Chapter 1681: Victorious threats.
With the battle now over in a rather unusually gentle manner, Zhen Liu and his allies now needed to handle the after-battle bullshit. Namely doing clean up, reward distribution, and for the first time in a long time: casualties checks.
Well, just one unclear casualty.
At this moment in time Zhen Liu and Serena were looking over the copper-plated body of a large knight-like figure with an emerald in his chest. The aforementioned precious stone looked a touch...burnt.
"Is...is he—"
"Short answer: no. Long answer...this is new to me, so I don’t know what’s wrong with him but I do know that he’s not dead at least. If he was, he would’ve broken down into a million little particles of light."
"O-oh."
Serena’s attack against Infernola had, more or less, completely eradicated the [Flame of Ambition] from the entirety of Copper’s body.
However, this purge didn’t come without a heavy cost.
As a protokaijin, Copper was a bit more flexible when it came to abuses to his development and growth, ergo, he could more or less withstand an intrusive presence inside himself...in theory.
On the positive side, Zhen Liu’s tangential connection with the protokaijin confirmed that the fellow was still alive but barely. He was just in the kaijin equivalent of a coma.
"Logos, Pathos. Can you two come down here and see what’s wrong with him?"
<=Of course.=>
Like the questionably spiritual beings that they were, Logos and Pathos appeared directly above Zhen Liu and Serena before floating down and examining the unconscious kaijin.
The two curators of the library decided to take on the visage of nurses this time around, which was either horribly appropriate or inappropriate depending on one’s personal feelings.
That stated, Serena couldn’t help but be a little shocked at the sight.
"Wait, weren’t you two like...elemental spirits the last time I saw you?"
Pathos said to Logos, ignoring the Hearth Tender.
"The what?"
=Don’t worry about it, Miss Serena,= Logos answered. =Worry more about the fact that you’re going to have to deal with the potential political fallout about two prominent leaders of your faith proving to be traitorous fuckwits.=
"Are they always this infuriating?" Serena asked Zhen Liu.
"Only to people they find entertaining and/or like."
"That’s...comforting."
After ribbing at Serena, Logos and Pathos floated over to Copper and began to analyze the comatose protokaijin in detail. Once they had finished their preliminary scans, they surrounded Copper in a bubble of [Chaos].
Serena didn’t know what she was seeing exactly, but she could sense that it had some kind of healing/soothing effect on Copper.
"Out of curiosity, has this ever happened before?" Zhen Liu asked the curators. "A zako or protokaijin getting hijacked by bodiless beings and then ending up in a coma."
Pathos answered.
=They usually end with both the possessor and the possessed getting destroyed. It’s a tragedy, sure, but...zakos are barely sentient and protokaijin are like...unfinished clay sculptures. Tragic that it broke, but not impossible to fix.=
"Huh..."
Zhen Liu had never heard the curators sound so emotionally distant about their fellow beings made of [Chaos] before. Then again, he had only ever really employed the kaijin in pitch battle, and always made sure to keep the protokaijin near the former when shit got dicey.
If Zhen Liu had to guess, they developed this detachment because of various zakos and protokaijin dying under the command of previous Kaijin Lords...or that was just how they were.
Either way, now that Copper’s situation was more or less handled, Zhen Liu and Serena now had more pressing matters.
"So...going to be honest, I forgot whether or not I told you I tend to have a ’no-kill’ rule in regards to my enemies," Zhen Liu informed Serena.
"That...explains why you seemed hesitant on killing Hulna and Feroxxa," Serena nodded in understanding. "But I’m fairly certain that Infernola killed them when he absorbed their power, so—"
"Funny thing about that," Zhen Liu interjected. "They’re not actually dead yet."
"Say what?" Serena asked with disbelief plain on her face. "You’re kidding."
"No," Zhen Liu shook his head. "And now you get to see another aspect of the library: the prison."
"You have a prison? Why do you have a prison?"
