"OUT OF MY WAY! OUT OF MY WAY! I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!"
All over the arena, warriors bearing the crest of the Fallen Clan had suddenly exploded into action, attacking everyone from bystanders to warriors from the Zhen Clan specifically.
The Fallen Clan had somehow managed to sneak several dozen of their warriors into the arena, either as members of the audience or as the former participants in the competition itself.
On the plus side, there weren’t that many Fallen Clan warriors in comparison to Zhen Clan warriors present, but the downside was that the Fallen Clan had made up their inferior quantity for superior quality. For every three Aether Acolytes the Zhen Clan managed to field, there was an Aether Master from the Fallen Clan ready to fight.
Even more daunting was the fact that for every two Aether Masters that the Zhen Clan had available to fight, the Fallen had managed to sneak in a Grandmaster.
Thankfully, there were no Aether Lords, Kings or Emperors present, meaning that the Zhen Clan matriarch and the Four High Elders would have an easy time sweeping up the assailants, hell the Wisdom Elder still had the [Myriad Marble Garden] and could easily use that treasure to just capture a whole bunch of the enemy Grandmasters.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
Under the cover of this riotous battle, hidden operatives from the Fallen Clan proceeded to put into action a contingency designed to simply hamper the efforts of the Zhen Clan Matriarch and her High Elders. That being said, this contingency plan would at least severely injure all of the weaker Zhen Clan members...well...most of them anyways.
As the battle raged between the Zhen Clan and the Fallen, a strange blood red undercurrent of aether began to slowly arise from the ground and creep all across the arena...and beyond...
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In the airspace above the arena...
<<[Myriad Marble Garden], imprison my enemies!>>
Zhen Lung the Wisdom Elder, held the [Myriad Marble Garden] aloft and channeled as much as he could into it, causing the formation of over several dozen spatial bubbles that floated in the air for a brief moment before zooming towards the nearest enemy combatants.
One after the other, Fallen Clan warrior after Fallen Clan warrior were plucked out of the crowd by the power of the [Myriad Marble Garden] and sealed away into spatial bubbles that began to shrink down into being the size of marbles before returning to the Wisdom Elder.
At this point, over a dozen or so warriors had been captured.
’Hahah!,’ Zhen Lung mentally laughed. ’Just a couple more minutes and I’ll have sealed away every.’
’Oh fuck!’ [Regalia, on!]
Judt as the Wisdom Elder was about to gloat on how easy this battle was going to be, several enemy Grandmasters, wreathed in a strange blood red aura, immediately rushed at him with mixed yet unified intent.
Some wanted to kill him, others wanted to get that aether treasure out of his hands, either way, they all needed to defeat the Wisdom Elder.
<> the Wisdom Elder shouted as his mind noticed something off about his own body.
’Why do my arms feel heavier than before?’
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In the skybox overlooking the arena...
Zhen Shi and Jinju Yang both stared at the ongoing chaos, absolutely flabbergasted at how it came to all of this.
The two were initially gearing up to fight each other for the honor of their respective relative, when all of a sudden, the Fallen Clan appeared out of nowhere and began indiscriminately attacking people left and right like a bunch of mad butchers. The old warriors were just about ready to leap out the window and participate in the fray in the crowds, but stopped when they felt an ungodly amount of aether radiating behind them. It took them all of five seconds to realize it was the clan matriarch, Zhen Xun Tian getting hyped to fight.
Well...she was actually pissed off as all hell.
<> Zhen Xun Tian cursed through gritted teeth and barely controlled rage, her aether spiking to unprecedented levels. <>
Zhen Xun Tian proceeded to fly towards the window, her regalia forming in the blink of an eye. However, just before she crossed the windowsill, an aether barrier with a blood red tint to it, manifested directly in front of the open window.
Zhen Xun Tian was just about to charge directly into the strange barrier and shatter it into pieces, but she stopped at the last minute as she felt something was off about its presence.
Experimentally, Zhen Xun Tian fired off a quick fistful of energy directly at the barrier to see what would happen.
The blast of aether was suddenly absorbed by the barrier before firing back directly at Zhen Xun Tian, who managed to dodge away from it at the last second.
The stray aether blast then proceeded to impact the door directly behind Zhen Xun Tian, destroying it and revealing that that same blood red barrier had manifested behind that door as well.
The blast of aether was once again reflected, but Zhen Xun Tian ended up simply destroying it this time around.
It didn’t take her, the branch clan patriarch or the Imperial prince too long for them to realize that they were trapped in some kind of sealing array, and a powerful one at that.
In fact, it was so powerful that it was almost suspiciously so.
<> Jinju Ren paused as he studied the barrier. <>
<> Zhen Xun Tian concluded, <>
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In the halls of the Zhen Clan arena, several of the Fallen Clan warriors had broken away from the main arena in order to secure the perimeter via slaying all of the external guards.
One such guardsman was about to get their head caved in a by a large Fallen Clan brute armed with a massive battle axe. Fortunately, they were saved when Captain Zhen Ba Yin rushed in, in full regalia, and decisively slashed through the aforementioned brute’s arms. The fellow was then subsequently kicked into the nearby wall and was promptly rendered unconscious.
With the immediate threat eliminated, Zhen Ba Yin checked on his fellow guardsman to make sure he wasn’t too injured. Once he was done, he immediately went to help the soldier get back onto his feet, who in return gave off a quick salute.
Captain Zhen Ba Yin thought for a moment before he turned towards the guardsman to give his orders on what he needed to tell the others.
But before he could even give the first order, another guardsman showed up out of nowhere and interrupted him, in order to give him more bad news.
The situation in the arena was bad, but it wasn’t terrible. As long as the Zhen Clan could free up the High Elders and the matriarch, then they could sweep up the enemy fighters, no problem.
That was no longer the case if the prisoners on level five of the Willow Scale prison were being released. That’s because, that’s the floor that contained warriors that were as powerful as the High Elders, but weaker than the Matriarch.
However, if the attackers somehow breached level six then they were absolutely fucked. Unless...
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’Hmmm. Why do I feel like I need to cast myself in [Chaos], right the fuck now?’
=Probably because of the Aether treasure cursing your clansmen.=