Chapter 665: Accidentally Clockwork (2)
[Well, this is most unfortunate for us. I don’t think we’ll be able to possess any of them until after this battle is over or until the blood fog clears. How annoying.]
[If it helps, I think I can just use my wings to blow away a good chunk of it. Can’t do anything about the stuff they inhaled while naturally breathing though.]
[Inhaled through…hmm…maybe I can help with tha-hold on…do you sense that?]
[Yes…yes I do.]
[…]
[…]
[We gotta get in there, now!]
[Right behind you!]
_____________________________________________
“Have I mentioned how thankful I am that your son took up aether puppetry?”
“Yes, but I need something to distract me from my veins hurting, so go ahead.”
“Thank the heavens, that your kid can control aether puppets.”
“Damn straight.”
<
*POW!*
<
<
In the outer halls of the Zhen Clan arena, the branch clan were busy fighting for their lives against a bunch of Fallen Clan warriors that were aiming to either kill them all or use them all as hostages, they weren’t sure which.
Unfortunately, due to the weird blood fog that seemed to be sapping the power of every member of the Zhen Clan, the First, Third and Seventh elders were all fighting at half strength despite being the three strongest in the branch clan, just right behind their father.
Strangely enough though, the remaining four other elders were still able to fight at full strength, but they were still only four Aether Masters against a whole horde of Fallen Warriors that seemed to be a mix of cultivation stages ranging from mere Acolytes to other Grandmasters. The branch clan elders had also detected the presence of a few Aether Lords, but they were busy fighting the main clan’s warriors instead of them.
Regardless, due to the ensuing chaos of war, two of the unaffected elders ended up getting separated in order to fight off a group of pursuers, while the rest were doing their best to evacuate their family members from the premises with the rest.
They had also almost got overwhelmed when a Grandmaster from the Fallen Clan showed up and had almost killed the First Elder.
In a scenario without the blood fog, the First Elder would’ve trounced this guy’s ass quite easily.
But, just as the First Elder was about to be slain by this Fallen Grandmaster, a pair of weird looking aether puppets, one appearing to be a spider woman while the other appeared to be a demonic lacewing woman, showed up out of nowhere and absolutely bodied the Fallen warrior before he had the chance.
The branch clan members were confused as all hell when these two puppets showed up, but we’re quickly relieved when the Seventh Elder and his wife recognized that the aether coming off of these puppets was exactly the same as their son, Zhen Liu.
That said, they also couldn’t help but notice how strangely familiar these two puppets felt to their senses, especially in the case of the Second Elder, but now wasn’t the time nor place to think about such things, they had an arena to evacuate from.
With the help of the two aether puppets, the branch clan elders managed to defeat the Fallen Clan attackers and prevent any unnecessary casualties.
It was around his time, that the Fourth and Fifth Elder, managed to reunite with the rest of the branch clan and saw the aether puppets for themselves.
The Fifth Elder’s eyes went a little wide once he saw the spider woman puppet, but kept his mouth shut at this time.
If he had questions, he would bring it up later to Zhen Liu, but for now, they had other bigger issues to worry about.
“Are you guys okay?! What happened?”
“We almost got slaughtered by some opportunistic assholes from the Fallen. Luckily we got saved by Xiao Liu’s aether puppets. Starting to think we should pack some too for future.”
“Or see if Xiao Liu can make us some directly.”
“Or that, yeah.”
“We can talk about future preparations later, but for now, we need to get out of here to make sure we have a fu-what the fuck am I sensing?”
“Huh? What are you-oh…what the fuck?”
Just as the branch clan was about to get out of this shitty arena and back to their hotel or something, a strange, overwhelming energy began to press down on not only them, but everyone around them as well. Strangely, even the aether puppets began to show signs of being affected by this same energy, their knees buckling at this time, but the others assumed that Zhen Liu was the one being affected and that it was causing the puppets to buckle in response. Either way, it was unsettling to see these crazy powerful puppets look freaked out over this strange energy.
