"Sounds like the perfect place to practice your sword skills, right?," Zhen Liu asked with a cheeky smile. "Nothing polishes your sword skills more than fighting a superior cloned version of yourself."
"That sounds correct but wrong at the sa ti," Lythero retorted. "But I’m not sure why."
"Probably because-"
[Greee!]
"Huh?"
[Gree! Greee!]
"Really?"
While in the middle of a conversation, Lythero and Zhen Liu found themselves interrupted by another of the latter’s zakos.
This particular zako was one of the ones made from the jungle’s leaves and was sent out for the purpose of making sure nothing and no one had decided to stalk the duo.
For the past few days, the zakos hadn’t found anything other than the occasional leopard or tiger aether beast attempting to be smarter than they actually were.
This ti, however, the caught sothing unexpected.
A human.
"Uh...Zhen Liu, you rember I don’t speak zako, right?"
"Oh, right. He said that they caught sobody that has been following us."
"Really? Who?"
...
^Is all of these really necessary? I swear I ant no harm, honest!^
[Gree!]
^What are you even saying?!^
Dangling from a tree in a manner similar to a rabbit caught in the snare, was a forr soldier of the Cortez Company who went by the na of Antonio.
^Can you at least keep captured in a way that doesn’t leave literally hanging? I can feel the blood pooling between my ears...^
A couple days back, Antonio’s world was flipped upside down when so mysterious warrior calling himself the Dealmaker had shown up and did the impossible, the improbable and the unthinkable all in one night.
He had done the impossible when he restored the cultivation capabilities of a young man that had been sealed by the benefactor of the Cortez Company, Duke Diamoro.
He had done the improbable when he and Lythero the Bastard, had defeated and humiliated Kendana, Leon and Rama, the three leaders and most powerful warriors of the Cortez Company.
And he had done the unthinkable, when he risked his life and turned his back towards them, when he saved their lives from a brutal explosion of flas.
Ever since that day, the Cortez Company’s reputation in Papaya Town had taken a pretty nasty hit.
Several of the rank and file soldiers had opted to quit after that day, realizing that their lives wereore important or that working for the company wasn’t worth it anymore.
Antonio, on the other hand, fell into neither of those categories.
After that evening, sothing inside of Antonio had...changed.
He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but he began to realize that parts of himself, parts of his mory weren’t lining up with reality.
This all started on the evening that he and his fellow soldiers were saved from being burned alive, when he felt the strange yet familiar energy that Dealmaker had used to protect them.
Antonio didn’t know what it was exactly, but feeling it’s presence reminded him of what it felt like when drinking a glass of mango juice after spending a long day under the sumr sun.
It was refreshing yet familiar...which shouldn’t have been the case since this was the first ti he ever ca into contact with this energy...or so he thought.
Understanding that sothing weird was going on, Antonio decided to leave the Company and go back to his ho farm to figure out what the hell was going on with his mories and figure out why that energy felt so familiar to him.
He had been expecting to be greeted by his siblings, his mother and his old yet sturdy father.
When he ca back to that farm though, he found the place to have been abandoned for what appeared to have been for dozen of years, judging by the overgrowth. But...that didn’t make any sense to him, since he recalled that he only left this farm to make his fortune so three or so years ago.
More and more things weren’t adding up in Antonio’s head, and as far as he could tell, there was only one person in this world that could give him the answers he needed.
Dealmaker.
As such, and with this absurd plan in mind, Antonio began to try and track down Dealmaker in order to figure out what the hell was going on.
For several days and nights, he couldn’t find hide nor tail of Dealmaker or Lythero, until an unexpected break occur.
Antonio had stopped by the Lake of Six Iguanas in order to replenish their supplies when he stumbled upon a most fortuitous scene so distance away.
^No way...^
Unknowing, and uncaring for the reason why, but he had stumbled upon Dealmaker and Lythero as they climbed out of the Lake of Six Iguanas, while accompanied by a company of strange, monstrous beings that were holding magnificent looking swords.
He had heard the rumors, the stories of the Seven Vagabonds who had t their end at the hand of Duke Diamoro, but he had assud that there were embellishnts involved.
Gold tiered treasures was sothing for the super sects to wield, not for re wanderers.
Evidently, he was wrong.
And an old, brief feeling of greedy ambition bubbled in his stomach.
’Man, if I had one of those swords I could-wait, not important!’
Now that Antonio had a start, he made sure to not lose track of them again.
He had initially wanted to make contact right there and then, but stopped short when he realized several important details that could hinder such communications.
Number one, he had no good way to approach them without being incredibly suspicious.
Number two, there was a non-zero chance that Lythero would imdiately try to kill him due to his forr affiliation with the Cortez Company.
As such, Antonio decided it was smarter to simply tail them until there was an opportunity he could just "coincidentally" et them.
But that plan went out the window, and into the proverbial trash fire when, when he got caught in a snare trap of all things and captured by a bunch of those weird monstrous warriors.
He had attempted to cut himself free and run away, but strangely, he wasn’t able to circulate his aether like he normally could. aning, he was forced to wait and was now at the rcy of the Dealmaker.
^The hell?^
Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait too long.
...
^The hell?^
When Zhen Liu was inford that a mber of the Cortez Company had been caught tailing him and Lythero, he was expecting a spy or one of the leaders he had purposely humiliated.
He was not expecting...so guy.
So guy that not even Lythero knew who he was.
^Do you know who this guy is?^
^No.^
^Huh...^
The guy in question appeared to be a native of the Dozing Salamander continent and was currently dangling by his angles, being held in place by a vine rope that had been infused with [Chaos].
The [Chaos] made it so that the ensnared was unable to exercise their aether, but the weird thing about this situation was that Zhen Liu could clearly sense that this man had [Chaos] baked into his being and could’ve easily cut himself loose.
But the fact that he didn’t ant he either didn’t know he could, or was trying to counter trap.
Welp, there was only one way to know for certain.
^Alright, who are you and why the fuck have you been tailing us?,^ Zhen Liu asked point blank. ^Keep in mind, if I don’t like your answer or think you’re a threat, I’m going to have one of my boys here use as a sock puppet monts before your death.^
^The fuck does that an?!,^ Lythero and Antonio asked in simultaneous shocked voices.
^Tell who you are and you won’t find out,^ Zhen Liu answered without blinking and missing beat.
Figuring this could very well be the difference between life and death, Antonio essentially spilled his heart out like a sinner in a confessional.
^My na is Antonio Vera Deltron! I think I was born as the eldest son to a farming family of fourteen and I left them in order to grow as a warrior and make my way in the world before-^
^Wait, wait,wait,^ Zhen Liu interjected as he noticed sothing weird the mont Antonio started talking. Naly, that the [Chaos] in him began to stir the mont he started talking about his past.
"Hmmm..."
Zhen Liu walked over to Antonio’s side, not saying a word until he was right next to him.
^Okay, start your introduction from the beginning,^ Zhen Liu ordered as he began to subtly charge his palm with [Chaos].
^Uhh...what?^
^I said, start over,^ Zhen Liu repeated. ^Just do it.^
^Okay...my na is Antonio Vera Deltron and I am the eldest-^
^There it is.^
BAM!
^What the fuck?!^
Before Antonio could get another word out, Zhen Liu had smacked his stomach with a hand full of [Chaos].
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