Chapter 602: … leads to devastation
Did you just make a rhyme between two of your chapters?
|Yes I did, now hush.|
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Zhen Guo’s High Note
[Azure Feather Dart!]
*Thunk, thunk, thunk!*
“Give it up, pretty boy. We got you outnumbered, outmatched and there’s no way you’re gonna hit us if you keep taking so many pot shots!”
‘Yeah, sure…just keep thinking that.’
Soon after getting his epiphany, Zhen Guo proceeded to put his plan into action.
To his opponents, whomever or wherever they were, it looked as if Zhen Guo was still randomly flinging about feathers in an aggravated manner, predominantly at spots where they were hidden.
In reality, Zhen Guo had been occasionally mixing in feather aether darts that seemed to linger a bit longer than usual, or pierce through certain branches and tree trunks so that little air holes were produced as a result.
Air holes that produced a rather lovely sound when the wind blew just the right way.
In other words, they were resonating structures.
‘Just a couple more…’
*Thunk, thunk, thunk!*
‘There!’
Zhen Guo kept up his haphazard display of randomly throwing feathers this way and that occasionally blocking a surprise attack, occasionally dodging to get a better angle, until he finally done.
Once his task was completed, Zhen Guo stopped moving about and stood completely still, right in the center of a clearing in the woods.
This would’ve been the perfect opportunity for the hidden warriors to come out and go for an all-out assault…but they didn’t.
Perhaps it was caution, perhaps it was an underestimation, but the moment Zhen Guo stopped moving, the warriors hiding in the shadows couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
This pretty peacock of a man had been leaping about like a crazy person this whole time, so why was he stopping now at this moment?
As they would soon find out thought, they probably should’ve attacked Zhen Guo while they still had a chance.
‘Here goes…something!’
With everything now in place, Zhen Guo took an audibly deep breath as he circulated more and more of his aether into his lungs.
The faint shadow of a frog-like woman appeared over his body for a brief moment, before being replaced with the more obvious shadow of a massive peacock.
“What the hell?”
The stealthy main branch warriors were caught off guard by this strange display, so much so they began to discuss with each other instead of actually attacking.
“Why is he charging up an attack now?”
“It doesn’t feel that strong…”
“Hold up…do you guys hear that?”
By the time it sunk into the warriors’ heads that now wasn’t the time to get distracted, only one warrior was able to notice that scattered around him and his colleagues were several dozen or so feathers and/or carved holes that all began to vibrate and hum to Zhen Guo’s inhalation, literally.
“Wait a minute…”
It then took a whole other minute for one of the warriors to realize the implication of these resonating structures. Unfortunately, it was too late.
“The feathers…the air holes…shit! We have to get out of here no-!”
[Reverberating Peacock’s Cry!]
‘KEEEEEEE!”
“AAAAHHHH!” x 5.
Once Zhen Guo was fully charged, he let loose a horrific cry that sounded like a peacock and toad had somehow merged into one impossibly loud creature.
As the cry traveled away from Zhen Guo, the frequency he screamed matched the tuning fork feathers and structures he had painstakingly created and amplified the scream to reach even harsher heights.
In fact, the cry was so terribly loud at this point that it forcibly caused all of the hidden warriors to pop out of their hiding spots due to writhing in pure agony as their ears felt as if serrated ice picks were driven into their skulls.
Regardless of how many layers of aether they tried to cover their ears with, it was as if the scream was getting louder and louder by the second.
“GAH! SO LOUD!”
“CAN’T THINK! ALL I CAN DO IS…HEAR!”
“MY EARS ARE GONNA-!”
*Pop!*
Eventually, the resonating scream became too much of the warriors to bear, so much so their eardrums finally ruptured with such force that all five of the warriors Zhen Guo was fighting in this moment all passed out, one after the other.
By the time the last person hit the floor, Zhen Guo had finally stopped his scream and dismissed all the feathers he had made in the process.
“KREEEEEEeee-gah! By the gods! No wonder Zhen Liu used aether beast vocal chords in his puppets,” Zhen Guo mumbled to himself as he massaged his throat, “I need to exercise my voice more.”
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Zhen Tai: Power Poke
‘Come on, come on, just try to tighten it further…,’ Zhen Tai thought to himself as he tried to condense his aether into his fingers even further than he already already.
