Chapter 42: Pretty impressive, but not exceptionally so

Oh, fucking awesome...

In the earphones came the praise of a certain weak‑fleshed, data‑ascended vampire, speaking without backache.

Two kilometers away from that huge, ferocious humanoid, Aomo, stationed at a protective shield node, examined the terminal screen before him, then manipulated the somewhat abstract‑shaped game controller to add a bit of liveliness to the camera movement.

A drone, of course it's a drone.

Moreover, it was a military drone equipped with a small shield generator and signal booster—discarded gear.

Having money doesn't mean you can buy anything; at least buying it openly would be hard to explain.

Even though the surplus gear was outrageously expensive, he still had to spend the money.

After all... although he had no information on combat power or threat from what the Two Worlds Safety Bureau provided, the bureau immediately issued a wanted notice marking a C‑level threat.

C‑level threat: this is the threat level in the Holy Terra Federation's unified threat assessment that can endanger an entire planet's landmass.

Of course, in practice Heaven Gate City and the Holy Terra Federation both have massive‑cost large‑scale defense layers, intercity protection formations, crust‑reinforcement projects and the like, making the land where civilization resides more durable; thus this threat‑assessment standard deviates somewhat from reality.

After all, it's based on the standards of primitive civilized planets.

Thus, hardly any residents of Heaven Gate City chose to flee upon hearing the news; instead they went on with their daily lives.

But having said that, the Safety Bureau's threat assessment can reasonably be understood as three possibilities:

1. The Safety Bureau is trying to scare people into making residents, mercenaries, and bounty hunters take it more seriously;

2. The Safety Bureau assesses that the threat posed by that guy who controls the star‑gate key could cause a crisis of this magnitude;

3. That guy, as an alien mercenary, genuinely possesses this kind of direct combat power.

Aomo naturally considered the third possibility directly.

Thus, even if he intended to gather intel firsthand, he first carried out a small distancing maneuver.

A gentleman does not stand beneath a dangerous wall; who knows whether the other side might really crank out a Turtle School Qigong.

Of course, a single small drone camera is naturally insufficient, so Aomo's terminal large screen has, in its lower‑left corner, an 8×8 array of screens resembling a monitoring room—not because he bought that many photography‑specialized drones, but simply because he opened 64 live‑streams and then combined them.

The 64 live‑streams consist of 51 mercenaries and 13 hard‑core broadcasters resembling war reporters; their common point is that they have recently streamed from Heaven Gate City and all have participated in filming the scene where the Mechanical Godzilla ran rampant.

Finding these people is not difficult for Aomo, who is well‑versed in online information; originally intending to use them as one information source, these bold, talented folks actually could provide a lot of special information about this city just from their dynamics and past videos.

It's equally easy to be sure they'll also try to stream this disaster—just open the attention list on site and take a look.

The difficulty lies in getting them to stream with multiple complementary camera angles that can be combined; on this point, Aomo used the power of money.

"Stop sighing here, keep sending danmaku to show your presence; at least make sure someone is filming the 14 angles I mentioned earlier! Hey, are you even moving?"

"I'm here, I'm here, SC's been lit! You're squeezing even the dead!"

SC, SuperChat, the paid comments in live‑stream videos, can make the comments sent by viewers more conspicuous.

Morrison was following Aomo's plan to send reward requests to these broadcasters, with the wording given a fixed template—polite and humble—greatly satisfying the broadcasters' vanity.

This also made Morrison sigh, revealing the heart of a demon.

Even more lamentable, the insurance money akin to his own inheritance was being used for the first time to tip the broadcasters... truly desolate!

Wouldn't it be better to use it himself for micro‑transactions!

"I'm helping the dead take revenge; why can't the dead fight side‑by‑side with me? Remember to alternate SCs, don't let the broadcasters grow suspicious of you."

Look, how could I have thought a few days ago that this kid wasn't like a demon? Morrison fell into self‑doubt, not forgetting to point out the plan's flaws:

"The broadcaster circle knows each other all too well; do you really think they won't suspect you when they talk about it later?"

"It's fine for now; after the revenge, that sort of thing doesn't matter."

He doesn't care at all! He just wants revenge, he really— I'm dying... what a damn mess! How could I think this little imp enjoys it?

"Rather than saying he enjoys it, it's more like your heartlessness lets me only self‑motivate through the immersive act of avenging."

"? You can already read the hearts of pixels?!" Morrison exclaimed in shock.

"Please turn off the thought‑bubble," Aomo raised his hand and poked the chat box beside Morrison's head on the screen, which had a similar style to the chat rooms of Snake and Kailifu—deep‑red blood‑tinged, originally possessing a dark‑style coolness, but unfortunately the lines were too soft—"When you're tinkering with your new Space‑Man‑Ghost function, could you at least remember not to just click and forget?"

"What's this 'Space‑Man‑Ghost' meme? I don't get it."

"It's the Gundam meme rising on the big screen right now."

Aomo sighed; the awe‑inspiring humanoid mech that shot up to about 20 meters in height triggered a 'nonexistent memory' in his mind, giving him a feeling of mismatched Guan Yu fighting Qin Qiong.

No... I've seen a similar scene before; what was it called? *Ready Player One*.

Monsters and Gundam, but Ace Killer and Assault Freedom don't match up anywhere, and why Assault Freedom anyway... Ace Killer isn't particularly afraid of laser beams...... Aomo had a headache, thinking the guy piloting the Gundam needed to go to the Tsuburaya Exhibition Hall to grab a special‑effects guy as a consultant, at least knowing how to swap in a Barbatos.

That's Ace Killer, the origin of the 'kill whoever you want, they won't die' killer's curse.

After him came Mebius Killer, Mechanical Killer, Victory Killer—these generation after generation of killers all chose the path of being killed.

But that doesn't mean it's weak.

In fact, its ability—stealing enemies' skills—is a classic copy‑cat technique.

In the original work known to Aomo, the Ultraman Brothers crucified on the cross became Ace Killer's initial resource pool.

They loaded it with M87 Ray, Spacium Ray, Emerium Ray—a skill set enough to make it a ray master—and then they even took the gear of Ultraman Jack, the Ultraman wristband.

Furthermore, its creator gave it gold armor that ignores the Ultraman Brothers' ray techniques and a left claw of the same material, making its combat power extraordinarily strong, once creating many a childhood‑shadow‑like grim scene.

But that's the fully formed Ace Killer; is the one before us already formed? Did any of those Ultraman suckers feed it skills or give it equipment?

At first Aomo harbored a bit of hopeful optimism, but then he saw the opponent produce, with utterly plain motion, a strangely shaped twisted metal treasure resembling a tree branch, and he began to think the Two Worlds Safety Bureau's threat assessment was still conservative.

If we gave that guy the chance to leave the atmosphere and fire M87... wait, it doesn't seem as strong as imagined?

Aomo frowned, watching the Emerium Ray emitted from the opponent's head—belonging to Ultraseven—and fell into thought.