Zhen Liu continued to stare into empty air as the fate of a woman he had never t, played out in his mind like a storybook scene in a larger narrative.
It took a few monts for it to finish, punctuated by Jin Fang attempting to shake him awake.
"Xiao Liu? Xiao Liu. Xiao Liu!"
"Hey, wait, what? Oh, I’m back."
"What the fuck was all of that?," Jin Fang asked, exasperation mixed with worry clear in her tone of voice.
With the amount of tis Jin Fang had witnessed Zhen Liu suddenly pass out due to weird, magical shenanigans, one would think she’d be more used to it.
Honestly, she wasn’t.
"I’m not entirely sure...," Zhen Liu answered, "but sothing tells I’m going to have punch soone in the face. Really, really hard."
"Oh....well let’s get to it then."
"Right on."
Once they made sure Zhen Liu was not going to pass out, the two of them imdiately booked it into the warehouse district proper and in the direction the kaijin were fighting.
’Three paralyzed, two having fun and one is fighting a crazy face stealing bitch...let it never be said my life is boring...’
________________________________________________
[Holy shit, did that Venus lady just do a whole ass transformation sequence?,] Hurricroak asked, [because she just went from golden buffalo gal to nightmare fantasy dominatrix real fast. Wait a minute, is she stealing my schtick? That bitch!]
[Don’t... think...so...also...lewd.]
[Baby you know it.]
[It definitely looked like a transformation art, but...it feels weird,] Nepherage noted, [almost as if she beca an entirely different person...]
[Like how Logos and Pathos transform and our brains get all mixed up about who or what they are in reality?,] Hurricroak asked.
[Not like that, more like...how to explain this...when Logos and Pathos transform, hell, even you, there is a sense that they’re still fundantally themselves. But...when Venus transford it felt like...she ditched half her soul for soone else’s half? Sothing like that...]
[Excuse ,] Archanida suddenly interjected, [while I hate to interrupt amusing color comntary, the ones I’m facing off currently are nad...Balos and Fili, correct? The one with the long sword and the spear, respectively?]
[Yup.]
[Yes...]
[I was dealing with the ones fighting Lacerage right now, so I assu yes.]
[Excellent. I was just about to call them out for being, as Pathos would say, "bitches", and it would have been very awkward for if I had misidentified the offending miscreants.]
[That was simultaneously very posh and very crude at the sa ti,] Hurricroak pointed out, [I approve.]
[Hey Lacerage, you need an identification for your opponents or nah?]
[Don’t care, don’t need it, gonna take their heads off their shoulders anyways.]
[How boorish.]
[The term is straightforward.]
[Violence!]
________________________________________________
[Venomous Drill!]
[Decay Cutter!]
[Sin Piercer!]
BOOM!
CLANG!
"Hmmph!"
As soon as Archanida launched her assault, Fili and Balos launched their own attacks in an attempt to deflect or possibly counterattack.
While they managed to achieve the forr, angling the encroaching legs of death in awkward angles and giving themselves room to jump backwards, there were a touch of consequences as a result. Naly their hands felt as if the two of them had attempted to cut down an iron wall with their weapons, sore palms and shooting pains up their arms.
Normally such pain wouldn’t even register to the two of them, thanks to their years of combat experience and aether armor being active. However, after being subjected to the "hell" of those other demons, their hearts and minds were anything but stable and their bodies were following suit.
’Tsk, tsk! You fellows should know that presenting weakness to a predator is akin to baring your throats...but I’m more of an ambush type anyways, so why don’t we do a little...what’s the word? Trolling?’
Sensing the weakness in their hearts, Archanida concluded the best course of action was to goad them.
Worst case scenario, they would run and that would be fine too.
"Attention, uncoordinated brutes!," Archanida announced to her opponents while taking in a very different fighting stance, imdiately grabbing their attention, "I am going to present to you a challenge and so terms. If you choose to accept it, I will abide by the agreent, but if not, I will just as gladly tear out your throats and gorge on your insides, since I clearly outmatch the both of you."
