Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?

Chapter 1672: Preparation Makes a Difference

Humans are dumb.

Not all of them, mind you, but enough that it’s honestly a surprise we as a species have survived for as long as we have.

Over and over again, we share stories of terrible tragedies, horrific accidents, and bloody massacres that explain why certain rules or precautions get placed.

But then some dumb upstarts believe such measures are excessive and get rid of them...and then get immediately reality checked so hard that the original measures get reinstated and the bill to repair or replace everything comes in and makes life a million times more expensive.

Preventing a tragedy is a lot cheaper than repairing and replacing what was lost, but nobody ever thinks that.

And the people that do get made fun of by the rest of society.

Then again... I suppose some people actually plan to profit from such tragedies too.

I know I do so by accident.

-A carpenter’s thoughts after being paid to repair the buildings of a burned-down town.

...Remember kids, perspective is important...

’Well, shit. Looks like I took too long getting to Hulna or Feroxxa...then again, I suppose I can consider this an opportunity as well... especially since they’re all gathering like this...’

...PERSPECTIVE IS IMPORTANT...

’You know...I don’t know if I’m going to be happy or upset if this ends up working.’

<=Why is it an either-or situation? =>

’Because it means I could’ve saved us a lot of time by dealing with them all at once instead of...wait, no, if I gathered them all up in one spot, that would’ve definitely ended badly....fuck it, either way, we ready to go?’

[Indeed.]

[Ready when you are, Ringmaster.]

[I want reveeeengeeee!]

’Good.’

...Now put it all together...

"Oh shit, y’all broke through to the Grandmaster rank?!" Lythero noted with excitement. "Congratulations!"

"Fuck yeah we did!" Zhen Tai declared with joy.

"I am... incredibly tired!" Zhen Xing added with a sigh of exhaustion.

"Understandable!"

"...hmmm."

Off to the side of the celebration, Rianna pouted and sulked because she didn’t achieve a breakthrough yet.

"It’s okay," Jinju Ren comforted her Amazonian companion. "You’ll get there eventually."

After the False Crusaders, the Erupting Dawn Elites, the Erupting Dawn Royals, and the traitorous priests were all defeated, they were all gathered by the victorious kaijin and friends back to the main hall of the library.

Surprisingly, though, none of them were dead.

There may have been multiple concussions, a couple broken bones here and there, and probably some minor amounts of internal and external bleeding, but none of the invited enemies had been killed.

Why?

Because of Zhen Liu.

More specifically, Zhen Liu had shared with his friends, family, and kaijin that it was a pain in the ass to deal with possible blood feuds or grudges from beyond the grave if they murked several royals and their retainers in cold blood. At least, that was the logic behind sparing the Erupting Dawn forces.

As for the False Crusaders and conspiratorial priests, though, well, that wasn’t up to him to decide.

That right belonged to the First Hearth Tender.

Well...it belonged to the girl who was forced to take the mantle.

"I know you probably wanted me to kill them, depending on who confessed to the crime, but I figured you may have had second thoughts after the big reveal," Zhen Liu said.

At this moment in time, Zhen Liu and Serena were looking over the unconscious and bound bodies of Hulna and Feroxxa. Surrounding them were the severed body parts of the defeated False Crusaders, who were still alive and still complaining about not being stitched back together.

Thankfully, their mouths were gagged.

Despite this state of defeat, though, Zhen Liu still kept his hammer in hand...and one of his scarves around his neck.

Of course, Serena had no idea why Zhen Liu underwent a fashion change. She was more focused on the two motherfuckers who had left her older sister to die.

"You know, I...figured that someone who commands such legendarily brutal warriors would be a bit more..AllNovelF(ull).Comrciless," Serena admitted. "That I wouldn’t get a chance to do something like...this."

Serena and Zhen Liu loomed over the unconscious forms of Hulna and Feroxxa, the former armed with the [Fire Poker of the Sacred Hearth] in one hand. The two aforementioned traitorous priests looked so...vulnerable at this moment.

