Chapter 881: Meanwhile…wait, haven’t we used this title?
The following chapter pertain to events occurring at the exact same time as when Zhen Liu and his company threw hands with the Blood Mantis and former Wraith Mandrill.
It was decided by [OMINOUS OUTSIDE FORCES], that it was necessary to elaborate on these other events as to help explain circumstances that will appear later on. While it was also technically possible for the writer to just “hand-wave” everything, it was deemed more interesting to elaborate on these shenanigans.
Keep in mind while the following scenes are being told in sequential order, they’re all actually happening simultaneously.
Thank you.
…
Aight, what happened to the bell thingy?
|It’s the beginning of the chapter, we don’t need a bell thing in this situation.|
Really?
|Well…that, and I figured it would look neater.|
Wow…professionalism.
|Shut up.|
Also, is that really the reason why we’re expanding on these events? Why can’t we just focus on the battle with [REDACTED] and [EXTRA REDACTED]?
|Suspense and build-up. That and because, again, if this shit ever gets animated or illustrated, we gotta give those artists wiggle room to work with.|
Fair enough…?
|A man can dream, damn it.|
____________________________________
“OOOK”
“GOA!”
“OH!”
“Right in the gut…”
For the better part of five minutes or so, Zhen Hai, Zhen Long, Zhen Guo, Zhen Lao and Zhen Liu’s bone puppet (Screamira) had decided to keep their distance away from the [Talisman Monument of Curing Rain], in order to not get involved with the strange collection of boxing apes that were surrounding the aforementioned treasure.
Instead, they decided to watch as the Long Armed Mist Gibbon proceeded to punch out, in literal boxing matches, a Gravitational Black Gorilla, a Fire-Furred Orangutan, a Floating Chimpanzee and what appeared to be a giant mandrill with four arms.
All of these matches were done under the supervision of this strange looking white furred ape that looked significantly wiser and older than all of the other primates combined.
If the group had to make a comparison, it was as if they were watching an old teacher oversee his student’s boxing matches during an informal tournament. That stated, the group couldn’t but to notice where this ancient looking ape was sitting exactly…especially when at the end of every aforementioned match, the sage-like ape would tap it with his palm and cause a healing rain to fall over the injured combatants.
“That weird old ape…”
“Huh? What is it, Xiao Hai?”
“That stone the old ape is sitting on. Isn’t that the talisman monument we were looking for?”
“Wait, what?”
“Take a look.”
Finding the First Young Master of the Zhen Clan’s claim to be rather unbelievable at first, the Sixth Young Master, Zhen Guo, decided to do as Zhen Hai suggested and took a closer look with aether enhanced eyes.
“Oh shit. He’s right.”
“What?”*2
Finding the observation of their sons to be unbelievable as well, the two elders of the Zhen Clan decided to take a look as well.
“Well…shit.”
“That’s not good…”
Directly beneath the butt of the sage-looking ape was a large blue stone that had a strange, talisman-like symbol emblazoned on it’s front. To put it bluntly, the [Talisman Monument of Healing Rain] was being used as the sitting stone for an old ape/being used as the medical treatment necessary to facilitate a tournament between boxing primates.
While this wasn’t necessarily a good thing, since it meant that they would have to deal with fighting a group of “trained” fighting apes that had a propensity to gamble on the outcome of matches by using fruits and other materials that aether beasts need to accelerate their cultivation.
…
Wait a minute.
“OH!,” Zhen Hai suddenly exclaimed out of the blue. “I just realized something! We might not have to fight of all of those aether beast primates at once!”
“We don’t?”
“How?”
“We’re going to beat them at their own game, literally!”
“Huh?,” Zhen Lao, Zhen Guo and Zhen Long asked at the same time.
The only one who hadn’t made a comment at this incredibly strange statement was Screamira, but that was due to her pretending to be a puppet for the moment.
“Father, uncle, Xiao Guo, I know it’s a long shot but can any of guys speak the primate dialect of the aether beast languages?”
“No.”
“The bird dialect was hard enough.”
