Chapter 971: Moist and Broken
*Bing-Bong*
…
|What?|
…
|What?!|
The term “moist” should never be used for a title.
|Says who?|
The one who has to narrate it.
*Bing-Bong*
________________________________________
Roaring sound of crashing waves.
As Zhen Liu and the illusionary Storm Queen charged at each other their respective torrents,the faint shadow of anicent monsters began to manifest around them in a more solid state.
However, one side had a more defined monster than the other.
As the illusionary Storm Queen charged, a creature that looked like a massive sea serpent, with jaws big enough to swallow entire galleons in a single gulp, took form around her. To anyone with extensive knowledge of ancient beasts, would immediately associate this visage with that of the legendary Leviathan, a monster said to be the ruler of the beasts of the deep.
As for the creature encapsulating Zhen Liu, this where things became a bit more….ill-defined.
The creature in question had a serpentine body, arms, legs and a vicious looking head that gave the impression one was looking at an Imperial Dragon. However, there were a lot of things that looked…wrong.
The head appeared to have a crown that shouldn’t be there, its scaled serpentine body appeared to have feathers and fleshy glowing body fins at the same time, while its limbs looked to be much longer than those of a normal dragon.
On top of that though, the water that composed its body appeared to contain hundreds of thousands of visible tiny life forms that took the shape of not only sea creatures like fish and crabs, but beasts from the land and sky.
That stated, all of these features and traits were so ill-defined and blurry that once could also assume that the creature encapsulating Zhen Liu was actually something else entirely.
As the two monstrous shadows colliderd with one another though, a horrible booming note echoed throughout the room. Once the actual tridents made contact, the sound got even worse as an explosion of light and most enshrouded the both of them and made it impossible for the kaijin, the girls or the Strange Bloods to see. Especially when the barrier that was keeping them separated from all the action, suddenly exploded due to the energy being released at this exchange.
…
<
…
“HOLY SHIT!”
“INCOMING!”
Thankfully, the kaijin had sense this moment was coming, so they had positioned themselves to defend the much squishier girls ahead of time. A good thing too, as an explosion of steam and [Chaos] had barreled towards the group due to their proximity to the store’s entrance.
“Oof!”
“Heavy!”
“Incoming barrier piece!”
“I got it.”
Once everything had more or less settled down though, as evident by the now significantly more static fog, an even bigger question came to their minds.
“Is everyone okay?!”
“Aye.”
“Oh, we’re borderline invincible, what about the Executor?!”
Despite their literal soul connection to Zhen Liu, the kaijin couldn’t help but get worried due to all the surrounding [Chaos] laced fog obscuring everything, including their connection.
They could sense Zhen Liu was alive, they just couldn’t ascertain if he was healthy.
Thankfully though, they wouldn’t have to wait too long to see for themselves.
“Bah! Can someone open a window or something?!,” Razorstella complained as she tried to use her claws to fan away the fog in failure. “I’m starting to rust because of all of this moisture.”
“I…got it…,” Frosttusk answered.
“What are you going to-”
Zwup!
Splash!
“Huh…alright.”
After being prompted, Frosttusk had used his innate vents to suck in the heat from the surrounding fog, forcing it to condense into liquid water in a matter of seconds. Neither the kaijin, the Strange Bloods or the girls were affected by this suddenly downpour, due to them using their aether to act as a makeshift rain barrier.
However, one person did get absolutely soaked. Granted, that might’ve been due to the attacks from earlier and not the sudden fog drop on his face. It didn’t help though.
“Blah! More water!”
“Maestro!”
“Xiao Liu!”*2
Laying on the floor like he was in the middle of making snow angels, Zhen Liu was no longer wearing his [Taboo] and his trident had broken down back into being a bone club and undead aligned hammer.
The kaijin, Alicia and Bellona, couldn’t help but be curious as to why Zhen Liu hadn’t stand back to his feet yet and come over to where they were…until they walked closer to him.
At which point, they realized that one of Zhen Liu’s legs was slightly bent. Granted, it took them a few seconds to mentally adjust to the fact that the man who regularly tanked aether arts to the face had somehow injured themselves.
