"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 18 – Battle in the Land of Hermits
May 22, 2044
Border between Huang He Empire and Caldina Commercial City-State Union
Torchlight sighed as he and Harlequin's coach made their way towards the border. They had to take several underground channels that were out of the way to get out of Huang He undetected and had gone so far as to frequently use items to change their appearance, their coach's appearance, and even the sole mount pulling their coach multiple times.
Apparently, his ward's attack on Mirage was a bigger nest of Rapier Wasp than he had initially thought.
Huang He currently only had two Superiors; the Beast General and the Over Geomancer.
No, as of yesterday, there were three.
The former dominated the Kill Rankings, the second was top of the Clan Rankings, and the third, this new Grind Princess, claimed second place in the Duel Rankings.
That may not seem impressive, but between the battle maniacs who came in from Tenchi and the monstrous Draconic Emperor who held first place, second place was damn impressive.
However, it was the head of the Clan Rankings, Dameisele Automne -or Lady Autumn as some of her minions call her-, that had him worried.
The woman was ruthless and had fully taken advantage of all of the Masters leaving Tenchi to swell her clan to nearly a thousand members.
Rather than specializing in any one aspect such as crafting, monster hunting, escorting, etc, her clan, Fateful Autumn, did everything.
And he meant everything.
Each aspect of her clan was subdivided into different departments based on what they did allowing her clan to take the number one spot through sheer versatility.
And that was just the legal clan activities.
Officially, only her second and third in command were Pre-Superiors. In reality, she had over twenty Pre-Superiors unofficially working for her. Between them and Master's that had killing-focused Embryos, comprised a group in her organization known as Scorching Fingers.
They were the types who worked on the shady cloak-and-dagger kind of quests you could find in Criminal Guilds all over Huang He.
Within only a few months they had become one of the largest forces in the Huang He Empire's underworld.
Supposedly, even the emperor was weary of the Scorching Fingers.
The commander of the Scorching Fingers, the King of Axes, even went as far as nearly taking his arm off a week back.
Thank goodness he was the type who liked to talk.
Thanks to his big mouth, he found out Lady Autumn had wanted to take Mirage under her control to add to her forces. Harlequin leaving most of their core members dying in pools of blood and vomit caused more harm than good.
While she was rushing to fill the power vacuum, it was easier to take over an existing power structure than replace it, as such she wasn't too pleased about what had happened.
It probably didn't help that a few of the people Harley killed were high-ranking tians in the Huang He government acting as spies.
As a result, they had the Emperor, Fateful Autumn, Mirage, and whatever bounty hunting Masters or tians they decided to send at them.
At their current pace, they should be able to make it into Caldina by nightfall.
Normally he'd let out a sigh of relief, but his IRL experiences had taught him a long time ago that when you think you're closest to winning, you're actually closest to losing it all.
He had spent nearly half his accumulated wealth, nearly 6.8 BILLION lir to arrange numerous decoys. Some heading to Caldina, some to Granvalao, and even a few to Tenchi.
Heck, he'd even paid a few Masters to escort body doubles through the Harshwinter Mountains that connected the northern parts of Dryfe, Caldina, and Huang He.
That monkey faunus was unusually enthused about the idea now that he thought about it.
Probably just some snot-nosed kid with wonder lust. Or something like that.
He's probably having a kick out of it.
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Harshwinter Mountains
He had heard rumors about it.
The monster known as the strongest Mythical UBM and the strongest strange bird-type monster.
The King of the Skies.
Divine Comet Bird, Tunguska
The UBM had attacked them, warped – it could WARP!- away and continued repeating the pattern.
Spells and even missiles flew at it, but it dodged them like it was dancing between statues.
At this, the King of Adventure, Bananarama could only say one thing, "THIS. IS. AWESOME!" he exclaimed readying his Embryo. (1)
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Border between Huang He Empire and Caldina Commercial City-State Union
As their coach trotted along something hit the wheels on the left side ripping through the reinforced Epic Metal like they were made from plywood causing their coach to collapse.
Thankfully, he had an inventory prepared for just such an occasion.
Kicking open the hatch on the roof, countless foam packing peanuts – something that didn't exist in Infinite Dendrogram until Masters came along – Torchlight fell out.
The top half of his body is wrapped in a special reward that looks like a large red and orange striped scarf the rest showing a white and black suit and the bottom of two crossing bandoleers of inventories.
