Chapter 646: The Exiled Ones Level Their Horns…
‘Oh that’s…hold up. Did you guys say because I had [Chaos], it mitigated the effects of this weird curse?’
‘Good to know, but not the point. I just realized something important.’
=Which is…=
‘I didn’t empower all of my family members with kaijin power yet.’
<=...oh shit, right.=>
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When the attack from the Fallen Clan had begun, the branch clan had the “luck” to be caught right in the middle of it due to wanting to be part of the general audience for today as opposed to being in the skybox with their patriarch, the Imperial prince and the main clan’s matriarch.
This meant that the branch clan’s elders and their families were immediate attacked the moment the fighting broke out. Luckily though, several of the guardsmen nearby managed to intercept in time to give the branch elders time to counter as well as establish an escape for their non-combatants. Unfortunately, this also meant that their forces got divided, as some of the elders to act as escorts.
However, something unexpected occured during this series of events.
A strange red mist that reeked of death aether, suddenly rose up from the ground and began to cover the entire arena, starting from the bottom layer and slowly rising up to the stands on the uppermost floors.
When this mist first appeared, not a lot of people really noticed due to all the sheer mayhem happening around the arena, but then things went sideways.
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As the cursed mist grew thicker and thicker, members of the Zhen Clan began to fall one after the other due to their aether and blood being distorted to the point of paralysis. This turned a majority of them into sitting ducks for the Fallen Clan warriors.
Surprisingly though, not all the people who carried the blood of the Zhen Clan had become crippled from this blood curse. In fact, they began to rage even harder because of the threat this mist posed to them and their families.
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[Rose Snare!]
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[Boar’s Hammer!]
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“You bastards wanna touch our family?!,” Zhen Jin shouted in challenge after ensnaring several Fallen Clan warriors with a web of thorn covered vines.
“You’re going to get through us first!,” Zhen Xi roared after he had caved in the chest of a guy who just tried to assassinate him.
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“Because fuck you, that’s how!”*2.
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Due to the need of having to get their families to safety, the elders of the branch clan deemed it necessary to leave some members behind to serve as the rearguard until the rest of the clan managed to escape.
Normally, this duty would fall to Zhen Long, Zhen Lao and Zhen Yan, due to them being the strongest in the clan right after their father.
However, due to the aforementioned blood curse, the three of them were fighting at about fifty percent strength and could barely keep their [Regalia] on. They had only recently advanced and couldn’t overpower such external conditions like more experienced Grandmasters.
Therefore, the duty of playing rearguard fell on the other four branch clan elders, Zhen Hou, Zhen Xi, Zhen Jin and Zhen Ye, who for reasons nobody could understand, were somehow still able to fight at maximum capacity.
Well…reasons that only these four and their father could understand.
‘Hey…Fourth Brother, I got a weird question,’ Zhen Jin asked via his aether.
‘What the-? Now?!’
‘Yeah, it’ll be quick…did you by any chance had a weird dream in the past few months involving a borderline inhuman figure and some weird location that was like-‘
‘A mishmash of your own memories and ideals mixed with whatever that inhuman thing wanted the dream to look like and immediately after the aforementioned dream my cultivation went up like crazy? Yes, yes I did’ Zhen Xi immediately replied after hearing the first part of the question.
‘Well that was quick…did they by any chance, leave you some unusual aether arts to go along with your newfound power?’
‘Yup.’
‘Wanna test them out on these assholes?’
‘OF COURSE!’
Seeing how a pair of Zhen Clan warriors weren’t somehow affected by the blood curse, multiple Fallen Clan warriors dropped their current task in order to deal with the outliers. However, this would turn out to be a huge mistake on their part.
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Once a large enough contingent of Fallen Clan warriors gathered around Zhen Xi and Zhen Jin, the two elders proceeded to circulate their aether in a crazy and wild manner, causing the faint shadow of a boar and rose beast to manifest behind the each of them, but there was something weird mixed into both of them that none of the Fallen Clan warriors could recognize.
But they were about to feel it.
“Alright you Fallen bastards,” Zhen Xi said aloud as he finished circulated his aether into his legs, shoulders and head. “I’m going to smash you all into smithereens with my next move.”
“Please, not if I turn them in fertilizer first!,” Zhen Jin taunted alongside his brother.
Sensing the mood was right, the two warriors lashed out with a pair of aether arts they had been keeping a secret from everybody.
[Eruption Rush!]
[Doom Spider’s Web!]
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“YEAH!”
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At the same time as the Fallen Clan began attacking the Zhen Clan warriors, a group of the former began to attack and abduct the contestants of the Zhen Clan Competition. Well, most of the contestants.
“Unhand me, you heathens! Don’t you recognize royalty when you see it!”
{Master Nadja! I’ll save you!}
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The Fallen Clan were actually abducting the contestants that had prestigious or wealthy backgrounds, while horribly injuring or outright killing the others that fought back. Not that this stopped others from trying to fight back, if anything, the violence was encouraging them to fight even harder.
The idea behind this course of action was to make sure to not only showcase the Zhen Clan’s incompetence in being unable protect young, promising warriors, but to also secure hostages that could be easily ransomed or use for blackmail. It took resources to stage a revenge campaign after all and what came after of course.
At this point in time, the Fallen Clan warriors had managed to capture a handful of the contestants, including some of the more notable ones like Iona Ecaredies and several scions of the Zhen Clan like Zhen Ren Fa.
What made the latter captures even more infuriating was the fact that a strange blood red aether mist appeared out of nowhere and began to sap the strength of anyone who had the smallest hint of Zhen Clan ancestry. The afflicted were so weakened by this cursed mist, that all it took was a single Aether Acolyte to take down these young Aether Masters like they were Novices or mundane children. Whatever this mist was, it seemed to be a curse directed at the Zhen Clan’s very existence.
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Say “Zhen Clan” one more time.
|Fuck you.|
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Strangely enough though, not all of the Zhen Clan members were affected by this curse.
[Lunar Totem Art: Pangolin’s Claw!]
[Hazy Fire Dance!]
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“Because fuck you, that’s how!”
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“Wrong language,” Zhen Yue pointed out. <
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Or to be more specific, the spawns of a certain exile were more or less unaffected by this strange curse.
The moment the fighting broke out, the branch clan scions sprung into action, with Zhen Feng, Zhen Guo and Zhen Tai going to make sure their elder cousin Zhen Hai was still safe, while Zhen Yue and Zhen Xing ran interference, read: fight any Fallen Caln warrior that wanted to try and capture them or anybody else.
In no time at all, Zhen Yue and Zhen Xing took out several of the Fallen Clan warriors, which were mostly Acolytes, with the greatest amount of ease. This result made no sense to these warriors, because they were promised this curse would have a one hundred percent effectiveness rate on anyone with the Zhen Clan blood.
So how the fuck did a bunch of bastard exiles not be affected as well?!
‘I don’t know what the fuck this is mist but it seems to be messing with everyone’s aether…I hope Xiao Liu is okay…’
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