“Agreed, I was the one who taught him.”
“Okay, plan B.”
“What the-hey!”
The next thing anybody knew, Zhen Hai had grabbed Zhen Liu’s’s skeletal puppet by the face and directed her gaze into his own.
If she wasn’t under orders to act like a puppet, she would’ve smacked Zhen Hai across the face right now.
“Xiao Liu! Are you free right now, can you hear me?”
“Y-yeah,” Screamira replied in Zhen Liu’s voice. “Please don’t touch my puppets directly, your aether interferes with my ability to control them since I can feel and see most things they can.”
“Oh, sorry,” Zhen Hai said before retracting his hands.
From one lie to another, Screamira moved the conversation along to a point she couldn’t help but to predict. Of course, she did mix in some actual truth to help provide deniability and make her words more true.
“We’re about to go and secure the fountain treasure, what’s up?”
“Okay, I’ll make this quick then, can you do that…thing, without being physically present with your special treasure, and do you by any chance have a means of giving me the means to communicate with those aether primates down there.”
“Uh…”
While both of these things were technically in Screamira’s power, she wasn’t entirely sure about that latter request. Thankfully, though she didn’t have to fly by the seat of her pants and make something up.
…
[Logos, Pathos. Do we actually have any records on the primate dialect of aether beast language. Is that a thing?]
=It is, but for his purposes it would take too long.=
=That’s because we stole that scroll from a Bloodliner tribe centuries ago, remember? The Golden Wing Parakeet Tribe?=
=We’d have to go to Radiant Feather to figure that out.=
…
“Technically speaking, I can do the thing but it’s gonna be rather painful and I do have a means of you being able to speak to those primates but it’s gonna be in the form of an aether art. Is that okay?”
“Perfect! Just give me a minute to adjust…”
“Oh boy,” Zhen Guo muttered, knowing exactly where this was headed given his experiences from the last time this happened.
“Wait, thing? What thing?,” Zhen Long asked aloud, concerned and confused for his son.
In response to his eldest brother statements, Zhen Lao couldn’t help but to shrug in response as well.
Ignoring the commentary of the onlookers Zhen Hai stood a couple of feet away from Screamira and mentally prepared himself. Once he was ready, he spread his arms wide open as if he was preparing to receive a hug.
“Alright, Xiao Liu! Hit me!”
“As you wish…”
Screamira proceeded to run towards Zhen Hai at full sprint, much to the confusion of the elders and grim expression of the youngster.
“Why is Xiao Liu-”
FWOOM!
“WHOA!”
About half way through her run, Screamira transformed into a weird cloud of deathly gray energy that impacted and merged with Zhen Hai’s body.
Needless to say, this sudden impact of energy caused Zhen Hai to begin convulsing and twitching in a manner that didn’t exactly look healthy…more or less.
“Xiao Hai! Are you ok-what the hell?”
“Alright, let’s do
Understandably, Zhen Long was just about to rush over to his son’s side to make sure he hadn’t somehow gotten himself injured, killed or in over his head by doing performing some weird ass ritual.
However, in the span of less than three seconds after convulsing for five, Zhen Hai had snapped back into attention with a wild look on his eyes, an even cockier grin than before and a strange aura that had this tinge of [Death] to it.
Not exactly sure how to comprehend the situation, Zhen Long backed off a step to give Zhen Hai room to move about…(And talk to someone new in his head).
…
‘Well, this is remarkably different from the last time I was in my own head.’
Zhen Hai knew that the last time Zhen Liu had blasted him in the face with one of his puppets he would end up in some weird mental space that was some mishmosh between his own spirituality and the spiritually of the aforementioned puppets.
Last time, it looked he was in some neon colored pop lounge with fish tanks filled with electric sharks.
This time, while the electric sharks were still present, the lounge this time around looked more like the thrashed aftermath of a heavy metal concert.
‘Wait a minute…what’s heavy metal?’
[Type of music that’s associated with rebellion and death,] a husky feminine voice answered him. [Now what do you want?]
‘Here we go again.’
