After hours of partying and feasting with the people of Soot Snail, Jinju Ren and the other members of Zhen Liu’s travelling group had, more or less, passed the fuck out.

Princess Jinju Ren of the Pearl Scale Empire had the blood of a dragon flowing through her; as such, things like hangovers and bloated bellies were nothing more than mere inconveniences that could be resolved by taking a short nap.

"Wait a minute... I know that sound..."

Looking towards the direction of the sound, Jinju Ren could make out the telltale signs of aether arts being thrown at each other...and could sense the distinctive auras of the kaijin in the throes of battle.

On the one hand, Jinju Ren was annoyed that Zhen Liu and his kaijin had gone off to fight a battle without her and the others.

It’s often said that there are things that you can only tell family, things you can only tell friends, and things you had to take to the grave. That same saying also applied to the art of combat.

"There’s a very high possibility that the way he fights around us is the same as when he fights by himself...but it’s either I spy on him or go back to sleep," Jinju Ren told herself as she got up from her napping spot and prepared to sneak towards the battlefield. "Besides, someone needs to be there to bail him out if shit goes sideways..."

"I wonder if I actually will see an unknown side to him..."

"Wait, I’m confused," Janice said aloud as she watched the screen depicting Zhen Liu’s unexpected splash attack. "How did he make electrified snow?"

"Really? That’s what you’re focusing on?" Lyona asked. "Not the fact that the kaijin are apparently much more vicious in battle than when we first saw them?"

While Zhen Liu and his kaijin were battling Bishop Olmen and his Penance Burners, Logos and Pathos had decided to turn the moment into a study session for Jasper and Janice. However, during the lesson, they were soon joined by Lyona and Taurna who were curious as to what these two young children were learning about.

As such, they ended up joining the lesson by their own volition.

=Well my dear students, it’s because our Lord is making use scientific knowledge combined with his own cultivation.=

To better explain himself, Logos produced a display that showed one of those textbook graphics about how ions worked whole in water...or in this case, how this shit worked in snow and how it got mixed up with [Chaos].

"Oh..."

"GAAAAAAHHHHHH!!"

Such an attack should’ve been blocked by his [Regalia], however, that didn’t happen because this technically wasn’t an attack.

"Haha, suck on that!" Zhen Liu shouted with glee at the electrocuted Olmen. "If you were a chicken, you’d be dead by now!"

[What?] Hurricroak asked in a confused voice.

[That...wait, doesn’t your family do that when they need to process certain aether beasts for slaughter?] Nepherage asked.

[Heads up, Olmen is pissed,] Frosttusk warned.

...

"Youuuu...bastard!" Olmen said through jittering teeth. "I’ll rip your heart out!"

Once he was mostly recovered, Olmen went on the attack again.

[Burn everything, Sacred Sun Executioner!]

In a couple of moments, Zhen Liu was going to be bifurcated and the remaining halves were going to be cooked up by the ambient heat.

’Okay, guys, we just need to—’

’Wait what?’

Zhen Liu, and everyone else watching this moment, assumed that the fire poker was about to destroy itself for no good reason. But that didn’t happen.

No, not destroyed.

Needless to say, Zhen Liu was confused as fuck at this development.

Before Zhen Liu could finish asking his question, the aforementioned fire poker suddenly flew back towards him. The sudden movement caused him to instinctively try to grab the fire poker with his bare hand.

And he wasn’t the only one to realize its truth worth either.

From the other side of the battlefield, Bishop Olmen had a look of utter bewilderment as he stared at the fire poker in Zhen Liu’s hands. Then again, any devout member of his which would look at that specific fire poker with the same bewilderment and greed.

"Uh..."

Instead, he decided that the best course of action was to make the already angry holy man even more fuck shit-mad.

"Well, I was going to tell you to go fuck yourself; that’s how I managed to find this fire poker, but instead I’m going to say...fuck you, you don’t get to know!" Zhen Liu answered in a sing-song voice that clearly got on Olmen’s nerves.

"I see that you are not just a blasphemer but a terrible defiler of her holy name as well," Bishop Olmen hissed. "In that case, it is only right that I fully summon all of her wrath and turn you into kindling!"