Zedong

"Zedong"

- explaining his twisted ideology.

About
Zedong was a Great Monster General affiliated with the Kayblis Faction and a major antagonist in Rance X.

A mad Monster obsessed with the vague concept of "Nihao"; he does not tolerate anything that doesn't fall under his unclear definition of what represents it. He wishes to hold complete control over humans and reduce them to cattle, where all humans stand beneath monsters under absolute and hegemonic domination. This ideal is closely tied to his notion of "Nihao" that he seeks to spread and has actively tried to put it to practice for many years.

At some point, Zedong was apparently given false information by one of Hornet's Apostles. Not much is known about the details of this incident but it is suggested that he developed an intense grudge against them following this event.

In the year GI1015, Gi named Kurusu Miki, a human girl from an Alternate Dimension, as his successor as Demon King, kidnapping her from her home in order to pass on his blood to her. Before Miki was able to fully awaken to the power of the Demon King, however, she was rescued by her boyfriend Ogawa Kentarou, who was able to temporarily stop her transformation through the use of Hirami Lemons. With Gi having allowed himself to be killed by Kentarou, and Miki refusing to accept the position of Demon King, the Monster Realm was left without a leader and thrown into a state of civil war. The war was fought between the Supreme Dark Lord Hornet, Gi's daughter who desired to follow through with her father’s wishes and embrace Miki as the new leader of monsterkind, and the Elite Dark Lord Kayblis, who desired to become the Demon King himself and wage war against humanity. Holding a grudge against Hornet coupled with Kayblis' politics of hostility towards humans, his goals aligned perfectly with Zedong's desires, prompting him to ally with the Kayblis Faction and serve as one of the most important commanders of the Monster Armies during the War of the Factions.

In the year LP0006, the Kayblis Faction succeeded in landing a decisive victory over the Hornet Faction, causing Kayblis to be recognized as the undisputed ruler of the Monster Realm. Shortly after consolidating his power, Kayblis ordered for a full-scale invasion of the Human Realm, beginning the 2nd Dark Lord War. Zedong was placed in charge of an army of 1,000,000 monsters and entrusted with the duty of invading the south-western Kingdom of Zeth alongside the Dark Lords Medusa and Galtia. His army was the largest of the four, as Kayblis was particularly concerned with rescuing the Elite Dark Lord Camilla that was being held prisoner in the capital of Zeth following a failed invasion attempt in LP4. He instructed Galtia to invade from the Kinani Desert at the North with a force of 600,000 while Medusa attempted to pierce through the western Maginot Line. Thanks to the overwhelming initial strike that combined an element of surprise and raw military might, it didn't take long for the monster army to conquer a substantial amount of Zeth's territory, including its capital Ragnarokarc, until the Zeth Army managed bring their advancements to a halt. Zedong's numbers and the presence of the invincible made the Monster Army the clearly superior but with some help from the Mouri House from JAPAN, Zeth managed to stand their ground as the war raged on.

As soon as the Monster Army settled down, Zedong began his project to establish human farms in the Zethan cities that had been captured by his troops. He prepared an exam that he forced all human prisoners to take. The purpose of the test was to grade their intelligence and gave them ample time to study. The Zethans, while terrified of their potential fate, were largely motivated due to assuming that if they passed they would be allowed to live as workforce for the Monster Army. If they failed they were graded as C-class humans and were all imprisoned together on a town under the monsters control. If they passed they were classified as B-class and were sent to another town, where they would once again study for a more difficult test, which if they also passed would make them A-class humans. These citizens would then be used to power Monster Generals, a race of monsters who gain great intellect by absorbing humans. B-Class humans that failed the second test were all killed and burned, while C-Class humans, deemed the most limited in brainpower, were scheduled as prime material for the farms. Zedong's plan of selective breeding involved picking only the least intelligent people, keeping only the humans of "lowest quality" that would never be able to revolt.

During the events of Rance X, the forces of the Human Realm were, through various circumstances, formally united under the warrior Rance to create the United Human Army. Due to possessing the Dark Sword Chaos, one of the only weapons capable of penetrating the Invincibility Field that protects Dark Lords from all forms of damage, Rance was able to form a specialized squad made up of humanity’s finest warriors designed to fight against and defeat each of the Dark Lords invading human territories. Titled the Dark Lord Extermination Squad, this group allowed humanity to begin to mount a more effective resistance against the Monster Army, providing hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. After months of gruelling fighting, Rance and his army managed to successfully defeat both Galtia and Medusa, dealing a tremendous blow to Zedong's army and severely weakening their combat potential in the process, something that immensely frustrated the monster commander. However while the blow to his forces was heavy once Zedong calmed down from the initial frustration he was ultimately content with being freed from the Dark Lords that he was forced to cooperate with, describing Galtia as a foolish glutton and Medusa as a lazy sadist. With them gone, he's ecstatic over getting the possibility to bring his plans to fruition without any interference.

