Augmented Aspects Chapter 174 Beef Jerky, Pomeranian Threats, and Instant Regrets (Patreon)

Chapter 174

Beef Jerky, Pomeranian Threats, and Instant Regrets

Chaos.

If I had to sum everything up it would be chaos. To use two, organized chaos. That was how things were going.

I kind of expected the world to throw random tasks at us, with the land reclamation quest for our guild underway, particularly with how we averted the major threat of having neutralized the threat from the native inhabitants.

Now we had to deal with a zone boss, or a boss so powerful that they were seen as the undisputed champion of the region. Which given our remote location should not have been too much of a stretch. My biggest fear of course was that this wasn’t the final boss that we could expect to fight. Given that we were still in the initial stages of this land reclamation process, there was a higher than likely chance that we would have to fight of more beasts that were as tough as this one, if not even more powerful by the time it was over.

The only good thing was that so far we had managed to avoid any major injuries. With just me, my familiar, and the Kujos we had managed to both knock the giant creature from the sky, while also managing to permanently disable the creature from being able to fly again. That last part, the part about keeping the monster from being able to fly again was solely due to the Kujos, and by the Kujos I mean Ms. Kujo who took her time attacking.

While I was busy distracting the monster by talking directly into its mind, and Zero had the thing in a tight but ultimately ineffective coiling strangle hold around its neck, with his teeth dug into the giant nerve clusters of the creature. The Kujos had been working on the wings of the great beast.

At first, I was going to give it to Kujo, who despite being slightly undersized compared to his visibly pregnant wife was doing more damage. At least that was what I had thought, as his attacks were wild and crazy. He would phase in, give a quick swipe at a muscle of the wing and then disappear entirely. Only to reappear later and give another devastating swipe or bite to the creature at another location.

By contrast Ms. Kujo seemed to be less destructive, and more precise with her strikes. Rather than making random cuts all over to do the most damage, she instead made long slicing attacks that ran down the long webbed membranes that attached the giant finger like appendages on the dragon’s wings. Sometimes even stopping herself, disappearing, and then reappearing on the other side of the wing to finish her descending strike.

It wasn’t until she was done and had her first strip of membrane torn free that I began to see her attack for what it was.

Snatch.

Grabbing onto the membrane she grabbed the piece of thick webbing and then phased out of existence with it.

And just like that Ms. Kujo permanently grounded the dragon. At least made it so he could no longer use that left wing to fly away with as it had a giant gap in it now.

Then two more swipes and another strip of wing leather later, Ms. Kujo left the battle field entirely. Only after a second of searching did I find Ms. Kujo. She was a kilometer away, likely close enough to provide assistance to Kujo and me should the need arise, but for the moment she just looked on, using some form of vision magic that seemed to be mirrored in Kujo’s eyes.

Awe.

“They have some form of Puppy Love Vision going between them.” I thought to myself, as I still forgetting that I was mentally transmitting my thoughts to the giant beast realized a second later that I had effectively shouted in the beast’s mind.

GRRRAAHHHHH!

Well not just shouted, that awe might have been at a mentally higher pitch than most people can probably produce, and likely should never be able to transmit.

That said, I did realize that my squealing at seeing Ms. Kujo use her Love Vision to check on Kujo, before she settled down to rest and eat a strip of what was effectively dragon jerky did make me feel pretty happy that their relationship was still doing well. Even if they were in what some would call, the puppy love phase, Hah!

GRAHH!

The giant beast that was the size of an industrial sports complex cried out in pain, though this time the pain was not as pronounced as previously.

“You okay there?” I ask the creature both mentally and physically.

As it spoke, I realized that my skill in Telepathy, helped me to increase my volume level that I was effectively speaking into the mind of an intended target. Normally I keep this at a standard conversational level, but apparently while talking to this creature part of my inherent panic bled through my thoughts causing me to speak at a much higher level. With that, I realized I could weaponize this for my own benefit.

