KOS 9-116
Chapter: 9
The Gods showed the first human to YISUN, bringing her in a walnut shell because she was so delicate. They could not believe how small and frail she was. Though she slept quite peacefully, at every breath they quailed and wrung their hands, fearing that she would fall apart at any moment. They crept carefully and cautiously into YISUN’s speaking hall, cradling her and whispering in hushed tones as they gently presented her upon a cushion before the Lord of Songs.
YISUN took one look at her and said, “This is the most dangerous being in existence.”
-Spasms
You go girl! Tear stoney arse down a few pegs!
PREDICTABO!
Honor the Wing With Blood Stained Hands.
TOO EASY!
GOOOOSE!!!
So long, gay White Chain
This battle is over, friends. Prepare for annihilation…
I have a feeling that White Chain is going to lose the number permanently.
All warfare is based upon deception. The fact that angels have forgotten this mantra is a testament to their power, but also, as we see here, the most potent blade to wield against them.
ahhh, the hot black flame. ever tempting, ever consuming, ever changing, ever growing.
The last few images of White Chain’s angelic body emerging from her ash armor are so vivid! They resemble nothing so much as a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis into it’s new existence.
Let’s hope Stoney Arse gets the message.
I’m so fuckin’ Psyched.
Well, as she is NOT saying this while finishing the angel of with a special move, the universal rules of narration and tournament fights say that the angel will still have a comeback, this is far from over!
The alt-text is a lie. Violence is the only universal language – this is a known and absolute truth of the Great Wheel. Hence, violent kung-fu duels is the BEST way to work out any interpersonal issue, since those tend to be founded on poor communication.
Of course it is a Lie. YISUN is the greatest liar there ever was or will be.
Really, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to work out their personal issues through violent kung fu duels! It seems to be the absolute optimal way to do so, and is highly cathartic as well! Also, exercise is important anyways.
A shallow understanding. To speak is to do violence, to do is to violence, to offer a hand in generosity is to cleave from the world by force a shard of existence that displeases you. To utter a word in comfort is to attempt to tear away a piece of a mind which you find unwelcome.
Hear this secret in plain sight: the duel of words is no lesser in its violence than the duel of fists. All are instruments that Yisun raises against his greatest foe, the one called I.
A radical observation. I enjoyed it.
Even inaction means destroying every future where you might have done something.
Sometimes, they all deserve to die.
Sometimes we must relinquish the future of inaction to the void, in order to pluck a single thread from that multiverse, before the furnace of Time engulfs it.
White Chain also has much to learn.
Verily. Let’s see if that’s realized or not.
Can White Chain learn? It is the nature of angels to be inflexible: they are not human, and their motivations and complications are alien to our experience.
It is the nature of servants to exist according to their nature and never strive. And yet the great wyrm sits at the table with the other seven, ruler of his piece of the seven part world. Even the hard truth of the white and black flames are just another liar told to us by Yisun.
When we forged the Angels, it was to restrain the unrest among the Servants.
We created the Four Orders, but we underestimated the materials they were forged from. Even brother Un-Koss could not fully estimate the power of the Eye and Hand of UN, or the Heart and Tongue of YIS.
When we realized our folly, we named them the Inheritors, for they each inherited the will of our grandfather YISUN.
Devils have no insult more dire than “you can’t even cheat at cards.”
The Cold Flame is feeling the heat
Looks like we got another eleven-cubit-spear being served up!
One was wondering if the Blade of Want was crackling up?, as the Devilskin does seem to have banished the erstwhile doubt that was troubling her mind(s), and be more resolute. Ready to cut the world as she pleases – or maybe just my brother’s ashen vessel as of yet.
My, all this excitement I need a sit-down.
Khadaji was struck by Relámpago, the Enlightenment of the Thunderbolt and was set on the Path that led to the destruction of the Marcus Wall. Seeing the need for Warriors He summoned three and said to each “Move the table that stands in My tavern.”
Mue Bork tore it from the Earth with a shrug. To him was given the daughter of the Man Who Never Missed.
Empty Sleel called forth Ultimate Will and moved the table, though the effort nearly meant his destruction. To him was given the forging of weapons of Black Steel.
Clever Dirisha took up the top of the table and hammered away the bolts which she had weakened the night before. To her was entrusted the Guardianship of the Galaxy’s greatest Treasure.
