Chapter 1724: Hakon Rising-Hurricroak

As the rest of us fought against the Rot Feathers who wanted to eat our mangled corpses, the Red Weavers who wanted to turn us into coats, and the Star Vipers who wanted to turn us into living incubators, Hakon was doing his absolute damndest in trying to draw the Storm Singer’s... oh, who am I kidding?

Hakon was doing his absolute damndest in trying to draw Frosttusk’s old axe from the mammoth’s skull, while the rest of us were playing defense to make sure he could inherit his great-great-grandaddy’s axe.

We kept up this fight for quite some time until, finally, we felt something different in the air.

Well, Zhen Hai and I felt something different in the air.

’Hurricroak?’

[Yessir?]

’Is it just me, or am I sensing a weird shift in the aether surrounding us?’

[Oh no, you’re definitely feeling something,] I answered my current host. [Since I can amplify your senses, I’m feeling it too.]

During this entire battle, Hakon and the axe were producing this subtle undercurrent of activity that could best be described as the aether equivalent of constant background noise.

However, such background noise was ignored by everyone in the chamber, because everyone in the chamber was busy attempting to rip each other’s throats out and using more noticeable uses of aether one after the other. Just like how the bass line gets drowned out by the performances of everyone else in a band.

But, for reasons I couldn’t sense because Nepherage’s connection got muted, that background noise suddenly took on an entirely different characteristic.

What once was a subtly chill aura that made the chamber feel a touch nippy, was suddenly replaced by one that was equally and confoundingly cold and vibrant at the same time.

It was as if the entire aura of the Echoing Valley had become concentrated in a single point, and was getting stronger and stronger by the second.

At first, it was unnoticeable to all except yours truly and the schmuck I had hitched an internal ride in. However, as time went on, the rest of the warriors in the chamber began to pause.

Hell, I could even hear that the fighting happening outside was starting to lull due to the noticeable change in the environmental aether.

Unfortunately, this also meant that the nature of the battle had changed.

The subtle [Chaos] effect created by Frosttusk, Slug-at-Arms, Terra, and myself did wonders in making people act more emotion and basic instincts than actual strategic planning. However, it also meant that once something powerful or noticeable enough appeared in someone’s senses, they were more than likely to focus all on that than anything else in the room.

Which meant that the corpse eaters, the gut threaders, and the impregnation fetishists were all now focused on Hakon and the big glowing axe he was trying to free from the mammoth’s skull.

And while it was a good thing for my friends and me, it was an absolutely terrible thing to these fuckers because of their boss.

"Wait a minute, is that kid..."

"HE IS TRYING TO STEAL THE COLLECTRIX’S LOOT! GET HIS ASS!"

"Fuck."

Now that the enemy warriors had a more concrete goal beyond, "kicking the ass of the weirdos who showed up in their encampment", this entire situation changed from a chaotic brawl into a tower defense battle.

Unfortunately, that meant we four, technically seven, were now playing heavy duty defense.

Thankfully, unlike the enemy warriors, we could still cheat out our big area-of-effect moves.

"Using [Echoing Frost] would end badly for us, right?" Zhen Hai asked me as he watched several dozen of the enemy warriors attempt to bumrush Hakon.

[Yup,] I answered.

"Please tell me you have something else we can use then, because most of aether arts are meant for duelling."

[I do, so follow my lead!]

"Okay!"

[Taboo, appear!]

Zhen Hai couldn’t use an [Astra] quite yet, meaning I could enhance whatever innate strength he had. This lack of an [Astra], though, meant that I could go maximum amplitude in my [Taboo] form.

Detaching myself from Zhen Hai’s [Regalia], I reassembled myself into an instrument that felt appropriate for the battle-hungry, high energy shark warrior.

I turned myself into an electric guitar.

[Play that rock n roll soul, Great White boy!]

"That sounded weird, but fuck it!"

Combining our powers together was quite easy, given that Zhen Hai was a giant ball of [Determination], and that was kind of my whole existence.

