Chapter 786: The Wanderer
Thanks to the establishment of the new road connecting Stone Claw City to Emerald Eye City, the amount of traffic, traders and travellers had increased in both directions.
Just as there were many people who headed to the frontier for a new lease on life, there were just as many people in the frontier who were sick of that life style and demanded more civilization and structure.
Traders could now transport larger and better quality goods between the two cities, without having to worry about things like the rather or bandits to a lesser extent.
As for the lone travellers, that’s where things got interesting.
Due to Stone Claw City having recently acquired a “new” wandering ruin,countless wandering warriors or warriors sent by powerful sects had been seeing en masse all for the attempt to at least go inside the damn thing.
Alternatively, some of the travelling warriors came to figure out one important thing: to determine just how powerful the Zhen Clan really is.
‘So this is where the rumored Zhen Clan have been setting up shop, huh? Nice place, too many spiders though,’a cloaked traveller thought ko himself as entered into the city’s main district and took in all of the sights that were presenting themselves at this time.
The cloaked traveller stood out from the rest of the wandering warriors, not because of his brilliant red robe or the fact that he stood a solid head taller than his peers, but because of the strange aura of aether that seemed to turn the man into a walking heatwave.
In fact, if someone got close enough to this man, they’d find that their canteens would begin to boil as their skin suddenly started sweating like crazy. It was as if the man’s innate aether was so powerful, that he couldn’t keep a proper lid on it.
As the man continued to walk through the town, he eventually paused as his senses told him that what he was looking for was now a couple dozen feet away from his position.
Inside of an arena with a rather surprisingly eye-catching banner hanging off it.
‘This aura…interesting…’
As the red cloaked man began to walk towards the arena, the area around him started to get even hotter, as if to indicate his own excited thoughts.
‘Been awhile since I had a good brawl…I hope these kaijin things are as tough as the legends say they were…’
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“So…what do you think this Azida is going to end up fighting in the arena? I know it’s all random, but you guys must have some opinion, ” Zhen Hai asked his cousins, cutting through the awkward atmosphere from earlier.
Thankfully, it worked.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I am of the belief this Azida guy is fucked if he ends up having to fight Zhen Liu’s puppets,” Zhen Tai answered. “That guy is clearly a hunter, I mean, who shows up to arena with a fucking bow if they weren’t exactly absolutely confident in their abilities with it?”
“So you’re saying that, since the aether puppets don’t have traditional weak points as aether beasts do, that Azida guy won’t be able to show off his prowess as a hunter as much?,” Zhen Yue asked.
“Basically, yeah.”
“Hmmm. So if this guy wants to win, he’s either gonna have to spin an aether beast challenge or whatever the hell those question marks are…seriously though, what kind of crazy shit did Aranea cook up for ‘mystery opponents’? Is she going down in that arena her…actually, now that I say that, it would make a little too much sense for her to go down there herself.”
“Yeah…,” Zhen Tai’s cousins echoed in agreement. That said, only Zhen Liu knew for certain what the heck those question marks actually represented and he wasn’t exactly happy about it.
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‘You know, I was once told that it was possible to get so angry that it loops back to being calm again. I never really took that statement seriously, but now…I completely understand how one can get to that point.’
[I mean…if it helps, they never lost a match when the challenger picks a multiplier higher than two.]
‘DOESN’T CHANGE THE FACT THAT YOU’RE SENDING LITERAL CHILDREN TO FIGHT FULL ASS GROWN ADULTS!’
∆=To be fair…=∆
‘You two, shush! Despite you guys being arguably the most knowledgeable teachers possible for the kids, I may seriously need to re-evaluate leaving them at the library…’
[Young master, just watch and see what happens. You’d be surprised how resourceful those two have become.]
‘Its been a few months at most!’
[Exactly! They’re surprisingly talented!]
[Besides, maestro, if you’re that worried about the kiddos. I’ll be there to keep an eye on them.]
‘Thank you, Hurri-wait a minute, what?’
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{Come on beast symbol, come on beast symbol…,}Azida muttered to himself as he stared at the spinning wheel floating above his head.
For the last few times the Zhen Clan had been hosting this arena event, Azida had made it a point to attend in order to see what kind of challenges people faced in the arena, as there was only so much one could learn from just looking over pamphlets.
“Looks the wheel is slowing down!”
“What’s it gonna be? What’s it gonna be…”
“Is it stopping on a skull? Please let it be another skull!”
From his own observations, fighting precisely one to two opponents was barely worth the effort as the promised prize amount didn’t amount to much, three made it worth the effort, while fighting four to five opponents was basically asking for an asswhooping. Granted, this logic only applied when the opponents were either the skeletal or metallic aether puppets.
“I think it’s landing on the beast symbol?”
“Oooh! Last time someone got that, they had the guy fight off a troop of Doom Caller Goats! Nasty little fuckers.”
“What the fuck is a Doom Caller Goat?”
“Think rhinoceros-sized goats with horns like spears and a cry that sounds like a mix between a war crime and the inevitability of death.”
“How…how do you possibly know what that sounds like?”
When it came to the beast symbol, it was honestly a massive toss up due to how big of a gap exists between different types of aether beasts of the same rank. A tier three goat beast could never beat a tier three lion beast, after all.
That said, all aether beasts shared the same weakness of needing organs, which was something Azida could easily exploit. A few well-placed shots and even a lion falls in the same manner as a buffalo.
Of course, every single note and factor that Azida had painstakingly gathered would be thrown out the window if-
*Ka-cling*
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS AND EVERYONE IN-BETWEEN! WE HAVE OUR FIRST MYSTERY FIGHTER MATCH OF THE DAY!”
-it landed in the fucking question mark.
“OH SHIT!”
“HE’S FUCKED!”
“I mean, he has a chance if he went with a one multiplier…”
“But it’s times three!”
“FUCK!”
Azida couldn’t help but to grind his teeth in abject frustration as the worst case scenario happened to him.
Out of all the prizes and challenges on the wheel that could appear, the question mark symbol was simultaneously the best and worst option for someone to pick, based on their chosen multiplier.
This was due to the fact that these mystery fighters, while surprisingly difficult but manageable to defeat while solo, were absolute monsters when they were allowed to work together. And Azida had made the grand mistake of choosing a multiplier of three.
“Without further ado! Let’s introduce our fighters for today, shall we?!”
*Snap!*
With a snap of the announcer’s fingers, the arena suddenly went dark , causing everyone to go silent. Mere seconds later, three spotlights turned on and illuminated three figures on the arena that appeared out of nowhere.
Two out of three three figures were surprisingly short, but all three of them made Azida still flinch out of instinctual fear.
He recognized two of these three mystery fighters from previous fights and knew that while they were manageable by themselves, facing the two of them together was tantamount to throwing oneself to the wolves after dousing themselves in barbecue sauce.
‘Wait…dammit! Is that weird mental debuff theirs actually stronger than usual? What gives?!’
One of the major reasons why people absolutely hated fighting the mystery fighters, despite the ludicrous prizes, was due to this weird mental aura they produced while in combat.
It wasn’t that bad when it was mano y mano challenge, but when there were multiple…things got weird.
Previous combatants mentioned that their vocabulary suddenly became warped with the addition of unfamiliar words appearing in their brainscapes, while their plans and normal attack routines became significantly more reckless and wild. Making the whole thing worst though was the fact that the attacks of these fighters seemed to negate any and all aether based defensive like fire in the snow.
In other words, Azida was fucked.
“Alright, that’s enough vamping on our end. Why don’t we introduce our fighters for the noobs in the crowd?!”
“Woooo!”