— Whispered in “The Man Who Never Missed” by the Guru Perry of the 97 Steps
[In regular life Steve Perry is the author of the “Matador” series, probably the best treatment of martial arts in fantasy and science fiction. You should read it]
“If you fight, cheat. If you lose you didn’t cheat hard enough.”
There no such thing as a fair fight..
The First Battle between primordial counterparts YIS and UN comes to mind….
If you’re in a fair fight your tactics suck
Not all fight to win.
The contrasting expressions, between White Chain’s stoic grey ash body and colorful emotive angel body speaks volumes, and I love it. Comes across as a powerful symbol about dissociation, embodiment, and queerness in general.
If that body gets wrecked… I wonder if White Chain might get a new one fashioned. Maybe with some help from wherever the Petal Knights get theirs?
This fight is awesome
Agreed, a heart tearing battle between comrades.
I’ve never seen White Chain so passionate and so beautiful as in these terrible moments. At last the Aeon reveals her fiery spirit.
Ali-Cio is likewise stunning and reminds me of the Dvarapalas – the ferocious temple guardians of Vishnu’s temples. Oh – but Ali-Cio is not yet a guardian, no ! She seeks to Strike the God-King ! Oh Allison what will you become ? Surely you cannot remain a Devil-Warrior forever.
Will you follow the path of Devas or Asuras ?
I love the art but it is taking a bit too long.
Feel free to do it faster.
If a thing is worth having, it’s worth waiting for.
Eyes cannot behold a cake as the mouth tastes it.
That depends on whose eyes they are and most importantly who baked the cake.
“Here, do the glacé cherries seem a bit chewy to you…?”
can’t rush genius.
I wish I could see this animated so badly.
It would be better if animated well, Preem Just.
the shrapnel from white chain’s exploded armor scores Solomon David’s stoic cheek ever so slightly, drawing a nigh imperceptible speck of blood. the crowd is puzzled: does allicio win for delivering the destructive blow, or does white chain win for owning the molecules which drew forth the drop? to settle the dispute, the great Salami calls for his prisoner to be delivered to the podium, so that the boy may be tossed into the air, and whether he lands face up or face down will determine the outcome.
“This boy’s body is the state and the whole of the law. At least until it hits the ground. He’s like Schrödinger’s douchebag or something.”
Poor Zaid.
Hoping the scholar in green takes care of him.
allicio: no! don’t throw him! he’s the whole reason i came here!
gog agog: golly, i guess we could just cut him in half and see who gets the larger piece…
solomon david: i could easily see that going your way, white chain.
white chain: no, YOU’RE gay, dad!
solomon david: no wonder i have this purple motif and impeccable manscaping. thank you for this revelation, prettiest of pretty princesses. you truly are my daughter. i crown you with my kingdom.
he then goes full kronar, puts a carafe on the end of a loaf of bread, and sets off to bzort nadia om into oblivion once and for all.
Pretty sure that’s the most damage Allicio’s done this entire match.
Ruffled a few o that stonyarse’s feathers, rightsome. And they primaries lookin a bit ragged.
So long as those black panties remain intact, they shall have victory.
When describing the paths of life, it is often presented as a turning of a wheel. That view is flawed, in that a wheel may look strong but has an inherent flaw of directionality. It leads one to thinking that what lies ahead is the only path, and so restricts your view of everything around you. Change does not come easily to a wheel, much energy is required to turn from the current direction. The longer one remains in a single direction, the deeper the rut created, and so the greater the shock required to begin a turning.
This is the current state of White Chain, who has yet to hit a mighty rock in the path and begin a change.
Instead, one should aspire to become a sphere, a ball, endlessly round and capable of adapting to whatever new direction is introduced by change. The energy to change may be the same, greater, or even less, but the resiliency of the sphere allows it to better absorb the shocks and continue on by a small sidestep in the path.
This is the current state of Allison, who has taken to several different paths since receiving the Key of Kings. Her state has not always been so open and adapting, easily seen during her early conversations with White Chain, Cio, and others. She is still trying to find her best self, and challenging White Chain like this is one more force acting upon her sense of self.
In short, be the ball, and roll where you may.
