Chapter 946: A choice between Meek and Mighty(1)
At this moment in time, the Fallen Matriarch and War Elder had become background players as far as Buzza was concerned. Right now, he needed to address his new…clients.
“Huh? Where am I? Where’s my tea pot?,” the old man with the cane rambled as he darted his head back and forth in confusion.
At the sight of this old man rambling, the slave girl was the first to try and comfort the old elder.
“It’s okay Elder Dau. I got you.”
“Pfft! You should just leave the old man alone,” the foreign royal with a chip on his shoulder admonished. “Then again, maybe you like the taste of old-”
[Ahem!]
“Huh? Whoa!”
“Holy shit!”
“Huh? Mellie is that you?”
Before the group of weirdos that Buzza had personally hand picked started beating the crap out of each other, he decided to interject himself.
The summoned group had initially no plans to listen to whatever or whomever had summon them, but they all immediately changed their tune once they saw the horrifying hornet-like visage that was standing before them.
Suddenly, they were feeling a lot more cooperative.
Well, most of them were.
The old man known as Elder Dau was still sort of… elsewhere.
Senility is a real detriment to one’s life.
Anyways, now that the group had gone quiet, Buzza decided now was the time to steer this conversation in a direction he found more…productive.
“Well now, good to see that you lot have manners as well as deeply entrenched [Desires],” Buzza praised in his own strange way. “Y’all will make great champions.”
The group looked at each other, in disbelief to whatever this weird insect bloodliner was saying. None of them were stupid, they knew exactly that they weren’t “champion” material in the slightest and they were even going to protest against this fact together.
However, before they could even say anything, Buzza proceeded to do it for them.
Starting with the oldest member of the group.
“Elder Dau, Gao Dau, you used to be such a powerful warrior in your day! Slaughtering beasts like they were lambs, sleeping with more women than even the greatest of warlords and stealing treasures that could ruin the budgets of entire kingdoms! But alas, the ravages of time and poison stop for no one. And now, you can’t even remember what day it is. But perhaps we can give your some vim and vigor yet.”
“What’s that?,” Elder Dau said with a clearly clueless look on his face.
Buzza, however, did not answer the old man’s query, instead, he redirected his focus to the slave girl who had tried to comfort the old man. As he did, the expression on his face soften ever so slightly.
“Ah, ah, ah! Sophita, Sophita, Sophita! Daughter from the land of the Spider! Stolen, bought and sold to the highest bidder like livestock. Only to be stolen again and forced to swallow things so bitter and foul for your survival. Yet, you always hope, that a certain prince will come to sweep you away. A prince that you can never have, for more reasons than societal, no less. But perhaps your love is more powerful, than the lust you’ve been the subject to.”
“How did you?!”
But once again, Buzza ignored the reactions of his chosen before barreling at the three young men standing before him.
Two of them looked to be members of the Fallen, with one that carried themselves like a slob, while the other appeared to be very quiet. As for the last young man, he was clearly dressed in robes of nobility from the Radiant Feather continent, but they had clearly seen better days.
Buzza, for reasons unknown to all save him, decided to start with the slacker.
“Gao Kan, Gao Kan, what can be said about you that hasn’t been said before?,” Buzza said before suddenly changing his voice to that of a harsh and whiny woman. “Why can’t you be more like your brother? So young and yet he’s already a Grandmaster! So young and he’s already married! Already better than you in every way!”
“Hey!,” Gao Kan shouted in a display of anger that seemed significantly more raw and vicious than anything the rest of the groups had seen in their lifetimes.
“But the flames of your ambition hasn’t been doused by these in the slightest have they? That’s why you play the lazy fool, right?,” Buzza said in his original voice, quickly placating the “slacker”.
The muted one with the plain face quickly braced himself for whatever Buzza was about to say next. Evidently, this was a good idea.
“Gao Su, so plain, so boring, so…generic,” Buzza said with relish over the irony of this young man’s man. “It’s hard to stand out in a world filled with shadows, even harder still when one is missing those little things that make humans human, right?”
“…”
Gao Su didn’t react to these words, not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know how.
“But perhaps, all you would need is a mask to fit in
And finally, after all of this build-up, Buzza finally addressed the last member of this collection of outcasts and undesirables, the prince in tattered robes.
The prince didn’t mind being forced to hear this spiel about all his faults and failures. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“Prince Alain, the fifth son of King Radna, child of a courtesan, the right-hand maid of the Queen, no less. A bastard doomed to a life of being overshadowed and overlooked by everyone that you or others would call family. Isn’t that tragic? Isn’t that unfair?”
“Are you going to tell me something new?,” Prince Alain said with a bitter tone of his voice. “Or are you going to just repeat things I’ve heard a thousand times before.”
Amused by the prince’s fury, Buzza leaned forward to actually address someone in the group for once.
“But perhaps, dear prince with a chip on shoulder, we can make you shine brighter, and harsher, than all of their siblings of yours?”
“…”
“Of course, that is, if any of you actually want what I’m offering,” Buzza said as his swarm of giant hornets brought over the strange looking box.
Despite the box being sealed, all of the gathered people present could sense the strange energy radiating from it.
It wasn’t a rare form of aether, it wasn’t anima, it wasn’t anything that they recognized in the slightest.
But…despite this unfamiliarity, there was something about this energy that got them thinking, feeling and hoping that maybe, just maybe…this was their way of changing their lives.
Of course, whether or not it was going to be worth the cost was a question for later.
The question for this moment though…that was for Buzza to spell out.
“Now, I will not mince words, I will not try to coddle and cajole you all, but your lives are all destined for mediocrity, tragedy and sadness,” Buzza said with just enough exaggeration in his voice to get his audience to listen. “However, what would you say if I could offer you…not a solution, but a chance?”
“A…chance?”
Snap
Clatter
FWOOSH
“Gah!”
“T-this aura!”
“What the fuck?!”
“Oh…how comforting.”
With a snap of his fingers, Buzza snapped his fingers and the box that his hornets had been carrying had flung itself open and released the energy that it had been suppressing all at once.
Oddly enough though, the group weren’t able to see what was inside of the box that had caused this weird energy wave. And it wasn’t just because it was dark. It was if the universe itself was trying to prevent them from being able to properly perceive what they were staring at.
Thankfully(?), they had Buzza to explain what they were staring at.
Not that hearing about it made them feel any better.
“Over the course of many, many…decades…I have gathered all sorts of special little…components, that can augment a cultivators’ body and abilities down to their formulas. Why, one can say that they’re miracles made ‘flesh’. There’s just one problem. They need to be… installed.”
“Installed?”
“What does that mean?”
Without saying anything else, clarifying or otherwise, Buzza proceeded to reach into the box, causing it to scream in a chorus of agonizing harmonies.
From its depths came what they could only assume was a beating heart.
Or at least, what they hoped was a heart.
“It’s easier to show than to tell…so who’s first?”
________________________________________
=It’s not just you, I felt it too.=
=Because I take it as proof that our current lord has luck akin to a swinging pendulum.=
=Also, from that brief little burst of energy, I can immediately tell it originated from the [Abyssal Lands], a place we can’t scan because of interference. As such, the only thing we can do is just hope for the best and prepare for the worst.=