Crawling over him like some kind of jungle gym was a young girl in a pink, white, and brown harlequin costume with bells hanging off two sides of her head like two downward-pointing devil horns.
Wrapped around her waist were an assortment of daggers.
Standing on the hill off to the side was a large man in a green samurai armor like that of ancient Mistral, but instead of a katana he held in each hand two massive hatchets.
On either side was a woman. The one on his left had streaming hair in different strands of color dressed as some type of Boxer while the other had golden ringlets and was dressed like an eastern Mage, a Daoshi.
Behind them were about two dozen or so lower-level grunts. All dressed in the red attire of Fateful Autumn.
Standing up, Torchlight grinned, hoping his plan would work. "Fateful Autumn or the Scorching Fingers?" he asked with as winning and confident a smirk as he could muster. Making sure to invoke his ultimate skill under his breath so that they wouldn't hear him.
"Doesn't your boss have anything better to do than worry about lil' ol' me?"
Green Knight, their apparent leader for this little outing, stepped forward, "You've made our clan leader very angry Torchlight. A lot of planning went to waste because of you."
Then the two women chimed in, "Yeah, we've come to take it out of your hide."
"Really make you feel it."
"You do know my avatar's sense of pain is turned off, right?"
That caused them to deflate a little, "Well…we're gonna…"
"Gonna…?"
"Fuck you." The woman with the multi-colored head shouted.
"Not my type kiddy."
"I'm twenty." She huffed.
Torchlight blinked in faux surprise, "Really, you look like you just graduated from pull-ups. Or do you prefer men who are into that kind of thing?"
That had her face turn six shades of red in an instant, ending in a shade he was used to seeing on people, pure rage red.
"I'm going to castrate you!" she growled as the other woman held her back only for the King of Axes to block her path.
"Don't let him get you riled up, he's buying time for something." Musing Green Knight looked at him, "You're ultimate skill perhaps?"
Before he could respond, from the direction of Caldina, came five High Dragons with men in suits riding them.
In Infinite Dendrogram suits were typically worn by criminals.
He didn't know why, but he could at least give the devs a nod of respect for putting standards on the criminal underworld.
However, he couldn't help but wonder if they took inspiration from him for the idea.
Reveal told him that those monsters were Jiangshi.
They were a type of undead that were controlled using the talisman, known as Fu, attached to them.
If he had to guess, it would be the head of Mirage's Caldina Branch Zhang "Wuxing Jielong (English: Penta-Ravenous Dragon)" Zan Qi.
Given that there were five Jiangshi High Dragons all but confirmed it.
Just great, how can this get any worse? He wondered and then cringed as he realized he probably jinxed himself.
And as if on cue, just after his mind tried to rationalize that he was just being superstitious, a large blue and gold mallet came flying into the field creating a large crater that erupted into countless gold lir.
…and the single most muscular -to the point of being a parody of steroid abuse - woman he had ever seen in a ballerina's tutu holding a man dressed as a Jiangshi under her arm.
For unknown reasons, a terrified panda-patterned Demi-Dragon known as a Dragpanda was gripping the ballerina with all four of its limbs while shaking like a leaf in a tornado.
Despite effectively locking them in a three-way trap, everyone, Master and tian stared at the oddity of the newcomers.
"Alright dirtbags" the ballerina shouted snapping everyone out of their stupor – including the Dragpanda who quickly sensed what was about to happen and fled for its life-, "We're with Clear Lotus and we're here for your bounty!" she shouted like she was trying to deafen them all.
Clear Lotus was the third-place plan due to having so many Superior Jobs in it. Including the Grand Chief Carpenter, Sky General, and Master Giangshi.
He was also pretty sure that the one yelling was the infamous fourth in the Duel Rankings "Leg Breaker".
Torchlight was certain they'd been in tougher spots before, but he genuinely couldn't remember them right now.
On one side, they had an axe-wielding maniac samurai wannabe, his flunkies, about twenty magic users in suits – one of whom controls undead dragons- and one of the most troublesome duos to fight in Huang He.
Yeah, there wasn't any doubt someone sold them out.
If he survived this, he would like to demonstrate his ultimate skill to them…but first.
"Harley, I need you to not attack unless we are." He whispered to his party member who had drawn a dagger in each hand.
Depending on how they did this, they might be able to get them to fight each other so they could slip away.
He was a production build, he couldn't see the subsonic or possibly sonic speeds of a combat-oriented Superior Job or similar Embryo.
