Chapter 1150: Missing the Out...

From the inside of his energy ball, Zhen Liu saw a sight that warmed his heart.

Despite not giving them any directions, the kaijin had come together in an attempt to stop the ball of aether and [Chaos] that Zhen Liu was trapped in.

The kaijin had built a giant net that reminded Zhen Liu of either a lacrosse stick or a volleyball net, he wasn’t entirely sure which. Regardless,the sight of this net gave him a bit of hope that he wasn’t about to go and have an involuntary vacation to the other side of the world.

And the sound of attacks impacting his bubble raised that hope to even greater heights.

Already, Zhen Liu could feel that the ball he had was in had begun to decelerate as he saw Lacerage and Screamira working together to do just that.

Every now and again, either Screamira or Lacerage would have to pause for a few seconds due to running out of aether and needing the other to cover for then.

It made for a noticeable yet strange rhythm of movement, but it was effective nonetheless.

’This is great, this is great!,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself. ’At this rate they’ll either pop this stupid bubble and I can get the hell out of here, or they’ll slow it down enough so that it lands in that giant net of theirs...man that sounds silly now that I think about it.’

[To be fair, it works on a smaller scale so why wouldn’t it work on a larger scale?,] Blazejudicator pointed out.

’Ah, well...’

But before Zhen Liu could explain his thinking, by explaining about something square-cube law, something unexpected occured again.

’There is this thing called...wait a minute...why does my bubble feel different?’

The bubble he was in had suddenly changed its energetic composition. To be more specific, the bubble’s energy began to mirror the attacks that had just impacted it.

’This...is probably a bad sign...’

[Executor,I think this bubble is adapting itself to the attacks and is now being strengthen from the blows as opposed to weakening Blazejudicator pointed out.

’I am noticing that too, yes.’

[Do you think the others are going to notice this sudden change or not?]

’Lets hope so...’

...

[Wait a minute...Screamira! Lacerage! Cool it with the attacks, now!,] Springerdermain called to the attacking kaijin.

[Huh?]

[Why?]

[Because your attacks are starting to have the opposite effect!]

[What?!]

Once this discrepancy was brought up, Screamira and Lacerage proceeded to cut their attacks short in order to determine if their spring-limbed colleague was telling the truth. Unfortunately, he was.

The attacks employed by Screamira and Lacerage were the kind that had lingering effects on the environment until they were fully dispelled or absorbed, so they could see in real time as the remnants of their respective attacks were absorbed by the bubble encapsulating their lord.

And, as if to add a layer of mockery to their actions, the bubble’s color began to change.

Before it was a vaguely gold colored bubble, but now it had a cyan and grey coloration to it.

Which just so happened to be the colors of Aeroqi and death aether, much to the confusion of the kaijin, who were now looking to Logos and Pathos for answers as always.

...

[What the fuck is going on? That shouldn’t be happening.]

[No. No it shouldn’t.]

[Logos, Pathos. What the fuck?]

<Imma be honest, I don’t have a solid answer.>

[Seriously?]

=If we had to take a guess, the weird reaction caused by [Chaos] and aether mixing together in a teleporation array created a bubble that can adapt to any and all external influences. Well, probably in a limited capacity though.=

[Probably?!]

<=This is quite literally the first time we’ve ever had to deal with something like this. The chances of this event happening is literally one billion to one.=>

[When we resolve this bullshit, we’re dunking the maestro’s head in a bath made of four-leaf clover extract,] Hurricroak complained. [Or we figure out how to make a fortune kaijin, because the sheer amount of bad luck he is subjected to is almost biblical.]

[I...don’t think that’s how that word is used?]

[I’m very stressed right now, Razorstella. Now is not the time.]

[Fair enough.]

[Back on topic, how do we slow it down then so it doesn’t break the net we have set up?]

<=If we had to guess...everyone attack all at once so that you stress out the transformation effect.=>

[What? Seriously?]

