Chapter 823: Unexpected reunion
‘Hey guys, I’m back from being half-dead.’
[Milord!]
[Director!]
[Maestro!]
[Young master!]*2
‘At some point we really need to unify the titles you guys call me to a singular one.’
[No.]*8.
‘Fair enough, anyways…looks like you guys managed to keep all them busy while I was out without killing any of them. Good on…wait a minute… where’s Spring Brawler and Screamira?’
[Apologies, producer, but Spring Brawler and I are-]
[CURRENTLY CHASING ME DOWN, DADDY DEAREST! THANKS FOR ALL THE POSSIBLE HOSTS, BTDUBS! I’LL SEE YA AFTER I DROWN A KINGDOM IN LUST! BAHAHAHA!]
‘AH HELL! KAIJIN, MOVE!’
[We’re on it!]
=Wait, milord! What about your mother?!=
‘Yeah, I’d rather deal with them finding out about me then risk whatever the fuck might happen when Paralust comes into contact with them!’
[RUDE BUT NOT UNWARRANTED!]
‘CASE AND POINT!’
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“Seriously though, who the heck are these guys?,” Zhen Feng asked his cousins.
“My beans…”
“And why are they holding their crotches like that?,” Zhen Tai pointed out.
“Mama…your boy’s dying…”
“I don’t know, but why do they smell like…lavender and olive oil?,” Zhen Guo asked in an attempt to be relevant to the matter at hand without addressing the crotch question.
“Ice…I need ice…”
Shortly after that weird *KNOCK* rocked the room they were in and sent all of those strange aether beasts back into their pits, the Zhen Clan scions were left absolutely flabbergasted.
They had no idea why that *KNOCK* occurred or whether or not whomever or whatever caused it was friendly towards them in the slightest.
All they knew for certain at that time was that they needed answers and a ten minute break…of which they received neither.
Instead, as if the universe was mocking them at this point, the Zhen Clan scions found that the labyrinthian room that they were in had suddenly changed back into that original circular lobby room.
However, instead of being greeted with the sight of that unconscious giant warrior sitting in a newly formed crater, the scions found themselves standing over a trio of recently washed vagabond-looking fellows that were all holding their crotches in a manner that suggested that they just been horribly injured in a way that only fellow men could understand.
That said, the scions were all set to just ignore these weird fellows and focus on the fact that there was probably a very nasty reason as to why the library had suddenly changed as it did. That was until one of them noticed something about these mewling vagabonds.
“Wait a minute…”
“Hmmm? What’s up Zhen Hai?”
With an expression dripping with scrutinous intent, Zhen Hai took a closer look at a guy with a particularly messed up set of teeth and what appeared to be splinters in his crotch.
“Oooh…this is the second worst pain…”
“Why do I…wait…ah!”
“Huh? What’s wrong, Zhen Hai?,” Zhen Xing asked.
“I recognize this guy!”
“You do?,” Zhen Yue followed up.
“Yeah, just gimme a second…”
“Ah! Please be gentle.”
Without much in the way of consent or gentleness, Zhen Hai picked up the man with messed-up teeth by the back of his hair in such a manner that his face could be shown in the same direction as his cousins.
“See? Don’t you recognize this guy’s face too?”
“Oh…”
“Uh…”
Zhen Hai was expecting his cousins to release sounds of acknowledgement, or at least, something that indicated they recognized who this guy was the moment Zhen Hai exposed the man’s face towards them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
Sensing that his cousins were not getting what he was laying down, Zhen Hai decided to do something…dramatic.
“Okay, maybe you don’t remember his face, but maybe y’all remember this?”
*Yoink!*
“Ah!”
“Zhen Hai, what the fuck?!,” Zhen Guo exclaimed in disgust.
Using his other hand, Zhen Hai proceeded to yank at a corner of the man’s mouth in order to expose their teeth to his cousins, much to their disgust….or at the very least, disbelief.
Just as they were about to verbalize these feelings to Zhen Hai directly, he cut them all off with the reason why he was doing this in the first place.
“Remember a couple months back, around the time we were leaving for Roaring Tide, there was this guy who tried to kidnap Mini? Got the absolute shit kicked out of him because Zhen Liu punched some of this teeth out?”
