how long until our maestro manages to break out of this place. Right now, they’re still in the marble, meaning the bet is still on. He could easily spend one to two minutes in there toying with them.]
[Too…out…of…character…]
[He ain’t wrong, the director is the type to end things quickly, not draw it out.]
[You guys think he should be crueler?]
[Nah, that’s our job.]
[Aight.]
=Silence everyone, and let our lord do his thing. It has been awhile since we’ve seen him fight for real as you say.=
=I know, but still…=
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The moment Zhen Liu grabbed Yue Tai Lung’s leg, three prominent emotions were prevalent in this gathering of prestigious warriors, well, one young adult acting on instinct and five-ish “honorable” military men but close enough.
The first was confusion, which was most present in the mind of the Zhen Clan soldiers.
How in the name of heaven did none of the notice that their target had dove into the water and used a gourd of all things as a distraction?
How did this kid know that they were going to attack him the moment they thought he was going to jump anyways?
Actually, in retrospect, why did a brackborn kid from a desert, think of diving into water headfirst in the first place?!
The Zhen Clan soldiers had been in Roaring Tide all of their lives, they had no idea how other continents behaved…other than through stereotypes.
The harmful kind.
Moving on though, the second most prominent emotion was exhilaration, namely from Zhen Liu.
The reason why he was feeling this way could best be attributed to the fact that his hare-brained heat of the moment plans were somehow fucking working.
When he tossed the [Godoku Gourd] into the air to create a distraction, he figured they would at least be smart enough to notice if their intended target suddenly shrunk down or that the gourd had no aether to itself in the first place.
When he did his dive into the water, he didn’t expect anything to go well.
He had honestly believed that Mister “Smashing Black Steel” here would have noticed his movements and bring his hammers down onto his skull while the awaiting spearmen would stab him like a pincushion.
The fact that they all failed to do so before Zhen Liu managed to grab Yue Tai Lung, made the former incredibly happy.
‘Oh you are screwed, you Dyn*sty W*rior knock-off. I’ve been wanting to try out this move for a long time now and y’all are the perfect target.’
Speaking of damage though, the third feeling could be attributed to Yue Tai Lung and that would be, unexpectedly, fear.
What made the presence of this feeling so surprising though was the fact that Yue Tai Lung was initially full of arrogance , until Zhen Liu closed the rest of the distance between himself and Yue Tai Lung.
‘What…the fuck am I sensing?!’
When Yue Tai Lung first analyzed Zhen Liu, it was at a distance. Normally, distance was not a massive factor in determining the quality of a warrior. A lot of warriors were unable to suppress their auras, meaning a more experienced fighter could determine everything from affinity to quantity of aether with just a quick glance. It was based on this assumption that Yue Tai Lung determined that Zhen Liu was an Aether Master.
However, the moment Zhen Liu had closed the gap and had grabbed onto Yue Tai Lung’s leg, the latter realized that there was something more than meets the eye.
He didn’t sense it at first because he was apparently too far from Zhen Liu to notice, but now that that wasn’t the case, Yue Tai Lung could sense that mixed in with the aether was something…strange.
Something that felt old, ancient even, that acted upon on the most basic instinct of fear in Yue Tai Lung’s brain. The kind of fear one feels when they stare into a black, empty abyss…and swear they saw something blink back at them from within.
Zhen Liu didn’t meet Yue Tai Lung’s gaze at this time, but if he had, he would’ve seen a look of terror on the man’s face that was a sharp contrast to the bravado he had shown earlier.
Granted, seeing this face of fear wasn’t going to stop Zhen Liu’s next course of action. It was far too late for that.
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‘First I pull…’
With his grip firmly on Yue Tai Lung’s leg, Zhen Liu changed his stance to give himself more leverage and pulled Yue Tai Lung in such a way as to cause the man to trip backwards and kick up his other leg as a reaction.
‘Then I grab…’
With both legs in the air, one already in his grasps, Zhen Liu immediately grabbed the airborne leg with his other hand.
From Yue Tai Lung’s perspective, it felt as if both his legs were locked in a vice that was tight enough to be felt on the bone.
‘And now I swing!’
When Yue Tai Lung and his soldiers attempted their surprise attack, they had set themselves up in a formation that gave the leader a lot of room to work with, while the soldiers had lined themselves up in a semi-circle formation.
In other words, they were aligned in a perfect arc, one that if one could swing a large enough weapon in circular spin, they would be able to hit everyone dead on.
Of course, while Zhen Liu didn’t have a weapon that was big enough to do such a feat, the warrior in his hands definitely did.
With a mighty shout, Zhen Liu swung Yue Tai Lung and slammed him into his own subordinates.
“Oof!”
“Aah!”
“Gah!”
“Pain!”
“Why?!”
Every soldier hit let out a pained yelp of surprise as their own leader was used as a weapon against them, in a very literal manner.
The group had steeled their nerves in the possibility that their leader’s weapons would be stolen and used against, they did not expect their leader to be used as a weapon instead.
There was a level of cold comfort in the fact that none of them got hit by their leader’s aether treasure maces in the process of this swing.
Making matters worst though, every soldier hit by Yue Tai Lung’s massive body ended up getting caught up in the swing and colliding with the soldier after them.
It wasn’t too bad if they were first one being smacked, but the guy near the end of the arc was hit with the collective mass of three fully armored soldiers and one large sized elite warrior.
This was not the end of their pain though.
“And now, counterspin!”
“Wait! Bah!”
Having already hit the soldiers with Yue Tai Lung once, Zhen Liu quickly spun around in the opposite direction and swung Yue Tai Lung in such a way that he ended up hitting soldiers again from the other side.
The difference this time though, was the fact that the soldiers weren’t caught up in the spin again, but were instead launched backwards and into a heap.
A heap that was about to be one person bigger.
“Look out!”
“Huh? Boof!”
Before the pile of battered soldiers could even think about standing back up, Zhen Liu had stopped swinging Yue Tai Lung and had lifted the man over his head for a brief moment before throwing the man into the group of knocked over soldiers with an overhead throw.
At this point, the soldiers were knocked out as they were getting battered a lot, but Yue Tai Lung was still conscious, with his initial fear towards Zhen Liu being replaced by pure anger.
“Why you little shit!,” Yue Tai Lung cursed as he tried to get up from the pile of unconcious soldiers.
Unfortunately, that was about as far as he gonna get.
[Ember Step!]
“Flying Elbow!”
“Huh?”
While Yue Tai Lung was trying to get himself off the pile of people, Zhen Liu had finally employed Nepherage’s abilities and actually did launch himself into the air.
During his short airtime, Zhen Liu proceeded to take on a rather iconic pro wrestling pose, coating his elbow with a healthy layer of aether and [Chaos].
*BAM!*
“GAK!”
Before Yue Tai Lung could even get up, Zhen Liu had already slammed his elbow directly into the former’s ribcage, knocking the wind out of the man, alongside his consciousness.
It was a gradual process though, so the last thing Yue Tai Lung thought of as his consciousness faded though was one simple question.
‘Wait…what happened to my aether protection?’
Once he had asked this, Yue Tai Lung promptly passed out, leaving Zhen Liu now as the only one conscious in the battlefield.
Well…the only conscious mortal at least.
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‘Well that was refreshing. It’s not often I get to exercise my strength on actual opponents. Feels kind of nice ot cut loose like this now and again. Although, I probably shouldn’t make this a habit.’
[Indeed milord. Excess leads to ruin,as they say.]
‘Exactly…now how long do you think I have until they yeet out of this marble space.’
[Probably long enough to steal those maces, or at least one of them.]
‘Huzzah!’
