"Poison?! When-?! How-?!," Frederick questioned as his body began to convulse violently against the substance flowing through his veins. All at once, he felt like he was on fire, on ice, electrocuted and everything in-between over hydrated and under hydrated. Evidently, he didnât get injected with just one type of poison, he got injected with a multitude of poisons and venoms all at once.
"Iâve been living down here for the past decade or so bro, you really think I wouldnât harvest the venom of everything down here?!," Rocko shouted back with fury and defiance in his voice, a surprisingly difficult task due to the several meter long tentacle running through his torso.
"Iâm not sure what kind of bugs make up that stupid patchwork body of yours, but I know for damn sure at least several of them are weak against the venoms I just gave you. Just...like I planned from the start!"
"What?!"
While Rocko talked a big game and told Frederick that this entire situation was planned in order to piss him off more, the reality of the situation was that he was totally bluffing in regards to...all of that.
Rocko didnât initially plan to poison Frederick during their fight at all, he had thought to just make use of his new talking saber to kick the bastardâs teeth(pinchers) in.
However, the moment he got stabbed in the stomach by the abominationâs tentacles, his brain suddenly went into overdrive as he tried to figure out a way to counterattack, or at the very least, make this asshole suffer for daring to attack his daughter.
Funny thing about running on pure emotion to fight, is that one tends to forget about the items that they have on hand.
Like the extracted venoms of over twenty-seven different spiders and insects.
Granted, it also took his new friend to actually make sure this desperation tactic of his actually worked.
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âFUCKING HELLS THIS HURTS!,â Rocko mentally screamed as he felt his insides being torn into "outsides".
Rocko may have been stabbed, bitten and stung by other giant insects before in his long tenure down in Insect Hell, but there was a difference between being stung by a singular boar-sized wasp, and being stung by what felt like a swarm all in one spot.
On the plus side, Rocko still had his saber in hand.
âAlright, first I need to cut this stupid thing off. Then, I need a painkiller. Now where are my...hold up."
The funny thing about pain is that it has a tendency to clear oneâs mind depending on the situation.
In this moment, Rocko realized that he may not exactly survive this situation, given the tentacle in his sternum at the moment, so a painkiller may not be as big of a help as it could be right now.
However, it might be enough to make this asshole overdose.
âAnd if thatâs not enough...I got twenty more!â
Rocko grabbed a handful of venom-filled vials from his pockets and was just about to jam them into Frederickâs limb, when he was interrupted.
{Thatâs not gonna work...not without my help.}
âWell I gotta-wait, what?â
{Give a me moment.}
âAh! Whatâs with the tingling?â
A moment later, a weird energy began to circulate within the saber and into Rockoâs, going through every nook and cranny with unfamiliar ease.
The energy felt natural, yet decidedly unnatural, like it was always a part of him yet completely alien.
It felt...right.
âWhat are you...ohhhh.â
The energy flowing through him wasnât necessarily for him, as he felt it entering the vials of venom in his other hand. But as a strange and happy consequence of his body being used in such a manner, it felt a little better.
{There. It wonât take him out permanently, but it will severely cripple his ability to fight for the time being. Now inject him with that shit.}
âFuck yeah!â
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"Mnnnnn...papa...donât...huh? Where am I? Why am I mov-wait, what?!"
"Grooaann..."
About part way down the hall away from the horrifying chamber of bullshit and death, Rianna woke up to find herself laying on a pair of shields being carried by a pair of rusty metal men.
If she didnât have a crash course of kaijin and zako knowledge being forcibly being injected into her brain about several minutes ago, she would have been screaming and freaking out right about now...or trying to kill them.
You can take the girl out of the jungle, you canât take the jungle out of the girl.
"Why in the nine hells am I being...oh right...shit!"
With her consciousness now returned to her, Rianna recalled how when Zhen Liu and his kaijin broke into the forbidden leg, that during their spelunking of this accursed place, she got her ass hypnotized by some weird song like fly being lured by a Siren Widowâs web. Alongside that, she had managed to remember a boatload of traumatic memories that helped to explained why she hated this place so much.
âHopefully that bastard starves to death and I wonât have to come down here and...wait... somethingâs missing.â
A part of her was about to say goodbye and good riddance to this awful, death-scented corpse hole, when she realized that something very important to her was missing.
âWhereâs papaâs saber?!,â she realized with a sick feeling in her stomach and wide eyes as she looked to her sides.
âFUCK! THESE GUYS DROPPED IT!â
With this thought in mind, Rianna rolled off of the makeshift stretcher and bolted back down the hallway towards the chamber and the sounds of ongoing battle.
âDonât be broken, donât be broken, donât be broken!,â she chanted to herself like a prayer.
She had just remembered for the first time in years the face of someone she cared about, and didnât want to lose the only physical reminder she had of him left.
Not to the same asshole who took him in the first place.
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âAll melee zakos immediately retreat away from the main body and those faces, keep yourselves occupied with locking down the tentacles. Ranged zakos and kaijin, please try and just pepper this thing with enough ranged arts to blow this thing sky high!â
[Understood. Eruption Cannon]
[Crystal...clear...Echoing Frost!]
[Of course, Maestro! Sonic Bolt! Barrage!]
Following the advice of Logos and Pathos, Zhen Liu immediately commanded his makeshift army to go with the good old fashioned heavy bombardment tactics.
Jets of molten rock, waves of freezing air and stingers fired at the speed of sound peppered Grubâs bulbous body one after the other. Supplementing the attacks were crossbow bolts and arrows made from bone and metal fired off by the zakos, with some of the more unusual looking zakos firing very weak blasts of death aether mixed in.
That said...Zhen Liu had seen enough anime and movies to realize that this barrage of firepower wouldnât exactly last forever, and that he would definitely need some really really heavy ordinance to take this thing down permanently.
The only issue was, where the hell was he going to get that kind of firepower in a shitty place like this?
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âOkay, so not even Frosttuskâs World class art combined with attacks from the other two is enough to take this thing down...how the hell do we blow it up?â
=Normally weâd advise making use of [Harmonize] in order to break the abomination into pieces, but...=
<Thereâs a non-zero chance of that thing surviving the [Harmonize] attack and then using the opportunity to consume the then-drained kaijin to give itself a very quick and potent infusion of [Chaos].>
âYeah, letâs try to avoid that chance as much as possible. Iâm assuming having one of the kaijin possess me, while Frosttusk act as my armor and then using [Harmonize], will probably have the same result?,â Zhen Liu asked. While he hadnât the opportunity to test this out, this was something that came to mind after having undergone both in separate instances.
<That could work, but...>
=Your body isnât strong enough yet to handle the power of three kaijin at once, you would probably end up blowing out your legs in the process.=
<Literally. Wait till your the next ranking to try that though.>
âCool, so unless I can figure out a way to combine the power of all three of them into one big attack, weâre essentially in a stalemate?â
<=Yes.=>
âWell itâs not like I have an overly plot convenient tool that letâs me-hold the fuck up.â
Zhen Liu had been so caught up in this battle, that he almost forgot that dangling on the side of his hip was a gourd-shaped chaos tool that had abilities marked as [Mix] and [Cannon].
As he held up the gourd to his eyes, he figured that much like how certain heroes learned how to use their stuff mid-battle, heâd have to do the same.
âOkay so if this end serves as the nozzle, then this end...okay wow.â
As Zhen Liu observed the gourd in his hand, he soon realized that the bottom circular part wasnât solid, but instead had a little glass dome with cylindrical slots visible underneath it.
It took him all of one second to realize the [Cannon] function of this thing...and another to realize the [Mix] part.
âKiller magic centrifuge...amen.â