Chapter 883: Cold War Intervention
So…we’re still doing these side chapter things? Don’t you think they’re getting a little repetitive in terms of structure?
|I’d be done sooner but writing this much everyday is hard, yo. I got a day job and chores to do.|
Ah, right…any chance of you quitting and doing this three times a day like the top writers?
|If I can focus longer than two hours a day and stop getting distracted, maybe.|
Have you considered talking to a doctor? This sounds like a doctor issue.
I…hold up…why is the broadcast light on?
Huh?
|Right there, see?|
Uh…oh!
Uh oh.
Uh…
|…|
We now return to your regularly scheduled chapter, where…ah yes, a war between primates is occurring.
Thank you and Good-bye!
*Bing-Bong!*
_______________________________________________
“Well…looks like we found the teapot for real this time.”
“Yeah…and it’s surrounded, and guarded, by hostile aether beasts.”
“Yeah…”
When Zhen Jin, Zhen Xing, Zhen Ye and Zhen Tai, (alongside Frosttusk), saw the territorial dispute between rival species, they thought they had hit the motherlode.
Not only would securing the [Grand Oasis Teapot] be a breeze because any hostility in the area was firmly directed in every direction but themselves, regardless whether the Snow Yetis or the Iron Capped Macaques won this turf war, they would be able to swoop in an reap the spoils.
Was it dishonorable?
Maybe.
Was life inherently cruel to the point that the only real victors in any given conflict were those who helped to fuel the aggression or swoop in once all the fighting was done?
Also a solid maybe.
Regardless of these initial plans of scavenging though, these ideas were firmly discarded into a furnace once they saw that the skirmish between the Iron Capped Macaques and Snow Yetis from earlier was just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.
The real battle was a bit more…violent.
“REEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“ROOOOOOOAR!”
Evidently, the leaders of the Iron-Capped Macaques and the Snow Yetis were not apexes of their particular species, rather, they were mutated specimens. These mutated specimens had not only developed aether abilities that were well outside of their normal behavior, but also large builds that made them able to fight on equal footing.
In the eyes of untrained individuals, the two mutant apex monsters looked a lot like warring gorillas.
But from the hiding spot of the Zhen Clan warriors, and puppet, this was a fight between a pair of mutated beasts that were significantly more dangerous than even a Grandmaster, of which they had none to work with.
On the plus side, at least they knew what they were dealing with.
“Okay, so the one leading the Iron-Capped Macaques is known as a-,” Zhen Xing asked.
“Steel-Plated Macaque Kong,” his father, Zhen Jin, answered.
“Right, and the one leading the yetis is called a-,”
“Something Storm Yeti,” Zhen Tai attempted to answer.
“Raging Storm Yeti,” Zhen Ye corrected.
“And we shouldn’t get in-between either of them, because…”
“The former is strong enough to tunnel through mountains using its steel plated bodies to just smash everything in its way, while the latter one has innate mastery over lighting and snow aether.”
“But we’re going to have to get involved anyways, because the teapot we’ve been looking is sitting stop a rock in the middle of a hot spring some dozen feet away from the dueling primates,” Zhen Xing said to his father, his uncle and cousin after reviewing their situation.
“Oh! And don’t forget about all the blood and bodies floating in those waters,” Zhen Jin mentioned to his son.
“Right…”
While the current battle situation appeared to be a collision of leaders, the Zhen Clan warriors could see evidence that this was actually the aftermath of a larger scale battle.
In various spots of this particular hot springs fighting arena, they could see small spots of red and floating bodies of either macaque aether beasts or yeti aether beasts, which led to them questioning exactly how long this battle had been raging on.
Then again, did such a question really matter when their goal was to possibly screw them both over and abscond with a crazy powerful treasure teapot?
Probably not.
Either way, the thinking of the Zhen Clan warriors for this particular moment was to simply grab the teapot and run, since there was a noticeable power discrepancy between themselves and the dueling mutant pack leaders.
Well…there would be less of a discrepancy if they included Zhen Liu’s puppet…granted, that would also require Zhen Liu not being in a situation where he was able to provide assistance.
The group turned towards the monolithic viking mammoth puppet, curious to see if its controller had any opinions on how to approach this battle of the primates.
Little did they know, they were going to get the tactical mind of an ice giant whose brain was now running at full power.
…
[Logos, Pathos. Can you guys provide me any insight as to why this battle is occurring? I get that it might be a territorial dispute, but the sheer rage they’re exhibiting towards one another is…interesting to say the least.]
[Not exactly.]
=Factually speaking, it could be due to the simple fact that the Iron-Capped Macaques prefer to live near hot springs and the Snow Yetis prefer to be left alone in the cold. The former has bad blood circulation and needs heat, while the latter produces so much heat under their fur that being in warm places pisses them off. Occam’s razor, as it were.=
[Hmmm…another question, the Grand Oasis Teapot…what would happen if we were take it away from the area?]
[Yeah, that.]
=Well…judging from the data you showed us so far, that teapot is responsible for the expansion of the hot springs you’ve been seeing on the way here, not it’s maintenance.=
[Really?]
[Alright…I know what to do then.]
…
“I have two ideas on what to do,] Frosttusk told the group while using Zhen Liu’s voice. Zhen Xing, Zhen Jin, Zhen Ye and Zhen Tai couldn’t help but to notice that his voice sounded a bit…gruffer than what they’re used to hearing, but they attributed that discrepancy to the fact that the voice was coming out of a puppet modeled after a veteran warrior.
People always say, “never judge a book by its cover”, but a lot of people still default to cover judgments.
Regardless, since Zhen Liu(Frosttusk) had an idea on how to get the teapot with minimum issues, they figured they might as well listen. They didn’t have any better ideas anyways.
“I’m going to preface this conversation with the fact that I won’t be able to control this puppet with precision given that I’m about to enter my own battle, so I’m going to have to do a little…parlor trick with a volunteer. Don’t worry, you four should be familiar with it,” Frosttusk stated ominously before moving on as if he didn’t just cause them to all eye each other curiously as to why they would know what this trick was exactly.
“Now, my first plan is to use [Echoing Frost] to flash freeze both of them for as long as physically possible and run away with the teapot in hand. This is incredibly reliant on us synchronizing our attacks and hoping that they’ve weakend each other enough that this would work. That and y’all would have to have mastered [Echoing Frost] to a certain extent. Y’all have been keeping up with practicing it, right? I’m asking you two,” Frosttusk said while pointing at Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai.
While Elder Zhen Jin and Zhen Ye made sure to practice their clan’s strongest aether art, due to never knowing when they would need it, the same could not be said for the scions.
They had been busy the past few weeks, and the aether art in question was the polar opposite of their natural elemental inclinations, but still.
“Alright, then that means we should go with plan two then.”
“What’s plan two?,” Zhen Jin asked.
“Abuse the fact that mirages can be created by combining cold air, warm air and all of the moisture being produced by the hot springs.”
“Say what?”*4
“It’ll be easier to show then tell, now, who’s going to be volunteering in helping to cloak us all in the blanket of a heavy mirage? If you don’t come to a decision, I’ll just pick one at random.”
The elders and scions looked at each other for a minute before one of them volunteered, unsure of what this entailed exactly…until…
“Okay, cool.”
FWOOSH!
“WHOA!”
Frosttusk turned into a cloud of icy mist and flowed into the volunteer’s nostrils.