If Rance chooses to assist in liberating Zeth from the Monster Army, Zedong will shortly after have a meeting with the leader of the Haniwa race, the Hanny King, and successfully form an alliance between the 100,000 hannies in Zeth and the Monster Army. Having been victims of discrimination from Zeth, the Hanny King believes that he should give humans a little scolding while his fellow hannies enjoy the idea of "playing war". Unaware of the true brutality of the conflict, Zedong takes advantage of the naive and whimsical race to turn the tides of the war, as the magic nation struggles heavily in battle against the magic-immune hannies. Zedong is mostly exasperated by the Hanny King's eccentricities but puts up with him as the cooperation with the haniwa is a huge boost to his forces.

Sometime later among the captured top performers of the tests imposed by Zedong shows up Urza Pranaice, who infiltrated the Monster Army's concentration camps by disguising as a captured civilian. Shortly thereafter, a fight breaks out between the hannies and the Monster Army after the Hanny King ordered his followers to turn against the monsters after finding out about the brutal actions of the MA from a letter sent by Urza through the hanny Marco. Zedong's forces, confused and dispersed from the sudden betrayal, are struggling to defend as the Dark Lord Extermination Squad arrives, pushing through towards Zedong's location following a signal given by Urza. Despite heavily outnumbering the opposition, Zedong quickly concludes that the chaos of the situation combined with the loss of morale will inevitably end in their defeat and immediately orders all troops to retreat and regroup. As Zedong prepares his escape, Urza, knowing the risk that it entails, attempts to make time for Rance to arrive by insulting Zedong's ideals. Her provocation sparks a short but heated argument between the two, earning just enough time for Rance to arrive just as Zedong is about to leave. As soon as the battle starts Zedong fires a poison gas from his mouth to kill everyone inside the building but his plan is foiled by the Hanny King, who destroys the walls looking for Zedong, mitigating the gas in the process. Unable to rely on his poison, Zedong is forced to fight against the two on his own but he's ultimately unable to come out victorious and perishes in battle. Following his death, the Monster Army invading Zeth was left headless and in utter disarray, allowing Zeth to defeat the remainder of their scattered forces, finally liberating the Kingdom from the monster threat at last.

If the Monster Army succeeds in conquering Zeth, a sceptical Kayblis will inquire on how Zedong doing as it seems to be taking longer than it should to finish. The Great Monster General is overjoyed by the advances of his plan, claiming that it's all going Nihao as he's deliberately going against his master's orders to exterminate 80% of the human population, instead implementing his Human Management Project. As such, he's very cautiously taking his time with it to ensure that he will reduce humanity to a race of slaves incapable of ever rising up again. During a daily report, it is revealed that the now-former queen Magic the Gandhi was captured during Zeth's fall as she was attempting to help people evacuate. As a special case, they locked her in a narrow cage where she's used as a sexual outlet for monsters and she's assigned a human partner for the project. A non-mage man named Onaga that ranked F in an intelligence test (the lowest score possible), described as clumsy, weak and fat. Eventually, she's successfully impregnated by the man, an event that sinks Magic into an even deeper despair. As both Zeth and Magic are shown to have safely survived the events of the 2nd Dark Lord War 15 years later, this event is confirmed to have not occurred.

Personality and Appearance
Zedong's physical appearance strongly resembles that of his fellow Great Monster Generals, boasting a large and robust blue body clad in a platinum-coloured armour, four tentacles protruding from his back and a large translucent spherical sphere on his belly. Unlike regular monster generals, his belly is filled with a strange and slimy orange liquid that takes the shape of a laughing bald man. In contrast with the cheerful expression in his belly, his real face looks far more diabolic, with intense bloodshot eyes and a stern expression, and with a neck fiercely adorned with skulls.

A very eccentric and uncanny monster, Zedong possesses a firm set of beliefs that defines his worldview. He loves "Nihao" and everything that falls under his definition of it, while completely disregarding or even despising things that do not. His fixation with the concept borders on obsession, as he often mixes it in all his conversations. He tends to describe things as being "Nihao" or "not Nihao" but he never gives a clear answer of the intention behind his words, resulting in him mostly confusing his subordinates in the process whenever he talks about it. In spite of this, he's otherwise effective and persuasive in his orders to his subordinates and is able to relay instructions adequately beyond the awkwardness his soldiers' experience.

