Chapter 673: Divide, Conquer, Win! (3)
[So you don’t want us to be the ones to rescue Jin Fang because…]
‘Because, Hurricroak, I need y’all to go and help my crazy tattooed age-defying monster woman of an ancestor up there to kick that prisoner’s ass…that is a sentence I never thought I would say, but here we are.’
[Right…and it’s not because you want to try and look cool in front of your girlfriend?]
‘I…shut up.’
[That’s a yes.]
=Unless her husband is also a bottom, I still contest that statement.=
‘Okay, I’m just gonna-wait, what do you mean by “also”?’
<=[Don't worry about it.]=>
‘I’m going to later.’
_____________________________________________
Jin Fang almost gets jumped.
“What am I doing, what am I doing, what the fuck am I doing?!,” Jin Fang muttered as she kept walking across the arena’s main floor.
At this point, she was fairly certain that whatever was compelling her to walk this way, wasn’t her worry over Zhen Li’s status.
Whatever was causing her to keep moving forward was something…old.
Not even old, it was ancient.
It was as if something deep, deep in her blood, deep in her soul, was telling her to be here, to confront the two wayward souls(cores) who dared to fight with one another despite having been brothers in arms only a short century ago.
Did their vows mean nothing?
Did their years of fighting alongside each other mean nothing?
Did they seriously fall into such a wretched state, just because their queen had-
‘Wait…what the fuck am I even thinking about?,’ Jin Fang asked herself once she realized her thoughts were going into strange territory, drifting to the vaguely remembered silhouettes of a pair of unknown kaijin that vaguely resembled sea creatures.
The only kaijin that Jin Fang knew about were the ones Zhen Liu had made, and absolutely none of them looked like sea creatures…except for maybe Hurricroak, but she was technically a chimera.
‘Wait a minute…that’s not true…I do know of one other kaijin…a wild one at that…’
Jin Fang thought back to a few weeks back, back when the Zhen Clan was under attack from Marlancer, a strange swordfish looking kaijin that looked and felt wrong, even by “normal” kaijin standards.
Jin Fang was informed shortly after that incident that the reason for this sense of absolute “wrongness” was due to a phenomenon that Logos and Pathos referred to as a “breakdown”. Judging from the name alone, she could assume what happened to kaijin when this occurred.
‘Huh…now that I think about it…’
As Jin Fang remembered Marlancer, she couldn’t help but notice how his energy signature was very similar to the ones being released by the Aether Emperors fighting over her head. However, by the time she came to this realization, Jin Fang’s situation went from questionably in danger to downright fatal circumstances.
By the time she realized she had stopped moving her feet, she found herself directly below where Zhen Xun Tian and Gao Ao Long were trading blows, midair.
All it would take would be one stray attack, one deflected attack, and Jin Fang would be rendered a fine blood mist, not unlike the thinning blood fog that had originally obscured and cursed the arena just minutes ago. That being said, Jin Fang had apparently forgotten about this fact because she was positively entranced with the fighting happening above her head at this moment.
‘Godsdamn…so that’s the power of an Emperor…it’s so…majestic…’
*BAM!*
‘OH FUCK!’
It wasn’t until one of the attacks of the Fallen War Elder was deflected in her direction that she realized that she was in deep shit.
The War Elder had apparently opted to finally make use of a fist-based aether art and had struck out at Zhen Xun Tian in a straightforward fashion, firing off a blast of energy in the shape of his fist at her. However, this attack turned out to be for naught as Zhen Xun Tian simply batted the attack away, coincidentally, towards the direction that Jin Fang was standing.
In essence, Jin Fang was about to be killed via collateral damage.
The world began to move as if it was in slow motion for Jin Fang, as the fist-shaped blast of aether kept getting closer and closer to her.
