Chapter 597: We can’t all be bru-hold up…why are you talking to me?
[Nepherage]: Zhen Tai
[Twisting Python Palm!]
*BAM!*
“DAMNIT!”
“Nice try, hothead!”
“Why won’t you break already?!”
“Why don’t you hit harder?”
“FUCK YOU!”
[I think this is what Logos refers to as what happens when an unstoppable force meet an immovable object…but the force is very stoppable…]
“Damnit, damnit, damnit! How am I supposed to break through this stupid shell of bullshit?!,” Zhen Tai cursed as he bounced off the defensive barrier his opponent.
“I told you, its called the Golden Nautilus Pagoda. Not that, you uncouth barbarian.”
|Minor note: this is technically funnier in Tide Tongue due to tone marks being a thing. Essentially, they’re actually saying the same thing, but the tone changes the meaning.|
‘How the hell am I supposed to beat this guy if this stupid shit pagoda is stopping me from ripping his stupid head off?!’
For who knows how long at this point, Zhen Tai trying and failing to breakthrough the defensive barrier created by an aether treasure in the hands of a warrior named Jin Lao.
Jin Lao was an elite from the Zhen Clan that specialized in defensive arts and counterattacks, as such, the moment Zhen Tai showed up to this arena, he was immediately assaulted by what he could only describe as a “one-man phalanx”, that was backed up by a squad of crossbowmen.
An incredibly deadly force to face in an open area, like the windswept plains Zhen Tai was teleported to, with the defensive arts user acting like an obvious and impenetrable target, while the ranged warriors rained down their blows from afar.
Zhen Tai, thankfully, realized how much of a threat those crossbowmen posed when he first showed up to the arena and promptly took them out with some creative stone throws and a couple of [Twisting Python Palms] to several abdomens, before focusing all of his energy on Jin Lao.
The only problem was that Jin Lao wasn’t trying to fight Zhen Tai…at all.
Instead, the man chose to sit in a meditative position while channeling aether into a strange, pagoda-looking figure in his hands that then used that aether to create a golden barrier shaped like a nautilus shell.
It wouldn’t be a massive stretch of the imagination to assume that Jin Lao was doing this on purpose in order to eliminate his opponent from the tournament via a simple time out.
[Hmmm. Looks like we need a weak point in the armor if he wants to move on…]
“RAAAH! STUPID! FUCKING! SHELL!,” Zhen Tai shouted as he kept attacking the barrier with hand, foot and fang, literally attempting to bite the damn thing.
[Passion’s there…no brains though…like I can talk though…]
On a secondary note, Zhen Tai made a promise with the universe that after he beat this guy, he would go out and see if nautilus beasts were edible. He had no reason to, he just felt like it was necessary at this point.
Eventually though, Zhen Tai paused from his relentless assault on his opponent’s barrier, in order to regroup, recharge and rethink exactly how he was going to break this shell.
‘Come on man, think!’
Because for some reason, he felt it in his soul that there was a way to win, to overpower this guy, he just…couldn’t verbalize it.
‘How can I break something with a defense so… hold up… THAT’S IT!’
[Never mind, there’s the brain.]
As Zhen Tai stared at the barrier, he remembered that there were one of two ways to break such things.
The first method was to just…overload and overwhelm.
It didn’t matter if a defensive barrier was solid or made of aether, they all had a limit to how much punishment they could take before breaking down, especially when struck at hundreds of points at once in rapid succession.
Of course, Zhen Tai had already been attempting to do that, in fact his formula: [Thousand Serpent Tactics] kind of encouraged such behavior, but then he realized that he probably didn’t have the aether necessary to do so despite being an Aether Master now.
The other method was a bit more…controlled.
‘I really, REALLY hope I can do this…,’ Zhen Tai thought to himself as he prepared his attack.
“Tsk! Are you seriously still trying to break through?,” Jin Lao mocked as he continued to maintain the barrier, “haven’t you realized my shell’s unbreakable by now? But go ahead! Break you hands against it! It’s fun to watch after all.”