Thankfully, his saving grace came from an unexpected source, "Nice try losers, but you fashion rejects can turn around now, we're taking these two back with us." Said one of the women behind the axe wielder.
"What?" Exclaimed the Ballerina, "I'll have you know me and Heping Lianhua here of the best-looking Masters in Dendro!" she shouted flexing her muscles like some kind of bodybuilder…possibly not fully registering the insult.
"You're dressed as a fashion-confused bodybuilder, and he's dressed as an ancient Inner Mistralian corpse that was literally walked by Taoist priests to a site for burial." The other woman retorted.
"And you're dressed like you have a stick up your-"
"TT" the Jiangshi chided, speaking up for the first time.
Surprisingly the Mirage mafia members were watching the back and forth between the women…or at least he thought they were.
"Sifeng Longxuan" as a small tornado of wind was released from several dozen Fu creating a trench cutting off his escape route and drawing attention back to them.
"Mr. Torchlight" the leader began. He was a man in his thirties and seemed like the no-nonsense type. "You've got something our employer is after." Meaning that Torchlight should know what he was referring to…
…however, he didn't.
"You're gonna have to be a lot more specific," Torchlight shouted back. That wasn't even a stalling tactic either. He literally had billions worth of items and lir in the inventories he had on him. Some of which he got legally whereas most were less so.
Zhang seemed to have Truth Discernment meaning he knew Torchlight wasn't simply stalling.
"Enough already." Said the green-armored man. Torchlight already knew him as Green Knight the second in command of Fateful Autumn and holder of the Superior Job King of Axes. Reveal showed the two behind him were Anastasia the Red Dragon Daoshi and Drizella the Pound Boxer.
"Bout time." Grinned the Reveal-ed THUNDER THIGHS – seriously where do they get these names from?
"Hope you're ready to find out why they call me com-POUND interest?"
"Seriously, that has got to be one of the worst puns I've ever heard."
"There's no way that was the worst. I'd bet good lien that there's someone worse out there."
"I refuse there is someone that depraved and mentally unstable!"
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Meanwhile at the border between the Kingdom of Altar and Legendaria
A beauty with gold-flecked dark hair and a flaming sword fought alongside a woman in a white cloak wrapped in shadows and surrounded by hovering weapons so cursed that even equipping them would almost certainly result in [Instant Death] squaring off against a strange monster that appeared as three disks stacked on top of one another.
"You go high, I'll go lo– achoo!" she sneezed loud enough that even the UBM seemed confused before it hit her in the face with a tidal wave of forest. (2)
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Back at the border
As if acting as some type of signal, all four groups began fighting. One wanted something from him, one wanted to capture them, and another wanted to PK them to collect their bounties.
Mirage's members started bombarding the other two with combat spells. The duo from Clear Lotus seemed to have some type of defensive Embryo or special reward that created a barrier to protect them.
"Treasure Cannon!" TT gleefully shouted as the gold lir at her feet was fired like a literal cannon taking out one of the High Dragons and some of the men riding it.
Some of them managed to land thanks to wind spells while others had the stats to endure the fall. Others weren't so lucky.
Masters could defend themselves when attacked and this definitely counted.
Interestingly, her Embryo didn't seem to work on spells that involved wind or fire, but spells that manipulated earth were.
So that meant it required a physical object.
Good to know.
Zhang seemed to realize this and had his men space out attacking from a distance away he used his dragons and assorted Jiangshi to harry her from above while some of his men let fire on the grunts from the Scorching Fingers, fully utilizing their height advantage.
Maybe I should recruit him. Torchlight thought before dismissing the idea. There was no way a tian would want to work for a clan of Masters.
Especially after a Master did so much damage to his gang.
Just no way.
Harley for her part had already charged at the members of the Clear Lotus while Torchlight decided he needed to get on his horse.
Said horse's disguise dropped as soon as he equipped it.
It looked like a fiery Kirin.
In actuality, it was a Prism Steed known as Ruby Eruption.
Normally he avoided using it. He didn't know why exactly, just something about its name twitched in the back of his mind like he should be annoyed by it.
Regardless, it was the third original Prism Steed designed for offensive combat comparable to a Sky Attribute Superior Job.
Demonstrating this, Ruby Eruption flew into the sky and began raining fire and lightning down on the Scorching Fingers. Reducing their numbers by nearly half.
