[Last...one!]
*WHAM!*
Frosttusk proceeded to slam his fist into the last of the centisnake's body segments, shattering it into pieces, and freeing it's gooey internals. Once it's contents were completely spilled, Zhen Liu walked over to determine whether or not the occupant was alive or dead.
"Hey, groan if you're alive."
"Bleh..."
"Close enough, can someone come over and help move this guy?"
"On it!"
For the past ten or so minutes, Zhen Liu had Frosttusk free all of the people who were stuck inside of the centisnake's internal body segments. So far, they had managed to free about seven lightly injured people, four heavily injured people and about six melted corpses. When Zhen Liu found the first corpse, he vomited.
On the plus side, he had managed to rescue the reason for Sullivan's reckless actions. Too bad she was unconsciousness.
Sullivan was currently cradling Rose within the confines of his long arms, making sure that her unconsciousness form didn't get hurt any further. He looked a bit stressed out, but Zhen Liu could see that he was significantly more at ease now that he had managed to rescue at least one of his friends.
Zhen Liu was tempted to ask Sullivan how he and her were holding up, but sensed that Sullivan needed some "alone time". Plus he had other problems to deal with.
'Alright so the lightly injured people can easily brought out, but I still need to figure out a way to get the ones who can't move out too...,' Zhen Liu pondered. He had entertained the idea of putting those too injured to move out of their misery, but the idea of mercy killing left a bad taste in his mouth, especially since medical attention was literally right outside the building...ruins.
As Zhen Liu thought over his options on what to do next, he noticed that Frosttusk was moving towards the point where the centisnake's head was connected to it's body.
Just as Zhen Liu was about to ask Frosttusk what he was doing, the latter proceeded to decapitate the centisnake. The loud cracking sound caused by this action and the subsequent thumping caused by it heavily falling to floor, made everyone in the room jump in shock.
"By the heavens!"
"That was...loud."
"Why did he have his puppet do that?"
[Why did you do that?,] Zhen Liu asked, mildly confused.
Frosttusk stared at Zhen Liu, as if the answer the was plainly obvious, before answering with a single word.
[Trophy.]
Zhen Liu mildly grimaced at this response.
[Tro-how are you going to drag that thing out of here? We already got injured people slowing us down, how are you gonna transport that thing too?]
[Like...this.]
As soon as Frosttusk said those words, the aether in the surrounding area became agitated to the point that people other than Zhen Liu could detect it. The fact that he also started glowing did not put anybody at ease.
"What happening this time?"
"I think it's that guy's puppet."
"Why does this keep happening to me?"
"Wait a minute...is that puppet growing?!"
Right before everyone's eyes, Frosttusk began to grow in size as his legs suddenly went from two to four.
'Well shit, that explains the confidence."
Moments later, the glow abated and Frosttusk had transformed from a giant viking warrior with a mammoth motif, into a giant viking centaur with a mammoth motif. Granted, Frosttusk's semi-metallic nature made his centaur-like lower half look more armored like a rhino than wooly like a mammoth, but it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Frosttusk took a few steps, lifting each leg one at a time to make sure they were working, moments before concentrating aether into his palms.
[Frost...fetters.]
Frosttusk threw his arms backwards, launching a pair of icy chains that latched onto the frozen head of the centisnake. Once they were locked into place, Frosttusk locked the other half of the chains onto his bottom half. Evidently, this made him look like the most metal AF one horse sleigh in existence.
[Ready...to go.]
"The puppet...can transform?! I thought only high grade ones could do that!"
"Same, but that would mean...how strong is this guy?!"
"I'm more concerned about why he's preparing to drag along that monster's head..."
[Huh...I think you just solved my problem,] Zhen Liu said as he finished looking over Frosttusk's current state, and the very weird looking "sled'. There was however one little issue.
[How are you going to fit through that door?]
[You'll...see...]
[Alright then.] Zhen Liu turned about in order to face the crowd of injured rescues and address them accordingly.
"Alright, I need everyone to stop gawking, shut up and get on the...sled. If you got second thoughts, you have about five minutes before I leave without you. So move fast!"
_________________________________________________
Right outside the Vault of Hel...
"Godsdammit, I thought we had ditched you assholes earlier!"
"Yeah well, we caught up."
"And we brought friends!"
"No escape now, flesh bags!"
Zhen Hai, Zhen Yue and the Corrada team had managed to get out of the oven that was the centisnake's chamber, but they were now embroiled in the fires of battle!
After Donovan's plot to bury them had failed, the Zhen-Corrada alliance had rushed out of the passageway and gave chase to the treacherous Wolfe scion and his detestable cohorts.
Unfortunately, like badly written cartoon villains, the alliance was intercepted by the Wolfe's family lackeys, namely the Delaney, Hypeon and Cyprus families...again. But unlike last time, they had a rather unfair advantage.
While the Zhen-Corrada team were running on near empty due to everything that had occured in the ruins and were dealing with varying degrees of injuries, the three lackey teams looked positively pristine. If Zhen Yue had to guess, these assholes just made their way into the ruins chamber, but never actually entered it. Their sole purpose appeared to have been not to win this competition, just make everyone else's life more miserable.
"Hehehehe, you're screwed now!"
The lackeys began to close in on the Zhen-Corrada teams, ready to tear them pieces, when a strange trumpeting sound caught their attention.
"PAAAOOOOO!"
"Huh? What's that-BAH!"
But before they could understand what was going on, a giant mammoth centaur thing, pulling a severed mechanical centisnake head like it was a macabre sled can bursting through the same entrance that the Zhen-Corrada team did, smashing it to pieces.
*Slam!*
"Gah!"
The lackeys could barely get a defense together before being sent flying away by pair of giant aether-infused tusks.
The Zhen-Corrada fighters were flabbergasted, until they saw who was riding the mammoth centaur.
"Zhen Liu?!"
"Shut up, stop gawking and get in the back. There's an asshole in need of trouncing!"