Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?-Chapter 1298: And the Crowd Goes...

"Well…that was unnecessarily brutal," Zhen Liu commented from his seat in the private box.

"Yes, my warriors are rather…vicious when they're off their leashes," the Kaijin Lord lightly chuckled as he watched Splatter crush the life out of the slave who had insulted him over his living situation. "But they're able to do what I ask, regardless of the tastelessness of the task."

"You…mean they're loyal?"

"In a sense."

The duo proceeded to watch as Splatter slaughtered two more warriors that Zhen Liu could identify as being Aether Grandmasters from entirely different walks of life.

Zhen Liu couldn't help but feel bad for them, but alas, he couldn't blow his cover quite yet.

"Well, would you look at that! It appears your roommate from last night is about to engage with Splatter. Watch closely; this next part is going to be hilarious. These warriors of mine are actually invincible."

'To me, sure,' Zhen Liu commented internally, 'but I get the feeling that you're not going to like what you're about to see next.'

...On the field...

[What-what's going on?!]

In this mine, where violence and cruelty were the norm, Splatter was one of the few kaijin that had been able to live beyond their uplifting anniversary.

Down here, kaijin would regularly fight each other, swallow each other's cores, become part of a greater whole, and subsequently become nothing more than the voice in another's head. That is, unless the main consciousness in their gestalt body gets defeated in battle. At which point, one of the other merged kaijin had the opportunity to take over.

Despite being originally a Titanic Red-Warted Toad, a second-tier Aether Beast, Splatter was able to defeat and absorb two of his fellow Kaijin by acting in an unpredictable manner. However, both of those instances were rather close.

At those times, Splatter felt fear and panic bubbling in his belly, where he had begun to associate the fear of death with being absorbed.

Evidently, that was an incorrect comparison.

For reasons Splatter couldn't fully comprehend just yet, Olstenna's sudden appearance in such close proximity had sent shivers up and down his composite spine.

However, just because he was mildly perturbed didn't mean he was going to let himself get swallowed by this shadow of death for no reason.

[Screw off, fireball!]

Splatter pivoted his body so that the portion of his torso that vaguely resembled an elephant's head was directed towards Olstenna's direction.

Once aligned, Splatter attempted to shoulder-check the Aetherii before he could do anything.

Ideally, he had wanted to impact the bastard fully, making him feel the full force of an elephant's charge in a single strike. Adding [Chaos] on top of that would ensure that the attack ignored whatever defenses Olstenna would attempt to throw up to defend.

Unfortunately, he was too slow.

Or at least, that's what Splatter assumed the moment his attack failed to hit and Olstenna managed to dodge by spinning in the direction of Splatter's back.

The reality was actually much stranger, and the follow-up was significantly more painful than they anticipated.

... Olstenna's POV...

'Huh...so I guess that what I saw last time wasn't a fluke... interesting!'

When Olstenna first put his new fighting style into practice, humming military cadences while infusing the notes with aether, against that enemy Kaijin from the other day, something odd happened.

During that fight, Olstenna started seeing weird glowing spots appear in his vision.

These spots weren't the result of fatigue or being exposed to bright lights; instead, they seemed to have been related to his military cadence.

These spots, whatever they were, seemed to act like a guide for Olstenna in more ways than one.

Through these spots, he could see not only how his opponent was going to move, but he was also able to see weak spots appearing and disappearing all over his opponent's body.

This unusual occurrence was why Olstenna was thoroughly able to defeat his opponent yesterday...until he suddenly regenerated into an entirely different Kaijin with an entirely different rhythm.

But now, Olstenna had a chance to make up for yesterday's mistake.

Of course, he still needed an opportunity to do just that.

'First, I need to dodge.'

Step, step, spin!

Splatter's attempted shoulder check was surprisingly rhythmic.

One step to get into position, another to prepare and the last one was the move to dodge.

As he spun around, Olstenna could see several glowing spots appear on Splatter's back.

'ONE, TWO, THREE!'

POW!POW!POW!