Normally, he would have attacked the Mirage members as well, but if they didn't seem keen on sending him to Gaol and if he could avoid having to fight another group he would.
Green Knight suddenly threw one of his axes at the scarf-wrapped Master, "Pursue the Blood of your Prey – Bulgu" he shouted activating his ultimate skill as Torchlight's Prism Steed deftly dodged it.
Torchlight's AGI wasn't even fast enough to track the subsonic speed of the axe.
Thankfully, his Prism Steed's was as it flew fast enough to completely dodge the attack.
If it wasn't for the special reward scarf, Torchlight wouldn't even be able to withstand the pressure of his own mount's speed for long.
But with this much he could endure.
However, the axe that was thrown, turned in midair back towards Torchlight, forcing him to dodge.
Meanwhile, BOTH of the girls behind him started firing fire magic Fu talismans.
Ruby Eruption had them beat in individual firepower, but between there being two of them and the now TWO flying axes that kept pursuing them it was having a hard time charging attacks and keeping the spells from being broken.
As if on cue, a charging Crimson Sphere was shattered by one of the axes that kept trying to strike Torchlight.
If he had to guess, Green Knight's ultimate skill was something like tracking and homing. Then the first time they had met, his injuring of Torchlight was to track him in the event he got away.
Feeling a little annoyed that he fell for something like that he tossed two inventories from high in the air causing them to break on impact around the trio releasing a thick smokescreen.
It was one of his special inventories; it contained a whole host of poisons, light metal shavings, and bacteria that gave disease-based debuffs.
Harlequin wasn't the only one who used debuffs after all.
Torchlight then took a magic gun from one of his many inventories.
While typical guns used bullets and therefore could only do fixed damage, magic guns shot blasts of magic with speed and power proportional to the MP provided.
Given that MP and DEX were the only things his Superior Job specialized in it was a weapon of choice for him.
The first shot hit Green Knight square in the kabuto, but it didn't seem to break.
He tried taking out the big man a second time with nearly double the MP.
However, Green Knight's axes kept intercepting his shots.
Okay, so not only do they have an auto-attack function, but they can be manually controlled to fly through the air to attack and defend.
Just perfect.
Switching targets to at least some of the enemies, BOTH girls were able to move at subsonic speeds, evading his attacks.
This wasn't normal.
How was a physical close quarter's job able to cast magic like a high-rank Mage job and how in the world of Remnant was a Daoshi – a caster- able to move like a physical fighter high-rank job?
This was officially very weird.
Had they equipped high-end items to boost their stats or that let them cast magic?
Was it an Embryo skill, if so which one had the Embryo in question?
And why hadn't any of his debuffs taken effect?
He dodged another flying axe. They seemed to circle him like sharks.
When he looked to see if the Mirage members were going to help he saw them fighting THUNDER THIGHS – by the brother gods he hated saying that name- with those who got too close being splattered into golden lir and those that were farther away having to dodge blasts of her Treasure Cannon.
The entire area they were fighting in was now more lir than land and she seemed both stronger and faster.
As if to demonstrate this, she toss her hammer THROUGH a lightning attack of one of Zhang's dragons with enough force to cause said Jiangshi's head to burst into a fountain of coins upon impact.
…only for it to materialize in her hand again.
If he had to guess, her Embryo converted whatever it hit into lir and then enhanced her stats based on the amount of lir she possessed or something along those lines.
As if he didn't already guess, she had a Superior Job Revelry Princess.
Mirage tried to attack her with spells, but her Embryo had her moving faster than he – or they -could see.
…and apparently, that included being fast enough to dodge lightning.
…because why not?
Checking on his ward, he saw Harley trying to stab the Jiangshi.
Normally, undead were immune to things like poison, but between her Superior Job, The Fang, and her Embryo Arete, she could apply [Poison] to just about anything…anything except spatial dividing Embryos.
What were the odds?
Not only did his Embryo seem to grant him a nearly impenetrable shield it also apparently had some type of movement-like skill and offensive skill as well. He kept disappearing and reappearing at will before causing the land around them to get sliced way too smoothly to be anything other than a spatial severing attack.
Thankfully Harley's build was AGI-focused and she was able to keep ahead of him.
However, the guy – he was pretty sure it was a guy, a pretty boy, but still a guy…maybe – only needed one solid hit to take her out.
He needed to get out of the gridlock he was in and get Harley out of there.
His ultimate skill was almost ready, he just needed to get Harley and he could activate it.
