Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What? Chapter 1615: Unclear paths

[...and I’m going to be honest, I didn’t know Chaos could be absorbed in such a fashion,] Blazejudicator reported to his fellow kaijin, [but I am now a little disturbed.]

[How so?] Screamira asked.

[Probably because of the sll,] Corpse Doll answered. [It was bad. Like, worst than a rotting corpse bad. And I should know.]

[Mmmm. I don’t think it was the sll that was the problem,] Porcelain Doll added. [I think it was because of the quality of the Desires.]

[Yeah! The desires were all...murky. Not like the desires that Caretaker condenses. These were all...ssy.]

Logos and Pathos explained.

[What does that an?] Hurricroak asked.

[Yeah...]

= The desires locked in those spilled bodily fluids are similar. They contain desires that are as epheral as craving a triple-decker cheeseburger with extra bacon. It sounds like a good idea at the ti, but it usually cos twinged with regret further down the line. These kinds of desires are very common but never seem to co directly from the inner reaches of the soul...save for a few individuals. =

[Hmmm.]

Taking everything that they knew so far about Ferroxa and Hulna, the kaijin could only determine that these two main secrets were that they figured out how to cultivate like a kaijin...sort of.

The [Sacred Fla], whatever portion they had managed to take in, had apparently started to reward them for following certain innate tendencies that they already followed in the first place.

Ferroxa was a veteran hardass who demanded proper protocol from his troops, regardless of their rcenary status, and seed to get empowered whenever he had to exact discipline on the rowdy rcenaries.

That or whenever he committed acts of extre violence against them, this was still being investigated by the mbers of Mysticlassic.

Hulna, on the other hand, was a man who preached peace and love yet sohow learned how to tap into the most primal form of the latter and...well...feed off of it like so kind of low-class incubus.

Either way, as far as the kaijin could tell, they were both still possible traitors for the exact reason: personal cultivation power.

If Ferroxa was the traitor, his motivation for assassinating the previous Hearth Tender was to simply keep the war going.

The longer the war, the more chances he had to exact disciplinary violence and reap the weird rewards that ca from it. Of course, it ran the very real risk of the war going on for so long that Ferroxa and his acolytes would have no one to preach to other than corpses or have no more bodies to bury except themselves.

Hulna’s motivation was sowhat similar but with a weirder payoff and an alternative "win con."

If the war kept going, he could keep hosting his "gatherings of peace and love" and be able to continue gathering the errant desires of people just trying to live in the mont and not think about their impending doom.

If he could figure out how to end the war the way he wanted, i.e., sohow get the Emperor of the Erupting Dawn Empire to agree to a peace marriage alliance, then he could sneak his way into that man’s imperial harem and feed off of the sexual desires that would surely be generated in such a situation.

Granted, this was speculation on just Blazejudicator’s part, as the Doll Twins were still trying to wrap their heads around the idea of feeding off of such errant and weak desires.

[So what do we do now? Keep stalking these guys until they do sothing obvious?] Razorstella asked.

[We could just take them both out and be done with it,] Screamira suggested. [It’d be quick too. No need to worry about whether or not we made the right call.]

[I really don’t think the Ringmaster would order sothing like that,] Springerdermain pointed out.

’He is right about that,’ Zhen Liu finally chid in. ’For the ti being, maintain a close eye on Hulna and Ferroxa while Logos and Pathos make their determinations on who is the more likely suspect. They’ll give the final verdict once y’all collect enough evidence.’

[Fair enough.]

[Do they at least have a preliminary guess?]

...Well? Do they?...

Pathos grumbled.

=To be fair, we expect this sort of thing to occur, which is why we have the kaijin tailing them in the first place. Give them ti, and we’ll probably have a final answer in the next three days. Maybe four. =

=Ah, you’re wondering if it’s possible that Serena is playing us for the fool so that she can possibly steal ownership of us? That she might’ve set these two up as obvious bait to draw crucial kaijin power to locations other than where it’s actually needed? =

=That doubt is why we have zakos tailing her.=

...Speaking of zakos and Serena...

"Hmmm."

"..."

Understanding that trust was a two-way street, Serena didn’t mind having what were essentially monstrous ti bombs on her person, especially when they took on the form of so surprisingly fashionable beads made of precious tals.

However, that didn’t stop her from trying to get a better look at her so-called "assurance".

Which is why, after she had finished her morning rituals as the First Hearth Tender, Serena retreated to her office and began to study the zako marbles in greater detail.

"Interesting...very interesting."

In her mind, they were very similar to aether puppets but had so details that made it very clear that they were anything but.

The first thing she noticed, on a physical level, was that these zako marbles were perfectly smooth and symtrical...but not in a manufactured way.

Making tal marbles and beads wasn’t an unusual practice; many blacksmiths and craftsn first learned to make such baubles, but they always had imperfections or at least carried signs of polishing techniques.

These zako marbles appeared as if they manifested into reality as being perfectly spherical, as if the universe had deed their existence to be as such from the very beginning of reality.

The second thing she noticed, on a spiritual level, was that these marbles weren’t inert like regular aether puppets when they were inactive.

Aether puppets, when not in use, were no different from normal puppets. They essentially sat there and did nothing and released no aura or aether that would suggest otherwise.

These zako marbles, however, constantly released and absorbed energy like they were living beings. Then again, Zhen Liu did say that they technically were living things that could learn and grow given enough ti.

"I wonder..."

From her desk, Serena pulled out several low-tiered aether dicines and aether beast crystals that she had acquired from her ti before becoming the First Hearth Tender.

She had wanted to donate these items but had never gotten around to it given how busy her life had beco.

But now, she had another purpose to these items.

"Now, I don’t think these guys have any mouths, so...maybe I just—oh!"

Serena’s initial plan to see what would happen if she "fed" the aether materials to the zako marbles was to use her aether to try and break them down into energy that could then be absorbed by the marbles themselves.

However, that turned out to be an unnecessary step.

The mont Serena placed the items on the table next to the marbles, one of the gold ones imdiately rolled over towards them and plopped itself atop a crystal that had once belonged to a first-tiered aether beast known as an Icicle Frog.

The golden zako marble sat on the crystal for a few monts before the latter had disintegrated into particles of energy and was promptly absorbed. Imdiately afterwards, snowflake-like patterns began to appear on the surface of the gold zako marble and Serena could make out the vague shape of a frog’s head mixed in as well.

"How peculiar..."

After making this comnt, the other zako marbles began to move towards the remaining items on the desk and repeat the process.

By the end of it, the once-blank zako marbles began to take on more...unique patterns.

’No wonder the Kaijin Lord is spoken with such caution in the records...’