Chapter 1676: Fighting Fire with Fire, Ice, and Lightning
BOOM!
"See?"
"What the fuck?!"
Despite having the equivalent of a nuclear bomb dropped on their head, aka the combined attack power of a kaijin and four protokaijin, Infernola somehow came out from the blast looking unphased.
Needless to say, once the kaijin saw that their opponent wasn’t down yet, they reacted with equal parts glee at being able to fight more and annoyance because this mother fucker didn’t appear to be going down anytime soon.
As for Zhen Liu and Serena, they were still floating above the fray...for now.
"I am getting the distinctive feeling this guy won’t go down unless one of us or both of us go down there and fuck with whatever the fuck they got going on," Zhen Liu said to Serena as he put away his hammer and prepared his [Taboo] and [Stigma]. "So if you want answers, you’re going to want to fight. If you just want good old-fashioned retribution, just stay up here and I’ll handle the rest."
Zhen Liu began to float downward after giving Serena this ultimatum. Regardless of her answer, Zhen Liu already had several plans in mind on how to deal with Infernola. The first one was going to try, though, and consisting of straight and simple violence.
’Blazejudicator! Frosttusk! With me, we’re going to get weird.’
[At once, Executor.]
[As you command, minn Jarl!]
Realizing that Infernola was going to be a bigger pain in the ass than they initially thought he was going to be, Zhen Liu recalled the two kaijin most qualified to fight someone with a..."fiery" disposition.
Blazejudicator was his go-to aether flame expert since he was made of the stuff and technically constituted a part of his soul, while Frosttusk was literally able to absorb heat and flames in order to produce powerful blasts of ice and snow.
As such, putting the two together inside of Zhen Liu should lead to him becoming the ultimate firefighter...in theory.
Regardless, once Zhen Liu gave the command, Blazejudicator and Frosttusk gave their parting shots before floating upwards and joining Zhen Liu. However, they weren’t the only kaijin to do so.
[Huh? Hey! Wait up!]
"Huh?"
For some reason, Hurricroak floated up to where Zhen Liu was as well.
’Hurricroak, what are you doing up here? I only called for—’
[I know you did, Maestro, but that stupid fire fucker down there said some real fucked up shit to me before he decided to go from possessing a nameless corpse to looking like a knock-off Prometheus statue,] Hurricroak interjected. [And I would really like to deal some actual damage to him. Even if it’s through proxy.]
’Huh...’
Examining his connection to Hurricroak, he noticed that the frog kaijin’s resolve to fight Infernola was much firmer than he anticipated and seemed to have a strange effect on her [Core]. If anything, he swore he heard her [Core] was buzzing with excitement.
Normally, Zhen Liu was the type to go elemental advantages in a fight like this. But, he had also consumed enough anime and comics to know that sometimes, sheer power and enthusiasm could ignore such things.
’...fine. I guess I did need someone taking the role of armor.’
[Yes!]
[Wait,] Frosttusk interjected. [If Hurricroak is here, I suggest we change our positioning.]
’How so?’
[Nothing too big; just have Hurricroak take the attacker role while I do defense. Simple.]
’The usual formation, right.’
[Technically unusual,] Hurricroak corrected. [We’re swapping out Nepherage for Blazejudicator.]
’Right.’
With the plan now set, Blazejudicator, Frosttusk, and Hurricroak all transformed into cards, which Zhen Liu then proceeded to slide into his [MY Driver].
One by one, he activated the kaijin for their intended purpose.
[Burning Judgeman: Spirit! Set!]
[Freezing Mammoth: Stigma! Set!]
[Thundering Chimera: Taboo! Set!]
Once he was fully kitted out, Zhen Liu moved in to bring down the thunder.
...
[Interesting! Interesting!] Infernola cried with glee as he continued to block and parry the myriad of attacks that the kaijin threw at him with near reckless abandon. [I didn’t expect that monstrous warriors of legend were so good at coordinating with one another. The stories had a tendency to describe the lot of you as being selfish champions of the battlefield!]
[We read those stories too,] Nepherage answered for herself and her fellow kaijin. [And they fail to mention an incredibly important detail about what we kaijin are actually capable of doing!]
