Chapter 894: Dream it up…
As Zhen Yue learned to embrace madness as part of a song…
[For someone of your age, I’m surprised you can come up with something so…devious.]
‘You’re one to talk. You give off the vibe of someone older than my father and my apparent grandaunt.’
[That is fair.]
‘Besides, you’re the one who happened to have knowledge of how mirages work on a…what was the term? “Scientific” level? Weird way of seeing the world, I will not lie.’
[It’s only one of several lens to view reality. The trick is to figure out which ones are appropriate for the moment.]
‘Kind of like this moment?’
[Exactly.]
‘Solid…wait, solid?’
[Side effect of me being in your head. Your vocabulary will get a bit…strange.]
‘Oh boy…’
________________________________________
“OOOKIEE!”
“GROAA!”
“OOO-kie?”
‘GROooaa?”
As the Raging Storm Yeti and Steel-Plated Macaque Kong continued their fight to the death, something unexpected occurred that caused them both to pause mid-swing.
Due to the dramatic difference in temperature between the hot springs and their snow mountain surroundings, a visible cloud of warm steam could be seen floating above and around the former. Occasionally, this could would become bigger if large chunks of snow fell in, but never to the point of being impossible to see through.
As such, both aether beast pack leaders couldn’t help but to pause their duel to the death, once they noticed that the cloud of steam that was surrounding had suddenly become noticeably thicker. Never in either of their lifetimes, had they seen fog as thick as this before.
It was a sight that was both fascinating, and intimidating, as all hell.
“Groa…”
“Ookie…”
Confused by the fog, both the Steel-Plated Macaque Kong and the Raging Storm Yeti decided to put aside their mutual hatred for one another for the moment to see who or what was causing this strange fog to appear. That stated, they didn’t work together to investigate this matter.
Instead, the two went in opposite directions and went about investigating the fog in their own ways…which amounted to the Steel-Plated Macaque Kong clapping his hands together in an attempt to disperse the fog, while the Raging Storm Yeti took a deep breath and attempted to blow it away.
The result of these two actions caused the fog surrounding them to momentarily disappear, before recondensing into a thick, imperceivable layer.
“GROA!”
“OOKIE!”
Needless to say, this angered the two aether beast leaders to a momentous degree.
Granted, if they had directed their attempts to slightly different directions, they would’ve found the sources of the fog.
Well. two out of four.
…
“HOLY SHIT!”
“That…was too close!”
Hidden in a thick fog of their own creation, Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai were catching their breaths on opposite ends of the hot springs arena, where the Steel-Plated Macaques Kong and Raging Storm Yeti were fighting just moments ago.
The two young masters had almost gotten caught up in the concussive blasts of the aforementioned aether beast pack leaders. Zhen Tai almost got caught up in the Steel-Plated Macaque Kong’s clap, while Zhen Xing narrowly avoided getting rocked by the Raging Storm Yeti’s roar.
Either way, they had both managed to avoid the attempts to clear the fog in such a way that they were now basically right next to each other. Meaning that they didn’t have to risk using their aether to transmit any messages that could’ve gotten them compromised.
Whike they had no idea if these two beastial leaders were the type that could detect such things, they didn’t want to risk it if they could help it.
“Seriously though, you heard the reverb on that yeti’s roar? One mis-step, and I’m pretty sure I my ears would get blown out,” Zhen Xing stated while absentmindedly rubbing his ears.
“If that giant macaque’s clap had clipped me, I’m pretty sure I would’ve been sent flying to my doom,” Zhen Tai admitted.
“Back into that war going on outside or into a boiling hot hot spring?”
“Yes.”
“Aight…ready to go for another encirclement?”
“Yup.”
Once the two scions had caught their breaths, they each continued their movements of making a circle around the Steel-Plated Macaque Kong and Raging Storm Yeti. The reason for this was not because they were lost, but because they were tasked with keeping the aforementioned aether beasts in a little shroud of fog, while their fathers attempted to abscond with the [Grand Oasis Teapot].