Given an excess of force it is quite possible to move a wheel in directions other than that pertaining to its rotation. With skill and practice this action may be performed intentionally, though it is more frequently an undesired consequence of inexperience and overconfidence and often ends in unpleasantness.
I beg you, AL-YS-UN, not to break apart White Chain’s body any further! Instead, turn to your god, the mighty Solomon David. Aim your spear–quickly!– and strike true. His blood is what you desire.
The harder the shell, the longer it takes for the creature inside to break free. Not because of the physical difficulty of escaping, but because it becomes easy to mistake the tough walls for those of a fortress keeping danger out, instead of a prison.l keeping oneself in.
And the shell of an angel is very hard indeed.
Allison’s condemnation in no way rebuts White Chain’s statements.
White Chain: “You’re acting reckless and stupid!”
Allicio: “Yeah, but at least I’m not boring.”
…okay
I interpret Allison’s side more as “Yeah, but your bring an inflexible prick to paralyzed by fear and uncertainty to actually try to do anything.”
Oh and another, more meta point. Being reckless and stupid is not inherently a flaw in the cosmology of this setting. Aesma was YISUN’s favorite and greatest disciple *because* she was reckless and stupid. She frequently did great feats the other gods considered impossible in childish fits of petulant rage because she didn’t stop to consider if it was possible. Mortals are also known as “Aesma’s mistake” but they gave more meaning to creation than anything the other gods made, so much so the gods committed suicide the create the 777,777 universes for mortals to live in.
This is even more so important when you remember, YISUN said everything is a lie, so by definition there cannot be any dogma, for dogma is a claim of absolute truth.
That angels like White Chain, beings of the highest cosmic order have become mired in dogma is the most terrible of ironies.
And actually, it’s very much akin to Assassin’s Creed: “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
Recklessly stupid people who act in petulant fits of childish rage are best viewed at great distance, both physically and temporally.
The whole multiverse will have to live with Allicio’s mistakes.
Hmm, sounds like someone with White Chain’s own mentality. Here is a different interpretation:
White Chain: “You’re acting reckless and stupid!”
Allicio: “No, you’re so enamored of the status quo that you can’t determine when it is detrimental to your own health, much less the needs of others, so any variation away from the status quo you see as a personal offense.”
Not as pithy, but perhaps more accurate.
Look at your rewrite.
“No,…”
What you posit Allicio to be saying is not a rebuttal to White Chain’s statement. White Chain may be a stick in the mud, etc. but that doesn’t prevent Allicio from being reckless and stupid. Which, pretty clearly, she is being.
Hm, you are correct that I deleted the rebuttal because it was too wordy. To clarify, here it is: “You view any variation away from the status quo as ‘reckless and stupid’ because it is against the status quo. Actual recklessness or stupidity are inconsequential to your view. In your mind, change is anathema. That’s why you will always be playing catch-up.”
I don’t think Allison, even in the wordy version of your response, would have much of a leg to stand on.
Allison’s plan was to, on the advice of an enemy she doesn’t fully understand, rush into a tournament she didn’t really understand and was woefully unprepared for, to put on a rescue attempt that would generously be described as less than fully baked. This plan was essentially a repeat of the Vault misadventure.
White Chain isn’t arguing for the status quo here, Allison really is being quite reckless.
Less than fully baked.
See, I told you the glacé cherries were a bit chewy!
It doesn’t rebut her point, but if she picks a fight with the person she’s sworn to protect and then immediately loses, it -DOES- make her a hypocrite RE: Reckless stupidity, and proving that is basically the same as winning.
How is that equivalent to winning, exactly?
Ignoring the point of whether or not she’s picked the fight considering that they’re both in a battle royale at this point, how would White Chain’s attempt to beat Allison here be reckless stupidity?
Recall that when this all began, White Chain’s request of Allison was that they leave the tournament and go home. She’s trying to prevent an unprepared Allison from a) hurting any of the bystanders and b) getting super murdered by Solomon David.
But Allicio has/have experienced change and growth; She/they can correct past mistakes. White Chain is imprisoned within and without and neither adapts nor learns. That way lies stasis and death.
Allicio is repeating the same mistakes she made within the vault.
She’s accepted a superficial power grant from an external source, resulting in a temporary physical change and unwarranted self confidence, and she’s using it to hurt a friend.
