Chapter 879: Retreating Mandrills, Violent Mantis
When Zhen Liu made contact with his [Imperial Crusher], he had expected to heavily wound the Wraith Mandrill.
It may have been quite sometime since he employed that art in proper combat, but that’s due to Zhen Liu understanding how dangerous this art truly was.
[Chaos] by itself was able to tear about the hardest of aether based defenses and lead to weird, devastating effects on someone when channeled correctly.
Hell, he used it to turn a cup of poisonous tea into almost as unhealthy triple chocolate milkshake.
But the thing about all of those other times, is that he was using “raw” [Chaos].
Without the use of a [Chaos Art], or a certain weird seal that was imprinted on the palm of his left hand, the effects produced by [Chaos] was always random.
However, if a strong enough [Desire] is used to channel [Chaos] through, like the cores of a kaijin, the effects can be a bit more…precise.
That stated…Zhen Liu had no fucking idea as to why Blazejudicator’s [Patience] enhanced effects led to…whatever this was!
“Oooooook!,” the [Wraith] Mandrill screamed as it scratched its chest in a mad manner.
‘Okay,wait…the mandrill’s aether levels are dipping…and are now coming back up with and entirely different flavor applied to it, what hell?!,’ Zhen Liu cursed to himself as he watched how the mandrill before his eyes was undergoing a completely unprecedented transformation. ‘Blazejudicator, what’s going on?’
[I don’t know, Executor! I was just trying to pacify it with the power of “Patience”, because that’s the opposite to the “Wrath” innate to death aether cultivators.]
‘That makes sense, but…what the fuck?!’
[Wait, director? Should I go and grab that weird black stone that the Wraith Mandrill coughed up?]
‘Oh, yeah, sure. That said…I don’t think this thing is a Wraith Mandrill anymore…’
Before his eyes, the creature that was once the Wraith Mandrill had suddenly coughed up,what Zhen Liu was now realizing, it’s aether beast core and was now convulsing and seizing. Which made sense, since aether beast cores were usually attached to several important organs in aether beasts, so technically speaking, the Wraith Mandrill should’ve been very dead by now.
But…that wasn’t the case.
‘Wait a minute…is it’s tumors shrinking?’
[Uhh…oh! They are!]
‘Huh…’
As the power of [Patience] ironically raged through the […] Mandrill’s body, certain changes became more and more evident.
First, and most obviously, the [Death] aether influenced tumors and postules that covered the […] Mandrill’s body were shrinking and disappearing at a rapid pace, until it’s body was completely smooth. It was still incredibly hairy given the fact that it was a wild aether beast, but it was still smooth in a sense…for about five seconds. During whatever the hell was going right now, those tumors were soon replaced with rapidly growing bits of wood that turned into a type of armor.
Second, the [T…] Mandrill’s face, which was originally colored with the color pigments of necrotic tissues and rot, had taken on significantly more soothing tones of color, light blue and a tinge of lavender.
Lastly, and more obvious out of all the changes, the [Tr..] Mandrill’s aether aura had changed from feeling like rotting corpse and death, into an aura reminiscent of life and trees.
Eventually though, when this transformation started to wound down, the Wraith Mandrill was no more.
“OOOOOooook…”
Instead, something…new was there.
“Ook? Ook?”
“What the fuck?”
“OOK?!”
Evidently, Zhen Liu wasn’t the only one that was shocked.
The [Tre..] Mandrill looked over its new body, shocked at the fact that it wasn’t covered in tumors anymore, shocked that it wasn’t in pain and shocked that it wasn’t feeling as…angry anymore.
“Ook…ook?”
If anything, now it wanted to just leave this fight and go meditate somewhere. Preferably somewhere with lots of sweet smelling fruit trees and soft grass.
“Oook…ook.”
In fact, the [Trea..] Mandrill was so enamored with this idea of taking it easy for the first time in a long time, that it just…opted to leave the battlefield.
‘And it’s just leaving now…huh.’
The [Trean.] Mandrill simply turned away from Zhen Liu, Razorstella, it’s hacked up core(?), the fountain and began to walk towards its troop of death aether aligned primates.
