Chapter 1166: Waiting for a sign

<=Okay, so it looks like we can isolate our Lord’s signal as being somewhere in this isthmus connecting Stampeding Bison and Dozing Salamander,=> Logos and Pathos announced while displaying the battle their Lord was currently undertaking. <=We just can’t isolate where due to a lot of interference.=>

[Interference? I thought you needed this battle between our lord and these guys in order to figure out his location,] Nepeherage pointed out.

<We did,> Pathos confirmed. <The issue isn’t the battle, the issue is everything surrounding it.>

With another wave of her hand, a display showing a map of the isthmus connecting Stampeding Bison and Dozing Salamander appeared right next to the battle display.

In the same display was a little icon index explaining general topographical features.

Staring at the two together, one could see that this isthmus was entirely covered with jungle, save for a large river that connected the two oceans the isthmus kept separate.

=Under normal circumstances, finding our Lord would be easier than finding a red wax coated coin on a marble floor. Unfortunately, our connection right now is so tenuous that our ability to triangulate his location is getting fucked with the sheer amount of life in the area,= Logos explained. =Meaning we’re now looking for a red wax coated coin on a red pocked floor.=

[Get to the point, please,] Razorstella chided.

<In normal talk, we need another big flash of energy to determine his location,> Pathos answered.

[How big?,] Frosttusk asked.

<=You’ll know it when you see it.=>

[The producer was right, you two are needlessly cryptic,] Screamira complained. [I miss being in his head...]

...Cryptic Foreshadowing, ahoy...

’Come on, you’re almost there. You gotta breakthrough now...’

While Zhen Liu was fighting off the members of the Cortez Trading Company, Lythero was still doing his damndest in breaking through to the Aether Lord stage.

When the fighting first started, he had already managed to condense his final ring for the Grandmaster stage and felt as if he still had enough to push forward into the first step of the Aether Lord stage.

However, this wasn’t an easy task.

In order to qualify as an Aether Lord, a warrior had to be able to manifest and wield an [Astra], a weapon that represented their [Creed].

This sounded easy on paper, but reality was much more difficult.

People’s creeds, their beliefs, have a tendency to change over time or become entirely different under the right circumstances.

So, for a warrior to turn them into an [Astra], was more or less committing to a certain way of life.

If Lythero had managed to broken through on his own, somehow breaking the seal with minimal outside influence, his [Creed] would’ve definitely included revenge as one of its core tenets. However, when a certain young man posing as an ancient deal making monster appeared and broke the Lythero’s seal using an unusual technique, that technique has left behind little traces of an unusual energy.

An energy that caused Lythero to be a touch more introspective and think more about the beliefs he should live his life by.

Because while [Revenge] was nice and all, but...what would he do after he had no target left to retaliate against?

Would he just find more enemies to get revenge on, ad infinitum?

Would he become the instrument of revenge for others as well?

Or would he simply stop altogether?

It wasn’t until thar aformentioned energy from before stimulated a memory from the deepest recess of his mind, that he realized what the focus of his [Astra] should be.

"Live freely and brilliantly...," Lythero muttered, remembering these were words that his mother and masters once told him.

And once these words fully registered, his [Astra] began to take shape...but not as a traditional weapon.

...Now back to the real fight...

^What the hell kind of weapon is that?!, Kendana exclaimed while staring at the strange spinning blade.

As a man of high status, Kendana recognized that the hammer that Dealmaker(Zhen Liu) wielded was at least a Silver tier aether treasure, which was impressive by itself.

However, what really caught his eye was the strange bone club that Dealmaker had combined with the aformentioned hammer.

While an ignorant man would’ve ignored the club at a glance, due to it’s rather ghastly appearance, Kendana could sense that there was something significantly more profound hidden behind that simple facade.

At least he hoped that was the case, once he saw the bone club be reformed into blades that sliced through the Serpents of Itzumel like they were nothing more than common jungle vipers. Otherwise, it would’ve been very hard to explain to his ancestor how some unsettling weirdo managed to push back against a Gold tier aether treasure like it was nothing.

Well, not nothing.

Kendana could tell that while this Dealmaker had an absurd amount of physical strength, his stamina and aether levels were pretty typical for an Aether Grandmaster. This meant that, while Dealmaker was able to push back against the surge of serpents coming towards him for the time being, he wouldn’t be able to keep this momentum up for long.

Eventually, Dealmaker was going to run out of stamina or aether, it didn’t matter which. And when he was finally tapped, the Serpents of Itzumel would seal him away.

After that...perhaps the ancestor would be able to interrogate this Dealmaker character further.

’It’s just a matter of...what the fuck am I sensing?’

...On the flip side...

’Alright, being a human blender was not on the list of things I thought I’d be doing with my life, er, second life. But hey, at least it’s keeping these freaky ass serpents off my ass. Speaking of which, WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE THINGS?!,’ Zhen Liu mentally complained while still spinning the double-edged bone blade in his hands and literally blending the surge of serpent constructs coming towards him.

It was good thing that these weren’t real serpents, otherwise Zhen Liu would be absolutely covered in blood...and possibly venom.

[I’m not entirely sure, Executor. But I can tell that the box they’re coming from is a Gold tier aether treasure,] Blazejudicator observed. [And that it somehow appears to be infused with a type of energy that can supress Chaos.]

’Is it dragon force again?,’ Zhen Liu asked, fully expecting to having to deal with this bullshit again.

Once he got back home, Zhen Liu was going to figure out if dragon slaying equipment was a thing...or see if Jinju Ren could help him figure out a way to deal with dragon force.

Whichever came up first.

[No, it’s definitely not dragon force] Blazejudicator answered. [It’s like...karma, if that makes any sense.]

’Huh...’

A little after he had to deal with Buzza and the cascade of bullshit that was the Grafted warriors, Zhen Liu decided it was prudent to read up on all the ways that kaijin, and by extension [Chaos], could be suppressed.

In the books, he found confirmation that aether infused music, dragon force and overwhelmingly powerful aether could be used to counter [Chaos], but also mention of a few other things.

For example, the power of karma.

Certain types of aether cultivation and techniques enabled warriors to able to attack someone based on the karma accrued on their soul.

Positive karma, negative karma, it didn’t matter which, there was always a method that could target either.

With that in mind, Zhen Liu began to figure that this box of serpentine horrors probably worked on pursuing someone based on their karma, so if he could just figure out whether it was positive or negative karma then he could just-

’Wait a minute...what the fuck am I sensing?’

...Omnipotent view time...

As Zhen Liu and the Cortez Grandmasters continued to fight with one another,with the former fighting off the treasure of the latter, four false suns loomed over their heads.

These suns were a direct representation of Lythero’s cultivation progress, with each sun reflecting a cultivation ring stage.

As the previously mentioned battle raged on though, a fifth sun was slowly forming in an unnoticed manner.

After all, it was hard to notice environmental changes when one is being actively antagonized by both a physical presence and [Chaos] messing with one’s mind.

However, that wasn’t going to be the case for long.

Because Lythero had just finished making his [Astra] and with it, the fifth false sun had finished forming as well.

And once it did...all five of these false suns suddenly disappeared, taking the mirage barrier and the heat with it.

Needless to say, everyone in the vicinity was thoroughly confused.

The Cortez Company soldiers was confused at their leaders reappearing while fighting someone, and the leaders were confused due to the sudden change win environment.

Even Zhen Liu was confused...for all of five seconds.

Because while he was still dealing with the serpent constructs, he suddenly sensed that something big was coming.

Big enough that he had to figured out how to duck out of the area, real fast.

’Uh oh...’

...

<=There it is.=>