Dizzy.

There was an echo, as apparently my mind worked faster than sound, transmitting my thoughts directly into the beast’s mind a split second before he could hear the same exact thought. The result was an audible echo within his mind that sounded almost like old feedback loops one might experience during conference calls, back before everything turned to crystalline transmissions.

Realizing this, a giant smile crested my features.

I still had a minute, or two before full reinforcements would arrive, which meant I had to come up with something else to stall for time. With that an evil thought came to mind, as I realized part of the problem was the fact that I was forcing my thoughts directly into the mind of the beast, while its survival instincts were kicked to a high degree trying to listen and help prevent serious threats from attacking from all sides.

With that, an evil smile filled my face, as I realized that the faster and louder, I spoke, the more mental pain I would cause the giant creature. Obviously with there being more pain, I could potentially end this conflict just that much faster.

“Let’s see if you are like my parents, and hate my music.” Cass said, again letting her words and thoughts bleed out in the form of a dull attack.

Feeling the impact of her words, she began by mentally and physically saying the fastest song she could think of and still remember clearly.

“Lyrics coming at you at supersonic speed,

Uh, sama lama duma lama, you assumin' I'm a human

What I gotta do to get it through to you, I'm superhuman?

Innovative and I'm made of rubber

So that anything you say is ricochetin' off of me and it'll glue to you

I'm devastating, more than ever demonstrating…”

And like that I managed to take the fastest parts of a song and turn it into a twenty second mental attack.

Thud.

The creature just collapsed. I could feel the moment its mind reached its limit. There was a push, as the harder and faster I spoke my thoughts, the more resistance there was, until finally I pushed so hard that the resistance just snapped. Almost like pulling a rubber band too far and feeling the moment it snaps in your fingers, that same thing, but rather than having a random projectile flying about, in this case the mind of the creature just went from hard rubber to mush.

At the same exact moment, the creature just collapsed onto the ground, releasing a deafening thud.

Yes, this creature by all measures was having a terrible day. It had been attacked in the air by a flea, which somehow managed to ground it. Then had its wings clipped and turned into jerky, then had its mind shattered by one of my favorite songs while growing up.

The worst part, we weren’t done.

Even with it completely out, its body still moved.

Rumble.

Just rolling onto its side and breathing out the deep calming breaths of sleep, caused a minor tremor to roll out over the ground.

Even while asleep, Zero and Kujo both continued with their attacks. Zero was now gnawing away at the exposed nerve endings, digging through the layers of protective scales, and digging their way to the raw nerves.

Kujo on the other hand, took a bite out of Ms. Kujo’s playbook, perhaps literally, as he ripped off and began gnawing at a flap of still attached wing membrane.

With this brief moment of reprieve, I took time to center myself.

Taking in a deep breath, I tried to calm myself, as I prepared for what would soon happen.

Poof.

I Teleported right onto the snout of the giant creature, right next to the right eye that was just slightly opened. Yes, the dragon had a double membrane, but that was no matter for me, as I reached in, placed my hand next to the first membrane and then began pulling energy directly from the mind of the beast.

As one would expect, the moment an attack happens, the body instantly responds by sending resources directly to that spot. In this case, the over taxed mind of the beast was desperately trying to recharge itself and be ready for a similar mental assault of lyrical violence. With that, I began cultivating the excess energy from the beast and pulling it into myself.

Given the disparity in sizes between the two of us, the energy I managed to gather was trivial by comparison. Even without the dragon being a cultivator in any shape or form, I still drew part of its natural energy that would otherwise go towards skills, or external powers and drained them into myself.

If given the chance, I could easily use the giant dragon as a seemingly never-ending battery that could be used to fuel multiple personal breakthroughs. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time for such an act, yet.

Shudder.

The beast began to twitch and pulse violently as its mind and body began coming back online. Mentally, I calculated the time and realized it was just thirty seconds, but for how fast I had been moving this entire time, the thirty seconds felt like a lifetime.

