Chapter 943: Shadow work keeps the peace
Jealous.
If Zhen Xun Tian was to put her feelings into words at this moment, she was jealous.
‘This kind of coordination and power…damn. No wonder people wanted this library so bad.’
When Zhen Xun Tian decided to throw an impromptu feast today, it wasn’t just so that that main and branch clans could celebrate having a permanent connection across continents.
In reality, she knew that an attack was imminent on the Zhen Clan’s homeland, and that whomever was going to do so was going to pack numbers that she wouldn’t even be able to handle by her currently injured self.
As such, she was going to have faith in her son and her clansmen security measures.
If it works out, great, no notes.
If it didn’t, then she could scold and direct the survivors on what could’ve been done better.
That plan, however, was thrown out the window when she heard that her nephew and his band of descendants had finally managed to connect their teleportation array to hers.
It should be noted that a little after the branch clan and main clan reunited, Zhen Xun Tian decided to go on a bit of a historical deep dive on the activities of this estranged branch of the family.
There was the standard stuff, gifted children, gifted grandchildren, a surprisingly successful coup of the local power when they attempted to act all high and mighty. But then, when she got to the reports involving Zhen Liu, shit got interesting.
Officially, there was nothing recorded about Zhen Liu, his abilities, the kaijin or the library itself. However, by reading between the lines, she managed to figure out that while Zhen Liu was initially crippled and unable to do anything, the moment he could summon and direct the kaijin is when things got…interesting.
Multiple records show how the Zhen Clan suddenly had these bouts of good fortune,such as new comprehensive abilities, aether arts and treasures. How saboteurs were dealt with before they were even recognized as a threat. And how the timely intervention from a “mysterious master”, had managed to save the Zhen Clan multiple times from being destroyed for one reason or the other.
In other words, this great grandnephew of hers was oddly adept at taking care of issues and problems away from prying eyes.
The sheer coordination of his removal of the Plague Birds before any big disruptions occurred or noticed was all she needed to know that her grandnephew was some kind of evil genius.
That, or a worthy inheritor of the Storm Queen’s name.
“Ah, looks like they’re wrapping up,” Zhen Liu commented as he gestured his great aunt’s thoughtful expression to her own illusionary displays.
“Hmmm, subtle.”
In their own little ways after achieving victory, each of the kaijin had their own ways of exiting the scene, some more subtle than others.
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[Wait a minute…were we supposed to capture these guys alive or leave them for dead and toss them in the water?]
[Uh…I think alive? I mean, that’s what I’m doing at least.]
[Oh.]
Flop
Both Kit and Rodenia had opted to take out their respective assassins through the not-so-subtle art of suffocation.
The former had made use of their taffy-like body to produce a smothering substance and covered their foe’s mouth and nose until they had passed out, while the latter made use of her prodigious strength to just squeeze the air out of them in a very literal manner.
Once both of their opponents were rendered unconscious, Kit proceeded to use more taffy to tie them up, while Rodenia carried them.
[Are you sure you should be using up your taffy like that? Doesn’t it hurt?,] Rodenia asked while placing the unconscious assassin into large sacks that looked remarkably similar to flour ones.
[Nah,] Kit replied before grabbing a jug of water, a bar of butter and a sack of sugar. The metallic taffy kaijin proceeded to down mixture in a manner most improper, with speed that would make a contest eater jealous.
[Urp! All good.]
It took Rodenia a couple moments, but then she realized that she had just seen her candy companion eat what were essentially the ingredients to make taffy.
[Can you heal yourself by eating ingredients?]
[Apparently.]
[Huh…neat.]
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[Alright, how the hell did you manage to get this entire room dancing? I didn’t sense any aether in that guitar of yours.]
[Power of music, mi amigo. Power of music.]
A little after Hurricroak started playing a lovely tango rhythm on her guitar, and Razorstella had ensnared the would-be assassin into a dance that drained him of his poison, the rest of the people in the hall had been caught up in the rhythm of these two artistic kaijin.
Most of them had no idea what a tango was exactly, but after watching Razorstella go about her dance with her partner for a couple of moments, they managed to catch on. Eventually, they even developed their own moves and started to show off a bit.
