Chapter 1740: Junk and Ice- Frosttusk

Moments ago...

[Shall we?]

"Aye."

Once more, Zhen Shi and I combined our powers but I didn’t immediately become a [Taboo] or a [Stigma] this time around.

This time around I decided that the best way to fight an Aether King level opponent was to match them, feature for feature.

[Omen, manifest.]

If an [Icon] is representative of a warrior’s ideals and shows the world that they stand for, then an [Omen] is a warning of the danger one can bring.

In my case, my [Omen] is a symbol of an icy retribution that will be as loud as thunder and as heavy as glacier.

Of course, that was only the symbolic meaning of my [Omen].

In terms of functionality, it was a bit more...practical.

"Holy shit, what the fuck is flowing into me right now?" Zhen Shi said as he exhaled an icy breath that carried the scent of ancient power.

[An Icon normally condenses aether into a higher purity before infusing its power into a normal Aether King. Our Omens work the same way, but with Chaos instead. What you are feeling is the closest you and I ever going to get to touching true primordial Chaos. The kind of shit that the Creators are made of.]

"Whoa...I feel like I can punch a duck into a mountain...wait, why did I say that?"

[Because ancient Chaos is weird,] I answered. [Now come on, we have a tinker toy to throw back into a dumpster.]

"Agreed."

...Fast Forward to the present...

"Who are we aiming for?"

[I’m thinking we take the guy who looks like they’re made of rusted scrap metal. Something about his aura feels off.]

"Agreed."

After Zhen Xun Tian had started fighting the enemy Aether Emperor Affixed by clocking him in the face, that left about five enemies that were at the Aether King level.

If Zhen Shi was at the Aether King level as well, or if these fuckers were normal warriors, I would’ve suggested that we take on two of them at once. Alas, he was not and they were not.

Playing it safe, we positioned ourselves above the head of an Affixed warrior who looked more like a walking scrap heap than a humanoid person and tried to "goomba stomp" him.

We figured that the damage would be great since we made sure to concentrate a good amount of condensed [Chaos] into our feet.

We were proven mostly correct in this assumption.

The Affixed warrior we had targeted was blindsided by our attack, and suffered heavy damage as icy cold [Chaos] came into contact with what we could now see was truly rusted metal.

We, unfortunately, were unable to smash our foe into the ground like we wanted. However, we were able to deal quite a bit of damage before the junkyard bastard recovered his wits enough to try and swing us away.

"Get off me!"

"Whoa!"

Zhen Shi was smaller, lighter, and faster than our current opponent, so he was able to use them as a springboard to get away.

A good thing too, as the hand that came towards us had somehow doubled in size until it was as big and thick as a fully grown redwood tree.

The sound of crunching metal made it abundantly clear that he had smashed his oversized hand into himself. However, he did not let out any yelps of pain as I suspected.

Which was odd, because as we backed away, we saw how the attempt to swat at us had made the Affixed warrior smash their own face in.

Moments later, though, we saw why he didn’t care.

The hand the Affixed had used to smash his own face suddenly detached and began to merge with it until it appeared to be one. A beat later, the Affixed’s arm reformed.

"Ugh! You bastard! Who the hell do you think you are?!"the Affixed warrior snarled in a voice sounding like a garbage disposal with a fork inside it.

As I was in my [Omen] form, I did not respond to the Affixed’s warriors question. Zhen Shi, however, was a gentleman.

"I am Zhen Shi, patriarch of the Zhen Clan of the Stampeding Bison continent. I am a friend of the Storm Singers, and I am here to put an end to the Collectrix’s rampage here in the Echoing Valley. Now, who are you?"

The Affixed looked slightly stunned at Zhen Shi’s polite introduction, but managed to recover in time to respond...not necessarily in kind, though.

"That’s a weird thing to state. You don’t look like the Stampeding Bison folk I’ve seen in the ladyship’s books...whatever! I once had a mortal name but I discarded it once I became fully fused with the Collectrix’s blessing. I am known as Scrap Maker."