“Vaguely…”
“Wait, you mean the guy who was a Spatial Beaver Bloodliner, or something like that, and it gave it him pocket dimension bags for teeth?”
“Yeah! That guy! This is him!”
“Okay, cool…was it really necessary for you to stick your finger in his mouth in order to show the rest of us?,” Zhen Yue asked.
“Of…huh…”
Zhen Hai paused as he realized Zhen Yue kind of had a point in regards to his current behavior. There was actually no good reason he had to stick his hand in the beaver man’s mouth.
“I guess not,” Zhen Hai admitted as he let the beaver thief go and allowed him to flop on the ground with a grunt. “I think I just got caught up in the mood of the whole thing.”
“I get that,” Zhen Tai nodded in understanding. “But would you mind explaining the importance as to why we needed to know who he was? Because it sounded like you had a point to make?”
“Huh? Oh! Right!”
With his mind back on track and focusing on what compelled to fishhook the thief in the first place, Zhen Hai decided to stand back up in order to be eye level with his cousins.
“Okay, so…I read in a book somewhere that those with spatial attribute related abilities can interfere with teleportation and other spatial effects once they reach a certain level of power. I think, that weird warp explosion and vacuum from earlier was caused by this guy!,” Zhen Hai explained.
“That…huh.”
It was now the other scions’ turn to be stunned silent for two reasons.
First, this was the most logical thing they had heard all day in regards to their circumstances. Moments before they had shown up to this crazy place, they had all felt that weird doorway act as if something or someone had tampered with it. If it turned out some weird interdimensional beaver man was the cause, then that means they could use him to find the reason why this happened in the first place.
There was absolutely no way some guy with spatial related abilities just “accidentally” interfered with a random portal placement…right?
Regardless of that possibility though, the second reason why the other scions were stunned silent was due to a very simple reason.
Zhen Hai just freely admitted to reading…again.
“Okay, why are you guys staring at me like that this time?”
“Nothing, it’s just…kind of shocked that you read on your own volition is all,” Zhen Yue freely answered for the group.
“What the-rude,” Zhen Hai retorted with mock aghast expression. “I know how to read, I’m learned gentleman after all.”
“Learned is a maybe and gentleman is a stretch,” Zhen Tai added. “The last time you read anything was those history books back on Roaring Tide which was literal months ago.”
“And the last time you were gentlemanly was…still Roaring Tide but you were like five seconds away from punching that main clan guy in the face. Granted, that was interrupted by grandfather and that dragon prince about to rip each other’s throats out, but still.”
“Hey, he insulted the fact that we had accents and had it coming,” Zhen Hai retorted. “Seriously though, that place was full of assholes until we won the tourney…”
“People respect power, simple as that.”
“Yeah…”
*Rumble*
“What the fuck?”
Shortly after admitting to this flaw in society, and the fact that Zhen Hai tended to lean towards the more violent solutions in life, the sound of rumbling stone echoed throughout the chamber.
The Zhen Clan scions immediately went on the defensive as they collectively grouped together and turned towards the source of the rumbling sound.
Once they did, they saw that there was a massive door opening before their very eyes.
“Holy shit…”
In their minds, the young warriors were expecting some new threat or supreme expert to show up and either wipe them out in an instant or send them scurrying away.
However, what happened instead just…threw them for a loop.
Because the people they saw walk through the door was the last group they expected to see.
“Seventh mother?”
“Jin Fang?”
“Princess Jinju Ren?”
“Rianna?”
“What are you guys doing here?”
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[Oooh la la! So these fine young men and women are the relatives of daddy dearest! I’m positively spoiled for choice!]
[Now do I want to be young and inexperienced or do I want some mature charm? Decisions, decisions…]
[MAYBE FIGURE THAT OUT AFTER YOU ESCAPE FROM US?!]
[Oh, you mean in like five seconds?]
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*Bing-Bong*
…
|What?|
I’m not gonna lie, I am a little disappointed we didn’t get to ride out that labyrinth thing any longer than we already had.
|Meh, it seemed weird to me to have an arena thing go straight into a dungeon thing again. Besides, the focus has to be shifted to the wider world or people get antsy.|
Fair enough.
