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

Chapter 1660: The Shift in Battle

After Zhen Liu had infused the newly minted [Golden Crow Chaos Sun Flame] into the chosen zakos, they underwent radically different evolutions.

The stone zako’s chest suddenly widened and hollowed out until it resembled a lantern, while their eyes suddenly became huge and allowed little alcoves of fire to take the place of eyeballs. Not only that, but the stone zako’s arms had transformed to resemble the barrels of a flamethrower.

The skeletal zako’s transformation was just as, if not more so, dramatic.

The golden flames turned the skeletal zako’s head into a blaze akin to a candle wick fire, then the power of [Chaos] condensed into an armor that covered the body from neck to toe. In other words, the skeletal zako had transformed into a dullahan.

Once the zakos had finished their transformations, they both released powerful roars that shook the room and battered the senses.

Zhen Liu looked rather pleased by the results, while Prince Lofarro looked understandably gobsmacked.

"What the fuck just happened?" Lofarro cried out, the [Chaos] in the room finally starting to affect his speech patterns. "How the hell did you do that?!"

He had just witnessed an act of evolution and creation that he was certain hadn’t been witnessed by mortal man in centuries. And now, he was about to bear the brunt of their fury.

"Kaijin Lord secret, motherfucker," Zhen Liu answered. "Now, attack!"

[As you command!] The evolved zakos answered in unison.

"Shit!"

The first to attack was the lantern-like monster.

The stony humanoid leveled their arms in Lofarro’s direction before releasing balls of golden magma that flew through the air at speeds that would make a hornet jealous.

These golden magma balls were, of course, infused with the power of the newly minted [Golden Crow Chaos Sun Flame].

"Why, you little—have at thee!"

With a swing of his sword and a mighty roar, Lofarro repelled the maga balls in the same way he had knocked away the golden fireball from earlier.

However, this turned out to be a trap.

In the same moment that those balls of molten rock had been fired in Lofarro’s direction, the burning dullahan-like zako had closed the distance between them and the prince.

Based on how the monster looked like a headless knight, Lofarro half expected them to whip out a flaming sword or a morning star engulfed in golden flames. Instead, the headless bastard just went for a right hook to the stomach.

"Oof!"

Lofarro felt as if he had just been slammed into by a raging buffalo and was forced to take a step back in order to readjust himself. Unfortunately, the dullahan zako wasn’t going to let him off that easy.

Shortly after he had managed to readjust his footing, Lofarro was forced to defend himself from even more attacks coming from the dullahan zako.

Punches and kicks rained down on Lofarro in rapid succession, each attack faster than the last, forcing Lofarro to use his own dragon force flames to actively repel every attack.

There were actually several small moments, little breaks in the attacks, that would’ve been perfect for Lofarro to launch a counterattack, but he was unable to do so.

Why?

Because the fucking lantern zako would jump in at those times to launch jets of flame that forced Lofarro to step back instead, allowing the overextended dullahan zako to readjust themselves accordingly.

In other words, the dullahan and lantern zakos were moving in perfect coordination with one another.

And it was starting to piss off Lofarro in more ways than one.

"Enough!" Lofarro roared as he circulated his aether and summoned his [Astra] in order to push back the unrelenting dullahan and force a change in the battle’s rhythm.

"Well, that’s interesting," Zhen Liu commented as soon as he saw Lofarro’s [Astra].

The first prince’s [Astra] wasn’t a sword as he expected; instead, it took the form of a strange arm guard that looked like something a gladiator would wear, a manica.

"Prepare to feel the power of the sun!" Lofarro declared as he entered a strange stance and changed the way he gripped his sword.

At that exact moment, Zhen Liu felt a chill run up his spine.

"Uh oh..."

...Meanwhile...

<=Attention, mortal warriors, the allotted time for your arrival to the battlefield has come. Please follow the arrows to the nearest internal teleportation array and prepare for battle. =>

"So that’s where Rianna disappeared to? Huh...I thought she just walked."

"Wait, there have been teleportation arrays inside of the library this entire time?"

"Who cares? Just move."