One powerful strum against my guitar-like body, and the two of us released a crazy powerful attack that took the form of giant shark constructs made of water, thunder and lightning!

[Thunderous Tidal Roar]

"Huh? BWAH!"

Getting electrocuted or thunderstruck is bad enough, but having both occur after being slammed by a Great White shark made of water was one of the most painful things that could happen to someone.

Well, second most painful.

Aside from us, the other kaijin-mortal duos had decided to stop holding back and start using big [Chaos] attacks with big area-of-effect reach.

[March of the Winter Titans!]

Zhen Shi and Frosttusk combined their [Taboo] and [Astra] into a singular gigantic meteor hammer that the former swung around with as much ease as a child playing with a yo-yo. Wherever the hammer was swung, it either slammed into an enemy warrior and pulverized them into frozen chunks or released a blast of cold air that quickly condensed into giant warriors and beasts made of icy air and snow.

[Venom Fang Pack!]

Zhen Long and Slug-at_arms didn’t have any obvious synergies like me and Zhen Hai or Frosttusk and Zhen Shi, but their abilities did form an interesting combination.

Zhen Long’s innate elemental affinity was wind, Aeroqi aether, and it worked with Slug-at-Arms’ innate poison abilities in a weird way.

Wolves of wind and loaded with caustic venom rushed out like their fleshy counterparts and tore into the enemy warriors like they were sheep to the slaughter.

As for Terra, well...there was nothing deadly in a close-quarters mass combat situation like lighting chains, and she was more than happy to deliver.

[Lighting Scale Storm!]

[Astra] in hand, Terra released a wave of electrical [Chaos] that washed over a huge chunk of the enemy warriors and electrocuted their balls.

Both figuratively and literally.

Through our combined efforts, we managed to keep off the enemy warriors for quite a bit of time.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t be everywhere at once.

A couple of the Aether Lords, ones with defensive [Astras] no less, managed to tank our attacks and rush right past us to attack Hakon.

They had even done us the disservice of combining their powers and releasing a powerful coordinated attack that none of us could hope to block without pooling our efforts together.

"No!"

[Hakon!]

But as luck would have it, and because we attracted dramatic moments like hummingbirds to flowers, Hakon managed to pull out the axe at the last possible moment.

As soon as the axe was freed from its skeletal prison, a torrent of aether surged out and overwhelmed the entire battlefield, while also filling the chamber with enough mist to drop the ambient temperature by a dozen or so degrees.

The attacks and techniques of multiple warriors, including ourselves, were cancelled out due to the sudden influx of ice and life aether fucking up all of their careful set-up. Hell, even that giant coordinated attack was reduced to nothingness because of the surge.

The enemy warriors understood who had done it and why, but some of them were still stupid enough to ask the question that would immediately be greeted by violent retaliation.

"What the hell was—"

[World Tree Splitter!]

"OH FUCK!"

From the depths of the mist, Hakon took on a pose that we had never seen before but felt familiar for unexplained reasons and swung his newly acquired axe with enough power to release a shockwave of equal parts [Life] and [Ice] aether that was essentially a more concentrated version of the surge that happened earlier.

Multiple Aether Masters and Acolytes were bisected by the attack, while the Grandmasters among them were forced to put in way more effort than they expected to to block the attack.

Needless to say, the mist was also cleared by the attack, and it led to Hakon’s grand reveal.

"Okay...did Hakon break through because the axe accepted him, or because of Nepherage’s influence on his cultivation?" Zhen Hai asked as soon as we both saw the new improved Hakon.

[I’m going to go with...yes.]

Hakon’s [Regalia] made him look like a viking made of ice and gnarled trees, as if he were in perfect coordination with the axe he had just drawn.

Speaking of the axe, the ancestral axe of the Storm Singers had undergone a very noticeable evolution.

Before, it looked like a giant chunk of obsidian was tied to a piece of wood that had a whole bunch of runes carved into it.

Now, the damn thing looked ornate and embossed with ivory.

But more importantly, it wasn’t a proto-treasure anymore.

It was a bonafide aether treasure.

And its power was much greater than it appeared.