The last ti Zhen Liu went to Stone Claw’s arena, they were there on a date with Jin Fang.
At that ti, they watched the scion of the Wolfe Family fight against a mber of the Diggers Union nad Sullivan. It was from this digger that Zhen Liu acquired the [Core of Re(great/venge)] and go on to use it to create the kaijin known as Frosttusk.
In all honesty, Zhen Liu figured he would never co back to this arena after his first visit. He had already extracted so decent cores out of the arena and had essentially leveled out of the arena and most of it’s combatants around the ti he beca an Aether Grandmaster.
However, fate had different plans in mind...granted, "fate" in this case were nad Aranea(Archanida) and Lucille(Lacerage).
The two insectile kaijin had opted to not only help the Zhen Clan expand it’s original business, but also worked to advertise their services and rchandise via the local arena. Evidently, they managed to do just that and then so.
As soon the Zhen Clan scions managed to get within spitting distance of Stone Claw’s main arena, the sound of tal clashing and uproarious screams could be heard from miles on end. This particular sound was pretty typical for the arena,but the banner hanging from the the side of the arena was entirely new.
"Welco to the Bi-Weekly Brawl. Co and face the mighty beasts trained by the Zhen Clan masters or the strange opponents the scions of the Zhen Clan faced monts before breaking through to Aether Master! Entry fee is five copper coins, payout to be determined by chosen opponents...wait a damn minute..."
The Zhen Clan scions were initially confused by the banner’s taglines because they never fought anyone before they-
"Wait a minute...Xiao Liu?"
"Huh? What’s up, Zhen Yue?"
"Do you, by any chance, have more puppets than the ones you’ve shown us back in the Blossoming Scales Kingdom?"
"Uhh...technically? But they’re not very good though..."
"Dafuq is your definition of ’not very good’?," Zhen Xing asked.
"Well... they’re not made of the sa rare materials, or were modified, like my main puppets."
"Hmmm."
The other scions gave Zhen Liu a questioninging stare, due to the fact that they had seen what the man could do with both the puppets he made himself and the ones that were made by other people, i.e., the fact that he could use them to perform aether arts he was physically unable to.
That fest alone was considered impossible by most, but if Zhen Liu could use that sa trick with his "not good" puppets...the scions couldn’t help but get a bit curious. Determining that this was a mont of seeing was believing, the Zhen Clan scions decided to stop stalling and get going.
"Alright...let’s get going to the actual arena. I think I rember Aranea and Lucille saying we just need to flash the security our emblems?"
Soon after posing this question and performing this action, the Zhen Clan scions were quickly escorted to their private viewing box.
It was from there that they were given a full scope of the arena and it’s brand new event.
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’I...I can’t help but feel that y’all are playing with fire by having the zakos pretend to be aether puppets...’
[Oh, it’s fine. We make sure to mix in so aether beasts every now and again to throw people off, alongside so human fighters,] Archanida explained.
’Really? I thought you guys wanted to use the arena to just promote the business stuff.’
[We did,] Lucille answered. [But it was brought to our attention that not only did the zakos need training, but so did the rest of your clan. Well, them and the children.]
’Under-hold the fuck up...children? What children?’
[Err...]
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"CO ON MAN! GET THE ONE WITH THE CLUB! THE CLUB!"
"FUCKING TOLD YOU HE GOT TOO GREEDY!"
"BONE BOYS! BONE BOYS! BONE BOYS!"
On the main floor of the arena, a rather insane spectacle of a fight was taking place.
On one side was the challenger, a double axe-wielding warrior from Dozing Salamander, as made evident by the swirling patterns on his armor and axes, a trademark of the special steel found only on Dozing Salamander.
On the other side of the arena, were five strange looking humanoid puppets that appeared to be made out of bones.
At a glance, these skeletal puppets appeared to be perfectly uniform with one another due to their similar builds, similar materials and the fact that they were all made by the sa guy.
However, if one were to take a closer look, they would notice subtle differences in the designs of their "heads", as well, they would notice that each of the skeletal puppets had a different weapon from the other.