Well, Zhen Tai’s father was tasked with taking the teapot. Zhen Xing’s was busy coordinating the whole thing.
…
On the cliff that was overlooking the dueling aether beasts, Zhen Jin was focusing all of his efforts and aether in making sure that the cloud of fog being produced by his son and nephew were locked in place, while his brother made his way to the [Grand Oasis Teapot].
Granted, this was only part one of his grand plan.
He knew damn well that he couldn’t keep this foggy display up forever, and that the aether beasts would eventually realize that something was thoroughly wrong. Once they did, they would probably forget about their fight and kill anyone and everyone who had interfered with their oh-so sacred duel.
Granted, this angry slaughter was very dependent on them having the energy necessary to do so.
As Zhen Jin saw that his brother was now almost in running distance from the coveted teapot, he decided now was the time for this prelude to end, so that he could get on to the main performance.
‘Okay, now that their vision is thoroughly obfuscated,and that Xiao Ye is close enough, it’s time to get weird.’
Zhen Jin began to circulate his aether throughout his hands, his head and even the little [Puffer Fog Plant] that was on his hip. As he did, the fog pouring out of the plant began to take on a dream-like quality, before merging in with the larger cloud below.
[Fog of Re(flection/fraction/gret)]
…
“Ook…”
“Groa…”
The Raging Storm Yeti and the Steel Plated Macaque Kong maintained their temporary alliance as they both stood together back to back, weary about the unnatural fog surrounding them.
At this point, they figured it was being caused by some unknown third party, but they just didn’t know who or what.
That is…until they saw shadows moving in the fog.
“Ookie?”
“Groa?”
Out of the corner of their eyes, they saw a pair of bipedal shadows that were moving in tandem with one another in a circular fashion. The only time the two aether beast pack leaders saw such movements, was when they were out hunting and did the same sort of maneuvers when they were encapsulating prey.
So to see this same movement being used against them was… disrespectful to say the least.
For they were the hunters, not the hunted, in most scenarios, so to be treated as such was maddening to say the least.
Why, it was so maddening in fact that they reacted as poorly as one can imagine and proceeded to release a pair of reckless attacks that amounted to them rushing forward and smashing their respective targets into pieces.
Smash! Smash!
“Ookie?!”
“Groa?!”
Unfortunately, their efforts amounted to nothing more than sore knuckles due to them smashing nothing but hardened ground. Well, that and one other thing that made the whole situation worse.
The moment the two aether beasts had split off into opposite directions, the fog surrounding became even thicker and trapped the two beasts into their own little isolated spaces where they could see nothing except thick fog in every direction. Even when they tried to look upward to use the sky and sun as a means to orient themselves, all they saw was even more fog.
Needless to say, the two aether beast pack leaders were less than thrill to being in such a strangely gentle form of captivity.
Independent of one another, both beasts attempted to wave and blow away the fog surrounding them, but to no avail.
If they were bound in vines or webs they could break free.
If they grappled by a rival, they could overpower them.
If a giant rock had fallen on top of them, they could at least lift it off themselves.
But this fog, wasn’t anything obvious like that.
It was immaterial, it was light, it was literally nothing that they could smash.
Perhaps…it would be better for them to do nothing and conserve energy…
…
[It appears that those primates are smarter than you have them credit for and are now trying to conserve energy.]
‘It appears to be the case, yes.’
[So…what are you going to do about it.]
‘Well…why don’t we give the some target practice?’
…
GROOOA!
OOKIE!
“Groa?”
“Okie?”
Just as the two aether beasts were about to settle down and tmuse what few braincells they had to try and think of a way out, they each found themselves being attacked by the other in a rather blatant manner.
To an outsider, it was painfully obvious that these attackers were illusions, mirages or some other form of visual trickery designed to aggravate their intended targets.
To the insiders though, this was clearly a sign of aggression that had to be addressed immediately.
In other words, NO QUARTER!
“GROOOA!”
“OOKIE!”