As if things couldn't have gotten any weirder a life-sized stuffed whale was flying right at them….
….what?
He looked and from Caldina's direction, probably the same way the Mirage members had come, a stuffed animal the same size and shape as a blue whale was flying right at them…with a crew of giant stuffed animals…dressed as pirates?
…
…
…
…
…yeah, fuck this, I'm out. He thought as he commanded Ruby Eruption to fly towards Harley, abandoning the Scorching Fingers while blasting the area around Harley to keep the Jiangshi locked down.
"We've got to go." He said as she jumped onto the Prism Steed.
The others stopped fighting as they noticed the oncoming…weirdness.
Cannons sprouted from the whale as it began raining artillery on EVERYONE!
Torchlight and Harlequin included.
"That damn Schnee wannabe is trying to get rid of us!" He shouted a Ruby Eruption deftly dodged another volley.
The Mirage members seemed to get the worst of it while one of the two girls with Green Knight was taken out.
TT was having a field day smashing everything that came her way into lir – he would have honestly killed for an Embryo like that one – while Heping was blocking with his Embryo.
The 'cannon balls' turned out to be stuffed animals that unfolded themselves and removed their stitching to reveal…assorted torture implements. Beyond the spinning scythes and jagged rusty drill bits were infinite darkness accentuating the soulless blue orbs within acting like eyes for the horrid creatures.
Yeah, maybe people calling Alf 'Nightmare Fuel' wasn't just hype.
Seeing the situation, he had an idea and whispered into Harley's ear. She let out a playful and mischievous grin.
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Revelry Princes, THUNDER THIGHS
Nora was having the time of her life.
She and her best whom she had been together with since they were kids…well not together together, but still.
She was getting to fight mafia members, criminal masters, and even giant living stuffed animals!
BEST!
GAME!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
And even though her adopted dad was in Dryfe, the rest of her adopted family made it so much fun.
They had shown her such love and taken her in.
As a stuffed penguin the size of a man was fired out of a cannon, smashed an undead dragon in the head, and then ripped its seems open to reveal buzzsaws she grinned in excitement.
She swung her Embryo, Uchide no Kozuchi causing the creature's head to shatter into a small mountain of lir.
Part of her smirked thinking her Embryo was the result of her first day with the Ren family and how she had furiously said she would pay them back…even though she was broke… jobless…and a little girl.
Smirking, she honestly cherished that memory as they not only told her that they wouldn't charge her a thing, but also that she was free to stay as long as she liked.
They were such good people.
Suddenly the little girl dressed as a clown jumped down from the flying horsie and started sprinting towards her.
"Bring it, I'm the queen of the castle!" she grinned savagely.
The fact her adopted father built it for her had absolutely nothing to do with it.
She charged forward.
Since jobs needed some form of synergy, such as Rider and Knight both having skills related to riding animals, she was forced to take mostly non-combat related jobs such as Playboy. Her Embryo, however, compensated for the low stat growth outside of MP.
By pouring MP into her Uchide no Kozuchi. She could increase ALL of her stats by 1 for every 100,000 lir she had.
Including HP, SP, and MP.
And given that her Embryo made lir with each hit, she was rolling in dough.
In theory, she could use her Embryo's ultimate skill infinitely.
The problem was that her Embryo had two major drawbacks. The first was that she needed to be continually doing damage to something.
Usually, she overcame this problem by hitting the ground or surrounding area.
Even tossing her Embryo into clouds counted.
However, she was advised not to do that again after an incident where she accidentally acted as a lightning rod…while standing on top of the original clan house…which was made of flammable wood.
If she was ever restrained for one minute, her skill would deactivate and then she would have to wait a whole day to use her skill again.
The second was that she needed to remain within range of her hammer at all times.
The Treasures Beast reward wrapped around her wrist fixed this problem.
With 3,347,810,000 lir on her, her stats all got a massive 33,478 stat point boost.
Not enough to compete with those monsters in the arena or the Kill Rankings, but nothing to sneeze at.
However, something wasn't right. Despite clearly seeing her coming, the clown didn't move. She just pointed a dagger at her.
Did she think she was just going to run into it?
[Poison]
[Paralysis]
[Weakness]
[Lethargy]
She started to stumble as she fell to the ground, having trouble even standing.
How had she given her so many debuffs without even touching her?
Didn't The Fang Superior Job require touching someone to apply a debuff?