The reactions were…understandably loud.
“By the aboves, your leg is broken!”
“How?!”
“I’m going to guess, it was probably the several ton sea serpent made of Aquarii aether and [Chaos] that struck me like a struck, but it could be because I slipped,” Zhen Liu answered with a sarcastic tone in an attempt to deflect the sheer amount of pain he was in.
After months of being basically invincible to any and all injuries, literally showcasing this fact more often than not in most conflicts the fact that his first real injury in this world was a broken leg was shocking to say the least. Well, technically it was his second injury but that first one from his first proper fight in Valresta was more of a self-inflication than anything else.
On the plus side, Zhen Liu had a crack medical team to help fix him up…sort of.
He had a pair of loving fiancees who knew how to treat an injury due to being aether warriors, and a group of Kaijin who vaguely understood medicine and medical treatment.
Which is why, despite protesting he was fine, Zhen Liu found his head laying on top of Alicia’s lap, while Bellona got to work wrapping his leg with a wool bandage with wooden splints for support.
Bellona just had the bandages on hand, while the wooden splints were made by the kaijin.
“Hehehe…”
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, just…I figured by the time I got anywhere near your pants, I’d be pulling them down as opposed to up,” Bellona joked in a surprisingly dirty manner. “Well, I also figured that the ones that would be soaking wet would be…I think I’ll stop it there.” Evidently this stopping of her joke did nothing to prevent both Zhen Liu and Alicia from blushing.
“Hah! Two for one.”
On top of all of this though, he also had a kaijin who could do internal injury checks.
[Executor.]
“Sup, Blaze?,” Zhen Liu asked as his head was kept on Alicia’s lap.
[I’m gonna hop back inside and see if any of your injuries have anything that might inhibit healing. Okay?]
“Sure. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t just hop in on the first chance you got.”
[Not that kind of Kaijin anymore.]
“As you say.”
As quick as a wink, Blazejudicator turned themselves into a wisp of flame that entered Zhen Liu’s mouth and resettled themselves back into being a part of formula. After that, Zhen Liu could feel a warm tingly sensation in his leg. And it wasn’t because of internal bleeding.
[Well, good news is that your break is surprisingly clean. You don’t have to worry about bone fragment son your flesh or internal bleeding, weirdly enough. Once Lady Bellona gets that splint in place, you should be able to walk with assistance.]
“Cool.”
[Bad news is that the Chaos infecting it is gonna make it night impossible to treat with our currently accessible tools. We’re gonna have to return to the library to have Logos and Pathos look at it.]
“Great…ow!”
“Sorry, is it too tight?”
“Nah, just…hot.”
[I…got…it…]
As Bellona continued to wrap Zhen Liu’s leg Frosttusk proceeded to ice the aforementioned limb as to help numb the pain.
“And…done. Nice and tight,” Bellona said with pride.
Zhen Liu attempted to move his leg, only to find it comfortably bounded in medical gear. He ended up releasing a sigh of relief once he confirmed that his leg injury wasn’t at risk at being exacerbated.
“Thanks girls, I mean it.”
“Anytime.”
“Now then, can one of you guys help me-”
[We got it.]
“Thank you.”
With his leg now properly set, Screamira and Nepherage both moved to pick Zhen Liu up to his feet so that he could move with their assistance. Technically he only needed one kaijin to help him move around, he could’ve also used zakos, but he allowed the kaijin to do what they want.
After all, he could feel their anxieties and how the aformentioned stress seemed to disappear the moment they were able to assist Zhen Liu.
‘Nuturing instinct be real,’ Zhen Liu mused.
Once he was back on his feet, Chief Tusk and the two Strange Bloods, Claw and Jaw, approached them with trepidation on their faces.
Zhen Liu could tell that they were apologetic about what had occurred, but that was a bit silly in Zhen Liu’s point of view, since they didn’t know this was going to happen.
Either way, he decided to throw them a bone.
[Kaijin Lord Zhen Liu, we’re -]
[Hey, it’s cool. It makes sense that that the Storm Queen would want a worthy successor to her name,] Zhen Liu interjected. [Now then, let’s go claim that wheel.]
