Chapter 1709: Victorious Thunder- Hurricroak

As Rhythm and Blues continued to wreak havoc across the battlefield like a pair of tornados rolling into a rioting pub, I continued to circulate and condense enough lighting-aligned aether and [Chaos] to cause my skin to tingle.

’Alright, I think that’s enough of a warm-up,’ I thought to myself as I began to feel I was reaching the limit of this aether art’s power. That and I began to feel arcs of electricity jumping across my skin like goosebumps, which usually meant that it was reaching its maximum capacity. ’Time to put on a show!’

Once I was topped up, I leapt into the air and spun a bit like a certain blue hedgehog from the Maestro’s old world, and then proceeded to straighten myself up to activate my aether art.

[Thunder God’s Wild Drum Solo!]

As I released my aether, dense storm clouds formed around my rocking bod before condensing into the shape of drums. Once they had formed, a pair of drumsticks made of lighting formed in my hands.

The formation of the cloudy drums and my thundersticks were anything but quiet, so a whole mess of people turned to look in my direction.

Both Storm Singers and Tremorscales alike were confused and concerned by my appearance in the sky, but that was kind of the point.

"Attention, motherfuckers!" I shouted with enhanced speech in a language I made sure they could understand, "I hope you’re ready for the most thunderous concert in your entire existence. If you’re an ally, just step back and enjoy the show. If you’re an enemy, sorry bitches, but you’re about to get THUNDERSTRUCK!"

"One, two, three, four! "I shouted as I clapped the sticks together and made thunder boom with every hit before tearing up these cloudy drums like a madwoman...which was a bit redundant since I was a little mad.

The moment I hit the first drum cloud, a bolt of thunder and lightning as thick as a pillar came roaring out of it and nailed one of the Tremoscale warriors with precision that would give a professional sniper wet dreams.

The Storm Singer, who was engaged with the poor sod, however, looked positively shocked that they hadn’t been caught up in the attack...until he fully processed what I had said earlier.

Shortly after this revelation dawned on them, he proceeded to shout out a message to the rest of his tribesmen.

"Hey! Let the frog woman do her thing!"

"What?!"

"Just trust me!"

Showings surprising amount of faith in their comrade, several of the Storm Singer warriors actively disengaged with their opponents and took several steps backwards.

This gave me the perfect opportunity to attack.

[Hell yeah!~]

"Oh fu—"

I fired off thunderbolts one after the other like they were going out of style, with each one being accompanied by the sickest drumbeat in existence, and every single last bolt smacked into a Tremorscale like a punch to the gut.

Some of them were smart enough to try and dodge, avoiding one bolt before getting nailed by another, while others were bold enough to try and use their own techniques to counterattack. Unfortunately, more than a half of them were too stunned to realize what was going on until it hit them like a truck.

This kept going for a solid two minutes until my attack finally ran out of power, but the results spoke for themselves.

Due to the Maestro’s philosophy of humiliation over death, I had dialed down the power just enough so that when these pillars of thunder and lighting fell on their heads, the Tremorscale warriors were rendered unconscious.

Although, they were also burnt to shit and I could see injuries across their burnt skin that resembled feathery cracks.

Either way, now that the rank-and-file were more or less defeated, and any who weren’t quite yet getting the picture to surrender were being dealt with by Rhythm and Blues, I directed my attention back towards my blood brothers.

I wanted to see if I had beat them to the punch in finishing assignments, or whether either of them managed to outpace me.

As luck would have it, though, we finished our assignments almost simultaneously.

"Well, poop."

Nepherage had her fist shoved down the throat of the Citrine-Horn Lindwurm, and from what I could smell, she had decided to cook the bastard from the inside to a nice medium tenderness.

At the same time, Frosttusk had coordinated with the Zhen Clan warriors to turn the Tremorscale elite warriors into human popsicles. Well, they were sealed in giant cubes of ice like that motherfucker from the Wolfe Family all those months ago, but a frozen motherfucker was a frozen motherfucker, so it didn’t really matter.

What did matter, though, was determining whether or not we had to keep fighting.

...Conversation time...

[Okay, I wrapped up dealing with the rank-and-file. Mostly. Rhythm and Blues are handling the cleanup.

[I can hear the screams of confusion and terror from here,] Nepherage commented like she hadn’t just cooked a motherfucker from the inside-out. [I’ve also finished up my task. Not entirely sure if there’s anything of use from this giant serpentine fuck, but...huh. I am getting a sense of deja vu from this...meh, whatever.]

[You’re thinking of when I turned that giant mechanical Centisnake thing into a frozen sled,] Frosttusk piped up. [But on a more pertinent note, the Tremorscale usurpers have been defeated. I look forward to mounting their heads on spikes later.]

[Wait, usurpers?]

[I’ll tell you about it later.]

[Okay...wait, does this mean we’re done fighting? All the avenues have been addressed?]

[Unfortunately, no,] Nepherage answered me. [We still have one problem to deal with before we can definitively say that we are done for the day.]

[Which is...]

[Seeing if our Lord’s scary great grandaunt needs assistance or not.]

[Oh right...where even is she?]

[Look up.]

[Oh...]

...Conversation over...

Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian, in all honesty, scared the shit out of me.

Out of all the women and warriors in the Maestro’s life, she was objectively one of the strongest, and she was getting stronger by the day.

As such, the prospect of seeing if she needed assistance in fighting whatever poor sap decided it was a good idea to fight her in the first place seemed...about as useful as a kazoo in a heavy metal band.

It technically added a unique sound, just one that wasn’t welcome.

But what actually scared me about her wasn’t the power she wielded, but the way she looked at me and the others.

I swear, that crazy tattooed yakuza granny could see into my soul even deeper than my connection to the Maestro in the others.

Regardless of my personal feelings, though, I swallowed my pride and looked upwards.

Zhen Xun Tian and her opponent were both Aether Emperors.

As such, if those two decided to trade blows while on the ground in the presence of a bunch of people weaker than themselves, there was a very good possibility that they would accidentally wipe out their allies in the process.

As such, there were only two places where the two could fight without causing too much collateral on either side: in the air or in a pocket dimension.

From what i remember, the only spatial aether treasure that the main branch clan had wasn’t meant to contain the power of an Aether Emperor and was currently being used back in their main compound. As such, Zhen Xun Tian and the poor sod she was probably beating the everloving fuck out of were duking it in the air.

The two Aether Emperors were moving at such high speeds that they were essentially invisible to the naked eye, while their attacks were so precise and controlled that I didn’t even hear any sounds from the attacks slamming into each other.

A grimace formed on my face as I channeled aether and [Chaos] into my eyes in order to see what exactly was going on up there.

Almost immediately, I could tell that my assistance was unneeded.

Zhen Xun Tian, at this point in time, had busted out not just her [Astra], but had also summoned her inky set of secondary arms and tertiary set of dragon-bone arms.

As for her opponent, well...he was a big motherfucker.

’I feel like I should’ve expected something like this from a tribe called the Tremorscales...’

Zhen Xun Tian’s opponent was this big warrior that was almost as tall as Frosttusk, but instead of being a big cuddly murder mammoth, he looked like a bipedal ankylosaurus with a bad attitude and a giant hammer tail.

Not only that, but the man’s [Astra] took on the form of a weird chain and ball that was wrapped entirely around his tail...like a kendama toy.

From what I could see, the exchange of blows between the two Aether Emperors could best be described as a weird game of tennis or bounce ball...maybe dodgeball?

Either way, there was only one conclusion I could come to while staring up at them.

"Yeah...I ain’t getting involved with that."