Both the Puppet Elder and the Gate Elder were positively stumped over what had unfolded in the last five or so minutes, namely due to the fact that so much just fucking happened all at once.
One minute they were about to be killed in glorious combat, next thing they knew they got rescued twice, and now they were being abducted by some weird looking puppets that vaguely resembled a circus acrobat and a ballerina straight from the pits of hell and nightmares.
Of course, they were not as scary as the Aether Emperor that the acrobat puppet just bodied, so they were okay with it.
They did have some questions though in regards to this situation.
Due to the two elders having spent most of their morning in the Zhen Clan’s prison, and dealing with the Fallen warriors, the two elders had no idea what had happened in the arena at this time.
Hence why the two were positively shocked at the presence of this strange blood fog that reeked of malicious, curse-filled intent.
The Puppet Elder’s eyes went wide as soon as he recognized the origins of this blood fog.
<> the Gate Elder asked incredulously.
This was a difficult piece of information for the Gate Elder to swallow, since the Zhen Clan elders were supposed to have this image of being incorruptible. There might’ve been moments of questionable judgment and clear favoritism, but many of those cases were done internally and not in conjunction with enemy factions.
The last time an elder was discovered to have committed treason against the clan itself, the matriarch had personally saw to the man’s execution herself after striking him from the clan’s registry.
However, to a certain eavesdropping branch clan young master that was listening in on this conversation via a pair of "puppets", this helped to explain some things he had dealt with not too long ago...
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’Well then...that explained some things...’
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Turning back the clock a bit, around the same time as Spring Brawler and Razorstella were making contact with the evolving zako and the guy who stole a dead kaijin’s arm...
After sending off Lacerage and Archanidame to go and make sure his family was okay, Zhen Liu had taken the rest of his fighting kaijin with him in order to find whatever was causing the [Foul Blood Aether Curse] fog to form in the first place.
Zhen Liu had figured that the fastest way to put an end to all of this insanity was to just find the source of the Fallen Clan’s biggest advantage and destroy the damn thing before it could cause any other issues…at least that’s what he had thought to do at first.
After he asked Logos and Pathos about more information in regards to the [Foul Blood Aether Curse] fog, he learned that this particular type of curse required the usage a specific type of aether treasure, or the assistance of an alchemist with a lot of dangerous and valuable aether plants and materials. In other words, this was the kaijin material payday that Zhen Liu had been hoping and praying for a very, very long time.
A part of him had thought about attending an auction or just buying materials from the markets outright, but he had always been too busy to do so. That and because he didn’t want to deal with explaining to his family why he blew a chunk of the family’s budget on creating a new, weird "puppet".
He already relied on his family for free food, lodging and guaranteed companionship, the acquisition of questionable materials and weapons for the creation of demonic warriors could be a solo venture.
Making use of Hurricroak’s sharp aether senses and ability to pick up sounds, Zhen Liu had discovered that there was an underground portion to the arena that had apparently fallen out of use once the Zhen Clan mastered the usage of the [Myriad Marble Garden]. In other words, it was the perfect place to set up a cursed aether treasure without anybody noticing.
There was just one thing about this particular discovery that rubbed Zhen Liu the wrong way when he thought deeper on the matter.
’Wait...how the fuck would a bunch of enemies of the Zhen Clan know about a secret area under a public arena? Man, this reeks of betrayal!,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he slowly and carefully looked through the underground for any signs of the Fallen warriors or their ludicrously dangerous(read: valuable) treasures. ’Wait...why the fuck doesn’t the Zhen Clan have any warriors stationed down here as guards?’
When Zhen Liu first entered the underground portion of the arena, he was fully expecting to smell the freshly spilt blood of slain Zhen Clan warriors. He had figured that the Zhen Clan were the type to keep even abandoned or forbidden properties under lock, key and watchman.
Much to his and the kaijins’ surprise though, the entire underground area was surprisingly clean. It was actually so clean, Zhen Liu had to question his kaijin to make sure everything was correct.
’Alright, Hurricroak. You sure that whatever the fuck is causing this cursed blood fog is somewhere down here?,’ Zhen Liu asked his frog-like kaijin, while the latter was in the shape of a purple crystal totem.
[Positive, maestro. The bad vibes and weird sounds I picked up earlier are way, way louder down here,] Hurricroak confirmed. [It is weird though how we haven’t found anything yet.]
Zhen Liu spent a couple more minutes poking around the underground area in an attempt to find anything that could indicate Fallen Clan activity, but so far he was coming up with jack shit. At this point, Zhen Liu was very tempted to just release a bunch of zakos and let the kaijin go on a murderous rampage, secrecy be damned, until something crossed his mind.
More specifically, the memory of how this entire tournament worked in the first place.
’Wait a minute...Hurricroak, you said you could sense those nasty cursed vibes and noises down here...did those sound sharp enough that you could get a direction or did they sound muffled, like they were hiding somewhere?’
[Muffled like a pillow over a trumpet’s opening. Why?]
’I think I know where these guys might be. Frosttusk?’
[Yes...minn...jarl...]
Using his body as the conduit, Zhen Liu channeled Frosttusk’s power to quickly cool the air around him, but not to the point where the room would instantly turn into ice. Instead, he made it just cold enough that when he exhaled, a visible fog would form in front of his face.
Once he found that it was cold enough, he quickly used Frosttusk’s aether to condense a ball of his ice into one of his hands before swapping possession partners to Nepherage. He then proceeded to channel her firey aether to slowly melt the ice in his hand to produce a very visible cloud of steam that seemed to fill the entire room...except for one small portion of the room where the vapors seemed to merely gathered around but never enter.
A wide grin formed on Zhen Liu’s face as he saw the anomaly occurring.
"Found you~," Zhen Liu seem to sing as he readied himself to fight once more.
Before he got to work though, one of the kaijin made a very...amusing suggestion.
[You know maestro...none of your family probably knows you’re down here. You could switch to the other form. Makes more sense for a demon lord to dole out underworld justice than a hero, right?]
’That...is an excellent idea.’