Zhen Yue’s underground tactics
’Well then...I hope Xiao Liu doesn’t mind me using a page from his book of tricks...yeesh, how does he manage to maintain this many signatures at once?’
"Alright, where the fuck did she go?," Sun Yang muttered to himself as he kept searching through the forest, arrow notched and ready to fire whenever.
Up until a couple moments ago, Sun Yang was having a wonderful time firing arrow after aether-enhanced arrow at Zhen Yue, knowing full well that one hit was all he needed to turn that brackborn girl into a charred mess.
But then she disappeared.
As far as Sun Yang could remember from the dossier he had on the girl, Zhen Yue didn’t have any stealth arts nor any stealth training, and that she tended to favor head-on confrontations albeit in a more flexible manner than her cousins.
Regardless, this meant that even if she opted to try and be sneaky, all Sun Yang had to do was use a movement art to make some space and then let an arrow fly free into her face...actually, maybe her torso.
He wanted to see her face twist in agony as she begged for mercy after-
Sun Yang quickly turned towards the sound of a snapping branch and fired off the arrow he had been saving just for the brackborn girl once she had attempted to break her cover.
However, all he ended up hitting was empty air and a very unfortunate tree that proceeded to collapse as the arrow had exploded and took a good chunk of its trunk with it.
Sun Yang turned away from the exploded trunk, ready to go back to searching when all of a sudden, he noticed something moving off to his side.
Almost instinctually, Sun Yang fired off yet another arrow and exploded yet another tree trunk in the distance.
"Now I surely got...huh?"
Just as Sun Yang was about to gloat about finally dealing a fatal blow to the girl, even detected even more movement occurring all around him.
It was as if Zhen Yue had somehow multiplied and was now actively taunting him.
"How the hell did she-no! Forget it!"
Invigorated/insulted by the sight, Sun Yang proceeded to notch multiple arrows into his bow.
"It doesn’t matter if there’s one of you or a dozen of you! I have enough arrows to take you out a thousand times over!"
As he pulled back the bowstring, the arrows in the bow began to ignite one after the other.
Like a limiter in his brain was removed, Sun Yang proceeded to fire off arrow after arrow after arrow at whatever spot he had detected movement just moments beforehand.
Dozens of explosions went off one after the other as tree after unfortunate tree was leveled due to this dynamite lumberjacking. Had anyone been caught up in these continuous blasts, they would be rendered into a fine dust or charred corpse.
Fortunately, nobody was actually present anywhere near those trees.
Sun Yang was so absorbed by his rapid fire action that he failed to notice that underneath his feet, the earth was furrowing in a weird manner. As if something, or more accurately someone, was tunneling beneath his feet.
In fact, he was so caught up in the power trip caused by his actions that he failed to notice that the trail of furrowed earth had stopped directly beneath him.
Right between his legs.
"HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA HAHA...huh?"
(Un)fortunately, by the time Sun Yang noticed the earth between his legs was disturbed, it was far too late.
By the time Sun Yang realized what was going on, before he could fire another arrow or even throw up some rudimentary defenses, a heavy scaled fist burst out of the ground and punched straight upwards.
*High pitched squealing...*
In that exact moment, Zhen Yue learned just how high an octave a man could reach while shrieking in pain.
"Well then...on the one hand, that was probably a very underhanded of me and a very humiliating way to defeat someone...on the other hand, fuck you, I win...I...seriously need to hang around someone other than my cousins...preferably someone more effeminate...and won’t encourage to aim below the belt again."
_____________________________________________
Zhen Feng’s Misdirection.
"HOW ARE YOU STILL STANDING AGAINST EIGHTY PERCENT OF MY STRENGTH?!"
"BECAUSE I REMEMBER TO DO MY-wait, what’s that exercise Zhen Liu does again...right-CARDIO, MOTHERFUCKER!,’ Zhen Feng lied directly to Niu Bao’s face.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS CARDIO?!"
In reality, Zhen Feng wasn’t resisting Niu Bao through brute strength alone. In fact, he was making use of incredibly solid footholds to lock his feet in place and effectively make it so that Niu Bao wasn’t just pushing against himself, but the ground itself.