[Fatal Damage]
[Resurrection Period Expired]
[Death Penalty: 24 Hour Login Ban]
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King of Inventories, Torchlight
He looked down from on high as TT burst into motes of light after getting one nasty cocktail of debuffs.
Piercing Actualization, Arete, a Type: Rule Embryo that made any debuff or buff have a higher chance of being applied. Even things that are normally resistant like undead with [Poison] or a fire dragon and [Burn].
Her ultimate skill, Full Actualization Upon the World - Arete, allowed her to apply a debuff to things that are next to impossible to apply a debuff to.
In this case, the air itself.
Thankfully Harley's suit is equipped to sense the direction of the wind.
Great for Harley, but not so much for the Scorching Fingers, down went the second girl and hopefully whatever weirdness they were trying to pull.
With his biggest threat gone…"▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ ▉▉▉ ▉▉▉ ▉▉▉▉▉ ▉▉▉▉▉▉ - ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉!"
"Damned if that thing doesn't take forever to charge." He said he flew down to pick up his ward.
There was no sign of danger…or anyone other than the two.
Save for the damage to the land, the remains of the three destroyed High Dragon Jiangshi, dead tians, and the piles of lir scattered everywhere.
"Well, we're already behind schedule." He said to Harley, "Wanna collect all the lir and find out if Caldina has any good ice cream places?"
At that, Harley smiled and clapped her hands.
They collected all they could, even the High Dragon remains- they still might be able to get something for them.
All that was left at the site was an inventory no bigger than a person's thumb.
…with a timer attached to it.
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?
Great Soul Daoshi,Zhang Zan Qi
Ever since Masters began appearing he had seen more and more of them develop honestly maddening abilities through their Embryos.
He and what few men he had left were in some kind of labyrinth.
The walls were seemingly unbreakable and so narrow that two people could barely stand shoulder to shoulder.
It was too small for his High Dragon Jiangshis, which were not cramped beyond moving into one of the passageways.
As if that wasn't bad enough, they weren't alone.
He wasn't sure what exactly was in here with them, but it wasn't just the Masters they had been fighting and he didn't like it.
They must have been in there for hours before they heard something other than their footsteps.
It was the man with the axes, he heard him scream before the distinct sound of ripping flesh echoed throughout the maze followed by an inhuman roar.
This was supposed to be an easy job; get the documents Torchlight had that Mirage could use to access to blackmail members of the royal family.
One of the higher-ups in Mirage had received a tip from a trusted source and thus he and his men had been dispatched.
He looked at the six remaining of his twenty best men he brought with him.
They were tired and injured.
Bolin had lost an arm to that gorilla in a tutu with the hammer and Zunya was limping from where one of those stuffed abominations Alf was famous for producing.
Was this all a trap? Infighting? Both?
His questions were never answered as the walls around him vanished.
He and his men blinked.
They were back in the field.
Had the Embryo had some kind of time-release function?
Seeing his target was gone, he sighed derisively. He would need to report this failure, but at least he was alive to try again.
Or so he thought, the timer at his feet beeped loudly, before the inventory inside of it, released several tons of lit explosives from its time-space storage.
Before he could curse, the Great Soul Daoshi Zhang Zan Qi and his men died.
(1) Not all of my cutaways have something wrong with it or the person is unhappy about their situation.
(2) I did say "not all".
Torchlight = Roman Torchwick.
Harlequin = Neopolitan.
Bananarama = Sun Wukong. As if you even had to guess who this was.
Green Knight = Bertilak Celadon.
Anastasia & Drizella = Cinder's stepsisters. I thought it would be funny that Cinder's tormentors as a child were now unknowingly working for her. As for their names, I used the names for the storybook Cinderella due to neither sister – or their mother – actually being named in Cinder's flashback. So it seemed appropriate.
THUNDER THIGHS = Nora Valkyrie. As if you have to ask where this name came from. I took inspiration for Nora's Embryo from how we saw her when she and Ren first met, being too poor to get even a toy, and her…love(?) of hammers. In this AU Grimm are only a myth, so Nora was adopted by Ren's family.
Heping Lianhua = Lie Ren. The username means "Peace Lotus". I gave Ren a defensive Embryo because throughout RWBY he's shown to want to protect things; that village team JNPR was originally going to go to in Season 2 for their assignment, his friends, family, etc. That's who he is. So, I gave him one of the strongest shields in ID. Wait until you see his ultimate skill.
Alf = Whitely Schnee.
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