Bloody, bloody b-
Zhen Liu was still few meters away from all of the action, having just instructed the Razor Maiden proto-kaijin with the simple words of "sick em", but he did managed to get there in time to see that the Razor Maiden had almost pierced through the kidnapper's head but missed, only leaving a small gash on their cheek.
He was about to intervene, but then began to hear words in his head again.
[Cu-...S-ice...ki-...]
'Eh? What the fuck?'
[Cut..Sl-c-...-ll!]
[Nepherage, Frosttusk, that one of you?]
[No milord.]
[No...pe...]
[C-cut!]
SWISH!
"Gah!"
The Razor Maiden had managed to swipe a nasty claw across the kidnapper's stomach, not enough to cut through as planned, but enough to leave a nasty scratch.
The kidnapper found it growing harder and harder to find an opening to counter...however....
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'Bah! No good! I can't counterattack like this! Forgive my b€|•ved master. I will have to press upon your kindness and use the emergency escape,' Farisia cursed as she carefully planned her next few steps back.
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As the Razor Maiden kept up the momentum of her assault,swinging knife claw and blade leg at the kidnapper, Zhen Liu began to feel that his connection to the protokaijin was growing stronger by the second and that the feedback was becoming more and more detailed. When he decided to take a peek into the state of the Razor Maiden itself, he noticed that the once formless blob connection was slowly forming into the familiar form of a formula, while the rainbow mote seemed to grow bigger and starting to favor certain colors, an aggressive shade of orange mixed with blood red. Granted, he didn't understand what any of this fucking meant.
Zhen Liu's inner guide interjected.
'Huh. Good to know.'
'Too much collateral to summon the o-wait, what do you mean by that? I thought I was only allowed one right now?'
'They don-GAH! What the hell?!'
"RAH! BAD!"
But before Zhen Liu could make use of this knowledge, a surge of anger suddenly smacked his inner senses like a dodgeball to the face. He could understand why though, as he had witnessed the kidnapper just constantly dodge all of the Razor Maiden's attacks until suddenly disappearing in a flash of smoke and purple light.
He wasn't sure why or how, but the kidnapper had suddenly and abruptly disappeared into thin air, with the box of his captured friend or lover in tow.
Out of desperate curiosity, Zhen Liu made his way over to the Razor Maiden's side, hoping to gleam some sort of clue as to where the kidnapper disappeared to.
"What the fuck?"
He didn't like what he saw.
"This looks familiar..."
Etched onto the floor was a strange, smoking aether array that gave Zhen Liu a massive case of deja Vu, but he was sure he had never seen this design before. He did however recognize a few of the runes used on the edges of the array.
"Wait a minute...this is a teleportation array! Damnit!"
It took Zhen Liu a few minutes of staring, but it eventually clicked in his head that he was staring at a Smoke Beacon Teleportation Array
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The Smoke Beacon Teleportation Array was a 1st grade aether array that made use of smoke and Aeroqi aether to move people and objects in short distances in an equally short amount of time.
However, the array only worked when it and sibling arrays are made at the exact time, and the person using it needed to know the specific runes assigned to each array.
That combined with the unusually high cost of having to use the ashes of a 2nd grade Aeroqi aether beast, made it so that array was mostly used by clandestine organizations and/or private familial groups, more so than the general populace.
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"So after kidnapping my friend and lover, dragging my ass throughout the city and now after having over several gold coins worth of stuff thrown at me, the cause of all of this shit just disappears in a literal puff of smoke, that I can't follow?! Bullshit!," Zhen Liu cursed aloud as he kicked over a chair. Nobody was in the area, and he honestly felt like screaming. "Where in the hell did that asshole go?!"
However, while Zhen Liu was becoming increasingly frustrated at the situation and trying to come up with a decent plan, the Razor Maiden had suddenly stopped raging and began to make a sniffing motion. Actually, they were sniffing the air for real.
"Maybe I can use the-"
[Blo-d. Scen-]
"Huh?"
The Razor Maiden had dropped to the ground at this point and began to act a bit like a dog, sniffing and scratching at the ground. A comparison taken quite literally, as a piece of bloodied cloth was carefully lifted off the ground between two razor sharp claws.
"Wait, is that what I think it is?"
"Blood. Scent. Track," the Razor Maiden said as it towards a direction with it's free hand while holding the bloody cloth to it's face with the other.
"Yes!"
The piece of bloodied cloth in the Razor Maiden's claws was the same piece of cloth that came from the kidnapper's outfit. Beyond Zhen Liu's understanding, the Razor Maiden somehow had the ability to track down the kidnapper via scent like some kind of demonic blood hound. An ability that didn't make much sense. Luckily, he had a brain ghost.
'Hey can all protokaijin do this blood tracking?'
'So...abused this ability while I know it's still active?'
"Alright then, Razor Maiden, lead the way!"
"Track. Hunt. Kill!"
With the order given, the Razor Maiden dashed off into the direction that the piece of bloody cloth originated from. Zhen Liu had to put in a bit more effort in order to keep up.
'I sincerely hope the others are having an easier time.'
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"Oh that's just cheat!"
"ROOARRR!"