“Ook?”
“Eep?”
“Eep!”
Perhaps it was out of respect for their leader, or curiosity of what had happened to them, but the troop of Rotting Mandrills and Ghoul Mandrills decided to follow their transformed leader.
A part of Zhen Liu was relieved that he didn’t have to fight even more murderous mandrills…the other part couldn’t help but feel a bit…screwed over?
He was told this was going to be a fight to the death, and yet his opponent bailed not even halfway through.
Then again, he managed to secure an aether beast core out of this, so…it was a win in his book.
He just had to address one last thing before moving on to assist his father and girlfriend.
…
‘Logos, Pathos, what the fuck just happened?’
‘Great, more weird shit.’
=Pathos is messing with you, milord. It is actually possible for an aether beast to change their cultivation base, but it’s only under extremely rare circumstances. Rare treasures, medicines, that sort of thing.=
‘Oh…so I guess I just did the random version of that?’
=More or less. But the species that the Wraith Mandrill turned into is fascinating onto itself.=
‘It is?’
=You and Blazejudicator somehow transformed that Wraith Mandrill into a Treant Mandrill, a type of aether beast that has been extinct on Valresta for over three centuries. Honestly, I thought the only way we’d find a specimen again is if we opted to raid a sect’s hidden vault.=
‘Oh…should we go and capture it then or…’
<=Up to you, but we think you should go and help your family.=>
‘Right!’
…
“How the hell is this bitch still standing?!”
“I think it’s the fountain…it’s making it tougher!”
“HISSSSS!”
Despite opening with their strongest moves, Zhen Yan and Jin Fang weren’t able to take the blood Mantis in a single blow.
What ended up happening instead, was that the Blood Mantis had managed to react fast enough and infuse it’s raptorials with aether in order to strike back at the attacks. While this didn’t mitigate all the damage, it was enough to turn something that was probably gonna be a deep wound into a minor bleeding one instead.
However, that turned out to be a rather bad thing for the duo of warriors.
As it’s name implies, the Blood Mantis was able to use it’s blood in strange an unconventional ways. One of those ways was to enhance it’s already deadly claws by allowing its blood to flow freely until they are coated and then crystallize the blood into razor sharp enhancements.
Not only did this coating make their claws even sharper, but it gave the Blood Mantis a ranged attack in the form of razor sharp blood crystal shrapnel.
Every swing of its claw was either accompanies by the sound of air being sliced, or crystals being launched.
They had managed to open up some rather nasty wounds up and down its carapace, but they were quickly patched up with that aformentioned crystallized blood that covered up the wounds and increased the Blood Mantis’s defenses to a surprising extent.
It had actually gotten to the point that the only one who could break the defenses and actually do some damage to the Blood Mantis was Zhen Yan, which was an issue onto itself because the aformentioned mantis was way faster than Zhen Yan, even with the added weight of the crystallized blood armor. This in turn, forced Jin Fang take on a more supportive role, providing fire support as it were with the occasional buff.
Combining all this with the rage inducing effects of the vapors being produced by the [Fountain of Raging White Water], made the Blood Mantis a deadly apex predator that could slaughter a whole slew of Aether Masters.
But right now, it only had it’s eyes on one.
“I got you now!”
“Hiss!”
“What?!”
Zhen Yan had finally managed to get in close to the Blood Mantis and was about to aim a heavy fist against the latter’s thorax, when it had suddenly shot itself forward pass the flailing Aether Grandmaster.
It only took him a glance to realize that the Blood Mantis was aiming to take out Jin Fang first!
“Watch out!”
‘Shit!’
In this moment, Jin Fang knew that she wasn’t going to be fast enough to dodge the Blood Mantis’s attack and that none of her arts or treasures in her retinue would be able to resist it either.
Her only options right now was to die…or make use of a certain gift that she had been practicing with in secret since she received it from Logos and Pathos.
‘I guess it’s now or never.’
Determined to not die, Jin Fang began to reach for her hip and…