His conception of "Nihao" appears to be tied with his ideology of monster supremacy. Many monsters hold a strong sense of hostility towards humanity, making it common for them to hold a superiority complex towards their rival race, but Zedong takes it to another extreme. He wishes to reduce all of humanity to cattle and establish an acutely and strictly organised system of human farms where they are held under the complete domination of monsters. His plan involves selecting the worst of the worst humans that he can find and leaving only them alive and able to reproduce in his farms. In the areas that were under the Monster Army's control, he forced humans to take part in several tests to measure their capabilities, like their intelligence, their physical fitness, among others, and sending the lowest-performing ones to his institution while killing the rest. Zedong holds an intense passion for controlling and dreams of a world where all humans beneath him are equal, with no one standing out in any way and leaving room for only the lowest. This ideal of his is something that he's immensely proud of, being prone to go on long speeches whenever he gets the chance. Similarly, he's easily angered when he feels that it's insulted or dismissed. He feels like it's his duty to create the perfect world for monsters that he envisions and that only he can do it. His plans even go directly against those of his master Kayblis, who ordered the Great Monster Generals to kill 80% of the human population, but Zedong feels like that number would be too low as monsters there wouldn't be enough slaves or toys for monsters. He asserts that with the proper planning humans can be kept perfectly under control and is confident in his ability to go through with it.

Beyond his demented ideology, Zedong is a somewhat jovial individual that is usually in a good mood. He is, however, considerably short-tempered and is quick to rage when things don't go as planned. He's pragmatic and attempts to make use of all the resources at his disposal or making decisions based on what's optimal rather than succumbing to pride or honour. In spite of finding greatly humiliating to escape, he's willing to withdraw his troops if he sees little chance of victory in order to ensure minimum damage to his army. He's quite good at building relationships with others, as he was able to turn the Haniwa race living in Zeth into their allies through their mutual desire to defeat humans, as well as being in touch with the other Monster Armies. In particular, he greatly assisted LeMay with various magical weapons he stole from Zeth; including the incredibly powerful m Bomb. In general, Zedong seems to have relatively positive relationships with other monsters. Like all the other Great Monster Generals, he possesses an extremely intimidating and oppressive presence that inspires both fear and awe from the rest of his kind, who rely on his leadership entirely and are shown reacting in complete disbelief upon hearing of his death. This geniality does not extend to humans in the slightest, who he views as inferior beings that should be used and abused as toys for monsters, and displays a horrific level of cruelty towards them. The cruelty he treats them with is cold and unforgiving like you would an animal, cutting the limbs and tongues of prisoners used for Monster Generals because it's easier if they aren't able to move or speak. In spite of this mindset, he's also able to recognize the capabilities of humans that he deems talented, as he was able to admit the notable tactical mind of people like Urza. This only serves to further rile him, however, as he believes that such intellect is wasted on lesser humans.

Abilities
As a Great Monster General, Zedong possessed a level of commanding ability that far surpassed most other beings on the Continent, allowing him to expertly lead large armies of monsters without a problem. In particular, he has an astonishing level of self-restraint and capability to calm himself even during a fit of rage, which allows him to make the most optimal decisions even during critical moments. Zedong's abilities as a commander were crucial to the Monster Army's campaign in Zeth, as its forces quickly fell apart in panic after losing his leadership.

Outside of his commanding ability, Zedong was recognized as one of the most powerful monsters in existence at the time of his death and was considered to be close to a Dark Lord in overall power. During the 2nd Dark Lord War, he had succeeded in reaching the extremely high Level of 90, which is presumed, but not confirmed, to have also been his Level Cap; granting him a much greater amount of power than the vast majority of the Continent's population. Additionally, Zedong's strength was further buffered by his large and durable body, which provided him with superior offensive and defensive capabilities compared to others of a similar level. He's noted for having an extraordinary magic resistance, making him a fearsome foe for the mages of Zeth to defeat. At one point he was hit with a Black Destruction Beam from Anise Sawatari, the strongest mage in the country, without sustaining any considerable damage. It was thanks to this outrageous resilience from magic attacks what ultimately motivated the magic kingdom to allow a team of non-mages to fight him, showing how powerless mages felt against him.

In battle, Zedong utilized a combination of his powerful arms and sharp tentacles to attack his enemies. Among the four Great Monster Generals that invaded the Human Realm during the 2nd Dark Lord War, Zedong possessed the unique ability to exhale a poisonous white fog from his mouth. This fog is extremely dangerous indoors, as it spreads quickly and there isn't much one can do to defend against it, but it becomes completely nullified in the open air. His fighting style is largely defensive, setting up multiple barriers while attacking his opponents with his tentacles.

Trivia

 * Zedong's character is modelled after Mao Zedong, an infamous and controversial Chinese leader behind the foundation of the Communist Party of China. He's largely attributed as being responsible for the deadliest famine in history, large-scale persecutions, a violent cultural revolution, among other things. The face in the liquid sphere of Zedong's body closely resembles that of his real-life counterpart as well.