<And that right there is the biggest drawback to dragon force: they enforce the rules of nature on everything, including themselves. >

'Holy crap....'

Despite understanding that dragon force was essential Pokémon elemental logic taken to its most extreme, Zhen Liu was still afraid of the Violence Dragon Prawn pulling off some sneaky shit and injuring his fiancee and his kaijin.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

Instead, he was treated to a front-row view of Hurricroak and Jinju Ren using the power of lighting to turn this dangerous dragon-like shrimp into delicious barbecued shrimp.

Shrimp soup?

Either way, there were now several tons of dead dragon shrimp in the water, and Zhen Liu was honestly quite curious about the taste.

'I bet the seawater has helped to season this shrimp just right, and all of the lives it had taken have probably infused themselves well into the meat,' Zhen Liu thought to himself before realizing that was a weird thing to think about at this moment.

'Wait, why am I thinking like'—CLACK—' Oh.'

As he was waving the thought out of his head, he noticed that his teeth had momentarily clacked against one another, like during the time he first practiced with [Cipactli's Feast].

'I guess for this next meal, I should try using it on the Violence Dragon Prawn's corpse...'

Regardless of his thought, though, none of this mattered currently as the people of Soot Snail Town were still floating on a flotilla across the water.

'I should probably check in on how Hurricroak and Jinju Ren plan to approach this...'

...POV change time...

"Huh...that was fast."

Hurricroak and Jinju Ren continued to float high above the dead Violence Dragon Prawn, expressions of surprise plain on their faces.

Why?

Neither of them expected the sixth-tiered aether beast to collapse so quickly after being blasted with their combined lighting attack.

[I just realized it's going to be a pain in the ass getting that cooked shrimp out of the water and on to the shore,] Hurricroak commented as she continued to stare down at the giant shrimp beast. [Maybe we can use the zako or have Frosttusk pull it out with his powers...]

"Or we could just have the very grateful people on the floating makeshift island drag it to shore for us," Jinju Ren suggested as she gestured for Hurricroak to change the direction of her gaze.

The sentries that were witness to the whole one-sided beating had retreated to the inner portions of the flotilla in order to inform the leaders about the death of their greatest problem. Needless to say, this led to a cascading effect where the rest of the flotilla started to gather at the edge to see the floating Violence Dragon Prawn corpse itself and the women responsible for saving their lives.

From their spots in the air, Jinju Ren and Hurricroak could feel the looks of admiration and gratitude being directed towards them...alongside the occasional leer of desire that seemed oddly directed more at Hurricroak than Jinju Ren.

^Huh...I guess that would probably be the smartest move,^ Hurricroak agreed as she switched from [Chaos] speak to Scorch Talk. ^I should probably get down there while looking more human than my usual froggy self, right?^

^I think you're fine,^ Jinju Ren answered, also switching to Scorch Talk. ^Out of all the kaijin, you do look the most like a Bloodliner.^

^Right...^

As the two warrior women floated down to meet with the people of the flotilla, they noticed that the latter began to get down on their knees and bow before them.

Such behavior was the norm among mortals who had low cultivation capabilities, especially when the people before them were clearly at the Aether Lord or King level at least.

Nothing else could explain how they managed to take down a sixth-tiered aether in a single strike.

^Thank you, venerable ones! Thank you! ^ an old man at the front of the crowd cried out. ^If you didn't slay that beast, then we would have no choice but to linger here and starve to death or worse. You have our eternal gratitude.^ 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

^Ah, I do love a delightful bit of hero worship,^ Hurricroak commented before addressing the crowd. ^You guys are very much welcome about that, and you do not have to worry about the whole eternal gratitude thing; however, we do have a favor to ask you.^

^If it is within our power, we will be more than happy to help,^ the old man spoke for the group.

^Mind helping us take that carcass back to shore so that we can eat it?^

^Of course! We just need to dislodge ourselves from the reef and we can get to work.^

^Excellent.^

…

[Hurricroak we can feel the elation from all the way over here,] Nepherage noted with a smile in her voice. [You good?]

[I can now completely understand how "Heroism" could be condensed into a desire core. This shit feels…immaculate,] Nepherage said. [Wait…why didn't you go and act all hero mode? Isn't this your thing?]

[True heroism is understanding that, for the greater good, you need to send the right person for the right task,] Nepherage answered in a high-minded manner. [If I had gone, there would've been a very good chance that I would meet my end due to my attributes being at a disadvantage against that big ass shrimp.]

[Fair enough.]

[Speaking of giant shrimp,] Razorstella interjected. [Do you guys think that the mat of this thing is going to be like that of a giant shrimp or a giant eel?]

[That…is a fairly good question,] Springerdermain agreed. [I'm going with the former.]

[Latter,] Screamira said.

…

"Huh… I honestly thought you guys straight up scorched it with that lightning blast," Zhen Xing commented as he looked over the piece of Violence Dragon Prawn meat in his hand. "How the fuck is it still raw?"

"It's not exactly raw," Zhen Liu corrected. "It's technically sous vide."

"Sous what?"

"I'll explain it another time. Now help me find more logs for this fire."

The process of unmooring the flotilla of Soot Snail citizens from the reef and the dragging of the Violence Dragon Prawn carcass to shore took about three hours in total.

Not because any complications had arisen during the process; it was just that dragging the corpse of the Violence Dragon Prawn turned out to be incredibly cumbersome. Not only that, but fucking Breeze Seagulls kept trying to swoop down and scavenge the corpse.

Zhen Liu and his allies had to regularly throw balls of aether at the foul seabirds to keep their catch safe.

Afterwards, though, the partying began.

The people of Soot Snail knew that there was going to be a long road ahead of them in regards to repairing the town and getting their businesses back to normal, but for now, they were alive, and that was enough.

Besides, thanks to the death of the Violence Dragon Prawn, the people of Soot Snail were able to start on pretty good footing.

"Are you sure you don't want to at least claim the core for yourself? Sixth-tiered aether beast cores, especially from ones with dragon blood, are worth quite a fortune."

"And that is precisely why you guys would have better use for it," Hurricroak stated as she pushed the offered gem back into the hands of the town's elders. "Besides, we're more excited about the food!"

"As you should! Our cooks are the best in the coastline! But that said...at least take this with you. This stone has been..."

Processing the Violence Dragon Prawn resulted in several tons of meat, a ton of shells that could be processed into armor or medicinal ingredients, and that aforementioned aether beast core.

The amount alone was enough to feed this town for at least a week, while everything else could be either traded away or used to directly fix the town.

Zhen Liu had thought to release the zakos into the town once everyone was asleep to fix everything, but he decided against it once he realized that rebuilding the town was probably going to be an important bonding event for the people.

Well, that and the feast of Violence Dragon Prawn meat that had been turned into various shrimp-based dishes.

Besides, there was a more...subtle way for Zhen Liu and his allies to assist the people of Soot Snail.

Namely, deal with the lurking bastards that were keeping an eye on the town.

"..."

"Xiao Liu are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine..."

Whole everyone was still caught up in the partying atmosphere, Zhen Liu's ability to detect desires had picked up several signals pertaining to greed and violence.

He knew it wasn't from the townsfolk, so he could only assume that they were would-be bandits or worst.

'These folks had already gone through a war and an angry dragon shrimp fucking with their lives...let's try and prevent anymore tragedies from playing out.'

Besides, Hurricroak was just gifted a weird black stone that caused the fire poker in his hand to twitch.

That couldn't have been a coincidence...right?