The young lady had every right and justification to kill these two, at least, to her mind.

They had allowed her older sister to die for nothing more than their own ambition.

Once Serena had been bestowed the title and position of that aforementioned older sister, these two had made sure that her tenure was tumultuous and painful.

On top of that bullshit, these two had the fucking gall to betray her and their countrymen in two different ways.

All it would take is a single thrust of the fire poker, and the two conspiratorial bastards would be nothing more than cooling corpses on the library floor.

But alas, the more she thought about doing so the less certain she was about that being the right choice.

Especially when, as she thought it over, they didn’t have the true culprit behind all of this bullshit.

Hulna and Feroxxa were mere accomplices and pawns, nothing more.

"Wait, you once told me that the kaijin have the ability to go inside people’s souls and tap into the memories of the possessed directly, yes?" Serena asked as she thought over their next course of action. "Can you have some of the kaijin do that to these two chucklefucks and blow this case wide open!"

"Actually we did try that earlier."

"Oh?"

[Yeah,] Razorstella confirmed. [While we were in the process of moving them, Blazejudicator and I both tried to do that. But we faced a weird amount of resistance.]

[Weird nothing,] Blazejudicator snorted in disagreement. [It’s because of that Flame of Ambition or whatever the fuck it is burrowed in their souls.]

"Really?" Zhen Liu asked with genuine surprise. "It can do that?"

[Apparently.]

"Huh."

As Zhen Liu pondered on this revelation, something happened that broke him out of his train of thought.

And not only did it fuck with his train of thought, but it fucked the whole victorious atmosphere that had been building up between Zhen Liu and his allies.

And what was that mood breaker?

The sudden appearance and arrival of the missing False Crusader.

This final undead bastard appeared from out of nowhere and attempted to blast Zhen Liu and Serena with jets of flame.

The plan of this undead fuck, at least in theory, was to free their fellow False Crusaders and rally a come back.

However...that didn’t pan out.

Zhen Liu has always been an incredibly paranoid motherfucker.

Which is why, the moment the False Crusader tried to attack, the counterattack was already ready to go.

First, Zhen Liu used his [Taboo] to absorb the incoming jet of flames, effectively negating the attack.

Second, as Zhen Liu was protecting both himself and Serena, the kaijin moved in an incredibly coordinated manner to tear the attacking False Crusader apart.

[Finally got you, fucker!]

[Stand still!]

[Die!]

Hurricroak moved in to take the bastard’s head off with a giant crab claw that she overloaded with lightning.

Frosttusk and Nepherage both went low with the purpose of ripping off the undead bastard’s legs and then encase them in ice and magma, respectively.

As for the arms, Razorstella and Springdermain were ready to rip and tear as needed.

In other words, Zhen Liu had planned for this possibility occurring and was now putting to action that very contingency.

For all intents and purposes, it was fool proof.

But...Zhen Liu didn’t account for one, tiny detail: he didn’t understand everything about the [Flame of Ambition].

This wasn’t to say he couldn’t have done more to learn about it, it was just one of those things that required access. Especially when the [Flame of Ambition] was technically "new".

No documentation.

No archival records.

No anecdotes from people who messed with it in prior encounters.

In other words, nobody but the flame itself knew what it was capable of.

And right now, the [Flame of Ambition] did something no one anticipated.

BOOM!

[Did he just fucking explode?!]

Bang! Bang! Bang!

[It’s not just him, look!]

The False Crusader that the kaijin were trying to rip apart suddenly exploded like a firework.

The False Crusaders that were torn apart had suddenly exploded like fire crackers.

With their destruction, motes of strangely colored flames began to coalesce above the heads of Hulna and Feroxxa, whose bodies were sitting themselves upright despite the lack of consciousness.

As they sat, the two traitorous priests opened their mouths and wisps of more strangely colored flames began to fly towards the coalescing ball above them.

While this was happening, Zhen Liu could feel a pressure coming down on him that was much too familiar to him.

To be more precise, it was a feeling similar to when the four Tezcas used his power to manifest.

’Of fucking course...’