Chapter 678: Re(incartion/lated)?
*Bing-Bong*
Please note that the following conversation is happening at the speed of thought.
Thank you.
*Bing-Bong*
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“What…what am I seeing right now?”
=It appears to be the disembodied spirits of two of the Storm Queen’s kaijin and a shadow of the Storm Queen herself.=
“Okay…why?”
“Huh…wait, what?”
Zhen Liu’s emotional state at this point in time was tumultuous, to say the least.
In the span of about two to five minutes, he had went from panicked, to worried, to awestruck to just straight up confusion to mildly angry. Zhen Liu was initially panicked, because he saw his girlfriend had decided to run off like a crazy person to imminent death and danger. This panic then turned into worry because he was fairly certain that Jin Fang was going to get hit with a stray aether attack from one of the Emperors. That worry then became awestruck because he had witnessed her suddenly manifest a [Chaos] type ability to somehow cause both of those aforementioned Emperors to stop dead in their tracks, which turned into confusion as he saw his girlfriend summon the shadow of someone who was apparently his predecessor, the Invulnerable Storm Queen, and the deceased spirits of two of the latter’s kaijin. Finally, his confusion turned into mild anger because Pathos was being no help…again.
Sorta.
They were normally helpful, just not this time.
“Alright, so tell me something you guys do know, who the fuck are those two kaijin? Because I am getting the vibe they are…were…part of the same series of kaijin as Marlancer from awhile back? Except that guy coming out of the Fallen Elder’s arm looks like a blue whale man except covered in enough armor to outfit a tank, while the other appears to be a…war painted squid man…wait…no, that is painted armor made of seashells, what the fuck?,” Zhen Liu asked while pointing at the two kaijin shadows, the aforementioned whale man coming out of Gao Ao Long’s arm and the aforementioned squid man coming out of Zhen Xun Tian’s back.
Zhen Lie was familiar enough with Grand Blue, since he was given that data packet to the brain earlier, but the squid one was…new…ish.
He had a a feeling that the weird tattoo on Zhen Xun Tian’s back was connected to this guy, but he didn’t expect the connection to be this literal.
The two Aether Emperors had been rendered unconscious by this point, thanks in part to their sudden drop from the air and the ambient [Chaos] sapping most of the bodily protective benefits that came with being an Aether Emperor. Thankfully(?), neither of them would remember this moment of mortal fragility…hopefully.
“Wait, what? No data packet this time.”
Zhen Liu received an unusually melancholic feeling from Logos as soon as they were given the spotlight of this conversation. This was unusual given that was the first time Zhen Liu had ever felt any emotion coming from Logos of all beings. Their reason for not providing a data packet was equally worrying though.
=There’s no data packet this time because most of our records about her and her crew is currently corrupted/locked down. What we gave you earlier in regards to Grand Blue was what we could just scrounge. She didn’t want any of her successors to know about her until…don’t worry about it. I can at least tell you who those kaijin are at the very least. Well. that and I think I have an idea as to how Lady Jin Fang is doing…all of that.=
“Ominous, but sure.”
=Well. you know Grand Blue, so I’m going to skip him, but that’s what he looks like.=
“Bit on the nose, but I get it. I did not blue whales got that big on this world.”
“And yet they still eat krill?”
“Crazy.”
=Moving on, the kaijin that looks like a squid is Ikairo of the Painted Fists. I didn’t recognize him because we were too far at the time, but now that we’re up close…that’s him.=
“Ika-hold up…I know my brain is probably auto-translating these names into languages I understand, but did the Storm Queen literally name a squid kaijin, ‘squid color? Really?”
[We resent that statement,] Nepherage, Frosttusk, Hurricroak, Razorstella, Arachnidame and Lacerage all simultaneously disagreed.
Spring Brawler, Paralust, and the evolving zako didn’t say anything because they didn’t have true names yet. The latter entity however was a…weird case. Regardless, Logos ignored most of these statements to describe Ikairo.
=Of the Storm Queen’s kaijin he is…was the trickiest. Made from the remains of a Rainbow Specter Squid and an old ink stone that belonged to the painter, )(@&*$, a friend of the Storm Queen before she became the Storm Queeb. The combination of those materials made Ikairo a warrior who could manifest their paintings as weapons and gave them an impulsively improvisational personality. My memory is fuzzy on this, but-=
“Hold the fuck up. Why did your voice suddenly go static right there?”
=Like I said, the Storm Queen sealed up most information about herself until certain conditions were met…which brings me to Jin Fang over there.=
Zhen Liu hadn’t taken his eyes off of Jin Fang while this entire conversation was going on. While he was fairly certain that the weird shadowy woman that was overlapping with her existence wasn’t anything/anyone harmful, he at least wanted to be ready at a moment’s notice in case anything happened…like the aforementioned suddenly thinking, “Gee I wonder if I can just steal this body and redo my life”.
Not that he had any legs to stand in regards to “taking over someone’s life”…technically.
=I believe you once described this being “foreshadowing as fuck”, but you recall the move Zhen Xun Tian used to try and smash in Gao Ao Long’s head?=
“The [Symphony of Samsara]? Yeah, what about-wait…are you implying that she’s actually a reincarnation of the Storm Queen?”
=That’s one of the possibilities…the other possibility is related to that question we asked before all…that happened,= Logos explained. While Zhen Liu couldn’t see it, he swore he could feel Logos vaguely gesturing towards the two kaijin ghosts kneeling before his girlfriend.
=When and how did you meet her?=
“Like I said, my mother and I found her when I was walking around Stone Claw City as a child…well. when the previous guy’s memories says as much.”
=Uh huh…=
“Which is…”
=What? Pathos, how would that-=
“Raspberries and sea salt,” Zhen Liu answered almost automatically. The funny thing about this answer though was that that answer came to him a little too quickly.
A look of confusion appeared on his face as Zhen Liu caught how pavlovian that reply was.
“Wait, why would I know-”
“No. Why would I even know th-”
“We were in matching black and navy blue outfits as mother was testing some new stitching that she had learned a week prior; Okay, what the fuck?!”
=Yes. Yes it does…milord, I just want to preface that your feelings for Jin Fang and hers for you are real. Just putting that out there.=
“I…okay, what the fuck?”
=There’s no easy way to say this…but the memory of your first meeting with Jin Fang is fake and if that’s the case then, it means scenario two is the more likely case.=
“What? What do you mean fake? What’s scenario two?!”
=Well…scenario two is…while Jin Fang isn’t the reincarnation of the Storm Queen, she’s…related to her.=
“…what?”
“FUCKING WHAT?!”
Evidently, Zhen Liu’s outburst wasn’t out of rage, but the fuzzy feeling one gets when giving mind blowing news.
On the plus side, at least he and Jin Fang now had another thing in common…hold up…
“Why? How? When…wait…that old guy…”
Zhen Liu wasn’t entirely sure, but he had a feeling that he was about to have a run in with a guy that he should’ve paid more attention to a long time ago.
‘If it turns out that motherfucker is the reason why I met Jin Fang, I…won’t know how I’ll react…’
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“Godsdammit! Will you stupid Fallen bastards just get out of my way?! There’s somewhere I need to be!”
“Where you need to be is out of this arena! Dafuq are you going Zhen Hai?!”