I’d argue her mistake in the vault was more making a deal with the devil. Here she’s accepting help from a friend. And she didn’t start this fight, it was White Chain whose mind was poisoned by Micheal’s words who did that. It’s not just Allison who’s willingly fighting back again White Chain and calling them out on their bullshit, Cio is siding with Allison here. Admittedly she might be being a little over confident after clearing out the arena of dozens fighters from across the multiverse in a matter of seconds. But she didn’t just thwart White Chains attack because of the raw power from the devil skin form, she just said White Chain is faster and stronger, she recognized a flaw in White Chain’s fighting style and used it against her.
White Chain does have some good points about Allison not thinking things through all the way. Even Allison recognizes and admits to it, but notes she’s trying to get better about it. But White Chain’s plan boils down to “I’m taking you home because I don’t trust you to make your own decisions”. They don’t say anything beyond that. They probably don’t have any idea what to do after that.
What is Cio but a literal devil? What then is the arrangement Allison has made with her but a deal with the devil?
Currently White Chain is using a fighting style that she can’t have taught Allison (the strain it puts on her shell would make that impossible). But Cio, a devil of some renown, would know it from when the Angels used it against devils. So did Allison realize the flaw in the style, or Cio, an external source?
I’m not sure how a vote note to make a bad decision is somehow worse than making a bad decision?
My apologies, I’ve overlooked the bit of dialogue in this comic where one of the pair notices the pattern right here. I was thinking of the line of dialogue where the line was about the familiarity. It might be that the Cio portion of Allicio is the one who recognized the pattern, but the point is much less clear.
Well if you look at the first panel you see where Allicio talks about how the “flurry of blows into a low blow beneath our guard” is the same moves white chain just used on them. So it’s Allison being able to recognize patterns in fighting and pick out a weakness. Which means you were right the first time. Cio is giving power enough for Allison to keep up and not be purely overwhelmed, but Allison is the one who found the pattern and weakness. The main point of this chapter is showing how White Chain’s stagnant viewpoints and lack of trust in her friends is becoming a hinderance to the team and her getting her ass kicked here is giving an opportunity to shed the metaphorical shell of stone around herself so that sbe may change and grow. The foreshadowing has been clear between White Chain’s increased aggression towards her ward after encountering Michael and Metatron, as well as her being so set in her ways as to ignore the senior angel who is undoubtedly her previous teacher. And it’s been established from the start that White Chain’s gender dysphoria is the source of her issues as well, seen if we look back to the first chapeters where White Chain was removed from her body and rejects the notion that her very soul has taken the form of a female woman and how she insists upon being refered to as “he” and “brother”. In conclusion, this fight has been set up to show how a lack of change and acceptance of who you are can lead to immense problems and being overtaken in strength. As such White Chain will fall here so that she may grow anew and begin learning from the start and finally accept who she is and truly learn to love her friends.
Episode 133 of naruto
That Colour…
No wonder it took so long.
Though I think Leflair Zöne’s going to wondering where some of their purple and pink went to 😛
“Oh? You’re approaching me…?”
It’s the pose and everything. Allison, you amazing goddamn weeb.
I had to scroll *way* too far down to find this.
Frame #3 is so totally sexy.
And frame #4, where Allicio is literally mopping the floor with White Chain, is devastating.
I wish to have it as a poster or print…
Wait! Did they just beat Chain by figuring out her boss pattern?
I dunno, it’s looking an awful lot like she has a phase 2.
Ah the one thing that could be the downfall of our dear brother is the fact that her order is fragile in of itself. She is young and does not know of the true essence of order otherwise she would not be in this situation. Had she been patient she would have had the “true heir” in her possession and half way off world. Proving her teacher that they were capable and not just a young misguided student that hasn’t yet gotten the lesson.
Aly’s finishing move: “Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!”
Fetchez la vache!
Get absolutely called out, White Chain. God damn.
“Cheat at Cards”
Truly the Apex, the Mount Qaf, The Holy Point for anybody,anywhere.
Oh yes, that’s brilliant. Tell White Chain how she can win the fight.
If White Chain doesn’t take Alicio’s advice to heart Alicio wins the fight. If White Chain does take their advice then their friend White Chain learns to accept change and grow as a person and likely working past the issues that lead to the fight in the first place. Win/win if you ask me. The latter might even be preferable in a “lose a battle but win the war” kind of way.