Poof.

Before the beast could fully arise, I was back to my original position.

“I’m gonna’ kill you.” The beast muttered, as it slowly pulled itself up from the ground.

Chuckle.

With that, I laughed, realizing that was the exact line before the verse that I had just assaulted the dragon with a moment ago. With that I began repeating the same verse again.

“Uh, sama lama duma lama, you assumin'…”

This time as I spoke, I could feel the slightly improved resistance to my mental onslaught, as if the creature was somehow ready for this exact attack. I could even feel it preparing for cadences and words that would hit harder.

Staggering, but still standing.

The creature shook but just stared at me angrily.

“Do you think I would fall for the same attack twice?” The beast cried out defiantly.

Hahaha.

“You dare laugh?” The creature demanded.

“Yeah, actually. As you seem to think I only learned one song to annoy my parents, when I in fact learned them all.” I state, there was a moment of confusion as the dragon just stared at me with its long face turned slightly to the side as it stared at me.

“What do you mean?” The dragon asked.

With that, I felt it was time to show of my musical talent, or lack thereof, as I instead showed of my ability to master lyrics and timing.

“You wanna battle, I'm available, I'm blowin' up like an inflatable

I'm undebatable, I'm unavoidable, I'm unevadable…”

GAHH!

Angry stomp.

The beast recoiled in obvious mental pain as my mind screamed the lyrics as quickly as I could recall them, which might actually be faster than they were spoken as this was the speed of my mind now. With my mind and body acting quickly the words assaulted the beast’s ears the same way they did my parent’s speakers while driving me to appointments.

And just like my parents there was a feeling of instant dislike, but unlike my parents who could just turn off the radio and force us to ride in silence, I was unstoppable.

The mental assault went on for so long, that Mallory finally managed to come. Fortunately, I was safe, having apparently spent the entire time going through my mental memory of songs and providing them all at supersonic speed of forceful thought.

“Fight me, like a true warrior.” The beast howled.

Scoff.

“Fight you, no. I will destroy you. Then when your spirit rises up to be released from your oversized body, I will grab your soul when you are at your most vulnerable state, and then Resurrect you.” As I spoke, I mentally projected all of these thoughts directly into the mind of the beast, even forcefully sharing images and memories of me doing these exact things to creatures that I had killed, like Rahul and others that I and met along my time here.

“But realize, that how you are Resurrected is entirely up to me. I could be nice and give you this same body that we would once again tear apart, of I could put your oversized soul directly into the undersized body of a Pomeranian puppy, the choice yours.”

Silence.

As I spoke, I made sure to project these thoughts directly into the dragon’s mind. The fact that I could do such a thing was apparently not lost on the creature, while I had never dealt with degrading a body that would be the ultimate vessel of a Resurrected soul, I had done numerous improvements, which were arguably a lot tougher to do than degrading attributes. As such, I knew my threats were easily believable.

At that exact moment, Mallory came through from the fields behind us, and had a direct line of sight towards us.

I turned to wave at her, both showing that she didn’t need to use any of her ultra attacks immediately, especially as I didn’t know if they would hurt Zero or Kujo, both of whom were still engaged in battle with the giant creature, though battle was a generous term at this point. It was clear that physically the creature that had appeared was nearly indestructible. Even magical and Qi related attacks were at a degraded effectiveness. The only true weakness was mental magic, or not even mental assault magic, as that would likely have triggered some form of defense mechanism. The only thing that saved me currently was the fact that I trained my skills to level 175, which was apparently very high for a skill, meaning that when I used a social Trait like Telepathy to communicate, I could inadvertently cause severe mental damage to a monster that was otherwise unable to prevent such an attack vector.

“Now, I just need you to choose how this will go. Either I disable your mind, while my friends rip you apart and you ultimately get Resurrected into the ultimate form of a Pomeranian. Or we can sit down, and talk like rational beings, and come to a form or resolution that is acceptable for both of us.” I state.