Knowing full well that a majority of his opponents were either knocked out, maintaining a defensive barrier, Zhen Tai used that opportunity to try and modify an aether art he would normally use as an opening move and finishing move in battle.
[Twisting Python Palm.]
“Wait, maybe if I-” FWOOSH!”-there we go!”
Taking a page out of his cousin’s fire/rock puppet, Zhen Tai proceeded to try and focus all of the energy he would normally use to perform his large, unwieldy attacks, into just two fingers on his right hand.
It took a bit more effort and way more focus than he had intended, but eventually, Zhen Tai managed to pull it off. Granted, it looked a bit unsettling seeing his fingers burning with an otherworldly flame.
“What the fuck am I-what the fuck is that?!,” Jin Lao shouted in alarm as his previously Zen state seem to disappear as a result of seeing Zhen Tai’s fingers.
Jin Lao knew for damn sure that while Zhen Tai’s attacks were powerful, they were too unfocused and spread out, which was why the former’s aether shield was incredibly effective against them.
However, if the boy had somehow managed to concentrate all of that raw power into a single point, Jin Lao was in big trouble.
‘Shit! I need to-‘
[Blazing Viper Finger!]
But before Jin Lao could commit to any other actions, Zhen Tai bursted forward with his fingers at the ready.
The hazy mirage of a giant snake made of magma and stone seemed to manifest of a split second, before merging with Zhen Tai’s finger.
“Now…BURN FOR ME!”
With this declaration made, Zhen Tai lashed out with his new finger aether art and slammed it into the golden shield that had been troubling him this whole damn fight.
At first, nothing happened, much to the relief of Jin Lao.
But then, the cracks started to form.
Jin Lao’s eyes went wide as he saw his treasure’s shield began to break bit by bit.
“Oh…fuck!”
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Zhen Xing’s Captivating Performance
‘One, two, three, punch and strum”
*Twang!*
‘Four, five, six, spin kick and strum!’
*Twang!*
‘Seven. Double fist!’
[Twin Flame Fist!]
*THWACK!*
“GAH!”
“How are none of you able to hit him?!,” Li Kong shouted in frustration, “he’s moving in time with the rhythm for crying out loud!”
‘Correction, they’re moving to my rhythm,’ Zhen Xing corrected in his mind.
During the process in which Zhen Xing was ducking, blocking and counterattacking Li Kong’s dancing goons, he had eventually learned the latter’s playing pattern, and proceeded to use what he observed to forcefully change the rhythm of the fight to go how he wanted it…mostly.
Zhen Xing did make sure to keep the fundamentals of the movement and music in-tact, going left when Li Kong strummed a certain way, going right when he strummed another way, but he also made sure to always be one step ahead of the other soldiers so that he could always be the one attacking instead of the other way around.
This lead to multiple situations where no matter how often they thought they had the advantage where they could get a swing of their swords in earlier, Zhen Xing would deftly maneuver around them and land a couple of punches and kicks instead.
However, this pattern couldn’t be kept up forever.
Despite having taken the initiative and defeating two of the four Acolyte soldiers at this point, the fight was still a three on one, with one of those three being a significantly tougher opponent.
Thankfully, Zhen Xing had come up with a solution on how to deal with that last opponent…or to be more precise, a strange aether art he had never seen or learned before appeared in his mind as he went with the flow of the music.
He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he felt the results would be incredibly…eye-catching.
‘I just need to time so that I can do it right…now!’
[Hazy Fire Star Dance!]
“Whoa! What the fuck?!”
Immediately after activating this strange new aether art, Zhen Xing’s entire body took on a strange, almost illusory quality, becoming more akin to a mirage than a person.
And it was in this veil of illusion and heat, that Zhen Xing used Li Kong’s own music against him.
“Am…am I going crazy, or did this guy suddenly split into two?”
“I don’t think so…but why does it look like he had a swords for legs?”
Evidently, the soldiers were so caught up by this strange dance, that they failed to notice Zhen Xing’s plan until it was too late.
*THWACK!*
“GUH!”
And Zhen Xing had landed a solid kick to the side of Li Kong’s head, knocking him out in a single blow.
“Tsk! I’d prefer a standing ovation to a knock out performance…wait, when did I start caring about that?”