The world slowed for Jin Fang not because she was now moving at a speed that everything was slow in comparison to her, but because she was fairly certain she was going to die in this moment. Her brain was working overtime, as of this moment, to try and figure out if there was a way to get out of this shitty situation alive. Unfortunately, she was coming up short.
‘What the fuck do I do?,’ Jin Fang asked herself as she stared at the encroaching attack like a deer in headlights.
Jin Fang had learned several movement and defensive arts, she’d be a shit cultivator if she didn’t, but unfortunately she was still, at most, a peak Aether Master. Even if she employed every single trick in her arsenal, it wouldn’t be enough to block even a wayward jab from an Aether Emperor.
‘Its no use…I’m done for!,’ Jin Fang concluded as the attack was about to impact her face and kill her in an instant.
She needed something akin to a miracle to survive this moment, and luckily for her, she was going to be rescued by someone who was essentially a living miracle…at least by her standards.
‘I can’t believe I’m going to-‘
*Yoink!*
“Got ya!”
‘-huh?’
Just as the stray attack was going to crater her face, a man dressed in a black armor-like [Regalia] suddenly rushed in and carried her out of the line of fire, making sure to do a princess carry as he did. The man had actually rushed in so fast that he was forced to use his feet as brakes, kicking up dirt as his feet dragged across the ground.
“Hold up, what the-huh?”
Jin Fang’s mind was a mess and she had a face that looked like: (o.o), as she tried to comprehend what the hell just happened. She even maintained this face as she stared up at the face of her rescuer, which was obscured by a very familiar looking black metal helmet with horns that she couldn’t identify right now due to stress.
“You okay?,” a familiar voice asked her with concern, once the pair had stopped skidding across the ground.
“I-wait a minute…”
Due to the shock of her rescue situation, it took Jin Fang a solid three seconds to realize that her rescuer wasn’t some dashing, heroic stranger in mysterious black armor, but her dork-ass, dumbass, recklessly heroic boyfriend using his “villain armor” to speed himself up in order to save her. Evidently, she was torn being mad at Zhen Liu for doing something as reckless as almost intercepting the attack of an Aether Emperor and being ludicrously happy that it was him who saved her ass from being killed.
Then again, she could figure this feeling out later. Right now, she had questions.
“Xiao Liu, when did you-. How did you-”
“I’ll explain once we get out of here and into safety,” Zhen Liu interjected as he took his feet out of the ground and began to ran out of the arena, while still carrying Jin Fang like a princess bride.
Jin Fang wasn’t against this plan, especially since she was being carried like a princess, but she was confused as to why this was the plan. A part of her had expected Zhen Liu to do this Possesstol thing or his “demon lord” thing at a moment like this, sending in the kaijin like a murder squad from the depths of hell.
Thankfully, she got an answer.
“Right now, we need to get the fuck out of here and rejoin the others.”
“Uh…why?”
“Because the matriarch is about to do something incredibly dangerous to the point that the kaijin are afraid of getting injured.”
“…oh.”
_____________________________________________
[And he sticks the landing! Good job, maestro, way to be your girl’s dork in shining armor.]
[I think the term is “knight in shining armor”, Hurricroak,] Nepherage corrected.
[I know what I said.]
[She’s…not…wrong…though…]
[Bruh.]
[Thank you, Frosttusk.]
‘Silence from the peanut gallery,’ Zhen Liu admonished the kaijin. ‘Wait, why aren’t you guys attacking that Gao Ao Long guy, right now? Y’all were supposed to go up there when I pass by!’
[Oh, that’s simple. We don’t want to get caught up in that,] Hurricroak answered.
‘Caught up in what?’
*BOOM!*
[That.]
‘Oh…is…is that a set of floating artificial bone arms radiating dragon force floating around the matriarch, while the shadow of a giant demon squid seems to be manifesting over her form and the arms?’
=As if to imply that she is channeling multiple types of energies at once in order to attack? Yes, yes it is.=
‘Well then…time to GTFO.’
‘THANK YOU!’