If Jin Lao hadn’t been so dismissive of Zhen Tai’s actions, he would’ve noticed that the latter hadn’t been circulating his aether in a usual fashion.
Instead, he was concentrating all of it into the tip of one of his fingers.
‘Come on…concentrate… condense…’
[Hmm. I would’ve just focused everything into a fist and not a finger…to each their own I guess.]
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[Razorstella]: Zhen Xing
‘Left.’
“Thwang!” *Swish.*
‘Right.’
“Thwang, thwang!” *Swish.*
‘Left.’
“Thwang, thwang, bam!” *Thwoo!*
‘Jump!’
“All of that jumping around you’re doing is ruining this performance! Be polite and stand still!”
“Fuck you, I’m not letting your men stab me!”
[Dammit boy, pay closer attention! You’re reacting to what they’re doing, when you should be predicting!]
Zhen Xing’s current situation wasn’t terrible, but it could’ve been better.
For the past three minutes or so, Zhen Xing has been dodging, ducking and weaving away from sword strikes coming at him from all sorts of directions. He would’ve counter attacked by now, but fighting four, technically five, on one made such actions…unadvisable.
It especially didn’t help that he had to do all this while ankle deep in wetland terrains.
“Feh! Fine! If you’re going to be like that, then perhaps I should change the song.”
‘Godsdammit, not again!’
Aside from the aforementioned terrain and number differences that made things difficult for Zhen Xing, another factor was that the elite leading these soldiers, a man named Li Kong, happened to be one of those rare types of aether warriors that made use of musical aether arts, with his instrument of choice being what Zhen Xing recognized as being called a biwa.
Fron the literal start of this battle, Li Kong had been strumming away at that biwa, empowering the soldiers under his command and essentially allowing them to attack as they saw fit…or so he thought at first.
It wasn’t until Li Kong had changed the music he was playing that Zhen Xing realized there was a bit more to these attacks than meets the eye.
[Everyone tends to follow a rhythm as dictated by their peers or have a rhythm they like to follow. The latter is tricky to deal with, but the former is a lot easier to notice. Figure it out faster and then turn it against them!]
‘Everytime he plays that biwa a certain way, one of the soldiers attacks a certain way. I need to figure out the pattern before they act, but that’s easier said than done…’
Zhen Xing understood that if he wanted to learn how Li Kong’s playing affected the flow of battle, then he would have to be staring at Li Kong to figure it out.
The only problem was that there were several soldiers between himself and the guy leading the aforementioned soldiers.
‘I need a clear line of sight if I want to…wait…maybe I don’t need to do that…maybe I just…need to follow the rhythm…’
Once Zhen Xing started to think less reactively and more proactive, his feet began to spark with an unusual color of light.
[A good dancer knows how to follow the music…a great one knows how their performance can change it’s meaning completely!]
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=Well, looks like the battles are going more or less as I had predicted, albeit, I didn’t expect such blatant rigging on the organizer’s part.=
=It has been awhile since we’ve seen something like this, yes.=
=Yeah…by the way, you remember to put up that telepathy scrambler, right?=
=Excellent.=
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‘Hmmm. Looks like my preparations actually worked…for the most part,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as his brain processed all of the battles going on at once.
At some point during his viewing, Logos managed to correct the perspective problem and stopped the kaijin from accidentally overloading their visual senses. As such, only Zhen Liu had to process six times the information, as opposed to all of the kaijin being subjected to it as well.
Whether that was better or not was up for debate.
‘Hmmm. I wonder if it would be a good idea to have the kaijin possess them again in order to help solidify their-‘
“Excuse me.”
“Huh?”
‘Oh shit.’
Zhen Liu had expected that he would be standing in front of this battle display until further notice, undisturbed by the other contestants due to the shared, subtle animosity that comes from such competitons.
Which is why he was caught off guard as one Iona Ecaredies, the cousin of his unofficial fiancee, came up to talk to him.
“Are you by any chance, named Zhen Liu?”
‘DOUBLE SHIT!’
And apparently, she knew about him.
