Chapter 969: Set List: Ragnarock

"I wouldn’t be too worried about our lord being overpowered by some cheap knock-off of a real Kaijin Lord," Nepherage reassured the girls. "Besides, push comes to shove, he can use our moves to compensate."

"Huh?"

"But you guys are stuck here, so how can he…"

"Nepherage mis-spoke," Razorstella interjected. "Or at least, she failed to elaborate. The long and short of it is that the director there had been training for this kind of scenario, where we can’t help him. He won’t hit as hard as when we’re in the seat and providing the power, but hey, if the punch hurts…"

"To be fair, this is purely hypothetical," Screamira added. "I don’t think muscle memory works in the way the director thinks it works."

"Says the girl made of bones."

"Oh...muscle memory?"

…

Swish, clang!

"Ha!"

Swish, thud!

"Dammit!"

Swish,fwack!

"How are you doing that?!"

In a manner most unusual in aether warrior combat, Zhen Liu and the illusionary Storm Queen had yet to employ any aether arts of any kind. Instead, they were having a high speed, high intensity exchange of weapon based blows.

Every time Zhen Liu attempted to swing a hammer at the Storm Queen, she would block with her trident.

Every time she tried to take a stab at him with the aforementioned trident, he would intercept with his hammers.

At some point, Zhen Liu even attempted to knock the trident to the side, use the momentum to spin along the shaft, and deliver a blow to the head. However, that didn’t pan out, because the illusion of the Storm Queen proceeded to go along with her whacked away trident and swung it like it was a blunt weapon into Zhen Liu. Luckily for him, the spinning he was trying to do lined up the head of one of his hammers perfectly to the incoming trident.

"Rah!"

From there, Zhen Liu quickly released the grip on his hammers so that he could quickly readjust them and use them to hook and throw the Storm Queen’s trident upwards. He didn’t attempt to pull the trident out of her grasp directly behind him, because there was a chance that she just held on tighter than he anticipated and would strike at his face or worst.That and he wanted to see if he could end this fight with a double downward hammer swing to her shoulders and possibly head.

It didn’t work.

What ended up happening was that the illusionary Storm Queen released her trident just as the momentum of the shaft would’ve forced her to correct her grasp, entered into a bow stance and launched a double fist strike at Zhen Liu’s chest, forcing him to take several steps back.

"Oof!"

And to add insult to injury, the illusion of the Storm Queen managed to catch the trident before it hit the ground and spun it like she was putting on a performance. A part of Zhen Liu wanted to call her a show-off, but he had no legs to stand on in that regard.

On top of this frustrating exchange though, the sound of his hammers making contact with her trident was more akin to the sound of thunder than anything a normal human should be able to listen to without going deaf. Surprisingly, these cacophonous impacts didn’t cause the mortals in the area beyond the barrier to flinch or anything.

’I am either very sensitive to sounds or that barrier is sound proof...I really got stop whipping and focus, but goddamn this bitch can put up a hell of a fight.’

Repeat this exchange ad nauseam, and one can’t help but want to do something different and unexpected in a desperate attempt to flip the board and change the flow of battle. However, Zhen Liu couldn’t help but get this queasy feeling in his gut that that would be a rather bad idea.

More specifically, he had seen in countless stories on how the "illusionary test thing", was usually accompanied by a bunch of copycat maneuvers and had noticed similar movements occurring in this illusionary warrior woman.

Multiple times throughout this fight, Zhen Liu had attempted to put into practice the aether arts he had learned from his sparring sessions with the kaijin, creating the aether channels necessary inside him, only to prematurely stop when he sensed that the illusion was starting to perform the exact same aether art. All this starting and stopping would have normally been a pain in the ass with functional aether channels, but his lack of them turned out to be a boon.

That said, the process was still incredibly exhausting to the point that Zhen Liu recognized that he was eventually gonna hit his limit.

