Zhen Bao immediately grabbed the silver metal being by the leg and swung the poor metallic bastard into a wall.
Despite being an obviously brutal display of strength, the wall didn’t crack or even release a sound. Judging by how mangled the metal man looked upon impact though, it appeared as if all of the kinetic energy was concentrated on the target and nowhere else. If one were to take a closer look at the leg as well, they would notice that Zhen Bao’s hand had left an indent in its exact shape.
"Alright, that’s one down," Zhen Bao said quietly, "now I can use this guy to...huh?"
Before Zhen Bao could continue to use the corpse of the enemy he just slew as a weapon to wipe out the other intruders, he began to notice a strange feeling happening in the palm of his left hand, the one holding onto the strange metallic intruder. It felt as if electricity was lightly dancing across it.
When Zhen Bao turned his head towards the direction of the metal man, he saw the being dissolve into strange motes of light that gave off a weird feeling to him.
It felt like aether, but there was something else mixed in.
"What the hell kind of energy is-"
"Oh-ho, so that’s where the lot of you were hiding. And it looks like there’s variety!"
Before Zhen Bao could question what had just occurred in his literal hands, one by one, more and more strange warriors(zakos) appeared one after the other out of the darkness like weeds in a garden.
Several of them looked to be of similar build to the silver metal man that he had just destroyed, but this time there were variations. Aside from the metal men made of silver, there were also ones that seemed to be made of copper and gold.
Amongst these metallic warriors though were some that were decidedly more sinister looking, appearing to be either made of bones or chitin, stitched together into the facsimile of a human form. Combined that with their unnaturally jerky movements and these warriors looked downright monstrous.
If Zhen Bao was a younger man, he would’ve found them terrifying.
In his old age though, they were merely...unsettling. Granted, it didn’t help that he couldn’t get a proper read of their energies, aside from aether that is.
"Well, well, well," Zhen Bao said in amusement, "looks like there are about...ten of you and one of me...but it appears the strongest amongst you weirdos is an Aether Master at most. Tell you all what, if you surrender now, you’ll only be put in the family prison and the first of you to surrender to me, I will make sure the Torture Elder go easy on you. Sound good?"
Despite the "generous" offer however, none of the monstrous warriors responded.
Of course, that could also be due to them being zakos, who’s main way of thinking could be summed in the phrase "follow orders or die fighting", but Zhen Bao didn’t know that. All he knew was that these warriors appeared to be the type to want to die fighting as opposed to being captured.
At least, that’s what he assumed once he saw them all brandish weapons of various makes.
"Huh...very well then," Zhen Bao said, partially impressed by their moxie but also viciously annoyed that they weren’t surrendering.
’I just need to keep one alive for interrogative purposes anyways.’
With a deep breath and a roll of his shoulders, Zhen Bao began to circulate his aether throughout his body and armor, causing the latter’s decorative eye pieces to suddenly come to life and dart about the room in a jittering fashion. It was as if Zhen Bao was studying everything and everyone in the hall at once with those, trying to determine the best course of action whilst making sure nobody could perform any underhanded tricks in his "blind spots".
*Skitter, clatter, clang!*
Sensing this change in aether, the zakos did not sit around and wait for Zhen Bao to make the first move, instead, they proceeded to rush forward like berserkers with their weapons drawn, ready to smash and tear apart this wretched warrior that had slain one of their own.
However, this was exactly what Zhen Bao wanted.
’Oh goodie, now I don’t have to take them out one at a time. I can just use one big move, and I have just the one.’
Terraqi and Aquarii aether began to condense in front of Zhen Bao’s torso, forming into a strange aether array that seemed to merge with the center eyeball in Zhen Bao’s chest piece. Once the array was in place, the eyeball in question suddenly took on a more...reptilian design.
If the zakos noticed this change or even care would forever be a mystery. For this was the moment Razorstella lost her connection with them, the moment where the zakos all perished.
At Zhen Bao’s command, the strange eye on Zhen Bao’s chest piece suddenly opened wider, releasing a wave of energy that slammed into the charging zakos like a tidal wave.
As the energy began to wash over the zakos, they all suddenly stopped dead in their tracks, as if their feet were suddenly encased in concrete.
Correction: they stopped moving because their feet and everything about them had literally turned into concrete.
’Huh...normally petrifying my enemies look less...artistic,’ Zhen Bao mused as he stared at the warriors he had just defeated in the blink of an eye.
’Why do they all remind me of statues in the temples?’
In a single attack, Zhen Bao had managed to transform all of the strange warriors made of metal, bone and chitin into being nothing more than an array of interesting, malformed statues. Of course, this had transformed the hallway they were petrified in into looking like a scene out of a child’s nightmare.
Luckily no children were present, otherwise there’d be a lot more screaming.
"Alright, now be good little monster statues and stay here while I-"
"Oh, what’s happening now?"
The various statues of warriors that Zhen Bao had just petrified suddenly began to develop various faults and cracks along their forms. These cracks appeared to have manifested randomly, as there was no discernable pattern to how they formed in the first place or how they spread throughout the body. Eventually, the cracks encapsulated the entire bodies of these frozen warriors, as if to signify they were going to break free their petrified states or they were about to fall apart.
"Okay there is no way that a bunch of Acolytes and Masters can break free from one of my arts," Zhen Bao complained to himself. Feeling that this might be the case though, Zhen Bao immediately took up another fighting stance and prepared to smash these warriors into oblivion.
"Alright you monstrous weirdos. Get ready to-"
Zhen Bao’s eyes went wide as he soon realized that the cracks forming on the petrified warriors was not a sign that they were breaking free, rather, they were a sign that these warriors were self-destructing.
One by one, the warrior statues began to crumble into pieces and collapse into piles of rubble on the floor. Making matters weirder, the rubble then began to exhibit the same behavior as that metal man Zhen Bao had defeated earlier, turning into strange motes of light that had this weird energy signature to them, before disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Soon, not even a speck of dust remained as the last bit of rubble from the defeated warriors simply turned into light.
Zhen Bao stared at the now empty hallway before him. While a part of him was relieved that he didn’t have to clean up any bodies or haul someone off to the torture chambers, something about this encounter felt very...weird to him.
He just couldn’t figure out what it was though.
"Warriors made of metal, bone and chitin...the most obvious answer would be they were all aether puppets...but...they didn’t feel like aether puppets..."
Zhen Bao stood in that hallway for some time, trying to make heads or tails about who or what he had just defeated, but not coming to any satisfactory conclusion. Eventually, he decided to throw up his hands and go back to his post.
’I got a feeling that cat puppet is probably dealing with something similar right now...meh. It can handle itself. Right now, I want wine.’
While Zhen Bao was satisfied with not knowing what these warriors were, certain other parties were interested in him.
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=Interesting...a petrification aether art that doesn’t require the user to replace their eyeballs...wonder if he was just born that way or it’s because of his formula.=
=Good point...hmm. I think it can wait until morning though.=
=Because our lord will be having a more intimate look of this place with his own eyes by then.=