“What…what the fuck is this pressure?”
“I’m not sure…but it feels really, weirdly familiar.”
“You too?”
“Guys! Look over there!”
At the call of their Sixth brother, the branch clan elders all directed their gazes in the same direction, their eyes going wide once they saw the source of this energy pressure.
“What the fuck…”
“Is…is that a whale?”
“Doesn’t fucking look like any whale I’ve seen before…”
“Me neither…but…anybody else getting this profund sense of wrongness coming off of this thing or is that just me?”
In the air above them, coming in from the west, the branch clan saw what appeared to be a giant whale-like beast made of aether, covered in armor, flying over their heads and towards the arena.
It took a couple of moments, but they eventually figured out that this energetic whale thing was actually something known as an [Avatar], the manifested ideals and history associated with Aether Emperors, after seeing that riding stop of the strange whale was this bedraggled looking warrior with a messed up arm.
The thing was though, they couldn’t help but to feel that something about the whale was…ill-fitting.
However, this wasn’t their problem to fix or get involved in…until they realized where this whale was heading.
“Wait a minute…isn’t father still in the arena?!”
“Oh yeah…OH FUCK! We gotta-”
*FWOOSH!*
“Or let the puppets do it, that works too.”
The branch clan elders were just about to turn right back around in order to assist their father in what was sure to be one hell of a battle, but before they could, the two aether puppets that were original accompanying them had turned about and went in their place.
The branch clan quickly discussed the idea of going in after them as well, but decided against it once they thought of the collateral damage that would ensue.
That and they could sense the main clan matriarch getting pumped up in there and they didn’t want to participate in that.
“Yeah…let’s just get our families to safe-”
“Children! You’re okay!”
“Father!”
And just like fortunate clockwork, the branch clan patriarch appeared to reunite with this sons, in-laws and-
“Wait…where are the kids?!”
_____________________________________________
Zhen Clan arena, inner area at the exact same time as the previous scene…
“How the fuck is Zhen Hai still unconcious?!”
“I don’t know, just keep running!”
<
At this moment in time, the scions of the branch clan were dealing with what they could only describe as increasing bullshit.
They had managed to reunite with one another, all except for Zhen Liu, and had managed to actually rescue several other young warriors that almost been kidnapped by the Fallen as well, including Iona Ecaredies, their soon-to-be future in-law.
Unfortunately, Zhen Hai was still unconcious for some reason, and the increased size of their group had attracted unnecessary attention in the form of the other Fallen warriors that had just finished defeating their respective opponents.
Fighting them off while they had unconcious and injured people with them was just a surefire way to get captured, so they opted to just fucking run.
They had attempted to just leave via one of the arena’s exits multiple times at this point, but they had to turn back multiple times due to a mix of running into someone about to be kidnapped and needing to save them, or just stumbling upon victorious Fallen warriors looking for an easy score.
Either way, this lead to the branch clan scions having to run around a lot more than necessary.
On the plus(?) side, this gave them to socialize with the other young warriors.
“Well…at least now I can understand what my cousins see in you and Zhen Liu, I guess. You’re all a bunch of altruistic crazies,” Iona complimented.
“I-thanks?!,” Zhen Yue replied, not knowing how to respond this type of compliment.
The group of young warriors kept running until a strange pressure suddenly overwhelmed a majority and caused them to stop.
Not only them though, the pursuing Fallen warrior paused too as they sensed the same weird energy.
Evidently, this threw the group for a loop… especially after Zhen Hai regained consciousness in this exact moment as well and started saying weird shit.
“What the fuck?”
“I know this energy,” Zhen Hai said without any notice.
“What the fuck?!”
Shortly after these exclamations, a voice echoed throughout the area like thunder.
<
While they weren’t the target for this address, the scions and their group couldn’t help but shudder.
“…I need to get out there.”
“What the fuck?!”
_____________________________________________
‘Huh…why is my every single fiber of my being reacting in a violent manner to the existence of what I can only describe as stolen [Chaos]?’