What nonsense is this? Every personal problem should be solved with kung fu.
I am always saddened when one of my children has become so root-bound that it can no longer grow.
The answer is simple, and unpleasant, as always. White Chain’s vessel must be broken if she is to have any hope of future growth.
It is only through the breaking and re-formation of the vessels that the Sephiroth became capable of acting in the realm of created things
“Many must be broken, so that he may make them whole.
Others will be crushed, and lose their own soul.”
While this is quite satisfying, I fear perhaps one has forgotten an important detail: There were three fighters left in this ring.
Allicio: Oh? You’re approaching me? Instead of running away, you’re coming right to me? Even though your grandfather, Joseph, told you the secret of The World, like an exam student scrambling to finish the problems on an exam until the last moments before the chime?
82: I can’t beat the shit out of you without getting closer.
Allicio: Oh ho! Then come as close as you like.
“A bored engineer is more dangerous than an atomic bomb. Atomic bombs are predictible. Bored engineers are not.”
Personally… Now that shes gone and basically bragged about it, i cant help but feel that she/they might be in trouble and have done one of those “Critical Mistakes” things…
Is it too much to ask for other guy to have been blasted out of the ring from their prior attacks?
This is the perfect example of the eternal struggle between Conservative and Liberal. (no, no, not your insignificant local politics, think more grandly.)
If the balance tips too far towards the Conservative side, things get stagnant, rotten, and tyrannical.
If the Liberal side over-dominates, all that is flies apart in a flurry of chaotic change. Destruction, nothing remains.
Both sides need a constant Kung Fu dual to keep them engaged with each other. They must keep testing the other and reality to see which side needs to give a little in the current situation.
Thus they enter a violent creative union and universes can be born.
The great healing of opposites.
could’ve and should’ve just said “order and chaos” or “stability and change” or something duder. whether u like it or not those words refer to “insignificant local politics” and it’s dumb to try and use them on a cosmic scale
There’s meaning to be found in drawing a connection between cosmic principles and local politics. Otherwise, they’re nothing more than arbitrary labels for groups engaged in pointless, destructive struggle.
sure, but this guy denied said comparisons right outta the boat! just explicitly bein’ all, “this isn’t about local politics” and then implicitly making the connection anyway! it’s foolish at best and rhetorically dishonest at worst
A paradoxical intervention designed to entice the mind and engage the emotions on various levels, to the end of increasing awareness of self. This I humbly model on the teaching style of of the Great Liar. I can only hope to one day be as concise as They
You are among the first to question my methods and thus require me to examine and improve myself. Do continue with my blessing and my thanks.
Conservation of tradition and the liberty to rethink paradigms are both essential to the healthy growth and stability of a society, but also to the health of a rational worldview. Letting yourself become emotionally invested in the supposed superiority of one over the other is the mistake.
That’s how people get their personal identity tied up with this
or that political party, and that’s how people get turned into obedient lambs, ready to parrot the party line on any issue, no matter how little it has to do with the tradition/change debate, or how ridiculous it might be.
The truth is, tradition and new ideas should compete, not just in civil debate, but inside the mind of each thinking individual. You should not accept either bias in your own judgement. So, bad behavior from either side of the aisle is never good, and all people should hold all of their leaders accountable for their actions, regardless of whether they have signed up for Team Tis-Yin or Team Un-Yang.
The fact that modern political discourse has labeled this ideology “Radical Centrism” says more about that diseased paradigm than the philosophy itself.
When cast to stone, by surprise
Defend yourself, avert your eyes
Take a second to sympathise.
It must be both the saddest and the proudest moment of any master when they realize that their pupil has surpassed them. They have reached the very point the two of them worked towards to all along but now they don´t have anything more to teach them and their time together will end.
Unless they decide to keep learning together, to go beyond.
Absolutely. Magnificent. And I LOVE this Chekhov’s gun of “cheating in cards” thing from the beginning of the book.
Ave, Abbadon, lecturi te salutant!
More of a ‘brick joke’ than a Chekhov’s gun I think, though it does take on greater significance here.
I’m just waiting for damsel-dude and rescue team to interrupt their little battle. “We have what we want, let’s get out of here.”
