First Kaiju Kill

'Could these 2 fuck off already?' Adam lamented as the 2 idiots trotted behind him, doing their best to drag him into their antics.

Even though Aria's directions were very clear—follow her in a straight line—these 2 thought that they were on some usual evening stroll for whatever reason. Worse than that, though, was their incessant attempts to bring Adam into their stupid games.

About 2 seconds into their hike, Adam decided that if they wanted to become Kaiju chow, then that was their decision. Personally, he would like to keep his only hand.

"Hey look, it's that flower I was talking about!" Thea exclaimed with poorly disguised excitement.

"Stay in a single line!" Aria called from the front, glancing over her shoulder to give Thea a death stare.

She missed this completely as she was far too focused on that dumb flower. For just a second, Adam wondered if she was actually going to just ignore Aria. However, after Evan nudged her forward, Thea followed obediently.

Still, her gaze lingered on those flowers for far too long.

...

"Stop." Aria raised her hand in a fist as she uttered the simple, definitive command.

Stopping instantly, Adam huffed out a sigh of anger as Thea walked right into him. 'She just can't follow a single order, huh?'

She wasn't alone in this failure, though. Adam's brows furrowed as multiple people ended up running into each other because they couldn't even follow such a simple command. Right now, the punishment wasn't too severe.

Since they were hunting Kaiju, though...

"How many of you saw the Kaiju right in front of us?" Aria asked, keeping her gaze straight ahead.

Following that gaze, surprise crossed Adam's face.

'How could I have missed that?' He thrashed himself, unable to accept that failure. Maybe if he was still weak it would be understandable. However, he was the strongest in this group besides Aria.

There was a certain level of expertise he needed to have. If not, he was going to die well before the apocalypse came. This threat... it was not something anything short of perfection could stop.

Staring ahead at the hidden Kaiju, that fact was never more evident than now.

What he had thought was just another boulder suddenly rose, opening a previously concealed mouth. Some form of vapor streamed out of its mouth.

Sizzle.

The ground right ahead of the group began to melt as soon as the vapor touched it.

'Acid infused with Qi,' Adam thought as he looked into the beast's savage eyes. They were no more than 5 meters apart.

"When I say stop, you stop. Instantly," Aria declared without turning around to face her students. Instead, she summoned some sort of baton and took a step through the Kaiju's vapor.

The air hissed, and the Kaiju let loose a low growl, causing sediment to fall from the top of its head. Aria paid no mind as rock and stone melted around her. Instead, even as the beast propped itself up on its huge forearms like a gorilla—rising over 10 meters in the air—all she did was look up at its face and say, "This will be a demonstration."

"Grr–"

Cutting off the Kaiju's low, threatening growl, Aria jumped like a ray of light and thrust her baton straight into its jaw.

Wham!!!

Several students fell from the shockwave as her baton slammed into the Kaiju's skull. Even Adam, whose suit and hair were flapping wildly, had to dig his feet into the ground and grit his teeth against this overwhelming pressure.

The beast looked at the baton and then at the insect who wielded it. Aria flashed a grin as a look of pure savagery crossed over the Kaiju.

'Bring it on...' she thought as she activated her technique [Lightspeed], which boosted her speed at the cost of defense. Because she had an audience, of course, it was necessary to show off.

But just a little.

SWOOSH!!!

A huge arm swung through the air faster than oxygen could be displaced. Yet Aria was still much faster.

Barely able to perceive anything more than a blur, Adam knew that nobody was really going to learn much from this 'demonstration.'

Streaks of light hit the beast, knocking it off of its forearms and onto its back legs. Swinging its arms in a futile attempt to maintain its balance, the beast desperately looked through its surroundings for this demon.

Yet all the Kaiju saw were 6 humans watching the massacre. All it heard was a deafening laughter.

BAM!

Aria collided right into its chest, knocking the Kaiju down and killing it on the spot. The battle was over before it even began.

Standing over the corpse, Aria took a few heavy breaths before lowering her defense a little. Just enough so that the vapor remaining in the air would burn off her sweat. Then she turned to her students with a smile.

Pointing at the beast, she asked, "So, what did you guys learn?"

'Not much...' Adam lamented, annoyed for more than one reason. Not only did her showing off basically keep them from seeing how she defeated the beast, but also... he couldn't keep up with her.

At all.

What was the point of becoming stronger if he couldn't utilize that strength? What was the fucking point if someone like Aria came along, someone far faster than him, and simply killed his sister before he could even react?

Like before...

"It's quite simple, really."

Everyone turned to the voice, shocked. Adam rolled his eyes, hating that out of all the people who knew what happened, it had to be Red Hair.

Varek walked up to the corpse, having to jump to reach its torso. Then he walked next to Aria before pointing at its chest.

"Kaiju are bigger creatures. Because of this, they need multiple hearts in order to sustain themselves."

A red light shot from his hand into 3 places: the right part of its chest, the left, and then its stomach. Blood splattered onto his clothes, but Varek didn't seem to notice.

"This one had 3 hearts. Because your fighting style uses more blunt force than precision, you simply struck it in the center of its torso. It was only due to your overwhelming strength that you were able to kill the Kaiju in one hit. If it wasn't for the shockwaves destroying each heart instantly, you would've needed multiple hits."

Ignoring his blatant disapproval of their teacher, Aria nodded and said, "Yep. It is important to find a Kaiju's hearts, because then you can kill them. Good job, Varek, I can see you've been hitting up the library."

Varek shrugged and then stood silent for a second, as if he was debating whether or not to correct her. In the end, he decided to as he said, "No, not the library. I spar superiors for information."

The surrounding students gasped, wondering if they heard correctly. He sparred superiors for information? No wonder he was so strong then.

Adam gritted his teeth, feeling the gap between them even more. Sure, he had more stats. And sure, that was because he killed.

But there was a clear difference between him and Varek. Adam's kills so far had all been defenseless assholes. Even if they deserved to die, it would be completely delusional to claim that they posed any threat to him.

Therefore, even if his stats grew, his fighting experience didn't.

Aria had been right in that alleyway. He wasn't doing enough for the upcoming apocalypse.

He simply wasn't.

Obtaining meaningless stat amps wasn't enough. He had to fight, he had to kill warriors. There had to be a real risk of his own death. Otherwise, he would never grow.

His family, Faye, everyone he loved would die. Again.

And this time, it would be his fault.

"Well, now that you know how to kill a Kaiju, let's see how you guys do!" Aria exclaimed energetically, followed quickly by a growl behind the group.