"I...see."

Zhen Shi and I shared the same thoughts in the exact same sequence.

First: that was a very accurate name.

Second: that was a stupid fucking name.

If their expressions were exposed at this time, it would definitely lead to Scrap Maker losing his shit at the humiliation.

Instead, there was a weird moment of diplomacy.

"Well, I can already tell that you’re significantly more cultured than the Shriekers," Scrap Maker said with a strange emphasis on the last word, as if he was saying a racial slur. "So I’m going to make you an offer. If you surrender now, I’ll bring you to her Ladyship and see if we she will bless you as well. What do you say? You could end up with a perfected body like me!"

In an attempt to strengthen his argument, Scrap Maker attempted to flex like he was a body builder.

His scrapyard of a body groaned and creaked as the rusted metal shifted into the form of a cartoon-like body builder.

It...didn’t really work.

"Yeah...no," Zhen Shi refused for the both of us. "As I said, I’m friends with the Storm Singers and if you’re their enemy, that makes you my enemy. Simple as that."

"Ah, well, at least I tried," Scrap Maker said as he shifted his body take to its original state. "I suppose the only thing we can do now is: [Rust Rage!]"

Scrap Maker suddenly released a rust-colored miasma from his mouth that was positively lousy with killing intent and [Chaos].

In the brief moment he expelled this gas, I could sense the faint pulse of an aether treasure being activated.

"Disgusting!"

In response to this miasma, Zhen Shi proceeded to summon his [Astra] and spun them around, creating a fan in which to disperse the miasma.

It mostly worked, but the miasma had an unexpected effect on the chains themselves.

[Be careful! They’re starting to rust!]

"What? Whoa!"

Zhen Shi’s [Astra] normally had an icy-blue coloration to them, but the miasma had caused to develop a cost of rust that began to affect how they normally moved.

"That shouldn’t be possible!"

[It’s because of the Chaos mixed in,] I said after sweeping my senses. [Channel my power into your chains.]

"Right!"

Zhen Shi began to circulate the condensed [Chaos] from my [Omen] and used it to reinforce his [Astra]. The effect was immediate as the rust that had begun to build up suddenly disappeared.

"Huh...now that I’m doing this, it feels like the [Chaos] is doing more than—"

[Incoming!]

"Motherfucker!"

Before Zhen Shi could share his observations with me, Scrap Maker had closed the gap between us and prepared to launch a second strike.

A strike that took the form of an elephant shaped from scrap metal, that was sprouting out of his scrap metal body like a fucked-up hydra head.

[Scrap Iron Tusks!]

A pair of metal tusks covered in more rusty miasma was pointed straight towards Zhen Shi’s torso and was just moments away from piercing him.

But before the attack followed through, Zhen Shi opened his mouth and took a play from my book.

[Ice Mammoth’s Bellow!]

A powerful bellow left Zhen Shi’s mouth, accompanied by an even greater force of icy wind that blasted us backwards while forcefully knocking away the scrap metal elephant’s head.

However, this counter move wasn’t as simple as that.

[Did you use condensed Chaos on that?!]

"I did!"

"Gaaaaaah!"

Zhen Shi’s bellow had encased Scrap Maker’s arm in a thick layer of ice made from [Chaos].

Judging from that scream, that must’ve been the first time they had ever felt what it was like to be attacked with the power of condensed [Chaos].

"You little shit! How did you—wait a minute...you have the power of a Kaijin?! How?! Only her ladyship can bestow such power!"

If minn Jarl was here, he would probably goad the bastard before him with the fact that he was the real Kaijinord and that the Collectrix was just a cheap two copper knock-off or something equally asinine.

Instead, since Zhen Shi was the one fighting Scrap Maker, he decided that there was only one reasonable way to answer this hunk of junk.

A phrase that had become a bit of a motto to the Zhen Clan as of late.

"Because fuck you, that’s why."

Needless to say, Scrap Maker wasn’t pleased with the response.