One skeletal puppet was ard with a trident, another had a massive warclub, two of them were wielding tiger hook swords while the last was spinning around a kusarigama. In other words, the axe wielder was dealing with five entirely different type of fighters at the sa ti and was rendered absolutely miserable because of it. Technically speaking, he was stronger than these puppets on an individual basis due to being a first ring Aether Master while the puppets were at most, four ring Aether Acolytes. However, the puppets managed to make up this power difference through the power of teamwork and weapon variety.
Whenever he tried to take out one, the other four would imdiately move in to counter attack.
Whenever he managed to block the attack of one weapon, another weapon that could easily bypass the prepared defense ca swinging in.
When he had signed up for this arena match, he figured it was easy money since these puppets were supposedly used for nothing more than training the Zhen Clan’s young masters.
After having to fight these skeletal motherfuckers though, he started to understand as to why and how the Zhen Clan managed to take over Stone Claw City. Because if the children had a training regin this absurd, what the fuck did the elders do?
Either way, the warrior was having a bad ti and needed to co up with so kind of counterasure. Otherwise, he would be losing one hell of a paycheck.
’Tsk! By the fires of Yterra, what kind of puppets are these?!,’ the warrior ntally cursed as he gripped his axes tighter. ’Dammit! Am I seriously going to have to use one of my trump cards here? Against fucking skeletal-’
However, before the axe wielder could finish that thought and resolve himself, the skeletal puppets had made the first move.
"INCOMING!"
"OH, HE IS FUCKED!"
*CLATTER! CLATTER!*
The skeletal puppet ard with the trident proceeded to charge directly at the axe-wielding challenger in a very straightforward manner with a clear aim to skewer the man like a giant fish.
"Don’t think so! Ha!"
(Un)fortunately, the axe-wielder managed to use his weapons to intercept the trident before it could pierce him.
The axe-wielder felt a brief mont of joy as he managed to block the attack, only for that feeling to be replaced by despair as he realized that he was in a trap.
"OH SHIT, HE’S GETTINF TRIPLED!"
"IS THAT ONE ACTUALLY USING HIS ALLY’S TRIDENT AS A WALKWAY?!"
Shortly after blocking the attack, the sword wielding puppets and the kusarigama wielding puppet proceeded to do a triple pincer attack against the axe wielder.
To the man’s left and right, the twin sword wielders were preparing to slice off his legs and arms, while the kusarigama wielder was coming straight towards him, the scythe portion of the weapon being prepped to be jamd right between his eyes.
’Dammit! Fine, full power it is!’
With his back against the wall, the axe-wielder decided to finally stop holding back. Ignati aether began to fill rapidly course through the axe wielders veins as he prepared himself to use one of his trump cards.
[Inferno Lion’s Roar!]
*ROAR!*
"DAMN THAT’S LOUD!"
The axe wielder released a concussive blast of fire and rage as he released a roar from his chest that sounded just like that of a real lion.
The trident puppet, sword puppets and kusarigama puppet were all knocked away as their bones got a touch scorched from the blast.
The crowd was stunned silent as they saw the sudden turn around, but the axe wielder didn’t care.
’Alright, it worked! Now it’s ti for my-’
*THWACK!*
’-what the fuck?’
Unfortunately, just as the axe wielder was about to use this mont to follow up and take out the puppets he had just knocked away with another aether art that was designed for such situations, he was knocked out by the club wielding skeletal puppet sneaking up on them out of nowhere like a ghost.
At the sa ti this happened, the crowd was just about to cheer the axe wielder’s skill, only to be silenced again by the sneak attack.
Granted, they weren’t the only ones flabbergasted by this turn of events.
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"Oh...what the fuck? That’s what you consider to be ’not good’ puppets? How high are your standards?"
"To be fair, my master was very...peculiar on puppet quality," Zhen Liu lied.
Evidently, Zhen Liu’s cousins couldn’t help but show on their faces that they didn’t really believe him...that or they pitied him.
’Having been reached by the guy...that makes sense.’
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