Pop!
"Oh! That actually tingled! Thatâs some good effort."
^Okay, what the fuck?!^
The giant construct that the Redoxa brothers had made resembled that of a giant stag beetle that had mandibles that were more like a scissor-shaped guillotine than a proper set of grabbers.
The blades of this beetle had attempted to bisect Zhen Liu in two but had failed horribly.
The moment the pincers tried to cut through Zhen Liu, the constructâs mandibles broke off in a manner that if it was a real insect and not just a construct, the sheer amount of blood and gore wouldâve made the average slaughterhouse look clean by comparison.
After seeing the constructâs pincers essentially shatter like sugar glass against his body, Zhen Liu let out a satisfied breath.
"You know... I havenât felt this good in a really long time," Zhen Liu said with a weird-sounding voice before turning his head back towards his friends, family, and lovers.
"This next part is going to be rather...unsettling to watch," Zhen Liu warned them. "So unless you want a drastic change of opinion in how you perceive me, I suggest you look away.
"I...okay."
Heeding Zhen Liuâs words, every mortal present in the room turned away from the soon-to-be spectacle that was going to be bloodier than anything any of them were going to see in their lifetimes.
"Good."
Once Zhen Liu saw that the people he cared about werenât going to see him at his worst, he immediately addressed the two brothers that were still bewildered at Zhen Liuâs unexpected survival.
"For the past few weeks, months really, I have been forced to fight all sorts of motherfuckers that had the ability to hurt me and my kin," Zhen Liu began to monologue on his own, walking slowly towards the parasitized Redoxa Brothers. "I have had to deal with people who could make me ill with a simple chant, motherfuckers who wielded power that could easily penetrate my defenses like it was nothing, a whole bunch of fucking knock-offs trying to show me up in my fucking domain more than once and in ways that make you two look like cute little science projects in comparison...which is why I have to thank you."
At this weird word of praise, both of the monstrous Redoxa brothers took a step back, feelings of anxiety suddenly manifesting in brains that shouldnât have been able to understand fear at this point in their lives.
^T-thank you?^ Casshern Redoxa repeated, his worm-like body quivering with an uneasiness he hadnât felt since he had been left for dead in the Redoxa catacomb fortress. ^What the fuck are you talking about?!
"All of those things I just mentioned are things that have made me honestly forget that I and my fellows here are essentially walking, talking, anomalous natural disasters in humanoid form," Zhen Liu clarified while gesturing to himself and Frosttusk. "And that to a vast majority of this world, filled with monsters and warriors that are only aware of aether, beings like you can do essentially nothing to someone like me. As such, I would like to thank you for reminding me that out of every single monster out there, Iâm fairly certain my kaijin and I are the only real ones."
After making this rather bold declaration, Zhen Liu proceeded to leap forward with his fist clenched and aimed directly at Casshern Redoxaâs head. Zhen Liu had closed that gap in less time than it took for someone to bat an eyelash.
That stated, Casshern didnât simply stand around and allow Zhen Liu to punch his head out.
^Eeeee!^
[Amber Shell!]
With a horrible squelching sound that echoed throughout the chamber, Casshern Redoxa retracted his human body deeper into his worm-like one and forced Zhen Liu to punch his bulbous flesh instead.
On top of that, Casshern somehow managed to activate a defensive aether that coated his entire body in an amber shell made of aether.
This combination of flesh and aether defenses was enough to deter the attacks of even an Aether King, at least, that was Casshernâs perspective.
The worm-like bastard had used this combo before to mitigate Smokerâs attacks earlier, so he figured it would be good enough to deal with a bunch of dirt eaters who were way weaker than that. Unfortunately for him, his aether defenses were useless in the face of [Chaos].
"Fuck off!"
Zhen Liu, upon seeing this barrier form before him, began to channel [Chaos] into his pulled back arm and then swung it as hard as he could. The result was...brutal, to say the least.
