As the general shock of being launched at mach three away from his ho city and kaijin began to wear off, Zhen Liu decided to focus his mind on what to do next.
Naly, how he was going to find an opportunity to get ho as soon as possible. Because his ability to do so was very reliant on where he landed.
Thankfully, he had soone to bounce his thoughts off of to help refine his plans.
’Okay, best case scenario is that we land sowhere in the middle of nowhere that will enable to draw a door to the library,’ Zhen Liu inford the kaijin in his soul. ’Granted, it also precludes to us having a surface that I can draw a door into...’
[What if we end up soplace that prevents us from using the Key to Nowhere?,] Blazejudicator pointed out. [Or worse, it sohow gets stolen or broken?]
Zhen Liu was silent for a mont as he formulated his thoughts on how to address these possible scenarios proposed by this burning judge of a Kaijin.
’Well...if it’s the forr, then we’ll just have to find sowhere that won’t do that to us,’ Zhen Liu answered while rembering an incident from his past life where sothing similar occured. Of course, that involved the usage of a ride-sharing app and an airport.
’And if it’s the latter, then we’ll just have to get it back or fix it ourselves. You’re a Kaijin made from the fourteen flas of [Vice] and [Virtue] and have a hamr made with the power of an undead blacksmith, pretty certain we can figure out what to do fairly quickly.’
[True...]
’Of course, all of this very reliant on where the fuck we finally land, because I think we’re out of the frontier at this point...,’ Zhen Liu noted as he saw the landscape beneath him begin to change from familiar deserts to unfamiliar forests. ’Seriously, where the fuck are we landing?’
[I’m still not sure, but I think you could arguably take a nap while we’re still mid flight...,] Blazejudicator observed.
’In that case, wake up when we finally land,’ Zhen Liu joked as he did his best to cope with the reality of his situation.
[Of course, Executor.]
’Invulnerable body, don’t fail now...’
________________________________________
To the average person, their ho city/region/continent was the center of their world.
As such, they tended to geographically mark other locations with this set-up in mind.
Not even Zhen Liu was an exception to this line of thinking, so whenever he saw an atlas of Valresta, he tended to mark where all the other locations were in relation to Stone Claw City.
For example, in his head, Willow Scale City was north-east of Stone Claw City, about several thousand nautical miles across the Ocean of Turmoil and a dozen or so miles across a swampland full of vicious mosquitos and worse.
Now this distinction was important because if Zhen Liu has access to a map right now, or at least had a stable connection to Logos and Pathos, he would realize that he was heading southwards from Stone Claw City.
Trapped in a deflating bubble of energy, Zhen Liu rapidly flew over the lands of Stampeding Bison bypassing a variety of ecosystems and environnts, and a whole fuckload of territories.
He first flew pass the various micro nations that composed the Alloy Republic, which was technically his nation.
He flew over the conquered territories of the Adamantine Empire, that stretched through the continent like tendrils originating from the capital.
He even flew pass the Iron Sands Sultanate, the main power that controlled the southernmost point of Stampeding Bison and most of the deserts that composed it.
Zhen Liu’s bubble didn’t show signs of slowing down until he finally entered a region known as the Ember Isthmus.
This region was about seven hundred miles long and five hundred miles wide, consisting of mostly tropical jungles and savannahs as far as the eye could see, all interspersed with active volcanoes.
It was also, as the na implied, the main strip of land that connected the Stampeding Bison continent to its neighboring continent.
A contient where the climate was warm all year around regardless of where you went.
A contient where the food was spicy by default, and the people were spicier by choice.
A contient that was ho to a certain purple-flad Aetherii that had made himself a nuisance to the [Library of Nowhere] not too long ago.
That’s right, dear readers, Zhen Liu was on a collision course with the Dozing Salamander continent, and the isthmus he was about to crash in was one of those fun lawless border regions.
Not only that, but this ti around, he didn’t have the support of the [Library Of Nowhere], or his main kaijin, to help him out.
And he was going to be in for a hell of a ti.
________________________________________
*Bing-Bong*
Note that the following scene is being spoken in Scorch Talk, the language of Dozing Salamander.
The closest equivalent to it sourced from a certain blue planet, would be a mix of several soarican dialects, African dialects and a touch of South Asia.
We now return to your regularly scheduled chapter.
Thank you.
*Bing-Bong*
...
Papaya Town.
A quaint little town that is located in one of the few safe areas in the Ember Isthmus.
In this town, most people made their living hunting, lumberjacking gathering herbs or all three, selling their wares to a rchant family that ship out their goods to all over the place.
Little did most of these suppliers know, this family had been scrimping on their payouts for generations.
Not enough to get them angry, but just enough to keep their ledgers in the black.
But the only one who knows that this was the case, was a young man who had little to his cursed na.
...
"Alright, so that’s three pallets of charcoal for cooking and one Green Viper corpse...," a bespectacled clerk muttered to themselves as they looked over the goods placed on his store’s counter.
While he was doing so though, the source of these goods, a young man dressed in a tattered full-body outfit that hid every defining feature he had.
’Co on you greedy fuck. We both know the price is going to be about a gold and forty pieces of silver, but you’re going to dock about ten pieces because you figured that’s how much you can scrimp, so you’ll...’
"Your total cos out to a gold piece and twenty pieces of silver. Here you are," the slimy rchant said in a cheerful tone while placing the sum on a coin dish on the counter.
"...okay."
"Pleasure doing business with you."
"Mmm," the young man rely grunted as he collected his earnings and moved to leave the store as quickly as possible.
’May you get a kidney stone and bleed...bah, whatever.’
The young man who knew he was just financially screwed over was a fellow who went by the na of Lythero Rajani.
However, it should be noted that this wasn’t his real na.
Now for the better of ten years, and since the tender age of fifteen, Lythero had been on his own.
Well...he wasn’t always alone.
For the first five years of his life, he lived with his mother in a place called Kirin Rose City. It was a city famous for its nightlife and red light districts. His mother was a courtesan, but for one of the prestigious brothels in town so he actually lived pretty well. Even working as an aide in the kitchens when it was called for.
But these easy days ca to an end due to sheer luck.
On one unremarkable day, Lythero found himself watching a group of seven wandering swordsn practicing in an empty courtyard.
Enamored by the movents, Lythero found a stick and began to mimick what he saw. Evidently, he mimicked a little too well.
When the swordsn found him, they were shocked and elated in finding soone who was able to copy their moves with such precision.
As such, the swordsn proceeded to go to Lythero’s mother and convince her to let them take the boy with them to be their disicple.
Many tears were shed that day, but it was all for the sake of a better future, and so the boy was sent to travel with the swordsn and learn their ways.
For the next ten years after that day, Lythero had learned from these swordsn, mastering a wide and strange variety of sword styles, and grew leaps in bounds in his cultivation.
And things were going great...until they weren’t.
One day, his masters and brothers-in-arms had decided to take up a contract defending a village from a powerful bandit lord.
Now, they had managed to defeat the bandit lord and were about to celebrate a hard earned victory, only to discover sothing terrible.
That bandit lord was actually the son of a powerful noble of a prestigious sect, and he wasn’t happy that a group of vagabonds had offended his family in such a way.
And like any good warrior from Dozing Salamander, he made sure to pay them back in full.
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