Chapter 810: Out of my Body, but not out of my Mind.
Meanwhile, as things were about to go down in the Library of Nowhere’s newly minted labyrinth…
“Mistress Daria? Is everything al-”
“No time for chit-chat, Jin Fang. I need you and your friends to accompany me as we take Tiny to the Library of Nowhere, this instant.”
“Wait, what?”
“Ah…that explains some things about Xiao Liu.”
“How does she know about-”
“I’m his mother, you really think I wouldn’t know about this?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t have a mother to use as an example for…whatever this is.”
“Oh, you poor baby…”
“Meh. I have like…a dozen stepmoms and stepdads. I’m pretty sure at least half of them has someone spying on me.”
“That…that is a whole a different issue…”
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‘Ow…why does my existence hurt?,’ Zhen Liu muttered to himself as he rubbed his temples.
One moment, he was having a panick attack because he just got caught by his cousins mid-“kaijin related shenanigans”, the next, he found himself being sucked into a literal vacuum in space time.
If he had to compare the experience he just went through with anything in this life or the previous one, he would say it felt a bit like standing inside a ride that somehow combined a Zero Gravity ride with a roller coaster, with the cart being an individualized zero gravity spinner.
In other words, it was a massive pain in the ass and hoped to the high heavens he didn’t have to go through this shit, ever again.
‘Frosttusk, I know this might be a stretch but…hold up…why are my connections fuzzy again?,’ Zhen Liu asked himself as he swore he remembered fixing this exact problem not five minutes ago. To make sure he wasn’t going crazy, he began to do a once over on his body. If everything was as he remembered it, he should be wearing his [Regalia] with a [Stigma: Frosttusk] add-on.
‘Alright, the fact that I’m not wearing [Regalia] is already a bad enough si-what the fuck am I pulling?’
When Zhen Liu placed his hands over his chest, he was expecting to feel nothing but his own chest and maybe whatever clothes over it.
He did not expect to be feeling what he could only described as a big ass chain sticking out of him like a harpoon in a whale.
‘Oh shit…’
A part of him knew he had to look down to make sure it wasn’t anything hazardous to his existence, but the other part didn’t want to acknowledge so that he could live in blissful ignorance.
‘Alright, it’s just a band-aid. It’s just a band-aid,’ Zhen Liu told himself in order to psyche himself up before looking down and confirming the worst. ‘I just need to look down and-oh sweet mother of divinity…I am having a very literal out of body experience…great…knew this would happen one day.’
Since day one of waking up in Valresta, Zhen Liu always had this sneaking suspicion that one day, he’d end up in a position where his soul was separated from his body.
Call it instinct, call it paranoia, but since Zhen Liu knew that his soul and body weren’t a complete set, he always figured that his soul and body weren’t that strongly connected.
Thankfully, that didn’t turn out to be case.
Instead, Zhen Liu found that his soul was floating out of his body, connected by a weird looking chain, being dragged like a balloon. As for his corporeal body, it was being carried by Frosttusk in the same manner a parent would carry a small child.
One of the unexpected perks of making the kaijin larger than himself, ease of transport.
‘Well…guess I can knock “getting my soul knocked out of my body” off of my list of “ways I can painfully die”…maybe. But why is this happening in the first place?’
Zhen Liu wracked his brain for a hot minute to try and figure out why this was occurring…until he remembered why this situation started in the first place.
‘Wait a minute…’
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Zhen Liu directed his gaze towards his body and Frosttusk. He couldn’t help but notice how the latter was walking at a significantly faster pace than normal…and that his body was radiating so much heat that the air around it was doing that weird wavy thing.
It didn’t take Zhen Liu to figure out what was going on after seeing these two “little” details.
‘You have got to be kidding me…,’ Zhen Liu mentally groaned. ‘Next time I deal with elemental shit, I have Logos and Pathos give me a full rundown on the consequences. Or at the very least, I keep a kaijin on me at all times. Curse thee complacency!’