"Don’t worry about it," Zhen Liu dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Just figure out what judgement you want to render upon Hulna and Feroxxa when we get there. Meanwhile, I have a mask to put on a performance to do."
...Now to deal with the enemies...
"Are we sure about not wanting to kill them?" Olstenna asked. "It wouldn’t take that much effort on your part. Hell, I could do it for you too. Just one good blast of aether treasure flames and BAM! No more problems."
"I already have one blood feud with a nobleman turned cultist, I really don’t need an entire Empire coming down on my head," Lythero refuted before a thought occurred him.
"Wait, is your royal family the type to actually stick together through thick and thin, or are you guys the type to throw each other to the wolves if it meant getting ahead of one another?"
"Your mother is a cheap whore!"
"She was, but fuck you."
After defeating the combined forces of the Erupting Dawn Empire and the traitors from the Sacred Flame Theocracy, Zhen Xing and the others had dragged the sorry lot down into the prisons of the [Library of Nowhere].
The prison was mostly empty, except for the rabid mantid humanoids that Zhen Liu had yet to deal with in any meaningful way, and the now lone Raidman.
There was a False Temple Guard in the cells, but that guy had turned into ashes when the [Flame of Ambition] was extinguished.
Regardless of existing occupants, though, there was enough room for the defeated princes, their soldiers, and the lethargic forms of Abbott Hulna and Abbott Feroxxa.
Watching over this gaggle of losers were Olstenna, Lythero, Jinju Ren and Rianna.
Zhen Xing, Zhen Tai and Antonio had dismissed themselves to the rest areas of the library after the battle, due to their recent breakthroughs exhausting their stamina and aether.
"Do you think these two are dead or comatose?" Rianna asked as she stared through the bars at the barely cognizant holy men. "I mean, I think they’re breathing..."
"I don’t know, and...actually, I kind of care, because if they’re dead then that means more political bullshit," Jinju Ren answered her compatriot. "And I’m not a big fan of politics."
"Same here."
"Darling!"
The moment Zhen Liu and Serena arrived to the library’s prison, the former was immediately glomped by Jinju Ren.
She had no reason to do so, she just did it because she wanted to. Well, partially because she wanted to.
The other part of her just wanted to get under the skin of the prisoners.
It should be noted that Zhen Liu has reactivated his [Stigma] so he looked like an armored demon lord at this time and not a noticeably younger fellow in the eyes of these Imperial royals and their entourage.
As for the holy men, they still looked rather soul drained. They didn’t even react to Serena’s presence in the slightest.
"Oh spare me the public displays of affection, Kaijin Lord," Prince Lofarro spat with venom in his voice at the sight of Jinju Ren embracing the armored monster of a warrior. "Why haven’t you killed us yet?"
After releasing Jinju Ren from his embrace, Zhen Liu stepped forward and used a touch of [Chaos] to recreate the voice that he used to greet these douchebags a scant few hours ago.
[Well...I could say something along the lines that you lot weren’t worth the effort it would take to kill you, or that I would prefer to have you all live in perpetual shame after I plan to castrate you all with a rusty fork...but in all honesty, my darling fiancee said it best. I don’t like dealing with politics. And killing you three will probably lead to your daddy trying to gun for my head and me burning down your entire Empire as retaliation. So with that in mind, I do actually plan on letting you go...after ransoming you back and taking whatever valuables you have on your persons.]
"That...what the fuck??"
The princes weren’t expecting the unfathomably powerful Kaijin Lord to do something as mundane as ransoming back to their home empire, and were understandably flabbergasted.
That flabbergastedness went away though the moment Zhen Liu explained why he was merely ransoming.
[Forcing you three to try and make back whatever money or treasure was spent on freeing you and your cohorts will be a thousand times more shameful than me killing you. Hell, maybe your father will cut his losses and sell you lot into slavery. Ha!]
The moment they heard those words, their blood began to run cold like ice.