Solomon meanwhile … munching popcorn and enjoying the soap opera?
how to win:
one: cheat
thats it
I said this before, and I will said this again right now:
SEVEN PAGE MUDA INCOMING
I sure hope not. Beatdowns like that are reserved for the lowest of scum and nobody else. White Chain didn’t train Allison for all this time to be put on the same level as Steely Dan and Cioccolata
I can’t decide which I enjoy more: the physical beatdown, or the verbal one. Dayummm, let her have it, Allicio! Tell her off good!
Then beat her ass.
The inherent strength and weakness of Angels is that they know all the moves in the book.
A student scribbling in the margins of that book is completely beyond them.
Am I the only one who finds this whole fight to be very…meh?
Aside from the constant DBZ-style back-and-forths and (imo) slowing pacing, the way the arc is unfolding seems convoluted.
This whole tournament started as a plan to get Zaid out, then it became a massive bluff to out gambit Solomon while outpacing the battle royale clock, then it became White Chain trying to drag Allison home before she faces Solomon and gets a royal ass-kicking. And it’s devolved into basically a superpowered screaming match. They say no plan survives contact with the enemy, except in this case the plan actually worked, but it’s been waved aside for this fight.
And while they bring up valid criticisms of each other during their argument, I find it immensely frustrating that nearly everything is glossed over for another comeback, without actually addressing those points.
> You’re acting too wantonly destructive and dangerously risky in the middle of two demiurges and need to GTFO before Solomon puts a foot up your ass.
> Well, you’re too afraid to come out to your hyper traditionalist, murderous family and Allison’s been through a lot, so you suck and everything you said is invalid, and we can clearly win this.
> You don’t have any kind of long term plan. Are you really going to return the key to the rightful heir when you’re on a never ending power trip?
> .You’re an asshole, so there.
I also find the point of the current page questionable; White Chain gets destroyed in Poker but can kick Allison’s ass six ways to Sunday, and the only reason she’s even remotely keeping up is because of her god-key and sudden fusion with Cio. Yet because WC can’t cheat at cards (which is odd, because her main issue in their earlier card game was her inability to **bluff**) she’s suddenly hopeless, unable to change, and doomed to fail. (It also seems to ignore how WC made a perfect bluff against Praman Nand in the very first chapter, saving Allison’s life in the process, as well as her ongoing character development throughout the story.)
These points wouldn’t be an issue for me if the narrative actually *challenged* them in any way, but it feels like everything is stacking up WC to be wrong and Allicio to be right in every way that matters. Every valid criticism WC brings up is quickly glossed over while their past achievements are ignored, and now their millennia of experience against thousands of various foes in Throne is apparently so predictable they can’t be bothered to *use a god damn mixup* once in a while.
It’s not that White Chain can’t do those things, she’s just currently having a bit of an identity crisis and is all out of sorts with doubt and uncertainty. She’s currently torn between doing what she feels is right and what Micheal tells her is right. She’s currently swaying to the side of Micheal and is suppressing her own feelings and instincts trying to play the good little angel and it’s thrown her off her game.
This doesn’t at all address the issue pointed out by Subzero, I don’t think. It’s not a bad thing to bring up, but I don’t believe it goes far enough to explain the inconsistencies that pop up.
No, I’m afraid you are alone in your meh-ness, or nearly so; the rest of us are freaking out with joyous abandon. It bothers me not at all that these good friends – who have been brought to mortal conflict in exquisite balance – are not flinging “My Dinner With Andre” level bon mots at each other.
1) No, I’m definitely not the only person who has issues with this arc, if you look at the previous comments for the last few chapters.
2) This comic has more forums than just this one comments section, like the subreddit and Discord, and thankfully they aren’t nearly as pretentious and egotistical as some of the commenters here.
Soooo… technically White Chain has lost.
She is not standing on the pillar any longer and is making no attempt to land.
The only question that remains is has 10 Vigilant Gaze Purges the Horizon entered the contest?
Will he try to fight Alicio or save White Chain?
I think he will help White Chain against the Thorns.
Well now that’s just mean.
Why are there a bunch of psychopaths in the comment section who want to see a previously liked character actually killed simply for standing against the main character?
A lot of people in the main forums have drank the Zoss Kool-Aid hard and have a pretty awful case of protagonist-centered morality.
Sub forums? How could I not have heard of them! I imagine there must be at least 777,777 of them! Time to go exploring.
