"I...I..."
Yes?
"I...Oh! I can't!" Zhen Liu dramatically cried before rolling around on the ground in mock frustration.
Olstenna and Lythero quietly rolled their eyes at the dramatics, until they noticed that the Kaijin Lord knock-off seed to buy the performance. Once they did, they proceeded to keep any further body language-based comnts to themselves.
That stated, the Kaijin Lord was definitely looking at Zhen Liu's absurd behavior with an incredibly critical eye.
Thankfully(?), that was all that this guy was seeing.
Hmmm. Very well then. Spitter, bind him.
[As you wish, boss.]
"Huh? Bwah!"
In the blink of an eye, a kaijin that looked like the mash up between an archer fish and a spider had spat out a glob of webs that quickly wrapped Zhen Liu into a cocoon.
"Is this really necess—BWAH!"
This was quickly followed by one of the more ogre-like Kaijin picking up Zhen Liu like he was a sack of potatoes.
Rejoice, humble servant. Because you are about to be presented a choice in whether or not you get to live in luxury...or die in the dirt like a slave. I hope you choose correctly.
'By the na of a god I don't think I can na-drop here, this guy is terrible at being a demonic overlord,' Zhen Liu thought to himself once he was on the ogre Kaijin's shoulder. 'Well, at least I got my way in.'
After addressing Zhen Liu, the Kaijin Lord directed his attention to the captured Olstenna and Lythero.
As for you two, I believe you'll make fine combatants in the arena. Then again, maybe it'll be better to send you directly to the pits. Now then, Kaijin, I have changed my mind about hunting today. We'll head ho with our new...guests.
[As you wish!]
'Yup. Wishy-Washy motherfucker,' Zhen Liu concluded after the "Kaijin Lord" made his statent.
[On your feet.]
[Move!]
The Kaijin Lord stood still as his kaijin ford into a marching line, their prisoners either being escorted or carried. Once the last of the had stepped past him did he finally follow suit.
He might've been their leader, their uplifter, but not even he trusted his back to this horde of monsters.
'Wretched beasts of mine,' the Kaijin Lord thought to himself. 'I need to find the secret of the Star Caller before I can truly make a move. Accursed treasure, when will you reveal your secrets to ?'
...Perspective shift...
"..."
"..."
"..."
Whether it was by sheer coincidence or purposeful placent, Zhen Liu found himself staring into the faces of Olstenna and Lythero as they marched with this nightmare horde of body horror Kaijin.
It was mildly humiliating to say the least, since Zhen Liu was being carried like a sack of old potatoes, but Lythero and Olstenna tried to comfort themselves over the idea that there must've been a reason for Zhen Liu's current position.
Unfortunately, they couldn't ask because they didn't want to blow Zhen Liu's cover...if he had one. That and when Lythero and Olstenna attempted to use aether to try and communicate with Zhen Liu on the sly, the Kaijin guarding them had noticed and told them to put a stop to their whispering.
However, it was also in this instant that Zhen Liu discovered that these dumbasses have never used [Chaos] to convey secret ssages.
As such, they didn't react when Zhen Liu decided to push the envelope a bit and whisper a ssage to Lythero and Olstenna.
[Very quickly, if you guys can hear , blink twice.]
Lythero and Olstenna blinked twice.
[Cool. So if you haven't figured it out yet, I allowed myself to get captured on purpose. If you think I'm crazy, blink twice now.]
Lythero and Olstenna blinked twice, again.
[Fair enough, but I couldn't think of any other way of getting close to this weirdo. By all accounts, I should be the only guy in the world that can make Kaijin...technically. Either way, I need answers and it's a lot easier getting them as a rat than an elephant. Blink once if you think that's fair ]
Lythero and Olstenna both blinked once.
[Good. Now then, let's what kind of shit show a guy like this run. I'm guessing...a slave mine.]
... Evidently, he was right...
The Hellfire Mountainrange was an inhospitable shit show.
Most of the aether beasts in the area were either poisonous, venomous, dripping in cursed energy or were so viciously bloodthirsty that they were able to overco those prior three issues through sheer violence.
Most of the aether plants in the area were loaded so much poison and cursed aether that even attempting to make the most benign dicines out of them would lead to horrifying side effects.
And deep beneath the soil, were minerals and tals that were evil and hazardous on both physical and spiritual levels.
Nobody sane would ever think of establishing a long term base of operations in such a location...which is why it was the perfect place to establish a mining operation that catered exclusively to the black market.
Hidden behind several layers of obfuscation type aether arrays, protected by the naturally hostile environnt and guarded by monstrous warriors that were able to blend into their surroundings like leaves in the forest, was a place known as the Mines of Malevolence.
To the outside world, this was the only known source of [Malevolent Gold] in the entirety of the Dozing Salamander continent.
People knew the place existed, but nobody could find the damn place.
If they did, the more righteous minded among them would want to tear this place down and burn everyone and everything that contributed to its existence.
That's because the main workers of this mine were several thousand slaves that had been plucked away from all over the world and were forced to live in the mountain where the accursed gold could be gathered in the first place.
So of these slaves were forced to forget about the freedom that they had once took for granted, while many others were part of a growing population that had never known anything other than the mines, the pain and the monsters that oversaw everything.
Making this whole situation even more horrific was the fact that these conditions were entirely on purpose.
Denied sunlight, skies and freedom, the slave miners had their spirits ground down into a fine powder that was used to refine and empower the ingots that the [Malevolent Gold] were forged into.
[Malevolent Gold] was a material that actively strengthened itself by absorbing negative energies, the kind produced by monts of great violence, despair and destruction.
In ages past, malicious cultivators would sacrifice rivals, entire bloodlines and villages in order to empower [Malevolent Gold] ingots and create powerful cursed treasures that defied logic and morality.
But that changed when the Mines of Malevolence opened.
The founder of this mine, a warrior that had gone through extre lengths to hide his identity from the rest of the world, had learned that [Malevolent Gold] could be refined while in the ground as long as it was subjected to constant, ambient negative energies.
Evidently, having an enclosed slave society in a cursed mountain mine was an excellent source of negative energy.
However, this wasn't the only reason why the founder of this mine kept so many slaves to dig up such cursed ore.
This other reason was a secret kept from the rest of the world, for if it was ever leaked, then there would be an arms race that would render the entire world to ash.
The owner and founder of the Mines of Malevolence, had learned that by taking the purest ingots of [Malevolent Gold] and infusing them with a type of energy that seed to be older than aether itself; he could create a special type of "core".
These "cores" could then be violently implanted into aether beasts and force them to transform into a type of monstrous warriors that had long been thought to be nothing more than legend and myth across the world.
They could be used to create [Kaijin].
The stories said that the Kaijin of old could be elental beings, creatures made from the stuff of dreams and nightmares and even from people who were once considered hopeless by all around them.
The stories of old were said to be loyal to a fault and assist one another regardless of the situation.
These Kaijin were nothing like those old stories.
They had to be created from the living bodies of captured aether beasts.
These Kaijin were cruel, backstabbing and had the innate desire to not only tear each other to shreds, but to devour each other and their creator in so weird perversion of the idea of survival of the fittest.
Their creator wanted nothing more than to find the secret necessary to create those Kaijin from legend, but he had no idea on how to find it.
Well...he did have one idea.
One that he conceived years ago...when he first saw the one known as "Starcaller".
...
'Wow...this place sucks ass.'
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