The amber shell crumbled like to was made of candy while Casshernâs bulbous flesh rippled and concaved as Zhen Liuâs fist made contact.
A horrible screeching filled the air as Casshern was forced out of jail fleshy shell and was made to vomit out black ichor.
^B-brother!^ Smoker cried out in alarm at Casshernâs sudden injury. Anger boiling in his fucked-up brain, Smoker prepared to swing his own giant arm at Zhen Liu with the aim of swatting him like a fly.^Iâll kill you!^
"Funny, I was going to say the same thing!"
Using a bit of aether to correct his position in the air, Zhen Liu angled himself so that he could curl into a ball in the air and then kick out as hard as he could into Smokerâs swinging palm.
His goal was to simply kick away the giant parasite warriorâs palm and then use the force to launch a secondary attack against Smokerâs torso.
In reality, Zhen Liu kicked the giantâs hand off of its wrist.
It wasnât even a clean severing.
^SKRAAAAAAAA!^
The Armor Puppet Parasite in control of Smokerâs body had, apparently, even grown out giant bones and veins to go along with the giant body, so the carnage at this moment looked like what would happen if someoneâs arm got brutally crushed by a compactor.
"Huh..."
Either way, even Zhen Liu was surprised by how hard he had kicked the giantâs palm.
"Welp, time to put an end to this, I guess."
As soon as he made this comment, Casshern had already recovered and was now attempting to bite down on Zhen Liu while his back was turned.
^I will fucking consume you body and soul!^ Casshern screamed as he opened the maw on his worm body.
Zhen Liu didnât even bother to try and block or dodge this next attack. He had...something else in mind.
"Oooh, I always wanted to see if I could do this next part.
...Meanwhile...
As Zhen Liu requested, Zhen Xing, Zhen Tai, Olstenna, Lythero, Antonio, Jinju Ren and Rianna all turned away from the ongoing battle since he said it was going to be a brutal spectacle. Well, most of them did. However, this didnât stop them from listening to everything that was going on...and commenting.
"You know..." Lythero trailed off as the sounds of flesh being brutalized echoed throughout the chamber. "I kind of keep forgetting that Zhen Liu is... unusually strong."
"I donât blame you," Zhen Tai concurred. "Itâs been a while since any of us have actually seen Xiao Liu fight like a barbarian. Most of the time he tries to be clever or use his Kaijin to keep the fighting to a minimum. Also, I think I just heard him snap Smokerâs arm bones even further."
"Well, he did mention that he had been fighting nothing but enemies that had the ability to injure him these past few months, which I didnât even know was a cause of stress for him," Jinju Ren said. "I think the chances of a warrior having dragon force are, well, including your truly, one in one hundred thousand. Oh, I recognize that sound; that is the sound of someone getting their guts ripped out from the inside out."
"Yeah, I can literally only name like five people out of five hundred that are able to use aether music in any capacity of battle," Zhen Xing added. "And in terms of Buddhists that can actually leverage that [Nirvana] stuff, didnât the curators say only one in thirty thousand could do that?"
"Yeah, they did," Antonio confirmed, remembering this conversation from awhile back. "Also, are we just ignoring the sound of what can only be described as someone being shish kebabed by a broken arm?"
"Yes, because Iâm fairly certain that Zhen Liu had somehow picked up Casshern and impaled him on what I can only assume to be Smokerâs shattered arm."
"Oh yeah, he totally did that," Olstenna confirmed.
At this moment, everyone turned towards Olstenna in order to see that he was watching this entire brutal spectacle with the same eyes a child may have while watching a circus performance plays out.
"Have...have you been watching this entire battle play out?" Zhen Xing asked.
"Yup."
"Why?"
"I always wanted to know how Master Zhen Liu fought when he didnât have to worry about it being an even playing field."
"And..."
"I can see why the Amazon over there is breathing heavy over there," Olstenna answered while pointing towards the pale amazon archer.
"What theâRianna?!"
"Shut up, I know what I like!"
"Oh, it looks like the battle has finally ended."