Balos and Fili looked at each other, confused and slightly angered at the spider woman’s provocation. They may have been wounded but they still had their prides as Aether Warriors! Evidently, the forr was so offended by the statent, he seeked to verbally lash back.
"Who are you to make demands? We clearly outnumber you two to one!"
"Well, Balos," Archanida said with a smile and direct eye contact, "if you must know, unlike you two, I believe in the spirit of fairness and competition. I would rather much be fighting people who weren’t mired by the feelings of regret and failed heroics, but here we are and there you two are. So I believe I am in the best position to make demands, no? Or would you rather support your friend’s argunt here, Fili?"
The two warriors looked wide eyed as Archanida stated their nas and addressed what they went through, in such a plain and straightforward manner. The two of them understood that information was a power on its own, especially in their line of work.
Feeling trapped as it were, they "decided" to play along.
"What kind of challenge?"
Archanida would have had a sinister smile if she could, once she heard their agreent.
"Oh it’s quite simple really..."
________________________________________________
[Cyclonic Finger!]
[Black Star Blast!]
As Lacerage brought down a glowing exoskeletal finger surrounded by a concentrated cyclone down towards Ogrim, Dane intercepted the attack with a morningstar covered in the dark aether. He would have gone for a body blow, but he had a feeling that if he didn’t block the finger instead, the consequences would have been dire.
Evidently, he was right about that.
The mont Dane knocked the finger away from Ogrim’s direction, a powerful blast of air shot forward and turned a pile of nearby rubble into a pile of crushed sand.
If the both of them were at the their peak conditions, they might have been able to block the attack, but in their current weakened states, it was very likely the blast would have cratered their insides.
Knowing the danger this weird lacewing woman posed, Dane proceeded to try and follow up his earlier deflection with a counter attack.
[Nether Palm Strike!]
Dark, swirling aether gathered on Dane’s off-hand palm monts before he struck forward, firing a blast of energy in the shape of his hand aid at Lacerage’s abdon.
This attack was rather insidious because despite being called a "strike", it was more of a projectile, aning anyone who would attempt to dodge the attack by jumping out of reach of the user’s palm would instead get blasted by a burst of dark aether.
Unfortunately for him, he forgot that she had wings.
"Hah! You have to be a lot faster than that to get the drop on !"
With a quick burst of movent from her wings, Lacerage launched her body backwards, performing a flip and avoiding the attack altogether.
"Try this one for size! [Cloud Splitter Kick!]"
Using the montum of her flip, Lacerage brought down one of her airbone legs down towards Dane’s head, howling, swirling winds increasing both it’s speed and destructive capabilities.
[Black Guard!]
However, Dane managed to react in ti and coat an arm in a thick layer of shadow aether before intercepting the kick and blocking it, preventing the howling winds from smashing his head in.
"You failed!," he taunted.
"I didn’t," Lacerage plainly replied.
"What?"
"GAH!"
"Ogrim!"
Dane was initially confused by the words until he heard his compatriot’s scream.
When he had initially engaged with Lacerage, he made sure to push him and her back away from Ogrim so that he could charge up his attack in peace.
However, judging from the now bloody gash across Ogrim’s chest, he had failed in this endeavour.
"That’s the thing about the [Cloud Splitter Kick]," Lacerage began to taunt, "it’s not the leg you need to watch, it’s the feet. Too bad about your friend there.~"
Dane’s eyes turned red at the obvious provocation.
"You fucking ins-"
"You bore now. [Hurricane Blast]!"
With her leg still resting in Dane’s arm, Lacerage twisted her body and wound up her other leg before kicking forward and releasing another poweful blast of wind that knocked Dane several steps back towards Ogrim’s position.
It took him a bit of ti to restabilize himself, not that it would help much.
"Now then," Lacerage said with a smile in her voice, ",this had been fun I will admit, but I think it’s ti we end this, no?"
As those words left her mouth, the aether around her started to get incredibly agitated.
"So why don’t I show you sothing really, really violent?"
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