Chapter 1727: Looting and Venting-Hurricroak

[Ah... I love the smell of loot in the morning,] I mused as Zhen Hai and I poked through the pockets of some of the defeated warriors. [Well, technically its noon I think, but still. By the way, did you find anything worth a damn, or nah?]

"So far? Not really."

[Damn.]

Shortly after Hakon had left the burial chamber to go and swing around his shiny new axe, me and the others shortly followed suit.

Well, we had to kick in the balls of a couple dozen enemy warriors before doing so, but we did manage to get out just in time to see Hakon perform a super move on Lattom like he was an oversized training dummy, which was then followed by the looks of utter shock and bewilderment that was on the faces on the other tribal chieftains being unable to process how the fuck some young buck that was two stages below them somehow able to defeat one of their number with such ease.

That said, even if they were allies, their morale didn’t take as heavy a hit as the rest of the Rot Feather Tribe.

Once they saw that their chieftain, the most powerful warrior in their group and undisputed leader, had fallen, the Rot Feathers proceeded to leave the area as fast as their non-existent wings could take them.

Which was to say, chaotically fast.

Screeches of terror and panic mingled with cries of betrayal as the Rot Feathers flew away, leaving the Red Weavers and the Star Vipers as the remaining tribes...for all of ten minutes.

Shortly after Lattom’s defeat, High Priestess Aranid and Chief Pythox soon followed...but not by Hakon’s hands, unfortunately.

I really wanted to hear more battle songs.

Anyways, High Priestess Aranid attempted to overpower Zhen Shi/Frosttusk and tried to escape in the process. Unfortunately for her, Zhen Shi was much tougher than anticipated.

Aranid’s [Astra] took on the form of a giant set of spider leg spears that came out of her back, and she tried to use them to impale Zhen Shi. Unfortunately, that doomed her.

Frosttusk had decided at that moment to turn into an [Omen], our version of an [Icon] and plant himself directly into Zhen Shi’s chest.

The air around Zhen Shi and Frosttusk immediately began to drop at such a rapid pace that Aranid’s legs became encased in ice in the first five seconds.

In the following ten, Aranid ended up becoming flash frozen.

They didn’t die from the attack, but they were injured enough that several of the Red Weavers that were witness to the whole affair made moves to retrieve their fallen leader before she could impact the ground and shatter into a million bloody pieces.

As for Pythox, that motherfucker went out with a literal bang.

Well, he tried to.

Seeing how both of his comrades were defeated, and not wanting to go out without at least taking his own pound of flesh, Pythox used a forbidden technique that caused his aether to go wild and explode.

That was his plan, at least.

Zhen Xun Tian had apparently learned her lesson the last time weird exploding motherfuckers were in her grasp, so she learned some skills designed to cause someone hell-bent on blowing themselves up to instead deflate like a balloon.

Pythox went from relatively muscular war chief to big fat balloon to looking like he had just been drained by a thousand succubi in a matter of seconds.

And for Zhen Xun Tian’s trouble of deflating the man, she secured what was essentially an energetic ball of concentrated aether and blood essence.

"Ha! And here I thought I wouldn’t be able to get a fun souvenir for my trouble."

Once those two got their clocks cleaned, the other two tribes proceeded to fuck off.

•The high priestess! Save the high priestess! •

•I rule the Vipers now! And I order that we retreat now! •

The retreat was anything but orderly, as several aether warriors got trampled in the process since not all of them could fly.

There were multiple opportunities where we could’ve gotten in some sneaky shots and taken out even more of the enemies, but we decided that such energy was better spent looting the goods that were sure to be left behind.

That, and Hakon was more or less burnt out from the endeavour as well.

Bonding and then using the power of a newly minted aether treasure was enough to drain even the most grizzled veterans, at least, that’s what I read in the Library’s records.

A young thing like Hakon, especially one who decided to leverage [Chaos] at the same time despite not being a main practitioner of it, was honestly quite impressive.

Nonetheless, the little showstopper fell out of the air once all the enemies had left and needed to be caught by Nepherage before crashing into the spot where a recently squashed Lattom was slowly becoming fertilizer.

[Hmmm. I’m a little annoyed we weren’t able to secure a trophy from this entire thing, but I suppose it’s for the best. Nepherage complained to me and the other kaijin. [I don’t know what secrets were in the head of someone that disgusting but it probably isn’t a good thing.]

[S’truth.]

After all of that noise, though, we kaijin proceeded to exit our respective hosts and got to work in canvassing the area in order to secure any loot that might’ve been left behind, including summoning our respective zakos. Most of us did; Frosttusk decided to keep watch over Hakon as the young man rested and gathered his spent energy.

As for the Zhen Clan warriors, they watched us do our thing for a couple of moments before deciding to join in on the scavenging.

"You know, I’ve been meaning to ask this," Zhen Hai said as we took what appeared to be a Bronze-tiered aether treasure weapon off the body of a dead Aether Master. "Why do you and the other kaijin go around scavenging the battlefield after every fight? Is it just because Xiao Liu wants you to, or is it something else entirely?"

[Partially because of that, yeah,] I answered with sincerity. [I don’t think you ever witnessed how we kaijin get made, but we can basically be made from literally anything and everything. Having this stuff on hand is just useful in case the Maestro wants to make a particular type of kaijin. That, and if necessary, we can just give away or sell this stuff to people who might need it more than he does. We actually did that recently with some stuff back in Rainbowden.]

"That’s...incredibly magnanimous," Zhen Hai commented, a look of surprise on his face. "But what about the whole sparing people even when they kind of...don’t deserve it? From what I’ve heard and personally seen, he always seems incredibly reluctant when it comes to killing his opponents. Hell, when you shared your memories with me about the Marquis de Howlite, he actually looked kind of sad about Razorstella doing the deed for him."

[Ah, that...] I trailed off as I tried to formulate a response to a question that we couldn’t truthfully answer without revealing the one major secret our Maestro wanted to keep quiet for as long as possible.

Gotta love that interdimensional moral conundrum. Thankfully, I knew the best way to diffuse such a question: give too many possible answers.

[Alright, I’m going to tell you three possible answers to that question, namely because this is something that only the Maestro should tell you.]

"Okay..." Zhen Hai agreed while looking mildly confused at the way I was answering his question.

[First: The Maestro believes that everyone, regardless of their choices, deserves a second chance if possible. He technically got one when he became Kaijin Lord, and he thinks that others deserve that, albeit a lesser, chance.]

"That...makes sense," Zhen Hai nodded in understanding. "I’m honestly curious what the other possible answers are now, though."

[Second: The Maestro, despite what he says, actually did die that day; he was betrayed by the family butler and has basically been reluctant on taking lives because he didn’t want to subject others to that feeling.] I answered Zhen Hai. [Dying isn’t fun, even if there’s a possibility of coming back.]

"Oh...that...also tracks," Zhen Hai slowly nodded.

While I wasn’t in his head at the time, I could at least see that the man was remembering how Zhen Liu kept us and his abilities secret.

"And...the third answer?"

At this question, I took on a serious countenance that surprised even myself.

[You’re a smart lad, aren’t ya? You’ve seen how Frosttusk has been acting as of late, yes? Would you care to hazard a guess as to why that might be the case?]

"Huh? What does that have to do with...oh."

I could practically hear the wheel in Zhen Hai’s head turn as he looked at Frosttusk, and saw the mammoth kaijin look over Hakon with an aura that only close family members shared with one another.

[Some of us kaijin are a lot more like the Maestro than we say we are,] I said to fill the silence. [So you can imagine how he feels.]

"I...see..."