Chapter 705: One Man’s Curse…
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“Is it wrong that I think it looks a little…plain?”
“Forget the look, what’s up with that aura?”
“Forget both of that, is Zhen Guo okay?!”
When that ominous star of crimson appeared out of nowhere, the branch clan scions had some…expectations, in regards to what could warrant such an ominous display of power.
An evil looking sword, an ominous statue or a malevolent hate beast, those were the kind of things the branch clan scions expected to see when their cousin, Zhen Guo, grabbed that ominous crimson star.
Absolutely none of them expected the true form of that star to be a plain looking, albeit rusty, blacksmithing hammer.
They could however sense the heavy evil aura coming off of it, like smoke coming out of a burning tar pit. If that wasn’t enough of a trait to notice that there was something seriously wrong with that hammer, Zhen Guo had suddenly gone limp after holding the thing back from smashing in Zhen Tai’s skull.
Sensing something was wrong, Zhen Tai immediately bounced away from Zhen Guo before he went fully limp. While he was thankful to Zhen Guo for saving his ass, he didn’t want to be swinging distance for whatever was about to happen next.
“Hey! Something’s wrong with Xiao Guo!”
“Group up and get ready for a fight,” Zhen Yue ordered her cousins. “Zhen Hai, looks like we’re going to have field test out new treasures.”
“Not the most ideal situation to do so, but it’ll do.”
“Xiao Liu, would you mind taking the vanguard?”
“No problem,” Zhen Liu agreed while donning his [Regalia].
The branch clan scions proceeded to take up fighting stances and positioned themselves into a wedge-like formation, with Zhen Liu, Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue taking the lead. They didn’t attempt to surround Zhen Guo at this moment, because they knew that would just open themselves up for a surprise attack. At least, that was the impression they got based on their clan’s past experience and Zhen Guo’s current weird posture.
The amount of times the branch clan was given a “freshly killed” aether beast to process to only find out that the beast was actually playing dead was a little too damn high. As such, none of the branch clan scions bought the idea that Zhen Guo was “just” limp. That and they knew that their cousin would rather be caught naked then slouching, especially in his nicer suits.
Evidently, they were right.
“…are we sure something is going to-”
“GIvE eE UR bLuD!”
“Fuck!”
In a weirdly stiff yet fluid motion, Zhen Guo suddenly lashed out with a heavy swing of the cursed hammer in one hand while shouting in a voice that definitely wasn’t his own.
Most of the branch clan scions chose to backstep(backfloat?) as soon as they saw Zhen Guo’s arm twitch. Zhen Liu, on the other hand, chose not to do so due to the simple fact that he had confidence in not only his weird ass physique, but also his [Regalia].
A sound akin to a hammer smashing into a steel sheet echoed throughout the space as Zhen Liu used his arm to intercept the hammer’s blow.
‘Okay…ow…that actually kind of hurt…,’Zhen Liu thought to himself as he felt Zhen Guo trying to finish through with his swing despite Zhen Liu pushing back. While the pain in question was equivalent to stubbing one’s toe against a desk leg, Zhen Liu chalked it up that it was probably a bad sign that he could still feel it and that Zhen Guo was able to hold him back. Even his cousins noticed that it was probably a bad thing that the strongest along them was having trouble at the moment….well, most of them anyways.
“Xiao Liu! Hold up man, I’m coming!,” Zhen Hai shouted as he readied his new treasure weapon.
“Hold it!”
Unfortunately, he was stopped by Zhen Yue before he could do anything.
“Are you crazy?!,” Zhen Yue shouted at Zhen Hai. “Do you not see how even Zhen Liu is struggling to resist Zhen Guo’s hammer at this moment?! He’s quite literally the strongest out of all of us, and the fact that he’s having trouble overpowering Zhen Guo is probably a bad sign!”
“Well we can’t just leave him to fight by himself! Look, Xiao Guo is clearly being affected by that hammer. You sense it, I sense it, we can all sense it! If we can get him to let go of it, maybe we can end this now!”
“How are you going to do that with this?!,” Zhen Yue argued back while gesturing to Zhen Hai’s only weapon at the moment. “Slicing off his arm?”
“sLiiCEee…”
“Uh oh.”
As soon as the word “slice” entered Zhen Guo’s ears, the possessed scion immediately pulled back both himself and his hammer away from Zhen Liu and the others at a speed that made it impossible for them to follow, at a distance that msde it very hard to close the gap in time to stop…whatever he was planning to do.
*BAM!*
Which was apparently smashing his non-dominant hand open with the cursed hammer.
“What the fuck?!”
“Why would he do that?!”
“Oh, that’s a lot of blood…”
“Slice…”
The branch clan scions were stunned at the sight of their cousin self-harming themselves in such a manner, not understanding as to why he would do such a thing in the first place. Especially in regards to what he did after smashing his hand open.
“Wait. Why is he holding his hammer like-”
*Squish*
“What the fuck?”
With his hand now openly pouring blood out, Zhen Guo took the cursed hammer and proceeded to actively rub the top part of it into the wound. As he did, the others could sense the surrounding aether becoming more and more disturbed by the second, and more and more concentrated around Zhen Guo’s bleeding palm.
“The hell is he doing?”
“I don’t know, but I’m stopping this shit. Now!”
Zhen Liu proceeded to fly over to where Zhen Guo was floating as fast as his abilities could take him, in order to stop whatever insanity his cousin was up to.
Unfortunately, he was too slow.
“Alright! Stop whatever the hell you’re doing and hand over that-!”
“Slice…”
“Oh fuck.”
By the time Zhen Liu reached Zhen Guo’s destination, it was too late.
Apparently, Zhen Guo wasn’t just giving himself probably the worst case of tetanus in existence by rubbing his hammer into his open wound. Instead, the man was actually using the hammer as a focal point in order to turn his blood into a rather large, rather vicious looking, yet strangely elegant, saw-toothed saber.
A saw-toothed saber that he was now going to use against Zhen Liu.
‘Shit! I gotta get that hammer out of his hand before-”
[Cursed Blood Forge: Ripper!]
“SHIT!”
Before Zhen Liu could react or even finish his thoughts, Zhen Guo entered a strange looking stance moments before lashing out against Zhen Liu with his new weapon. Zhen Guo’s stance carries the telltale signs of an amateur, but the sheer power behind the attack more than made up for it.
A jagged, blood red colored slash of sword energy fired from Zhen Guo’s saber and sent Zhen Liu flying backwards. There was no ground on which Zhen Liu could steady himself on, so he was forced to grit his teeth and bear it until he could find the strength to disburst the blood energy. Thankfully, it didn’t take him too long.
“Grrrr…HA!”
With an uncharacteristically forceful shout, Zhen Liu spread his arms out wide and broke the blood red chunk of sword energy apart. Just in time too, as he was a mere ten feet away from suddenly and violently impacting his other cousins.
“Okay…this might be a problem…”
“What the fuck is up with that hammer?”
“Xiao Liu, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just got caught off guard is all,” Zhen Liu answered as he readied himself for round two.
Physically and visually speaking, Zhen Liu was indeed fine. Mentally though…he had questions.
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=Milord! Are you okay?!=
‘If…if I had a nickel for everytime I’ve been sent flying because of a blood related aether art, I’d have two. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice.’
=Which ones?=
‘Not addressing that yet, but more importantly, why is that hammer able to hurt me? I thought only [Dragon Force] and [Chaos] could do that.’
‘Oh come the fuck on…’