[Really? What’s that?]
[We can make our creator several times stronger!] Nepherage declared with a strange sense of pride. [Everyone, bounce!]
[What?]
All of the kaijin that were engaged with Infernola at this time proceeded to disengage and leap away with coordination rivalling the most veteran of synchronized swimmers.
The sight confused Infernola until he heard the sound of an electric bass being warmed up above his head.
Turning upwards, Infernola saw a radically transformed Zhen Liu about to unleash sonic hell upon his head.
[Damn! You look ridic-]
Before Infernola could get in another word, Zhen Liu played a power chord that was as heavy as a three-ton cinder block.
[FUCK!]
’Okay, I think I get why you wanted this particular set-up now,’ Zhen Liu mentally communicated as he kept unleashing a volley of melodious thunder.
At this moment in time, Zhen Liu resembled a heavy-duty robotic viking covered in weaponized speakers and armed with an electric bass that had a heavy-handed chimeric-toad motif to it. However, there was also this aura of judgment surrounding him at this time that made one think that he wasn’t some heavy metal warrior, but some kind of afterlife judge of warriors.
This current look was a result of combining Blazejudicator’s [Possesion], Frosttusk [Stigma], and Hurricroak’s [Taboo].
Blazejudicator’s innate flames allowed Zhen Liu to produce an aura of constant heat that threatened to scorch anyone dumb enough to get too close without the proper protection. Or in this case, would allow him to feed heat directly into Frosttusk’s [Stigma].
Frosttusk had the highest physical defense out of all of Zhen Liu’s kaijin; however, that was only part of the benefits that came from using him as armor. Like the freezing mammoth kaijin himself, his [Stigma] came with the ability to absorb heat and produce powerful acoustic blasts of ice. Or in this case, work as a powerful amplifier.
Hurricroak’s [Taboo] was...nebulous to say the least. Because of her chimeric nature, Hurricroak’s [Taboo] always seemed to change whenever Zhen Liu called upon her power of thunder and lightning, but there was one constant that always maintained itself: the [Taboo] would take the form of an instrument.
This time around, Hurricroak’s [Taboo] took the form of a bass guitar, which was exactly what Zhen Liu needed.
With the power of all three kaijin combined, Zhen Liu was able to reach a power level that definitely exceeded a peak Aether Lord and was definitely able to contend with at least a two-ring Aether King.
In other words, Infernola was kind of fucked.
Copper was only a proto-kaijin with no cultivation base that was only recently promoted, so he wasn’t that strong in comparison to the fully fledged kaijin or even the Doll Twins.
If the [Flame of Ambition] had managed to hijack one of them, this would’ve been a very different story.
BOOM!
As the acoustic pressure continued to come down like heavy rain, Infernola found themselves being forced down on one knee.
...
’Huh...this is working a lot better than I had anticipated,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he focused directing the combined efforts of three full powered kaijin into a powerful blast of energy meant to extinguish Infernola from existence.
At the rate this was going, Zhen Liu could feel that he and his kaijin would be winning this battle in a matter of seconds...which was why he was starting to get worried.
Zhen Liu had gotten a little too used to motherfuckers pretending to be weaker than they appeared, or having some ass pull second stage, and he was getting that tingling feeling in the back of his head several times over.
(Un)Fortunately, Logos and Pathos piped up to confirm his fears.
<=Milord, we have good news and bad news.=>
’Of fucking course you do,’ Zhen Liu growled and sighed. ’What is it?’
’The fact that’s the good news is fucking terrifying to me on a level I didn’t know was possible until this moment...what the fuck is the bad news?’
=The bad news is that we just figured out that when the [Flame of Ambition] burned down those False Crusaders and reclaimed the flame from Hulna and Feroxxa, they had actually stole bits of their power as well. They just hadn’t digested those gains completely until...right about now.=
’FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!’
...
[RAAAAAA!]
"Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Unnoticed until this moment, Infernola had stored power within himself until finally unleashing it all at once to blow away the sound wave.
The blast was so powerful, it actually pushed Zhen Liu and the kaijin back.