Chapter 958: Those of Strange Blood.
=Not really, since we have been encouraging him to just eat weird sources of aether more than once.=
=True…wait, didn’t that get rolled into Blazejudicator?=
After Logos and Pathos had taken time to realign their core values as being the embodiments of logic and emotion, they had returned to their duties of making sure Zhen Liu and the kaijin hadn’t killed themselves yet.
Or at the very least, haven’t gotten themselves in trouble.
=By my calculations, they’ll be able to get the ship back to shore in about hour after extraction.=
=Looks like enemies. Nothing they can’t handle.=
=Remember where we are? More specifically, remember what happened when the Storm Queen allowed her Knights to go on holiday?=
=To be fair, we can just revisit with Lady Jin Fang later. Heavens know that these guys will probably appreciate meeting her later.=
…
[And you’re certain that they’re at the Wreck?]
[Yes, Chieftain. I saw it with my own eyes.]
[What should we do?]
[…we keep our oath. Warriors, to me!]
[Yes, Chieftain!]
…
[Razor, are you seriously going to peek at Matilda’s cards, right now?,] Spring Brawler asked with as much judgement as his voice could muster. [You know it’s considered bad form to do this kind of thing, especially when the other person is checking the perimeter for our collective safety.]
Razorstella, however, didn’t give a shit, since her own pride was at stake here.
[I swear to Chaos, Spring, the ninja maid is cheating! There’s no way in hell someone can get that many good hands in a row!,] Razorstella said as she was about to grab at one of Matilda’s cards.
While this was happening, Nepherage and Frosttusk were keeping Alicia and Bellona updated on Zhen Liu’s status. Technically, it was more so the former than the latter on this front, due to the latter being too slow to convey information at a meaningful pace.
“Okay, good news. Screamira has managed to catch up with our lord and is now assisting him with getting the [Storm Queen’s Galleon] to our position,” Nepherage reported to Alicia and Bellona.
Due to the girls not being part of the weird mental network that was Zhen Liu, they could only figure out what was going on through the eyes of the kaijin. Well, Bellona could technically mentally wiretap that aforementioned network, but access was always up in the air.
Not this time though.
“Oh thank the heavens,” Alicia sighed with relief.
“Indeed,” Bellona nodded while keeping her mind’s ear open for the reason why the kaijin were verbally cagey.
[We’re…not…mentioning…the…swamp…water?]
[Not unless the world suddenly implodes.]
[Fair…enough…]
“Pfft!”
“Bless you.”
“Thank you.”
With the burden of thought that was Zhen Liu’s well-being no longer occupying their minds, the girls and the kaijin proceeded to relax…for all of five seconds.
“Mistress! We have trouble incoming!”
“Huh? Matilda?”
After those five seconds, Alicia’s literal ninja maid Matilda appeared with a worried look on her face and a tense aura.
A kind of aura that even got the kaijin worried.
“My lady, kaijin, princess! We have incoming trouble!”
“Trouble?,” Alicia repeated. “What kind of trouble?”
“The kind that involves them,” Matilda said while gesturing towards the kaijin as a collective.
“Uh…oh…”
“I feel like you’re leaving out some context here,” Nepherage added. “Mind elaborating what you mean?”
“You know how you’re basically immune to most attacks due to your bodies being made of mostly [Chaos] and whatever random treasures or materials that Master Zhen Liu could get his hands on?, “Matilda quickly stated before finally getting to the main point of her statement. “There is a whole ass warband of people who seem to be able to do that.”
“What?!”*3.
The reason for the kaijin’s shock was not because they were about to face opponents that had abilities that could hurt them, they had fought plenty of those in the past.
What made this shocking was the fact that they were about face people who had [Chaos] abilities that sounded as if they were naturally occurring, or at least, were cultivated like Jasper and Janice.
No weird body parts.
No special aether treasures.
No abominations gone wild.
No dragon blood.
Just pure, naturally occurring [Chaos] wielding warriors…which was somehow more unsettling.
“Are you certain that this is the case?,” Nepherage asked, having mentally switched to war tactic mode.
“Well, seeing as none of my aether enhanced poisoned daggers could pierce their skins due to the aforementioned aether having been stripped away moments before making contact, YES I AM SURE!”
“Breathe, Matilda. Breathe.”
“I know mistress, I’m sorry. I just…never had anyone survive my knives before and it’s a little upsetting…wait, I’m usually more professional than this, what the fuck?”
“We have that effect on people,” Nepherage answered.
Whatever the case may be, they were about to be under attack, so they might as well give these guys a proper greeting, preferably beating.
They just needed a plan.
“Matilda, how long until these mysterious warriors make contact with us?”
“They were moving kind of slow,” Matilda answered. “It I had to give an estimate…twenty minutes?”
“Plenty of time then,” Nepherage stated before turning her attention to her fellow kaijin.
[Alright, battle stations! Prepare disguises and an ambush!]
[Right!]*3
“Matilda, I’m gonna lend you some knives that should be able to to do some damage.”
“Really? How?”
“Because they’re gonna be made out of me and Frosttusk.”
“Huh?”
As the kaijin prepared themselves for battle, Bellona had pulled Alicia off to the side to ask her a relevant yet strange question.
“Do you think we should use this opportunity to try out our new gifts in a live fire situation?”
“Maybe…doesn’t feel like the right time though…I believe we still have to, as they say, play it by ear?”
“Very well…wait, are you actually saying that because it’s very likely for the kaijin to end this fight before we can do anything?”
“Again, maybe.”
…Twenty Minutes Later…
[Is that the cart?]
[It is, chieftain, but…]
[But what?]
[The hippo is missing.]
[Hmmm. That’s… concerning.]
Shrouded by plant life and swamp water, a warband of twelve warriors hid alongside the edges of an open body of water.
These warriors were members of one of the lesser tribe of the Endless Swamplands known simply as the Strange Bloods.
On the surface, the Strange Bloods were a small tribe of Bloodliners that only had a mere Aether Master as their leader with an unknown lineage, which was considered an unspoken taboo in the Eternal Swamplands.
Every tribe must have a clear lineage to a particular Aether Beast King in order to understand their level of diplomacy, power and overall status. Therefore a group like the Strange Bloods were considered the absolute bottom of this unspoken hierarchy.
The reality though was a little different.
It wasn’t that the Strange Bloods couldn’t trace back their heritage, in fact, they kept a very good record of where they all came from.
It was just that their originators, their progenitors, weren’t exactly…well liked by the rest of Roaring Tide.
To be more precise, if anybody outside of their tribe learned about their heritage, they would’ve either been killed on the spot, enslaved and turned into weapons or immediately used as experimental materials for the sake of some old motherfucker’s ascension to a higher plane of existence.
Absolutely none of these options were good , so they kept to themselves.
They also weren’t led by a “mere” Aether Master, it was just that the power that the warriors were using couldn’t be measured by conventional wisdom.
Aether Warriors had stages, Anima Wielders had locks, and as for the Strange Bloods…they had something else entirely.
As such, the Strange Bloods made no effort to make nice or make war with the other tribes in the Swamplands, opting to maintain a life of peace and solitude.
However…there was one exception on when they would act.
Centuries ago, in a time when the Pearl Scale Emperor was more rowdy, their ancestors had a made promise to a woman who could be considered the ancestor of their ancestors.
They had made a promise that they had kept for eight hundred years, turning every would-be looter and raider into swamp carrion.
And the only time they would stop was when a certain condition was met.
One that they assumed to be impossible at this point.
[Jaw. Claw. Go and check why the cart was abandoned.]
[Yes, chief.]
