Chapter 1638: Preparation Makes Perfect
’Well, that’s not good.’
Jinju Ren could sense the incoming attacks about to pierce her backside, and she could sense that Rianna had decided to bust out one of the new aether arts that Zhen Liu had pulled out from the library for her.
The Kaijin Lord had reported to her and the others that something bad was brewing, and that they were going to need all the firepower they could muster to deal with it.
As such, Rianna wasn’t the only one to receive an aether art.
[River Dragon’s Sweeping Tail!]
Jinju Ren knew that attempting to dodge would probably prompt Rianna to try and follow up her attack with another weird arrow, while spinning around to deal with the attack would cost her time and may end with her getting shot anyways.
As such, she decided the best course of action was to concentrate her aether to her tailbone and summon and illusionary dragon tail that she then used to smack the arrow out of the air and attempt to smack Rianna with it.
Unfortunately, Rianna was a touch more clever than Jinju Ren had anticipated.
As the tail swung towards her, Rianna created a pair of gossamer wings to catch the wind that was created by the initial swing of the tail.
As such, when her arrow got knocked out of the air, Rianna was sent flying up into it.
By the time Jinju Ren was fully turned around, she could see that Rianna was floating like a butterfly above her head.
Her sting, however, was going to be akin to a thousand hornets.
As she floated above Jinju Ren, Rianna notched another arrow and circulated her aether in such a way that allowed her to create a dozen or so shadowy clones of herself performing the same action.
The bodies of these clones were ephemeral like smoke, but the arrows they were preparing to fire were as solid as your average aether projectile and sharper than a well-polished spear.
[Death by a Thousand Stingers!]
At Rianna’s command, the clones released a shower of arrows that multiplied themselves into dozens more. As each arrow flew, they all transformed into resembling massive hornets with stingers the size of stiletto blades.
Not only that, but the stingers were a lovely mix of highly concentrated poisonous aether and a touch of lightning aether, a little trick she learned from Hurricroak.
[Dragon Taming Saber: Grand Tortoise Shell!]
In response to this onslaught of vicious stingers, Jinju Ren tapped into the power of her [Dragon Taming Saber] and summoned a massive shell that was enhanced with dragon force.
The myriad of hornet-arrows literally exploded as they collided against the turtle shell, leaving not so much as a scratch in the process. However, Jinju Ren wasn’t done yet.
Inside of the turtle shell, Jinju Ren took on a strange stance and began to channel even more power into the saber.
[Cyclone Shell!]
With a powerful swing of her saber, the energy shell surrounding her spun and summoned a tornado of energy that blew away all the clones and caught the real Rianna in a wild whirlwind.
"BAH!"
This should’ve been the part where Rianna managed to recover while in the whirlwind and notch another arrow to let loose on the stationary, spinning target, but that didn’t happen.
Rianna’s [Regalia] had only just manifested in the past few days or so, so she hadn’t gotten completely used to using it to completely defend herself. As a result, the moment she got caught in the whirlwind created by Jinju Ren, it wasn’t just her gossamer wings that got ripped up.
Piece by piece, Rianna’s [Regalia] began to tear apart into dozens, then hundreds of individual little bug scales that disappeared into aether before they could become shrapnel.
By the time Rianna literally spun out of the cyclone, she found herself bonking her still-covered head into a nearby arena wall.
Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai, who were watching on the sidelines, winced in sympathetic pain at Rianna’s crash. They understood that while this didn’t do any real damage against the Amazonian, it still rattled her brain something fierce. At least, that was their experience when being sent flying by one of Jinju Ren’s attacks.
"Oh shit, are you okay, Rianna?" Jinju Ren shouted once she had stopped spinning and the tornado she had summoned had fully dispersed.
Rianna lay there on the ground she landed on for a few moments before sitting herself back up, shook the dust off of her person like a dog, and then gave Jinju Ren a thumbs-up as a sign that she was doing fine.
After all of that, she got to her feet and dismissed the helmet covering her head.
"How much longer is it going to take me to be able to instantly summon and dismiss my [Regalia] like others at my rank?" Rianna complained. "It’s a bit inconvenient not being able to do so."
"Unfortunately, it’s going to take time and practice," Jinju Ren said as she walked up to Rianna and dismissed her own [Regalia]. "That or you make your [Regalia] so strong that it only breaks in the force of incredible overwhelming force."
"So, you?"
"Basically."
"Anyways, ready for another round?"
"You bet!"
As Rianna and Jinju Ren got ready for a second round of sparring, both Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai exchanged looks with one another.
"We’re not going to get another chance to make use of the ring today, are we?"
"Nope."
"Wanna go and do something else?"
"Yup."
And with that short exchange of words, Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai left the arena for the girls to fight in.
"So...what do you think its going to take for us to breakthrough to Grandmaster as well?" Zhen Xing asked his cousin. "Special aether medicine or ya think a kaijin boost to the brain would help?"
"Either or, really," Zhen Tai replied. "Speaking of kaijin, do you know where Zhen Liu went? I didn’t see him at breakfast."
"Me neither, but knowing him, he’s probably preparing for some, as he would say, bullshit."
"Yeah...that tracks."
...Was Zhen Liu dealing with bullshit? Maybe...
"Why the hell am I having trouble writing this threatening blackmail letter? I’ve done this a dozen times before..." Zhen Liu muttered to himself while staring at the blank parchment before him. "Unless...maybe there’s something bothering me?"
At this moment in time, Zhen Liu was about to send a pair of letters to both Abbott Hulna and Abbott Feroxxa that more or less had the same content, but presented in different ways.
Hulna’s letter was going to be an anonymous blackmail letter that threatened to expose his dirty dealings with the Erupting Dawn Empire, unless he brought something of value to a location in the city.
Feroxxa’s letter was an anonymous tip off, explaining that Hulna was a traitor and that he was going to be at that same location in the other letter, and that whatever he was carrying was going to be proof of this betrayal.
On paper, this exchange would end with Feroxxa and Hulna ripping each other to pieces and force the [Flame of Ambition], trademark pending, to come out and put a stop to the fighting...or empower one side to accelerate the inevitable.
Regardless on how this fight ended, it would help to resolve some of the internal conflicts plaguing the Sacred Flame Theocracy...maybe.
At the very least, it would help expose some of the creepy shit happening in the city and spark a small revolution.
In practice, though, Zhen Liu couldn’t come up with a single fucking line.
The longer he stared at the page, the more and more frustrated he became and he couldn’t figure out why.
Untrue...he had a reason that was pissing him off.
*Why are my instincts telling me something is off?!" Zhen Liu grumbled.
Earlier in the day, the Ragnarockers confirmed that Hulna had facilitated a deal with the Erupting Dawn Empire that more or less boiled down to king making.
And a few days before that, Zhen Liu had confirmed with the spy they had captured that the man was sent by Abbott Hulna to spy on Hearth Tender Serena in case she did something...unplanned.
One swift kick to the groin and a memory scramble later, that spy was now free to report back to their master...or run away to a new life elsewhere.
Needless to say, the spy had this option available because the man had been dumped a mile away from the city with nothing but his underwear.
Back to the matter at hand, though, despite all of these assurances that Hulna was the obvious choice to start this chain reaction of absolute fuckery, Zhen Liu couldn’t help but to feel that he was missing... something.
The annoying thing was, he didn’t know what that missing was.
He just knew it was missing.
"Wait...did I remember to inform Serena about all of this? I think I did, so it can’t be that...fuck it. Might as well double check."