Like playing the notes of a musical scale, Olstenna rapidly tapped the glowing spots in quick succession.

The first was a spinning backwards fist, followed by an elbow and then a straight jab that caused him to step back.

Once he had done so, an even bigger glowing spot appeared on Splatter's lower back.

Olstenna didn't need a giant glowing indicator to know that landing a heavy blow after a combo was good practice, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

[Double Hellfire Palm!]

[Grkh?!]

...Now high above...

"Huh...well, that an unexpected surprise," the Kaijin Lord commented with an oddly amused tone in his voice. "What an odd ability."

'Well...that's an unexpected reaction.'

Everything up until this point suggested that the Kaijin Lord in charge of these mines was someone with a short temper and a cruelty streak,or at least, someone who had a tendency to lash out in anger at every annoyance.

As such, seeing this calm expression felt off in Zhen Liu's eyes. Especially when this reaction came from seeing one of his "invincible" warriors getting injured.

"Wait, what's interesting? It just looks like that Aetherii warrior managed to perform a counter against that...toad thing."

"The term you're looking for is Kaijin. And I don't blame you for being confused...but worry not, my dear guest. You're about to see why."

...Now back down on the ground...

Every warrior who thought they had a chance of dealing damage to a Kaijin were always confused that their first attack did nothing, get worried on the second strike, realize the issue in the third and fall into utter despair on their fourth and final attempt.

After that, they either died or just started running for their lives.

That didn't happen this time around.

[Wait, what?]

"That looked... different."

^Am I going crazy, or does that fat bastard looks like he's in pain?^

Olstenna's first strike didn't do any noticeable damage, this was a normal thing to see.

The second strike caused Splatter to release a grunt of pain, which many of the Kaijin in the stands assumed to be a sound of annoyance.

On the third strike, the fellow mortal participants in the fighting arena noticed something was about Olstenna's punches, especially when Splatter was suddenly stunned and let out an even more obvious grunt of pain.

When the fourth and final strike was dealt, which came in the form of a heavy double palm strike accompanied by a blast of purple flames, everyone in the arena finally realized what had occured.

Olstenna had a proud, vicious look on his face while Splatter visibly looked pained and confused at the fact that he had just been subjected to a combination attack like a training dummy.

For reasons nobody in the arena could understand, Olstenna had managed to injure Splatter. And judging from the look on the former's face, he was ready to deal even more damage.

^How the hell did he do that?^

"Maybe...maybe this Kaijin can actually be injured?"

~I ain't testing that.~

^RAAAAAHHH!^

Inspired by the sight, or seeing the sight as being the final straw to break his back, a particularly dirty looking slave suddenly rushed at Splatter with murderous intent in his eyes and aether condensing in his one good arm.

[Piercing Iron Fist!]

The slave's fist struck true, landing on Splatter's stomach. Unfortunately, things didn't unfold in the way that the slave hoped it would've.

^Oh shit.^

[Okay, so it's not Splatter that's the problem.]

[Damn.]

The slave's attack dissolved into being no more dangerous than a light poke, as soon as he made contact with Splatter's skin.

This action alone confirmed that Splatter's [Chaos] was still functioning like normal.

[What the...]

CRUNCH

"Grk!"

As thanks for confirming that his defenses were still working, Splatter smashed the slave into the ground...before using his frog tongue to eat their corpse.

[Stress eating? Now?!]

[I prefer my victims screaming, but I get it.]

[Wait a minute, I don't think he's eating for the sake of eating...]

Splatter proceeded to crunch and chew on the body on his oversized mouth, and as he did, one could see and feel that he was charging up the chewed-up body parts with [Chaos].

[Get ready, firebug. You're about to get splattered!]

After making this claim, Splatter proceeded to take his two hands and squeeze them against his puffed up cheeks.

Releasing from his disgusting mouth, a barrage of slime-covered projectiles made from compacted flesh, bones and sinew.

Oddly enough, the projectiles took on the form of demented pollywogs.

[Putrefying Pollywogs, attack!]