Evidently, this moment would amplify Zhen Liu’s innate paranoid even further. Whether or not that was a good or bad development would be up for debate.
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*Bing-Bong!*
We interrupt this chapter in order to provide some context as to why Zhen Liu was groaning and moaning like a little bitch.
This explanation would’ve been woven into the earlier scene, but it was deemed to clunky for the scene’s flow and pacing. Maybe if we get illustrated one day, we can just keep it as a side panel or something.
Editor’s note?
|Please stop mocking our protagonist.|
I’ll think about it later, but for now, onto the explanation!
…
The reason for Zhen Liu’s current status of being a soul balloon is due to three factors: his type of Otherlander, the fused flames currently burning in his soul and the fact that he got caught up in a weird spatial explosion.
For the ease of clarity, each part will be individually explained.
…
While Zhen Liu is broadly referred to as an Otherlander, the more specific term would be “transmigrator”, somebody whose deceased soul got shoved into the body of someone else who died in another world.
Transmigrators have the distinct advantage of being able to pose as a native to whatever world they end up getting transported to, down to their own memories being amended to include the host body’s original memories, but there was one tiny drawback.
Due to a transmigrator’s soul not being a perfect fit to their new body, their souls are technically easier to knock loose.
Very rarely does this event occur, but depending on the world and the abilities on said world, a transmigrator can be unmoored from their body quite easily.
Like, for example, being subjected to a powerful natural aether treasure and a powerful spatial explosion at the same time.
…
This next bit needs to be prefaced with an extra piece of information.
Many warriors from the world tend to make it their goal to control some of form naturally occuring aether treasure in some capacity or another, due to all the benefits they tend to bring.
In fact, some warriors make it a point to try and take control of multiple different types of natural aether treasures.
However, much in the same way one should never mix scotch mints with cola, certain aether treasures should never mixed due to their…volatility.
For example, the [Violet Berserker Spring Flame] had the innate ability to increase agitation in someone by directly influencing the soul. Meanwhile, the [Ghost Flame] has the ability to necrotize and burn someone at the same time, and supposedly, is made of from the burning spirit of thousands of angry souls.
So…what happens when [Violet Berserker Spring Flame] is mixed with [Ghost Flame]?
…
Unlike normal explosions, which can be done cheaply with a little gunpowder and a magnifying glass and causes mostly physical damage , spatial explosions require significantly more energy and has a tendency to have an effect on things that weren’t just…physical.
Space was one of those concepts of reality that seemed to be everywhere, like time or entropy, to that point that even immortal beings were affected by it.
As such, when one gets exposed to something like a spatial explosion, there’s a small chance that it could damage not just physical space but incorporeal space as well.
A possibility that gets amplified if one happens to be caught in an area where “empty space” alwhrn such explosions occur…like when teleporting.
…
Tl;Dr Zhen Liu is currently a soul balloon because the combination of incompatible aether flames and a literal, multidimensional explosion rocked his soul to the point of ejection.
We now return to your regularly scheduled chapter.
Thank you.
*Bing-Bong!*
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‘Well…on the plus side, I’ll probably get my ass fixed up as soon as we reconvene with Logos and Pathos,’ Zhen Liu comforted himself. ‘After that I can just probably go home and…wait…fuck…’
It was in that exact moment, Zhen Liu remembered that his cousins got sucked up by the impromptu spatial vacuum as well.
‘Okay, if my sorry ass was any indicator, then that means the others got warped into the Library too…which is…not exactly the worst case scenario but is still pretty fucking bad,’ Zhen Liu muttered to himself. ‘At least it’ll make it easier for Logos and Pathos to muck with their memories a bit…hopefully that won’t take too long.’
If it wasn’t obvious enough, due to Zhen Liu’s current predicament, he had no idea what was going beyond his own body.
Meaning he could only hope for the best, while praying that the worst hadn’t happened yet.
As for what that “worst” could be, well…
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
Sorry for lack of updates! Christmas time kicked me down and said “nah, you resting”.
