Chapter 886: [Chaos] Applications: On the fly
=Indeed. A part of me figured he would wait until after some devastating loss or attack on the city.=
=Yeah…=
<...>
=…=
=Might’ve been both, but we’d have to wait until after all the fighting ends before we check at that pool.=
________________________________________
[DIE!]
SWIP!
‘Oh. A single energy blade blast. That’s not too.’
SWIP, SWIP, SWIP!
‘OF COURSE IT FUCKINGS SPLITS!’
“Xiao Liu!”
“I see them, father!”
As a former aether beast, Kamakiller didn’t know any aether arts because it was entirely unnecessary for them. Instead, like any other aether beast worth their salt and moxie, she fought using a mixture of pure instinct and learned experiences from previous battles for survival.
Right now, it understood that getting into close quarter combat with Zhen Liu and his father would probably end badly for her, due to the former being stupidly strong while the latter had suddenly developed a power that was deadly similar to her own newly found one.
As such, Kamakiller opted to adapt a strategy they used to use back when they were normal Blood Mantis.
In situations where close range combat was less than ideal, the former Blood Mantis would channel its aether into her scythes by and release large blades of crimson red energy that could slash through most defenses and leave nasty blood infections in their wake. She had used this little trick to take down gorilla type aether beasts in the past, monsters with muscles thicker than iron wires and hides tougher than brick walls. To make the attack even more devastating, the blades would occasionally split into even smaller ones that fell upon their target like a rain of violence and hate.
However, now, as a being infused with the power of [Chaos], Kamakiller had to come up with a new interpretation of her old trick.
Especially when her opponents were smarter form of giant monkey.
Despite having the blades split apart as a means to overwhelm the duo, Zhen Liu and Zhen Yan proved to be much quicker than anticipated when it came to intercepting her attack.
The former made use of his [Veteran’s Bone Club] and [Hammer of the Dearly Departed] to deflect each attack away like they were projectile balls, while the latter opted to use fist and flame to smash and burn each blade of crimson aether.
[How the hell am I supposed to…wait a minute…]
Instinctually, she knew that this [Chaos] energy coursing through their body was associated with randomness and intent. Namely, unless she had a clear idea in mind, any attacks of her that was infused with [Chaos] would have unpredictable effects.
Which is why she started spinning in place while channeling a fuck ton of [Chaos] into her aforementioned scythe arms.
[You thought one blade was bad, what about a dozen?!]
[Hey! Wait a minute!]
As she spun like a ballerina straight from the depths of hell, dozens upon dozens of strange colored blades of energy began to fire off from her demented form.
A majority of the blades managed to sustain some form of forward momentum, flying straight and true towards Zhen Liu and his father. However, some of the blades ended up flying away into nothingness, the sky, while others impacted the ground.
Evidently, these blades of energy did a little more than just served as slashing projectiles.
Depending on the color of the energy blade, different things seemed to happen upon impact.
For example, one blade of energy that appeared to have a deep green color seemed to cause plantlife to grow at a rapid pace, while one that had a deep purple hue caused the chunk of earth it impacted to begin floating upward in defiance of gravity. One particularly weird looking blade, one composed of a greyish rainbow, caused a bushel of weird looking mushrooms to develop out of nowhere. Ones that Zhen Yan recognized being a potent type of parasitic psychedelic.
The effects were entirely random, some appeared to be beneficial while others appeared to be entirely fatal. Regardless of this strangeness though, neither father or son were about to back down from this fight.
“Alright then!,” Zhen Yan shouted before smashing his fists together and causing his newly acquired fire mane to burn brighter. “Round two, mantis creature!”
“Right! Let’s-”
[Hold up!]
‘Huh?’
Before Zhen Yan and Zhen Liu could go another round of what was essentially a rhythm game of doom, Razorstella had suddenly stepped pass the two of them and took on a stance that made it appear that she was preparing herself to perform a spin of her own.
Correction, she was going to perform a spin of her own.
