Chapter 671: Divide, Conquer, Win! (1)
[Oh, I grabbed the Gate Elder and this one other guy who hasn’t stopped giving me and Razorstella this real funny look when we went to go get the zako. They’re about at the…Aether Grandmasters level? Although, the Gate Elder has that weird blood inheritance thing going on.]
‘Blood inheritance?’
[The thing that turned the zakos into stone?]
‘Oh yeah…wait a minute…’
As soon as Zhen Liu was reminded that the Gate Elder apparently had weird paralysis eyeball powers, the more strategic part of his brain began to formulate a plan. Whether or not it worked would be left to fate and faith. It was better than nothing though.
[Pardon me, director, but can out the Puppet Elder’s eyeballs?,] Razorstella suddenly and inexplicably asked while Zhen Liu was thinking of a plan, throwing him off for a moment.
‘What the fu-no, why?’
[He’s been looking at me funny this whole ride here and it’s getting under my metallic skin. I can’t tell if he’s admiring my form or wanting to take it apart so he can look at it under a…wait, microscopes don’t exist here yet, right?]
‘That…I have no idea. Logos?’
=They’re some in use at the Radiant Feather continent, developed for the Institute of Healing at Shining Garden.=
‘Huh. More you know, anyways. No murdering or maiming anyone except for the people I specifically point out for you. Okay?’
[Fine…]
‘Good. Now here’s the-wait, Logos, Pathos, can I have the zakos act like aether puppets and is it possible to have them be used by people that aren’t me or the kaijin?’
‘Wait, that’s it?’
‘Huh…okay, cool, so here’s the plan…’
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Bing-Bong
The following scenes are happening all at the same time, and are actively affecting one another.
For the sake of clarity, however, each of the following scenes will be told as if they were their own separate continuity.
These scenes will include a bit of conversation between the kaijin involved with the plan before and after execution.
Additionally, they will be told in increasing amounts of activity.
Thank you.
Bing-Bong
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[Well, on the plus side, we can finally ditch these two old guys.]
[I still want to cut the weedy one’s eyes out.]
[Razor, no.]
[Fine…also, are you sure it was a good idea lending him a zako?]
‘The man’s main method of fighting is puppets and the closest thing I got as an actual puppet is either you two or the zakos. So roll with it.’
[As you wish, director/ringmaster.]
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Patriarch Zhen Shi’s Game of Chicken gets interrupted
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‘Okay, I have her in a stalemate…now what?’
[…]
‘Not helping.’
In this moment in time, Zhen Shi had managed to force both himself and Gao Shen Yuan, the matriarch of the Fallen Clan, into a catch-22 situation by wrapping his [Astra], which he has been calling [Jormungandr’s Lament] as of late, around the necks of the former’s entourage. Making matters even worst for the captured antagonists, Zhen Shi had been in coordination with his beast spirit in order to conduct ice aether and [Chaos] through his [Astra] and directly into the neck of his captives.
It would only take one quick tug of his hand, and the necks of about eight or so Aether Grandmasters would be snapped in an instant…if they were lucky. The not-as-lucky fellows’ heads would probably roll clean off their necks due to the ice aether freezing their flesh and bones and making them very, very brittle.
(Un)fortunately, Gao Shen Yuan understood this fact as well.
She wanted nothing more than to run her sword into Zhen Shi’s abdomen or neck, whichever one was more painful, and force him into a slow and painful death, but doing so would be hazardous to health of her subordinates.
If she stabbed forward and jammed her blade into Zhen Shi, he would simply backwards and yank the chain, snapping her subordinates neck and freeing the High Elders.
If she slashed off any body parts, the sheer shock and adrenaline would be enough that he could just pull the chain as a reaction, again, freeing the High Elders.
She couldn’t even use an art to annihilate the man, nor could she command her subordinates to kill the High Elders right now, because if she did, then Zhen Shi would just pull the chain unimpeded.
The long and short of it was simply this: while she could kill Zhen Shi in a million of ways, the end result would always be bad for her too, with varying degrees of death or wounding involved. Honestly, she didn’t know whether she was more infuriated over being forced into this situation, or over the fact that the one who put her in this situation was someone who was noticeably a stage lower than herself.
The only thing that could break this stalemate, this moment of mutually assured destruction, would be the interference from an outside party.
And (un)fortunately for them, there weren’t that many other powerful warriors in the area that could tip the scales one way or-
[Basilisk’s Gaze!]
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Out of nowhere and much to the surprise of both Zhen Shi and Gao Shen Yuan, a beam composed of Terraqi and Aquarii aether came pouring down on the Fallen Clan warriors and the Zhen Clan’s High Elders.
Unusually, the beam seemed to do nothing to the High Elders themselves, while having a petrification effect on the Fallen Clan warriors. A good chunk of them managed to throw up a defensive measure of some kind to prevent the worst of the effects, but the ones that were less aware of the situation ended up bearing the full brunt of the blast and turned into stone. Either way, the High Elders were no longer captive, but still unable to fight. Apparently the Fallen had the foresight to apply aether manacles in the event the High Elders managed to get free from their holds.
After this sudden attack occurred, both Zhen Shi and Gao Shen Yuan threw their gazes upward to see who or what caused this turn of events.
Much to the surprise of both though, the source of this strange beam was none other than the Gate Elder of the Zhen Clan, Zhen Bao. The two of them could make out the fading wisps of an aether array behind the floating elder in full [Regalia], a clear sign that he was the one who fired off that beam.
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[Puppet Enhancement Art: Rapid Reaction]
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Before Gao Shen Yuan could even react, and much to the surprise of Zhen Shi, yet another interloper had appeared as if out of nowhere, only this time, he wasn’t aiming to attack.
From the sidelines, the man known as the Puppet Elder of the Zhen Clan appeared and tossed out four strange looking metallic marbles.
Once the four marbles were midair long enough, they suddenly exploded into four similar looking metallic humanoid aether puppets that were clearly optimized for speed and reactive movement.
As quickly as the puppets appeared, they grabbed the captive High Elders from the grasp of the petrified Fallen Warriors.
It had happened so quickly that Gao Shen Yuan’s order to stop the puppets had barely been given before the puppets had already recaptured the Zhen Clan High Elders.
A look of utter confusion and malice appeared on Gao Shen Yuan’s otherwise immaculate face.
How the hell did things fall apart like this?!
No matter, all she had to do was alert the War Elder and things will be-
*KABOOM!*
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Evidently, that was easier said than done.
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‘Wait a minute…why do the zakos feel different? I made sure to give them standard as fuck metal zakos, so what the fuck just happened?
‘That…sounds like something that should’ve been mentioned a long, long time ago. So why am I hearing about it now?’
=Well, with how you are with wanting to maintain a veil of secrecy in regards to your abilities, we didn’t want to bring up any methodologies that were incongruent with that philosophy. Thus we decided to only give you the information when it was deemed relavent.=
‘I…okay.’
‘That makes more sense.’
=Pathos!=
‘No, no its fine, honestly I kind of dumped those kids on ya by surprise…speaking of which, how goes their cultivation and studies?’
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
For the character profiles, should I treat kaijin separately, or merge them and their art bits into one profile?