Logos and Pathos weren’t the only ones watching the battles in the library unfold.

Zhen Liu’s friends and family members had also been watching the kaijin fight the invaders from the safety of a special observation room that was actually connected to the rest of the library.

Why?

Because they were going to be the main reapers of the possible awards in this conflict.

Zhen Liu didn’t express much interest in whatever loot these high-tiered warriors may have carried on their person, because he was probably going to turn whatever they had on hand into a kaijin anyways, while the aforementioned kaijin never really used aether treasures for undisclosed reasons.

Either way, despite being the ones to soften everyone up, the ultimate victory was going to be determined by the mortals.

"So, just to be all in the clear here, Zhen Tai, Antonio, and I are going to deal with the Aether Grandmaster elite warriors, while you and Olstenna are going to be trying to fight the remaining princes?" Zhen Xing asked Lythero to make sure everything was as they said.

"That is correct." Lythero nodded. "And let’s not forget that Jinju Ren is sticking around here watching Zhen Liu fight like some kind of battle pervert."

"You know I can hear you!"

"Doesn’t mean I’m wrong!"

"It does when I’m actually planning to enter the fray, right the fuck now."

"Wait, what?"

Right after asking this now rhetorical question, Jinju Ren had decided to join the rest of the group in the room where the teleportation arrays were located.

"Darling’s situation has evolved to become a bit more dangerous than anticipated, so I’m interjecting now before shit goes sideways and I end up a widow before getting married," Jinju Ren explained matter-of-factly. "Any subsequent victory noises will be ignored on pain of death and dismemberment."

"You...you didn’t need to say that..." Lythero commented as he directed an astonished look of judgement in Jinju Ren’s direction.

"But I wanted to."

"Okay then..."

Once again, Lythero was reminded that he was incredibly thankful he didn’t have his buddy’s love life.

<=Teleportation array is now fully charged. Prepare for teleportation. =>

...Now back to Zhen Liu...

[Golden Dawn Slash!]

Gold-tiered sword in hand, Lofarro began to infuse it with the power of the [Golden Dragon Crow Sun Flame] once again, but this time with a little something extra added on top of it.

The manica on Lofarro’s arm began to glow with runes that Zhen Liu immediately recognized as not being originally part of Lofarro’s core cultivation but having been added on later. Runic translations weren’t exactly in Zhen Liu’s wheelhouse of knowledge, but he knew enough to recognize that the runes on the manica were fairly straightforward enhancement runes.

Which is why he readied a defensive shield the moment he recognized the runes.

"Oh shit!"

[Bring it on!]

To the credit of the lantern and dullahan zakos, the two of them charged fearlessly at Lofarro with the explicit purpose of stopping the prince from launching his attack. Unfortunately, they were a touch too slow.

The prince managed to finish charging up his technique and fired a golden crescent of concentrated dragon force-infused fire that bisected the upgraded zakos right in their abdomens.

The two upgraded zakos began to flicker like television static before disappearing; the energy that fueled them flew back into Zhen Liu, while the material that composed them fell to the ground like junk.

However, this wasn’t the end of it.

The crescent-shaped energy blast tore through the air, distorting it with waves of heat with the sheer intent of bisecting Zhen Liu in the same way it had done so with the enhanced zakos.

Staring at the encroaching attack, Zhen Liu could feel in the back of his mind that while it probably wouldn’t kill him, this attack would definitely cause severe injuries.

Thankfully for him, ten minutes had passed since he had started fighting Lofarro.

[Dragon Turtle’s Shell Guard!]

"HOLY SHIT! NICE SAVE!"

Before the attack could fully land, a giant turtle shell infused with water-affinity dragon force formed around Zhen Liu and extinguished the attack before it had a chance to cut his head off.

The funny thing about dragon force is that while it may be the embodiment of the natural order taken to its most extreme degree, it still had to obey the natural order. As such, an attack infused with fire-aligned dragon force will break against any defense enhanced with water-aligned dragon force.

Needless to say, Lofarro was shocked at yet another turn of events fucking with his battle against the Kaijin Lord.

"Oh, what the fuck is it this time?!"