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

Zhen Liu took a deep breath as he got himself mentally ready for his first serious attempt at making a series of bodies for a bunch of godly fragments.

'Huh, I wonder if this was how my predecessor felt when he did it for that rainbow serpent thing… I really should ask those missionaries that Rodenia made friends with…and I should probably ask them their names again, because holy shit I forgot about them,' Zhen Liu mused as he mentally prepared himself.

With his hammer in one hand, and [Ghost Flame] in the other, Zhen Liu was more or less ready to hammer these horribly cursed ingots into more useful forms.

However, there was one last thing he needed to address before doing so.

^What in the hell is that thing?^ Lythero asked Antonio, all while leaning away from the latter with a worried look on his face. For context, the latter was currently messing around with a power tool that was designed to grind down the edges of metal structures.

^I don't know, but it makes a very funny sound when I mess with it like this,^ Antonio replied while pressing a button on the tool and making the aforementioned grinder bit to whirr and spin.

Prior to coming to the workshop, Zhen Liu had asked both his cousins and allies from Dozing Salamander if they had wanted to come along to witness the body creation process for the three tezcatlipocas.

His cousins declined, citing that they had wanted to go and inform the rest of their family that they had managed to return from Dozing Salamander without any incidents.

While the slave girls from the former [Mines of Malevolence] opted to explore the rest of the library, as they were kind of sick of being around cursed metals. That and the girls had never been to a library before now, so Pathos insisted on giving them a grand old tour of the place.

Either way, this meant that Zhen Liu, Antonio, and Lythero were the only mortals present in the forge room.

In other words, this meant that now was a perfect opportunity for Zhen Liu to ask a question of Lythero that had yet to be addressed.

"Hey, Lythero."

"Huh?"

"Do you want me to save some of these ingots for an attempt to fix up your swords? I have no idea if they require any special materials, but this stuff should at least be able to help reinforce or upgrade their characteristics, right?"

"Ah…"

The time Zhen Liu and Lythero had spent travelling together was…eventful, to say the least, especially for the latter.

In the span of a few short months, Zhen Liu had forced Lythero to rekindle his spark for cultivation, regain the legacy of his deceased masters, attempt a revenge match with the man responsible for his masters being deceased, and lose that aforementioned legacy through several harrowing moments over the course of two adventures.

Most other people in his situation would've cut ties with Zhen Liu for having been through at least half of this bullshit.

Lythero, on the other hand, understood that the alternative was returning to his shitty existence doing humdrum work into a drunken grave. Besides, hanging around Zhen Liu was a surprisingly dense source of inspiration.

"To be honest, I have been…thinking about an alternative to simply repairing my swords," Lythero began to answer Zhen Liu. "But I definitely need to do more research into whether or not it's actually possible to do what I have in mind."

"Oh? Would you mind elaborating on what you have in mind?"

Zhen Liu had a vague idea of what Lythero had in mind in regard to fixing up his swords, but he wasn't sure of it until Lythero had summoned his [Astra].

At a glance, he could tell that the personal weapon of the young swordsmaster was looking rather dim without its original counterparts.

"I didn't really think about it until I had lost the first few of my masters' swords, but the fact that my [Astra] could transform into copies of them, while I had to physically switch between the seven of them in order to properly dual wield, was incredibly limiting," Lythero explained his thoughts. "I never really thought of a way to fix that problem of mine, since I figured I would always have the swords of my masters on hand, until I saw what you and the Gallop Brothers did when you fought against Dante. That whole fusion thing? Hell, I think the seed for this idea may have originated from that guy and his weird chimeric kaijin."

"I can imagine," Zhen Liu commented, feeling a little smug that he had effectively predicted what Lythero was planning to do with the fragments of his old swords. "You're wondering if it's possible to merge together the fragments into a brand-new sword?"

"Kind of?" Lythero confirmed while looking just a touch sheepish at the thought. "My thinking is to combine the fragments of all seven of my masters' old swords into one new sword that is able to transform into versions of all seven of them and maybe have a brand new eighth sword. Something that represents myself. I have no idea if this is at all possible, but…it might be if we use a little bit of [Chaos]?"

"Huh… R*ve M@ster, thy name is thee," Zhen Liu muttered under his breath as he mentally processed Lythero's suggestion.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, but such an idea… should be possible if we ask Logos and Pathos about it," Zhen Liu answered in an attempt to move the topic away from his old memories of a simpler time and towards the pile of malicious metals that was still radiating an awfully ominous aura. "I have no idea if such an idea will need to incorporate any of this stuff then…unless you want your new sword to have a kintsugi look to it."

"I…what the fuck is kintsugi?"

"It's an art style and philosophy that is centered around the idea that flaws, imperfections, and cracks can make something beautiful if treated right. Traditionally, it's about breaking pots and putting them back together using gold-infused lacquer," Zhen Liu explained. "Which…kind of applies to this situation, but the fact that you're using the fragments to build something entirely new instead of an evolved form of what was originally there, I guess, leans towards something else…recycling, maybe?"

"Huh…kintsugi…"

"..."

"..."

"Hello?"

"..."

"Uh oh."

Realizing that he had accidentally sent his friend down a philosophical rabbit hole, Zhen Liu figured that the answer to his earlier question was going to be a partial "yes," so he decided to reserve a handful of ingots just in case Lythero decided to use them.

At the same time, he retrieved the power tool from Antonio, who was still playing with it.

"What the hey!"

"Trust me when I say that there are some wounds that aether can't fix," Zhen Liu lightly admonished his other companion. "On a side note, Logos and Pathos have just informed me that they think they know who your adoptive mama was. You can either hang around here until you're emotionally ready, or you can go and rip the band-aid off now. Either way, I got to work."

"Wait, what?!"

Acting as if he didn't just drop a huge emotional bombshell on his friend, Zhen Liu finally brought his focus to the furnace before him and the ingots piled next to it.

The flames of the furnace were roaring hot and were a brilliant red color. However, they weren't flames that were appropriate for these metals, nor his [Hammer of the Dearly Departed].

He did, however, have a flame that was incredibly appropriate for both components: [Ghost Flame].

'I've got to snuff out this fire first, lest i want to accidentally cause overheating,' Zhen Liu mentally noted before circulating aether to a rarely used part of his formula.

Taking a deep breath, Zhen Liu absorbed the original red flames of the furnace, registering it to be a type of aether flame expression he could replicate later.

Once the flame was fully digested, Zhen Liu immediately released an exhalation of [Ghost Flame] that reignited the furnace and filled the room with a strangely cold aura, the type of aura one would normally associate with graveyards.

As if it was stimulated by the dreadful feeling, the pile of [Malevolent Gold], [Diabolic Silver], [Malicious Copper], and [Azure Lead] all seemed to grow a little more…turbulent.

Recognizing this change, the [Hammer of the Dearly Departed] seemed to get energized as well.

'Huh, this reaction is somewhat similar to what I saw when I approached that corpse pile back in the [Mines of Malevolence],' Zhen Liu noted as he held the blacksmith hammer in his hands. 'I guess it makes sense, something as ghastly and cursed as this being attracted to things tainted with the aura of the damned and dead.'

Acknowledging the energetic change, Zhen Liu immediately got to work by loading up a crucible with several ingots.

As he did, he made sure to infuse them with plenty of [Chaos].