Chapter 970: Adapt or Die
=I told you it would. There are multiple cases in history of people using muscle memory to achieve…hang on…why is the screen looking…waterlogged?=
…
‘Oh…that’s why…great…’
In a turn of events that Zhen Liu probably should’ve seen coming, the illusion of the Storm Queen wasn’t so easily beaten after a simple melee three rhythm combo. The moment Zhen Liu turned around to check what had happened, he found that the illusionary Storm Queen had stood herself up while in the crater and was now in the process of performing a [Chaos] art.
Her stance made it appear she was going to perform a fairly standard aether art, legs apart, trident at the ready with murderous intent in her eyes. However, instead of aether flowing around her, which would’ve definitely taken on the shape of some construct that was vaguely water related, it was pure [Chaos] in a more…liquid state.
Not in the same liquid state that occurred when Zhen Liu decided to change the term of his abilities, rather, it was more like the illusionary Storm Queen was summoning forth…primordial water, as odd as it sounded.
The water-like [Chaos] surrounding her had this sense of timelessness that was like staring into the depths of the ocean, with every droplet containing lifeforms that have been a part of the world since the very dawn of time. And right now, she was going to weaponize it in a way that would probably end with a massive hole in Zhen Liu’s chest. At least, that’s the impression he got from seeing the aforementioned primordial water starting to condense into the form of a giant sea creature behind her.
That is, unless he did something about it.
Unfortunately, the lack of access to his kaijin, or the [Library of Nowhere] right now made his options really limited.
In other words, while he wasn’t up shit’s creek without a paddle, the paddles he had access to all had their own faults and flaws.
…
Option 1: Zako Block
Reasoning: While Zhen Liu couldn’t create any kaijin due to the lack of good materials and core access right now, he could technically create zakos out of the random bits, bobs and debris that got kicked up from all the fighting. He could technically use them as a human legion shield to prevent the worst of the damage from hurting him.
Drawback: Technically, the zakos’ defenses work better against aether, not [Chaos]. There was a very high chance of them being paper tigers in front of a literal hurricane of power and rage. Plus, Zhen Liu felt it was a little shitty to suddenly bring to life a bunch of throwaway toy soldiers, only to have them die not even a second later. Morality be damned and weird.
…
Option 2: Chaos Art Counterattack
Reasoning: [Imperial Crusher] was Zhen Liu’s first, and only, [Chaos] art in his retinue, to the point that he had practiced it over a thousand times in private. If Zhen Liu used [Imperial Crusher] with his strongest understanding of [War], he might be able to counter attack and crush the incoming blow. Plus, his [Veteran’s Bone Club] did have a deflection ability…
Downside: There was a very real possibility that whatever crazy attack this illusion was about to perform was going to be a hella stronger than what his ass could produce on a good day. He also had no idea if the deflection ability of his club had an upper limit and he really didn’t want to risk damaging it because of a dumb decision and an over reliance of an ability.
…
Option 3: Stealing/Copying/Homage
Reasoning: After the bout with that weird copycat dragon demon monkey thing, and realizing that his temporary aether channels creation ability was advanced copying, Zhen Liu realized he could technically do that same trick against other opponents. Lo and behold, there was a crazy [Chaos] wielding illusion about to nail his ass with an art he’d probably have an easier time copying.
Downside: He had absolutely no idea what he would be getting into by copying this art. For all he knew, [Chaos] incompatibility would be a real thing…not that he would know since the only [Chaos] users he knew were himself and those close to him.
…
Unfortunately(?), he didn’t think about any of these subtle nuances and just went for the dumbest option possible.
Why?
Because when your life’s on the line and you’re being exposed to a type of energy that can cause one’s recklessness and rudeness to suddenly become more prevalent, anything other than maximum effort seems stupid.
‘Fuck it! Let’s do this like how that dragon monkey did my girl, Jinju Ren, dirty…I feel like I should be calling Xiao Ren but that feels wrong…eh, think about it later. For now, let’s see if this works!’
With this decision made, Zhen Liu proceeded to smack his hammers together before setting the transforming bone club’s tip to the bottom part of the [Hammer of the Dearly Departed]’s handle. Once he did, gone were the coordinated hammers, replaced by a trident that appeared to be made of bone and damned steel.
With his improvised weapon in hand, Zhen Liu took a long look at the illusionary Storm Queen’s stance and did his best to mimic it, despite the obvious differences in their builds.
However, once he started circulating [Chaos] in the same manner as the illusion, he came to a realization/noticed something wrong with his approach.
‘Wait a minute…this illusion has aether channels? Huh…guess that means the Storm Queen also had aether channels… great…’
From what he could sense, the Storm Queen’s illusion wasn’t painstakingly creating channels inside of the body to make it so that they could perform aether arts, rather, it was using [Chaos] to just…tack on and move what was already present. It was the difference between restructuring an existing pipe system and building one from the ground up every couple of seconds…and Zhen Liu was the latter.
‘Now what do I do?’
Aside from feeling a little miffed that it turned out his predecessors may have had proper aether channels and not be crippled like himself, he was annoyed by the fact that his predecessor’s aether channels were way too dense for him to copy. if he tried to recreate the Storm Queen’s move exactly, he’d only end up expending way more energy for about the same results or possibly worse.
In other words, Zhen Liu was going to have to adapt this attack on the fly to take into account his own resources and limits.
‘Alright, rapid-fire rundown: I can’t access any of my weird fire abilities because Blazejudicator isn’t here, I can mimic the other kaijin abilities at most with my [Chaos], I got access to a lot of death aether because of my adhoc trident here and I have exactly zero familiarity when it comes to water aether and giving [Chaos] a more…aquatic aspect…unless I count that time I fought Marlancer…fuck it! I have an idea.’
Instead of trying to copy the Storm Queen down to the last channel, Zhen Liu decided to focus on where the key pools of energy were forming and work from there. Additionally, noticing that there was some overlap in her channels and the channels in his kaijin in terms of layout, he determined that the best course of action was to just…mix and match until something clicked.
Or to elaborate further, once he figured out some kind of configuration of his internal energy structures, a series of words began to form one after the other in his head…albeit, it was a lot fuzzier than anticipated.
‘Huh…this feels incomplete as hell…ask Logos and Pathos about it later. For now…let’s show this serpent who’s the bigger the threat in these waters.’
…
“What in the name of-”
“Bellona! Alicia! Stand back!,” Hurricroak shouted with legitimate concern as she pulled them back so that she could stand in front of them. “Maestro is about to do something stupid.”
After having delivered what appeared to be a highlight reel of kaijin moves against the illusionary Storm Queen, the latter took on a strange attack stance that caused everyone present to develop a massive chill to shoot up their spines.
However, that wasn’t the part that got the kaijin worried.
What got them worried was seeing Zhen Liu take up a similar looking stance but with a completely different aura to him.
Whereas the Storm Queen was looking like the eye of a massive maelstrom about to turn a thriving island into a flooded hellscape, Zhen Liu was giving off the aura of something…old, dead and definitely not of this world.
None of the kaijin were sure on what was going to happen, until they saw Zhen Liu and the illusionary Storm Queen collide with one another, all while declaring the names of their attacks.
[Chaos Art: Leviathan’s Dance]
[Chaos Art: 7iaM@7!]