’I don’t think I can outlast this thing because it’s a fucking illusion and has no stamina or injuries to worry about…I think. But for all I know, this damn thing will probably retaliate with force equivalent to what I inflict against it!,’ Zhen Liu mentally griped while maintaining the attacks.

Then again…even if shit went sideways and the Storm Queen ended up retaliating blow for blow, that just meant Zhen Liu had a chance to learn something new.

’Okay, enough of this filler shit. Let’s go for broke!’

Which is why he decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it.

’Let’s start with...setlist: Ragnarock.’

...

"What do you mean by muscle-"

"It’s happening," Razorstella interrupted while pointing towards Zhen Liu’s direction.

In that same moment, the illusion of the Storm Queen attempted to lunge towards Zhen Liu once more.

Based on prior moments, Alicia and Bellona assumed Zhen Liu was going to try and block again. That didn’t happen.

Instead, Zhen Liu suddenly released his hammers again, dropped to the ground and proceeded to do a sweeping raise kick in a manner that was reminiscent of Nepherage’s movements. The illusion was, surprisingly, caught off guard by the sudden shift in Zhen Liu’s rhythm and failed to block in time.

While the group couldn’t hear it, they could imagine that a loud snapping sound occurred as the illusionary Storm Queen was sent flying into a set of model kit shelves.

"Good show, milord!," Nepherage said with pride in her voice as she pounded a fist against her chest in approval.

But the fight wasn’t over just yet.

The illusionary Storm Queen quickly recovered from the kick and went charging back in, releasing a proper barrage of trident thrusts as she did. Evidently, Zhen Liu’s impromptu sneak attack had the semi-intended effect of riling up the illusionary Storm Queen into taking more proactive actions.

Before the barrage landed, however, Zhen Liu proceeded to get back on to his feet, tie them to the grounded hammers so that they could act as weighted footholds and took on a defensive stance that made Zhen Liu appear a lot bigger and sturdier. The brief image of Frosttusk seem to appear over Zhen Liu, moments before disappearing as the trident thrusts made contact.

"Stand…firm…," Frosttusk rumbled. "And…wait…for…it…"

Once the illusionary Storm Queen was in striking distance, Zhen Liu opened up his defenses long enough to catch the trident under one of his arms and use the other to smash down on the Storm Queen’s head, causing her to bounce off of the ground.

"Yes!"

Sound of a vicious double kick to the abdomen.

"Dammit!"

Unfortunately, this did not signal the end.

Despite bouncing, the illusionary Storm Queen somehow had enough sense and instinct to use a bit of aether to employ aether to recorrect her position in the air and use a double kick against Zhen Liu’s abdomen to propel herself forward and away from Zhen Liu, since the fact that his feet were anchored to the ground made it nigh impossible for him to catch her. That was the plan at least.

"Grab her! Grab her!," Hurricroak shouted despite knowing Zhen Liu probably couldn’t hear right now.

Despite feeling as if his stomach just got impacted by a battering ram, Zhen Liu managed to grab the illusionary Storm Queen’s legs right before she got out of his reach, with his hands acting like crab claws, and pulled back as hard as he could. In the process, he made sure to unhook his feet from the hammers and fell backwards in a way reminiscent of a certain neon blue frog woman.

"And slam!"

Using the momentum of his fall, Zhen Liu rotated himself and the illusionary Storm Queen so that in a reversal of the previous kick to the stomach he had to endure, he managed to deliver the exact same punishment. Only, his kick came with the twist of her impacting the ground again, kicking up a shit ton of dust and Zhen Liu being able to do a flip in the air before landing on his feet.

Unfortunately, this when things were about to get...messy.

...

’Holy shit, that worked,’ Zhen Liu told himself in disbelief. When he initially came up with the idea of having the kaijin use his body for sparring purposes so that he could learn how they do via muscle memory, a part of him was pretty it wasn’t going to work.

But now, standing here in victory, he could see that-

’Wait...why do I feel a [Chaos] build-up?’