NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1428: A rift of emotions
*Bing-Bong*
|Huh? I didn't call for a—|
Shove it, this one is for me.
|Ah, okay...why?|
You forgot something.
|I did?|
Ahem
...
The following chapter is going to be picking up at the very last line of the previous chapter from Zhen Liu's perspective.
To help better understand the scenario without spoiling the surprise, the following pieces of information are going to be shared now before we continue.
1. Immediately after Zhen Liu and Hurricroak beat the snot out of Olstenna, he and the curators immediately went to work in processing the metal they received from the mines into bodies for the divine fragments.
2. While they were doing that, his cousins went to go prepare for a quick trip home.
3. At the same time, the slave girls and Gallop Brothers decided to parse through the library for something interesting to read later before immediately returning to the [Mines of Malevolence].
4. The moment they returned, though, the Gallop Brothers immediately sensed that something had changed in the mines. More specifically, they began to sense a very weird and ominous aura coming from the cavern where all of Dante's Kaijin seemed to congregate. They had neglected the place because the mortals didn't really know what the hell it was, while all of Zhen Liu's Kaijin felt...that the place was incredibly ominous.
5. Once the Gallop Brothers realized what was up, they decided that exploring the place was the most prudent course of action…which was when they realized that they were way over their heads. Therefore, they called Zhen Liu.
6. After informing Zhen Liu, they shared visual information with him that caused Zhen Liu to understandably get a little panicky and contact Frosttusk for…reasons.
We will now be picking up right when Zhen Liu and Frosttusk meet up at the gate back to the [Mines of Malevolence].
We apologize for taking up your time and will now return to your regularly scheduled chapter, thank you.
…
|Was all that necessary?|
Get better at tracking your details.
|Fair.|
___________________________________
[The…air…here…feels…wrong…]
'Yeah, that's a new development…'
It had only been a few hours at most since Zhen Liu had left the mines for the library, and things felt…different.
Visually speaking, nothing had changed.
Zhen Liu could still see the newly freed workers going about their business, renovating the place to be more comfortable and putting in some effort to harvest some minerals and metals to sell later on. However, underneath this humdrum look, Zhen Liu and Frosttusk could sense a strange undercurrent of energy.
More specifically, the duo could sense that there was a weird flow of [Chaos] going through the entire mine.
And that particular development, worried the hell out of them.
[I…thought…the…miners…were…able…to…detect…Chaos…]
'They are…'
[Then…why…aren't…they…reacting…to…it?]
'I don't know…'
Understanding that the best way to approach this unknown phenomenon was to not draw attention to it, Zhen Liu and Frosttusk both proceeded to walk towards the source of this strange [Chaos] flow.
That source being a particularly weird cave that Zhen Liu remembered being told was somehow swapping out which of Dante's kaijin were active at any one time.
...wait a minute.
'Why am I remembering something like that now?' Zhen Liu realized as soon as he and Frosttusk arrived at the entrance of the cave. 'Its almost as if...no...'
Ever since he had learned to wield [Chaos], Zhen Liu had come to realize that there were some... unexpected benefits and drawbacks to housing this strange force of reality inside himself.
For example, he could use [Chaos] to outright negate the effect of a lot of aether -based abilities, including the ones that could cause mental interference and influence, while at the same time, use the fact that it was an energy focused on [Desire] and emotions to mess with the mental state of others in a much more effective manner.
However, there were exceptions and counters that existed that made this diminished this influential ability.
Music-based aether arts, dragon force, and the [Desire of Nirvana], were all sources of power that could affect his mind and could counter his influence as well. These were the most common dangers he had to face while being an aether warrior, so Zhen Liu had spent plenty of time coming up with counters for them.
The one source of power though that could counter [Chaos] the most effectively, though, was [Chaos] itself.
In other words, Zhen Liu forgot about the existence of this cave and the weird pit that the kaijin seemed to cycle in and out on who was active, because the [Chaos] of the area had made not only him, but everyone else in the area forget as well.
Except now, that he was aware of this strange flow, Zhen Liu was no longer affected by it. At least, not as effectively as before.
Not only that, but Zhen Liu had a pretty solid idea as to why this was occurring in the first place.
'Frosttusk, we gotta move. Now!'
[Yes...minn jarl!]
Sensing the urgency in his creator's voice, Frosttusk did actually pick up the pace despite his slow and cold nature.
It only took a few moments before the duo arrived to the inside of the cave and met up with the Gallop Brothers, the ones who alerted Zhen Liu about the situation in the first place.
[Oh thank the gods! You're finally here!]
[War Chief, what the fuck is that?!]
[Things ain't looking good, man...]
'Oh...it wasn't a pit...'
From what Zhen Liu recalled, the reason why Dante was able to have so many kaijin active wasn't because he was an endless font of [Chaos], rather, it was due to a weird system he had in place.
The Kaijin would occasionally come into this cave, have their spitual components extracted from their corporeal forms, become petrified in the process, and tag out with some other kaijin that were all at the bottom of a weird pit that none of Zhen Liu's Kaijin could properly perceive for some reason.
But now that he was here in person, he could completely understand why they weren't able to perceive it.
Hell, he was having trouble perceiving it as well.
'...it's a rift.'
Past the statues of several dozen or so petrified Kaijin that somehow weren't affected by the final battle, at the very center of the room, was a tear in reality that looked like a literal black spot floating in the air.
And from this spot, Zhen Liu could feel the most unfathomable source of [Chaos] flowing out of it.
Many a friend and foe once said that whenever Zhen Liu and his Kaijin circulated [Chaos], they gave off this aura of incomprehensible terror that made it hard to look at them during battle.
Now, Zhen Liu knew exactly how those folks felt.
Unlike them, though, he had a solution...maybe.
Well, at the very least, he had individuals who could provide a solution for him.
'Logos, Pathos. What the fuck am I looking at?!'
<Oh that's just...oh. Oh, shit. That's...that's an actual hole to the space between realms. That's not good.>
=Well, that explains how Dante was able to maintain so many fucking kaijin at once. The bitch made an unmitigated source. Fuck.=
'Oh...wait a minute, made?!'
Zhen Liu was quite familiar about the fact that the world he was in, Valresta, was oddly connected to a whole bunch of other worlds and realities through various arcane means.
From what Logos and Pathos had shared with him, this was due to the power of [Chaos], and how [Chaos] could be sourced from the boundaries found between the various realms.
That stated, Zhen Liu was also keenly aware that trying to tap into [Chaos] willy-nilly was just asking for trouble.
But from what Logos and Pathos said, there was a bit more to this story.
=Alright, we have finished our analysis and can give a better overview of what the fuck you're dealing with right now.=
<Beginning download.>
'Wait, give me a minute to—oh, that was fast.'
Normally, downloading information into his brain caused it to tingle something fierce. But now, for reasons that would probably shared with him later, the download was incredibly quick and he had a clear understanding what was going on.
It wasn't a great revelation though.
Dante had somehow managed to create what was essentially a fish nursery-like net structure out of [Chaos] and aether inside of a hole to the space between worlds, and had been actively keeping kaijin spirits in there in order to help them matain their [Chaos] levels.
However, now that the guy was dead and presumably ashes somewhere over the ocean...that net structure was falling apart at the seams.
Without its creator, the structure was being torn apart by the surging [Chaos] that hated the concept of [Structure] and [Order] being remotely present.
And the kaijin spirits inside it were freaking the hell out and trying to escape because of it.
<=Kaijin may come from [Chaos], but returning to it means a date worse than death.=>
'And these things don't want to die yet...great...'