=We got records of certain opponents having a similar ability, so there’s a chance this logic applies here too.=

[...fuck it, we got nothing else to work with. Let’s go!]

...

[Three, two, GO!]

With no better plan in mind, the kaijin proceeded to coordinate together and unleashed a barrage of attacks against the bubble entrapping their lord.

They weren’t aiming to pop it, because even they could sense it was going to be nigh impossible to do so, they just wanted to slow it down long enough to trap it in the net they had made.

And so far...it appeared to be working.

[Hell yeah! It’s slowing down!]

[Keep a steady pulse though. We don’t want this thing suddenly flaring back up or worse.]

Little by little, inch by inch, attack by attack, the force of the kaijins’ blows had begun to slow the bubble down until it was in spitting distance of the spiderweb net.

Once they got to this point, they collectively decided to stop attacking the bubble.

[Cease fire, now!]

At this point in time, the aformentioned bubble had a surprisingly rainbow hue to it, due to varied nature of the attackinh Kaijin, and was now slowly floating towards the net as opposed to just flying towards it.

Now, this slowness should’ve been a sign of triumph to the kaijin, as this was their main goal, but something about the bubble still seemed...off to the kaijin.

They just couldn’t tell what it was, until it happened.

At first, they thought everything was going according to plan, as the bubble gingerly stuck on to the spiderweb net that Arcahnidame had made and began to slow down.

[Yes, we caught it!]

But then it kept going.

[Wait a minute...why are the iron supports bending like that?]

Before the eyes of the kaijin, the bubble had begun to push against the spiderweb net, causing the forged supports that was holding the damn thing to suddenly and slowly bend backwards.

But not in a manner suggesting a total collapse of the structure, far from it.

Instead, the kaijin couldn’t help but be reminded of how a common joke in old cartoons was the usage of a bent pole or tree as a catapult.

...wait a minute.

[Oh fuck!]

[Razorstella! Cut down the structures before they-]

But before they could be even finish the thought of cutting the metallic structures so that their Lord wouldn’t get catapulted like a a coyote attempting to catch a roadrunner, it was too late.

SPROING!

[Dammit!]

[Fuck!]

By the time they acted, the metallic supports snapped back into shape and launched Zhen Liu and his bubble in the direction they had just come from.

This was both a good and bad thing to the kaijin for multiple reasons. As to how... they’ll explain it.

...

[Oh that’s bad, that’s really bad,] Nepherage groaned as she fell to her knees while staring in the direction their lord was just sent flying towards.

Evidently, some of the others weren’t entirely sure why this was a bad thing though.

[Wait, isn’t that back towards Stone Claw? Isn’t that a good thing?,] Razorstella genuinely asked.

[Normally yes,] Springerdermain answered. [But if my math is right, the Ringmaster’s trajectory has him on a crash course for the city’s walls.]

[So? He’s basically indestructible. At worst, he gets dusty and complains about sand in his shorts.]

[Yes, he’ll be fine, but what about the rest of the city? Depending on how tough that bubble actually is, he’s either going to crash into it or through it.]

[And if it’s the latter,] Frosttusk continued. [There’s a chance he’ll end up breaking multiple buildings and accidentally squishing several people like a marble crushing ants.]

[Oh...that’s a problem.]

[Yup.]

[Especially after everyone just went through hell and back in trying to defend the place. Imagine how fucked it would be if most of the casualties this time around was because of friendly fire.]

[...]

[...]

[...yeah,we gotta give chase.]

[GO, GO, GO!]

...Speaking of Zhen Liu...

’Well...shit,’ Zhen Liu cursed when he saw he was being launched in the opposite direction. ’This is a significantly more cartoonish situation than I anticipated. I’m actively losing my ability to take this seriously as we speak.’

[At least they tried. Although, I think it would’ve been better if I melted down the iron.]

’Yeah...where do you think we’ll land?’

[Who knows at this point, I’m seriously doubting your family will be able to stop us either.]

’Say what?’