Under the guise of this impromptu dance contest though, Razorstella managed to subdue and sneak away the assassin that had almost infected several key elders with a rather nasty plague.
And she didn’t have to slit his throat open…yet.
As for Hurricroak, well…she was kind of stuck performing for the crowd.
Not that she seemed to mind.
[You want me to swing back after…]
[Nah, I’m in my element right now.]
[Okay…]
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[Wait, are these guys seriously knocked out after a single blow to the head? Really?,] Spring Brawler commented as he loomed over the unconscious assassins.
[Looks like it,] Screamira confirmed as she used her fingers to check their pulses and breath. [Yeah, they’re still alive.]
[Wow…]
Screamira and Spring Brawler had performed what the latter had essentially turned into a go-to move of his, the “Drop Bear”.
Named after a piece of contemporary folklore, this move simply involved luring a target into an enclosed space and then dropping on them so that gravity does most, if not all, the work.
[So…you take one, I take one?]
[Sure.]
It didn’t take too much effort for them to carry these unconscious schmucks, so it gave Screamira time to ask something that had been bothering lately in regards to Spring Brawler.
Namely…
[So…why haven’t you fully condensed a core yet?]
[Ah, that…well…]
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*Beep*
If it wasn’t obvious, # will be the symbol for Shadowspeech, the language of the Umbral Spider Continent from here on out.
*Beep*
[How the hell is this guy still standing?]
[I don’t know, but this is technically our first proper fight against an Aether Lord, so maybe they’re just all this sturdy?]
[Maybe.]
…
#What…the…fuck?!,# Varian shouted in disgusted exhaustion after fighting Nepherage and Frosttusk for what felt like hours, (or at least five episodes), but was only just minutes.
But in those minutes, Varian found himself utterly outmatched…or at the very least, was forced to fight against opponents that he could do nothing against.
As a member of the Plague Birds, most of Varian von Pestkrieg’s abilities involved the liberal usage of poisons, pathogens, toxins and basically anything that would cause serious harm to living creatures. These abilities were then amplified when he combined them with his [Regalia] and [Astra], with the former being able to boost his immunity and concoct new poisons on the fly, while the latter made it easier for him to infect people by virtue of being able to inflict giant gashes across their flesh.
Nine out of ten encounters, Varian would win his fights by virtue of waiting out his opponent as they succumbed to either a poison that turned their blood into pudding, or a disease that made them bleed from every single opening on their body, including the sweat glands.
However, this was one of those rare encounters where none of his highly trained abilities work.
Why?
Was it because the power of [Chaos] made it so that most poisons didn’t work on the kaijin?
No.
Was it because they were technically at the same power level, meaning it was very possible for them to outright power through the poisons and win via brute force?
No.
The reason why none of Varian’s abilities worked was due to one simple thing.
Neither Frosttusk or Nepherage were made of flesh.
#What the fuck are you two made of?! It’s like trying to cut through stone and steel!#
[Should we tell him?]
[Fuck no.]
Due to the former being made of solid metal and the latter made of solid jade, neither of them had any organic tissue that could be affected or blood that could be infected.
This meant that everytime Varian had attempted to use some crazy aether art like [Calamitous Poison Palm] or tried to cheat by using a blade coated in the diseased blood of something known as an Ebony Plague Rat, nothing happened.
At first, he thought it was just that these two had weird immune systems, but now he began to realize…maybe he wasn’t fighting normal mortal fighters.
Maybe he was fighting-
[Okay, let’s end this. Harmonize?]
[Harmonize.]
[Jotun’s Double Magnum!]
But before Varian could even entertain the thought of something weird going on, he got rocked by a pair of fists to face.
Fists strong enough to crack his [Regalia], and the skull behind it.
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“Now then, with that settled…what would you like to do with them, Matriarch?”
“Hmmm…I think I’ll…”
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
So…I accidentally mispublished a chapter in the wrong book…so I convereted it into a side story chapter: 409.
Please enjoy, sorry for the mess-up.
