NOVPUB[As I said director, the kaijin in charge of protecting Undertow wants to meet you, the current Kaijin Lord of the era,] Razorstella repeated. [He wants to do it as soon as physically possible, but understands that doing so might be tricky due to leading a double life. He mentions that it’s something he has experience in?]
’Well, I’m actually fairly certain someone in the family has already figured out the truth and-WAIT! NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW! The fuck you mean there’s a kaijin from the Storm Queen’s era that’s still active? How is that possible?!’
[Oh, he figured you’d ask that too and told me to reply as such...come and find out for yourself.]
’Ah, so the sass is universal...great...fine. I just need to figure out a good excuse to get the fleet to go in that general direction...or figure out a way to get over there without the others noticing...’
<Actually, milord. I think the more pressing issue is that tattoo needle pointed in your direction.>
’Right.’
...
<<And...done! See? That wasn’t so bad now, was it?,>> Zhen Xun Tian asked Zhen Hai after she added the finishing touches to the tattoo on his back.
Zhen Hai couldn’t really reply at this moment, because he was passed out with foam coming out of his mouth. He wasn’t going to die, by Zhen Xun Tian’s words, but there was a non-zero chance he was horribly traumatized by this event.
It’s one thing to get a tattoo done in the mundane way, it’s a whole other thing to get one that technically doubled as a subcategory of aether arrays.
Evidently, this was the reason why Zhen Xun Tian said this when it was finally Zhen Liu’s turn for a tattoo.
<<Now, this would be the party where I’d tattoo you as well, but given your...attributes... I’ll need very special ink to actually do something. Think you can help provide it?>>
Thankfully, Zhen Hai and Zhen Feng were still more or less unconscious as Zhen Xun Tian made those rather suspicious statements. That said, Zhen Liu wasn’t exactly in the mood right now, to lay still as a woman who was four to six times his senior started injecting ink into his skin. Thankfully for his ass, life had other plans in mind.
<<Matriarch! Matriarch! We have returned with news!>>
<<Huh?>>
[We’re back maestro! This time with physical evidence!]
"Oh, hey. My puppets are back too."
The process of tattooing Zhen Feng’s stomach and Zhen Hai’s back actually took several hours. Which was long enough for both the Zhen Clan scouts and Zhen Liu’s "puppets" to finish their scouting procedure as well.
Judging from the looks on their faces though, the news wasn’t great.
<<Matriarch!,>> one of the scouts piped up. <<We are sorry to report that we couldn’t find the Darkshell Citadel or any signs of where the Fallen might be at this time.>>
Hearing this bit, Zhen Xun Tian didn’t look pleased.
<<But you deemed it important to return, why?>>
<<Because we figured out why weren’t able to pin them down.>>
<<Eh?>>
At this verbal prompting, a scout in another boat lifted up from the deck of their small boat, a large luminescent fish that looked like a giant glowing tuna. However, the moment Zhen Liu and Zhen Xun Tian laid their eyes on it, both of them couldn’t help but to involuntarily twitch. 𝚗o𝚟pub.𝚌𝚘𝚖
<<Soldiers...what is that?>>
<<We’re not entirely sure ma’am, but some of the warriors here recognized the aura it was giving off to be similar to the Fallen Clan’s War Elder. At least, what they remembered sensing back when they attacked the city.>>
<<Hmmm.>>
To Zhen Xun Tian, this development was annoying at most.
It was a very old tactic and known for aether warriors of a certain power level to infuse their aether into objects and animals to act as decoys. Despite being a well-known tactic though, nobody has yet to come up with a good countermeasure against...save some secret sects and elite sects that were less than willing to share such information.
Regardless of this lack of information, Zhen Xun Tian just wasn’t happy being led on a wild goose chase.
<<Once we find the Fallen, I’m personally ripping the War Elder’s head from his body.>>
To Zhen Hai though, this development was...disturbing.
’Okay, the presence of this fish have one of two implications, both of which are absolutely terrible,’ Zhen Liu mentally screamed while doing his best to maintain a poker face. ’Actually, wait...there’s a third guaranteed implication, shit!’
The first implication was that the War Elder had figured out how to infuse [Chaos] into things other than himself.
This meant that the War Elder could very well create [Chaos] infused mutant creatures like a certain mechanical rat thing that almost ate his uncle not too long ago. One of those wasn’t too dangerous but a whole swarm of them would definitely lead to issues and more than one ecological disaster.
Alternatively, it meant that the War Elder could very well do what Jasper and Janice were able to do and be able to perform weird [Chaos Arts] that technically don’t have any set forms or reasoning to them. Having him copy the moves of a prior kaijin was bad enough, if he started coming up with new moves, that meant he was going to be a lot trickier to deal with.
The second possible implication was equally terrible.
Back when Zhen Liu and his kaijin had to fight a falling Marlancer, Marlancer had somehow managed to create his own version of zakos that were made of coral. They weren’t as smart as Zhen Liu’s zakos, but they numerous and could up a pretty damn good fight against normal aether warriors. In fact, it wasn’t until his grandfather started manipulating [Chaos] that things turned around.
Regardless of that moment though, if the Fallen Clan’s War Elder has figured out how to make their own zakos, or their own versions of zakos at least, then that meant that this crack squad of Zhen Clan soldiers was going to get fucked over and then some.
As for the last implication...it was actually predicated on which of the prior two was achieved.
If it was the act of infusion, then Zhen Liu and company was going to have to deal with a squad of souped grave robbers with unexpected abilities. Even moreso if they were able to use the skills of the kaijin their parts were sourced from.
If it was the act of zako creation, then they were absolutely fucked. Because, one guy making a bunch of pseudo-zakos could be overwhelmed by Zhen Liu’s slightly better zakos. If six entirely different [Chaos] enhanced warriors were able to make pseudo-zakos as well, then Zhen Liu and his zakos were going to be completely outnumbered and possibly outmatched.
Not even the kaijin would be able to tip over this number games, due to the fact that these part thieves were probably as strong as kaijin now.
Either way, if Zhen Liu needed to know what he was dealing with, he needed to know what the deal with these fish were.
Luckily, he wouldn’t have to wait too long for him to get his hands on them to figure out what was going on.
Below the waters, his zakos and Hurricroak had managed to wrangle some of these strange looking tunas as well. All he had to do now was to excuse himself so that he could go and take a proper look at the new haul.
<<Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian.>>
<<Huh? What is it?>>
At this time, Zhen Xun Tian was in full "matriarchal general" mode, so hearing Zhen Liu call her "matriarch" felt appropriate at the time.
<<My own puppets have confirmed these strange fish as well, and have managed to procure some samples. May I be excused to go and figure them out?>>
Zhen Xun Tian stared at Zhen Liu with a serious expression before nodding. <<You may. I’ll figure some things out in my own way too.>>
<<Thank you, matriarch.>>
With the excuse given, Zhen Liu had one of the zakos return to the ship with their tuna in tow, and proceeded to go below deck.
Once there, he made his way over to the door to the Captain’s Quarters and was just about to use the [Key to Nowhere] so that Logos and Pathos could get a closer look at this thing...but stopped when he realized something incredibly important.
’Wait...if this thing is essentially a zakos...then it could be connected to the War Elder! If I bring it back, there’s a non-zero chance they could track this fish all the way to the Library...can’t have that happening.’
Once the realization that this fish was possibly a tracking device, Zhen Liu decided that the best approach was to go for a quick and dirty analysis.
As to what that entailed...is best left to the imagination.
