Chapter 1737: Choice of Champions - Frosttusk

Fighting with the Storm Singers in a lore personal capacity was...a very strange feeling.

It didn’t feel wrong, but it didn’t feel right either.

It didn’t feel nostalgic, but it felt incredibly familiar.

It was as if I was fighting in a simulation of something I had lived through before.

It felt right, but alien all at once.

A part of me wish I could have time to explore this feeling more, but alas, now wasn’t the time.

Especially since I was in the process of choking out another of the Affixed who was dumb enough to attack me with a fire-based aether treasure.

[I have to ask,] I whispered into the ear of my opponent. Although, my whisper was more like a rumble of thunder. [At what point did you think attacking me shortly after the other guy failed to do so was a good idea? You just saw me turn a dude’s fire attack into a blizzard and you immediately thought that yours was going to be any better? Wow...]

The Affixed warrior I was choking didn’t reply as they were too busy struggling for air and chattering their teeth, but I got the feeling he didn’t appreciate my words.

Eventually, he passed out after a few more moments, their body going limp like a fish pulled from the river and left to hang.

Once that happened, I let the guy and watched as he crashed into the ground.

[Okay, with that out of the way, what’s going on with everyone else?]

Quickly sweeping my sense across the battlefield, I could sense that while my fellow kaijin were locked in battle with Affixed warriors that were well within their weight class and the zakos were handily dealing with all of the rank-and-file with a touch more effort due to the presence of Affixed warriors; my descendants and the Zhen Clan warriors were having a touch more difficult time.

Well, the former were having a bit more trouble in fighting their foes.

The Storm Singers had been given a crash course on how to use [Chaos] and how to fight opponents that wielded it, but it had only been a handful of days since they first learned how to leverage it for themselves.

As such, there were more than one instance of a Storm Singer failing to land a proper counterattack on an opponent because they forgot to channel [Chaos] instead of aether during the heat of battle.

They were, however, able to defend themselves using [Chaos] when they were attacked.

It was interesting to see these fights go from uneven to even to back to being uneven in such rapid succession, but these particular battles weren’t going to be the ones to decide how this entire raid was going to go.

The Storm Singers were strong, but they could only handle warriors up to the Grandmaster level at most. If we wanted to win this war, we had to take out the people at the top.

Turning my attention elsewhere, I focused on the warriors in our group who would be critical for that.

"Bahaha! What the hell? I distinctly remember the Grafted being tougher than this! Are you lot somehow knock-offs of knock-offs? That’s hilarious!" Zhen Xun Tian laughed as she pushed back against an Affixed warrior armed with a great sword aether treasure.

Right now, she was leveraging her dragon-bone arms to nullify the attacks of the opponent before. Hilariously, the attacker seemed to understand that something was repelling him, but couldn’t put two and two together.

"Why aren’t you dying?!"

"Because your mother is too busy praying that I come back and make her feel like a woman again!" Zhen Xun Tian retorted before landing a heavy guy punch the moment the Affixed warrior let out a gasp of offense.

"Alright, who the fuck is next?! I’ll pick you up and then give your parents children they’d actually be proud of!" Zhen Xun Tian roared with manic glee.

’And she’s probably our best bet in fighting the Collectrix in an even fight...terrifying. Speaking of the Collectrix, though...’

Hakon was, despite being newly promoted, surprisingly able to keep pace with not only the more veteran enemy Grandmasters, but some of the Aether Lords as well.

This was in thanks to not just the foundation of [Chaos] he developed while staying with us back on The Stampeding Bison continent, but also due to the [Frozen Blossom Axe] that he showed surprising affinity towards.

•Come on you miserable Affixed fucks! I know real monsters who can hurt a thousand times harder than you!• Hakon roared as he swung my old axe and released a blizzard of icy petals that tore through the enemy [Regalia] like razors cutting through silk.

While I had no idea if Hakon would be able to actually match the Collectrix when the time came, I got the feeling he would be able to finish it.

Last, but certainly not least, was my unexpected blood brother, Zhen Shi.

During his time training with Zhen Xun Tian and Zhen Hai, he had reached the peak of Aether Lord and was close to entering the first ring of Aether King. As such, he could easily punch above his weight class.

•Stupid brat! Stand still and die already!• Zhen Shi’s current opponent yelled, an old man with a staff-like aether treasure topped with a goat skull attached to his back.

A constant barrage of beams were being fired from the staff, only for all of them to miss by wide margins as Zhen Shi kept dodging by using the force of his [Astra].

"I’ll have you know that I think I’m actually older than you," Zhen Shi taunted as he used one last chain dodge to get up close and personal with his opponent. "I just have one of those faces."

Once he had gotten close, he immediately wrapped his [Astra] around his Affixed foe and swung the man down into the ground with a roar.

A crater formed upon impact, as Zhen Shi’s actions had also sent several dozen enemy warriors flying in all directions.

Once he had freed himself from his combat obligations, Zhen Shi noticed me and proceeded to ask me about the battlefield’s conditions.

Thanks to our connection to each other and the zakos, we kaijin were the perfect source of information when it came to conflict reporting.

"How goes the others? Have we sustained any losses?"

[Everyone else seems to be holding their own just fine with only minimal injuries for their troubles. However, some of the zakos ran into Affixed warriors that were stronger and smarter than anticipated and have been destroyed. This was to be expected.]

"Right, disposable soldiers..."Zhen Shi trailed off, looking mildly perturbed by the thought. "What about the Collectrix herself? Shouldn’t she have come out to deal with us due to, you know, her?"

Zhen Hai gestured towards the direction where Zhen Xun Tian had decided that instead of fighting one Affixed warrior this time, she had wanted to fight a half dozen more.

The sound of ringing steel and exploding fists echoed around her like a symphony as she directed her arms like she had several dozen instead of just four.

"Come on you louts! Give me a decent fight already!"

[That’s...a very good point, actually,] I admitted. [That does feel off...]

"Right?"

[Hmmm.]

Despite all the mayhem happening around us, despite the fact that there was a storming ice giant wrecking through the tribal camps, and despite the horde of zakos rampaging through said aforementioned camps; the floating ball of rubble in the middle of the encampment didn’t even so much as twitch.

I could still feel power coming out of it, but the longer I poked at it, the more I could feel that this power wasn’t being consciously released.

It was more like the power being released was just the consequence of something happening under the surface I wasn’t privy too.

[Hmmm.]

With this thought in mind, I contacted my apprentice.

...

[Root, come in. Are you occupied?]

[No war chief...I am...hiding.]

[Why?]

[Something is amiss...with the camp...I am trying to find...the reason...can’t do that...while...fighting.]

[Good, that’s actually why I wanted to contact you. Do you see the giant ball of rubble in the center of the camp?]

[Yes.]

[See if there’s anything weird underneath it. Determine if that ball of rubble is important or just a distraction.]

[Understood.]

...

[It took a few seconds, but I have sent my apprentice Root to the center. Maybe there’s something there that—]

Before I could finish my sentence, a surge of power and a strange sound echoed throughout the battlefield.

The wave of power was so strong that the [Echoing Frost] giant we had made had suddenly stuttered as if the power passing through it had momentarily destabilized it.

"What the hell was that?" Zhen Shi asked me the moment the wave of power passed us.

[I think it’s them,] I said pointing towards the center.

Exiting the floating rubble ball were more Affixed warriors, but these ones felt like an honest challenge.

[We may need to team up.]