Stalking one, breaking the other

'Seriously? I can't tell if this (presumed) burglar is or was sloppy...,' Zhen Liu thought to himself as he arrived to an open side entrance of the mansion. While he did appreciate that his way into the mansion was rather unimpeded, he couldn't but feel that some of the drama or challenge of breaking into an estate was lost in this way...then again, maybe he could rescue Jin Fang or Alicia before ever having to face the Marquis in battle.

'Granted that's under the massive assumption that the Smoke Beacon Teleportation Array wasn't connected to... presumably a secret workshop of horrors...,' Zhen Liu mused as he entered the side door. As he made his way through what appeared to be a servant's entrance and into what appeared to the manor's kitchen, judging by all the pots, pans and food laying about, his kaijin retinue decided to pitch their own ideas of what the Marquis had hidden way.

[I'm betting a torture room,] Nepherage pitched.

[Chop...shop...,] Frosttusk followed up.

<Cannibal kitchen,> Zhen Liu's brain voice added on.

'All fair possibilities to be honest...'

Surprisingly, the Razor Maiden didn't have anything to add, but it did just "come to life' very recently. Well...wasn't made ready to go like the other two.

However, just as he was about to exit the kitchen and go through the door that presumably serves as the entrance to the mansion proper, a wave of caution soon washed over him as the Razor Maiden spoke up.

"Blood. Beyond. Door."

'Uh oh.'

Heeding the warning, Zhen Liu decided not to open the door and exit willy-nilly, instead, he leaned his body against the wall adjacent to the door's opening and opened it just a crack, just enough for him to look through it.

'Well it's not as bad as I thought that warning implied, but it's still pretty bad...'

Zhen Liu had initially thought there was going to be a bloodbath or a mountain of freshly bled corpses on the other side of the door, instead, he saw the familiar face of the deadpan maid, standing as still as a statue in front of a weird oversized portrait. Right behind her was the box containing his friend and/or lover.

'There's the box and judging by the cut on her face, she was definitely the one the Razor Maiden was fighting. Now is she just-wait a minute... where's the other one?'

Zhen Liu and his friend had chased down not one, but two cantankerous kidnappers who kidnapped their friends. If one of the kidnappers was this weird, apparently psychic, deadpan maid, it would stand to reason that the other kidnapper was that gaunt looking butler.

'Maybe...Zhen Hai and Matilda already stopped him and are now waiting on me?'

Zhen Liu was half right at this assumption.

_________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in another part of the city...

[Narwhal Knuckle!]

[Piercing Bolt!]

BOOM!

A shockwave of aether exploded as Zhen Hai and Matilda coordinated their moves and slammed the hulking monster with their respective arts.

Unfortunately, aside from knocking him away from attempting to grab the box again, they didn't really do much damage.

"Impudent whelps!," the monstrosity growled as he picked himself up for the third time this night.

"Damnit, how sturdy is this guy?! It's like trying to punch through an iron wall!," Zhen Hai griped as he avoided a wild swing.

Zhen Hai and Matilda had been attempting to take down the goat masked monster of a man for quite some time now. Unfortunately, whatever drug this weirdo took made his body unnaturally tough, unusually strong and also made him ignore pain. On the plus side, the monstrosity was so weirdly focused on smashing them or securing the box, that they could literally say anything and he wouldn't know or notice.

They didn't know how much longer this stupid drug was going to last, but they were running on empty at this point.

"Pardon my rudeness young master, but doesn't the Zhen Clan specialize in hunting aether beasts? Wouldn't you have a method to take down something or someone with skin this tough?," Matilda asked between dodges.

"Uh...sort of? Our family can usually take down shelled aether beasts pretty easily because they obvious soft spots and joint weaknesses," Zhen Hai explained while leaping over a low sweep kick.

The two of them eventually disengaged their entanglement with the hulk, by tricking him into punching a wall and getting his arm stuck. This gave them a bit more time to plan.

"My clan was called upon once to deal with a troop of Granite Hide Apes that were harassing trade routes. They were weird in that each ape had a different weak spot. We had to throw caltrops on them and see what stuck in order to find the soft spot," Zhen Hai explained while catching his breath, "Then we had to hit that spot with basically everything. It wouldn't kill them, but sure as hell stunned them for a long time."

"Soft spot..."

Matilda paused for a moment and took a closer look at the hulk still trying to free his arm.

From his masked head to his toes, the hulking beast of a man was basically red and sinewy all over. However, sticking out of his back, right between his shoulder blades was one of Matilda's knives. She had managed to embed some of her other weapons into him earlier, but the hulk just flexed or pushed them out with no issue.

'All except for one it seems...'

"Would that work?," Matilda asked Zhen Hai as she pointed at the knife. Zhen Hai followed her finger until he saw the long knife.

"Oh. Yeah, totally."

It was in that moment that the hulk freed his arm, and for the first time this whole fight, Zhen Hai and Matilda could feel an aether circulation that wasn't theirs.

"Looks like he wants to end this fight now," Matilda observed.

"Well then...let's end this."

_________________________________________________

Zhen Liu kept still behind the door, unsure of whether or not he could safely and swiftly secure the box without the maid noticing.

'...fuck this,' he thought before getting ready to move.

However, just as he was about to make his move, the maid started moving towards the painting.

'Huh? What're those iron bars for?'