Now, how did Zhen Feng get access to some footholds in wetlands where the water was up to his ankles?
Simple, he froze his own feet in place, right below the waterline so that Niu Bao wouldn’t be able to see it.
’Okay, looks like I can resist him for now thanks to my ice lock trick...BUT HOLY SHIT THIS HURTS! I THOUGHT BEING FAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HELP DEAL WITH THE COLD!’
At some point during his struggle with Niu Bao, Zhen Feng remembered how Zhen Liu’s ice puppet thing was able to soundly trounce his ass without moving a single inch.
The only time the ice puppet actually did move however was when Zhen Feng made some distance and tried to use a charging attack to push it out of the arena, only for the ice puppet to lightly blast the floor in front of it with a thin layer of ice and side-stepping. The result was that Zhen Feng was launched out of the arena as he couldn’t course correct in time, and ended up face planting.
The moment was painful and slightly humiliating, but it was also a brilliant learning opportunity.
As a result of remembering all of this, Zhen Feng suddenly found himself able to employ ice aether in a manner similar to Zhen Liu’s ice puppet and in a strange manner similar to how Zhen Hai was able to channel lightning aether.
There was probably some grand secret behind how he was able to do this now, but right now he had a fight to win, and a muscle-head to send flying.
"WHY DON’T YOU TRY A RUNNING START?! MAYBE IT’LL ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING!"
As soon as Zhen Feng made this suggestions, Niu Bao audibly and visibly paused in thought about the idea for a solid minute, before suddenly smiling.
"A RUNNING START IS PRECISELY WHAT I NEED! HAHA!"
Taking Zhen Feng’s suggestion to heart, Niu Bao disengaged from the wrestling match and leaped several dozen feet away from Zhen Feng. This not only gave himself breathing room, but also gave Zhen Feng a chance to dispel the ice, that was locking his feet in place.
He had other places for that ice to be after all.
"NOW THEN, GET READY!," Niu Bao shouted as he began to circulate his aether throughout his body.
While this was happening, Zhen Feng began to circulate his own aether through his feet and into the water below
As Niu Bao continued to circulate his aether, steam began to radiate off of his body while his hands, feet and biceps noticeably bulked.
Zhen Feng on the other hand, kept a cool head and visualized his next series of moves.
"GET READY, BOY! FOR REAL LOUD FINISH!," Niu Bao shouted as his aether spiked to his absolute limit.
’Yeah...I’m more than ready,’ Zhen Feng quietly retorted.
[Bronze Demon Ape’s Rage!]
Niu Bao launched himself towards Zhen Feng, charging at a breakneck speed, with his knuckles at the ready to punch the chubby boy’s head clean off.
(Un)fortunately, the muscle head of a gorilla failed to notice that the water his feet were traversing at this very moment was suddenly a lot colder.
"Nope, but you’re about to go for a ride!"
Moments Niu Bao could reach Zhen Feng, the latter had made use of his ice aether to send the former sliding about via the creation of an ice spot directly in the path of the charge.
However, he wasn’t done yet.
While Niu Bao was in the process of tripping and was just about to faceplant into the water, Zhen Feng smacked the man across the face with one hand while simultaneously creating an ice path with the other.
Niu Bao was promptly knocked into the path, and with the same momentum in which he charged towards Zhen Feng, was sent sliding onto a path that looped around and launched him into the air.
But it wasn’t a straight shot upward, instead, Niu Bao was launched several dozen feet back towards his starting point and even beyond that.
The whole time Niu Bao was sailing through the air though, Zhen Feng was chasing after him the whole time while charging up his own aether art.
One that caused the obvious form of a giant boar made of energy and mud to form around him. Unusually though, there was also a pair of huge tusks made of ice.
"HEY JACKASS! YOU SAID I HAD A STRONG SPINE, RIGHT?! WELL GET READY TO HAVE YOURS BE PULVERIZED!"
[Avalanche Boar Rush!]