Chapter 788: Archer vs. Artists
*Bing-Bong*
For the sake of flow, the conversational scene between Zhen Liu and the other kaijin has been removed from this chapter.
However, for those curious as to what the hell was going on though, prior to attending the meeting about the types of aether beasts found in the new wandering ruins, Zhen Liu had decided to let the kaijin spend the day roaming around the city in their human form. His reason for doing so being that, if the kaijin were seen as humans around the city, they would eventually be given the same visual status as people such as groundkeepers or day laborers, basically people that become part of the background. In turn, it would make things significantly easier for them to keep an eye on everything if they weren’t limited to just being in their toy forms when scouting about the city.
Frosttusk and Nepherage opted to pretend to be wandering mercenaries, Razorstella and Spring Brawler decided to pretend to be students on field trip, while Screamira stayed back at the estate and took on the guise of a newly hired maid under Archanidame’s employ.
As for Hurricroak, well…ain’t it obvious?
We now return to your regularly scheduled chapter.
Thank you.
…
Dear lord, you actually used this thing properly for once.
|Shut up.|
No.
*Bing Bong*
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“Now then, everybody! With all of the introductions out of the way, let’s get this battle started!”
“WOOOOO!”
“In three…”
The moment the announcer made the “ready up” announcement, Azida proceeded to circulate his aether as quick as he could into not only his body, but the stringless bow that was in his left hand.
As his aether flowed into the bow, a nearly invisible string of wind began to form. Once it was completed, Azida placed his other hand on it like he was ready to let loose an arrow.
“Two…”
In response to this action, the three “mystery” fighters prepared for battle themselves, all three of them circulating a strange energy that caused Azida’s thought process to get a bit more…hectic.
‘Oh, I am so hosed…what the fuck does that even mean?!’
“One…”
Technically speaking, as the challenger, Azida had the right to simply surrender and leave the arena. Sure, his pride and reputation would’ve taken a hit, but discretion was the better party of valor.
Then again…something inside him told him that if he backed down now, he would be missing a grand opportunity. What that opportunity entailed though, he had no idea. But he might as well give it go.
‘Well shit…might as well go down swinging!’
“Go!”
…
[Chaos Knit: Mole Hug!]
The first to make a move was Mad Stitch, as she placed her hands on the ground and began to channel her power into the spool of thread on her back.
The spool began to unravel itself at a rapid pace, feeding the mechanisms in her arm with thread before being channeled into the ground below.
Unseen by mortal eyes, the threads began to take on the shape of a giant mole plushie, moments before coming to life and bursting out of the ground arms first.
The giant mole-like arms threatened to envelop and crush Azida like a leg in a bear trap, but they were too slow.
[Feather Step!]
Moments before the plushie mole arms could crush him, Azida concentrated his aether into his legs and used the aformentioned arms as a platform to give himself some air space. Once he was up in the air, Azida proceeded to pull on his newly stringed bow and fire off several arrows made of Aeroqii aether directly at Mad Stitch.
The sound of howling could be heard behind every shot, each carrying the rage and power of a full force gale.
If anyone of these arrows made impact, Mad Stitch would’ve been sent flying out of the ring.
(Un)fortunately, that didn’t come to pass.
Moments before the arrows of wind made impact, Mad Ink had appeared out of nowhere with his giant brush drawn, filled with the intent to block the incoming attack with one of his own.
[Chaos Paint: Pinwheel!]
With a swing of his giant brush, ink like energy flowed out of the brush and formed into a giant pinwheel made of ink.
One would assume that the moment the wind arrows made contact with the pinwheel made of ink, that the latter would simply burst into puddles of liquid as the arrows proceeded to pierce through both its unintended and intended targets. However, that was not the case.
Instead, the moment the arrows impacted the pinwheel, all of the force and momentum behind them had suddenly disappeared. Whatever force was left behind in these attacks simply caused the pinwheel to spin in a lesiurely manner.
In this moment, Azida was both frustrated and amazed.
‘Damn! Those defensive measures of these mysterious fighters are no joke!,’ he thought to himself for a brief second. Unfortunately, that brief second was a second too long.
“Focus on the battle, puta!”
“Shit!”
Before he could even process that he had been insulted, Azida found himself coming face to face with the third mystery fighter, Thunder Diva.
Judging from the name alone, Azida assumed she was a ranged fighter that specialized in lighting and sound attacks. He was technically correct on that thought, but he didn’t expect the Thunder Diva to also be a physical fighter.
[Splitting Thunder!]
Not knowing or caring what Azida was thinking, Thunder Diva proceeded to perform a spinning axe kick that boomed like thunder as she channeled aether into her leg.
Technically speaking, the spin was wholly unnecessary for the aether art to function properly, and while this added spin made the attack more dangerous on impact, it also gave Azida time to come up with a counter.
[Knock Breath!]
Or at least, a way to escape harm.
[Knock Breath] was a a minor Ethereal art that was traditionally used to, literally, blow away opponents weaker than the user. However, some people had learned that the art could also be used for evasive meanuevers. It made the user look rather silly because of the way the art made their face look when in use, but when the alternative was a blown off dome, a ridiculous face would be the least of their worries.
Using the [Knock Breath] art, Azida proceeded to blast himself back towards the ground, making it so that Thunder Diva’s attack hit nothing but empty air and making it more difficult for her to try and recover from her missed attack.
While in the process of doing so though, he made sure to keep an eye on both Mad Stitch and Mad Ink so that he could be prepared for any follow-up attacks.
Evidently, his fears were fully warranted.
[Chaos Knit: Big Bear!]
[Chaos Paint: Big Tiger!]
In a coordinated effort, Mad Stitch and Mad Ink launched a pair of attacks that came in the form of a giant murderous teddy bear made of thread and kicked up rubble, and a giant crudely drawn tiger made of ink, respectively.
‘Dammit! What the fuck do I do now?!’
Based on his current trajectory, Azida was going to get smacked by the animal shaped attacks long before he hit the ground.
In this moment, Azida had three choices.
He could tank the hits and hope to the heavens he could recover fast enough to not get knocked out of the ring.
He could try and hit the ground faster so he could counterattack with stable footing.
Or, he could try and do something incredibly stupid.
He opted to do option three.
‘Fuck it! It’s either I blast the hell out of them or I get ganked! So let’s go for fucking broke!’
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“Wait a minute. I just realized something,” Zhen Hai suddenly said aloud.
“Hmm? What’s up?”
“Those mystery fighters down there…two of them are kids, right?”
“They do appear to be children, about the age of some our younger siblings, yes,” Zhen Yue answered, actually having little siblings.
“But this entire…arena thing, was organized by Aranea, right?”
“Yeah…,” Zhen Tai concurred.
“So…does that mean those kids are disciples from our clan, that we never noticed for some reason, or were they brought in by Aranea for this?”
“I-wait, is your question about where these kids came from or how they’re swinging significantly harder than Aether Acolytes?”
“Both.”
“Oh…yeah, I still don’t know.”
“Well…”
Before the Zhen Clan scions could give Zhen Liu a third side eye, Zhen Liu interrupted all of them.
“Don’t bother looking my way, I don’t know where these kids came from either,” Zhen Liu partially lied through his teeth.
He was about to settle into a sour mood due to all the incredibly accurate finger pointing, until he sensed something weird.
‘Wait a minute…what the hell am I sensing and why?’
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‘Yeesh! The other continents are so cold, how can all these mortals stand it? On the plus side, I think I found the kai-wait…three kaijin? No…four? Interesting…”
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
Hmmm. it’s taking forever to add character images for the book…should I just add the images as comments?