Aether and [Chaos] began to circulate throughout her legs, causing them to glow with a starry night-like aura.
“Whoa! That’s neat trick.”
“Y-yeah…”
Evidently, Zhen Yan was still under the impression that Zhen Liu was still the main controller of the “puppet” that looked to be a modified Razor Maiden. In reality, Razorstella was doing all of this unprompted.
‘Razorstella, what are you doing?’
[I refuse to let this knock-off mantis from stealing my fucking moves!,] Razorstella mentally roared in Zhen Liu’s mind. As she did, Zhen Liu could feel her core starting to rage.
[While I don’t mind being admired and served as an inspiration, I refuse to be imitated in such a sloppy manner. If you’re going to be duplicating me, do it right. Like this! Starfall Cutter!]
Razorstella began to rapidly spin in place with one leg serving as the axis while the other was kicked straight out, completely perpendicular with her body. In order to maintain this balance though, she kept her razor sharp claws pointed upward like a proper ballerina.
As she continued to spin, blade after blade of energy that looked as if someone took pieces of the night sky and sharpened them into the form of large sabers, began to peel off of her in a manner that was much more controlled and profound than what Kamakiller was doing earlier.
As a more obvious comparison beyond energetic composition, while Razorstella’s spin produced a lesser number of blades, each one was bigger and more condensed than the random barrage that Kamakiller was using.
In other words, for every ten blades of energy produced by Kamakiller, only one of Razorstella’s was needed to cut right through them before disappearing themselves.
Zhen Yan and Zhen Liu stared on in disbelief…until Razorstella piped up in the latter’s head.
[Well?]
‘Huh?’
[What are you waiting for director? Take her down while I got her eyes on me!]
‘Oh. Oh!’
“Father, while she’s distracted! Come on!”
“Huh? Oh! Right!”
Under the energetic blasts of Razorstella’s spin, both father and son began to prepare themselves for a flanking attack against Kamakiller.
‘Lets see if we can end this without anything going wrong…’
____________Meanwhile…________________
“So… we’re not participating in this fight because…”
“Our main objective is to secure this fountain, not deal with any [Chaos] related weirdness. As long as we can get it into this spatial array, we can get the hell out of here.”
“I mean, I get that. But still. Also, wasn’t the water in this fountain supposed to be white?”
As Zhen Liu, Zhen Yan and Razorstella were keeping Kamakiller busy, Jin Fang and Rianna were tasked with securing the [Fountain of Furious White Water].
At this point though, the treasure should be renamed to the [Fountain of Furious Red Water].
If they had to hazard a guess as to why this was change occur, it probably had to do with the fact that both the blood of their shared beloved and the Blood Mantis’s…everything…had somehow changed the nature of the fountain on some foundational level.
While they weren’t entirely sure what these changes entailed down to the last detail, they could at least determine that the main change was the color of the water from white to red.
The fountain was serenely unsettling before, but now it was downright sinister.
Regardless, the girls had a job to do and a spatial array scroll to prepare.
“Alright, since I’m the one most familiar with how arrays work, I’ll be the one to activate the scroll.”
“Okay.”
“While I do that, I will need you to act as my bodyguard in case shit goes sideways.”
“Why would things go sideways? Xiao Liu and his pops are fighting the only obvious threat left,” Rianna pointed out, unaware that she just tempted the entire universe with that sentence.
“Call it a feeling,” Jin Fang replied, unaware that she just reinforced that temptation.
As Jin Fang unfurled the spatial array scroll, something small and strange began to move within the waters of the blood red fountain.
Something(s) that looked vaguely similar to Kamakiller
Because, out of all of this chaos, confusion and violence, the Zhen Clan warriors had forgotten something important.
The Blood Mantis had laid a clutch of eggs within the waters of the [Fountain of Furious White Water].
And those waters were just tainted not too long ago.
“I still think you’re…why do I have this dreadful feeling down my neck?”