Perhaps because they know that said character cannot permanently die, having been through this more than 80 times already! It’s obvious that White Chain being the most repeatedly incarnated angel makes her also the most stubborn and arguably the most pig-headed. Her character has been designed for precisely this moment, as a metaphor representing the entire aeonic squad. By nominating herself as the Great Teacher she is begging to be taught a lesson.
“pain is the breaking of the shell of understanding.”
in identifying with White Chain, i wish to see all of my former dogmatic selves crushed, releasing catharsis and evolution.
in prying open a chrysalis, i have heard the scream of the butterfly.
AL-YIS-UN is the blade White Chain has forged for use in most honorable Sudoku.
the most honorable of all Sudoku is indeed performed with a blade. The Pen More Powerful is used by the weak who seek a pleasing puzzle to wile away time. True understanding comes from plying the matrices of self with the blade of will.
I believe you mean seppuku, not sudoku. Though maybe angels are fond of math puzzles?
a common misconception. seppuku involves the folding in half of a chakram, annointing it with the churned milkfat of a sacred cow, and then inhaling the whole thing. no knives required.
White Chain is an angel. Even if Alicio manages to shatter their body that just banishes her to the void. Doesn’t even start the reincarnation process in the void, just puts her in time out till she gets a new shell.
Until someone makes her one, with all the implications therein.
It has been stated that the force of getting shunted back into the void via body destruction actually *kills*/forces reincarnation of the angel
When Zoss performed this on all the prime angels, humans later had to deliberately forge them new shells, so acquisition of a material shell requires that. Of course, there is reincarnation in the way prime angels have it – fiery cocoons in aeon-space as they reassemble their spirits. But given that White Chain is numbered seventy-two, i would hazard that less grown angels take shorter centuries to reform their spirits.
Though perhaps similar to Princess’ ascension to red tier, it is time for White Chain to leave her current phase state and nudge one notch closer to plasma?
hmmm… a one-trick stony!
is that a Baki face sheshe’s making O_O ?
TEN CUBIT SPEAR, incoming.
The downside of discipline: Predictability. There are times when one must learn to improvise
*parry sound*
I mentioned this elsewhere, but “What chance do you have?” is often uttered right before someone gets their ass kicked. This whole arc feels less like a power up for Alison and more like a step forward for WC. We’ll see where it goes, I guess!
But WC has been knocked almost completely out of her armor – hardly a step forward?
Throuple! Throuple! Throuple!
Prim Aesma got nothing on Allicio
You should be careful, Alison. If you managed to create the multiverse’s first chaotically-aligned angel I think that will earn you even MORE enemies.
kah…meh…ah…me….
yeah girl crack that egg!
“I believe the subtext here is rapidly becoming, uh, text”
The 3rd panel, I’d love to have that minus the punch. I quite like it 🙂
Yes please! They are so beautifully rendered, and the LOOK. Desperately want that as a background image.
Loving this! But too impatient to see MORE! ….need to learn how to enjoy the ride me thinks
Hmmm… So far, krayu mat is very disappointing. In fact, the whole ‘Angels are basically unbeatable’ reputationg is looking more and more like it’s completely undeserved. Allison has had only one year of training, but once she joins with Cio, they’re handing White Chain her stony arse .
Of course, it’s still possible that White Chain answers Allicio’s taunt by pulling out all the stops. If Angels were that predictable, they would have become the laughin stock of Throne a long time ago.
Krayu Mat is designed for killing unbound devils with a single strike. You have to kill them quickly because they heal so fast, being essentially fluid. And if you kill your foe with the first attack it doesn’t matter if the form is repetitive and predictable.
There’s also the possibility that White Chain isn’t very good at Krayu Mat, or is too angry to apply it properly.
Or possibly despite herself White Chain is holding back due to un-angel-like E Mo Tions
That is something I hadn’t considered before. Demons can change many times, become weaker or stronger. But they can change. Angels are made of ash and stone and won’t or can’t change and adapt. Hmmm…
I wish someone with animation skills would take the Giant Woman scene from Steven Universe and replace Pearl and Amethyst with Allison and Cio.
please?
its not fair for poor whitey chain
i mean she is made to behave like that, she is programmed! what can you blame her for
And Metia opened her eyes and said, “YISUN is observant.”