Shock.

Both Mallory and the dragon were shocked by this.

Mallory seemed to be concerned that the dragon clearly wouldn’t take my threats seriously. Conversely the creature seemed to understand my threat, that I could continually knock out this creature and that given enough time even Kujo there who was chomping away vigorously at the oversized right wing of the beast, would eventually cause enough damage to bleed the dragon to death.

“I tell you what, you seem to be a bit on the fence about this. So I will sweeten the pot. If you sit down to talk to us, like a civilized creature, not only will we not kill you and Resurrect you as a Pomeranian, but we will also heal all damage you have accrued to this point.”

There was a moment of pause, as the dragon seemed to contemplate this, but only for a moment.

“Okay, let’s talk,” the giant beast began, but then continued, “but first, can you call off your minions?”

“Oh right.” I say.

WOLF-WHISTLE!

With that I let out a loud whistle that pierced the air, which was mostly for show as I just added Kujo and Zero to my Telepathic communication that was happening.

“Kujo, Zero, leave the dragon alone for now.” I said to their minds.

Then like that both gave a mental acknowledgement as both began to free themselves.

Kujo was the first to appear, phasing easily from the wing to appear next to me with a giant slab of wing meat in its mouth. Then to add to the image, it just curled up next to my feet and then laid down. Even laying down flat, it was still tall enough that I could easily pet it with my hands that were down by my waist.

Zero took slightly longer to work his way free, but was soon able to shrink his long form down to its normal size and then swim-fly out from under the protruding skull bones and also come by my side.

Flecks of power infused blood were on Zero’s lips, but that seemed to loose most of its terror, given how much smaller Zero was now, compared to his earlier form.

Silence.

There was an awkward pause that covered us, me and my familiar, and random pet dog, then there was the giant dragon that had clearly had better days, and finally Mallory and the rapidly approaching army that had come to help subjugate the dragon.

The troops, which all appeared to be Deolar spirit warriors caught me off guard for a moment, but then I realized that the number of forces present should be enough to ensure peaceful negotiations.

“All right, I will cut this short.” I say, not really knowing what to do, but realizing that day light was burning and we had a lot of land to claim if today was going to be of any use. “Big lizard, thing, this is Mallory, my boss. Mallory, this is the big lizard that tried to attack our lands but has since learned the errors of his way.”

Everyone stares at me.

“Look, we have come to terms with a tentative truce here. Gwen can try to heal him, if she is unable to fully heal him then wait for me, as I will be done at the end of the day.” I say to Mallory.

Then turning to the dragon, I open up all three eyes and stare directly towards the beast. “Now you. You are here as a guest under my protection, that means anything happens, you come to me to solve it. And trust me, I will solve it, any questions?”

Shake.

The dragon shook its head, apparently not wanting to reply verbally.

“Good. Now, I am going to go back to watering my garden. If you still require healing when I am done, then I will heal you to as good of a state, if not better than you started off with.”

There was a look of excitement on the beast’s face. Sad that I can see the curling back of lips to reveal rows upon rows of giant serrated teeth as excitement, but it was there.

“That said, you need to be good.” I said, speaking both into its mind as loudly as possible and verbally to make sure my point was understood.

“Okay.” The dragon said, lowering his head in supplication.

“Good, now I need to get back, Mallory you’ve got this right?” I ask.

“What?” Mallory begins, but I am already gone.

Poof.

Grinning evilly to myself, I mentally connect to Zero, “can you be sure to tell me of any interesting points that come out from this?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

And like that, the minor distraction was avoided, for now.

Still we had well over twenty hours to go and close to nine hundred acres to connect to our territory.

“No time for the wicked.” I say to myself as I begin Teleporting away to my next marker, I did have at least three to eight more markers to hit before the day was over. That didn’t include having to make any more random stops.

Hopefully, that was the last stop, though I feel I might have just jinxed myself with that treacherous thought.