It didn't take that long for the "Kaijin Lord" and his horde of brutish mutants to drag Zhen Liu, Lythero and Olstenna to their base of operations, but in the opinion of the latter two, it didn't take long enough.
Neither of the two Dozing Salamander warriors were ntally prepared for what they saw once they had reached the entrance to the Mines of Malevolence.
^What the fuck...^
^This place feels...evil.^
Zhen Liu, on the other hand, was prepared but even he thought that they needed more ti to ntally prepare.
'I know I pretend to be a Lord of Nightmares to intimidate people...but heaven's above, this guy makes look ta in comparison.'
When Zhen Liu parsed through the mories of Constrictor, and the other two Kaijin that the latter had swallowed, he had gotten a snapshot of the hell he was about to enter.
The aforentioned kaijin weren't the ones that were created back when this mine was first established, but they were present for several "expansions".
Each of the expansions were the stuff of nightmares.
The Mines of Malevolence was originally just a single mine in the heart of a single mountain. Over ti though, the mine had expanded to being an underground kingdom of sorts that connected to additional mountains.
A kingdom of misery, as it were.
Each of these expansions was accompanied by a shipnt of slaves gathered from who knows where through ans that were illegal on multiple levels; and the addition of new facilities that seed to serve no other purpose but to increase the amount of negative energy in the general area.
Many of the slaves were unable to properly cultivate or were shackled with aether suppression cuffs, forcing them to use nothing but muscle for their laborious work days. This work usually involved heavy and often dangerous machines that would outright kill people due to how intensive the physical demands were. This work produced feelings of soul crushing monotony and pain.
There was a pit that the dying and dead were disposed of, designed in such a way that one could look up and see the sky as they laid atop a pile of corpses. One would think that seeing such a sight would fill soone with comfort as their last breath escaped their lungs, but no. Instead, most people dying in this situation couldn't help but sink further into despair and lancholy, as they couldn't help but want to try and reach that little bit of freedom from the bottom of a hellish well.
There was an arena where the kaijin would occasionally fight one another, but they weren't the main attraction. The main attraction were predominantly fights between slaves, often between loved ones, reverse hunting gas where groups of slaves had to escape from hordes of enraged aether beasts and slaughter gas, where the Kaijin demonstrated exactly why the slaves had to fear and respect them.
Granted, the Kaijin were the ones that handled the overseer tasks and were rather cruel, so this last event was a touch redundant.
The funny thing about this land of absolute misery was that, through the lens of a kaijin's mories, of a Kaijin made by the guy who purposely built all of this, it didn't seem that bad. If anything, it was like a hazy dream that the kaijin of this region seed to cherish and love.
But now that he was seeing it in person, with all the sights of objective human suffering, the sll of purposefully unhygienic practices and the sheer aura of hopelessness that pervaded the area that seed to taphorically dance with the innate cursed aura of the area, Zhen Liu couldn't help but be reminded of hell.
Not any specific hell mind you, just...hell as a concept.
Beep.
As he continued to be carried through this living nightmare, staring over dozens upon dozens of people who looked more like the walking dead than his own undead kaijin, he did his best to figure out his goals while here.
Zhen Liu needed [Malevolent Gold] to fix his [Key of Nowhere].
Beep.
He wanted to figure out how and why the fuck there was soone else in existence calling themselves, "Kaijin Lord".
Beep.
Not only that, but...
Beep.
But...
Beep.
But.
Beep.
'Alright, what the fuck am I sensing?'
Zhen Liu wasn't entirely sure what he was feeling at this ti, but he couldn't help but notice that there was a strange feeling in his chest, a strange sound clicking in his ears that caused him to try and swivel his head about in curiosity.
It was during this mont that he finally realized that there was sothing more to this mine.
Sothing...familiar.
'Tsk! I should've kept at least one Kaijin on my person after all. I could've sent them off to go and look. Now I can only hope that they're crazy enough to co back,' Zhen Liu thought to himself.
'Oh, who am I kidding. They're probably on their way here with people who shouldn't be brought along as we speak.'
...Rewinding the clock a bit...
^Does you cousin know that these monsters can't be slain unless you sohow destroy their golden hearts?^
^Uh...no.^
^Uh oh.^
Zhen Tai and Antonio were flabbergasted about this tidbit of information being suddenly shared with them, which was compounded by the issue that they couldn't contact Zhen Liu or any of the Kaijin right now.
That problem, however, was about to rectify itself.
^Well, if your friend doesn't know about the fact that these monsters are able to regenerate, then it's very likely that they'll be slaughtered through attrition,^ the gazelle Bloodliner inford Zhen Tai and Antonio as she began to walk away with her bundle in hand. ^Now if you excuse , I'm going to go back to running so I can escape those fucking monsters and...wait a minute, why am I cursing? I don't normally—^
Boom!
^OH FUCK SIDEWAYS!^
Before the Bloodliner could get the hell out of dodge, Nepeherage, Razorstella, Blazejudicator, Springerdermain and Screamira had touched down near her, Zhen Tai and Antonio.
"Oh thank the gods, you guys are back," Zhen Tai said before he fully processed that sothing was off about their arrival. "Can you guys explains to her that you're actually...wait a minute... where's Zhen Liu?"
[...]×5
^Are you crazy?!^ the Bloodliner called out to Zhen Tai. ^Why are you talking to these sadistic, heartless—^
Sound of a tallic ballerina flopping face first on to the ground in emotional pain.
^What the...^
[WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!] Razorstella started crying out of pure frustration.
^What the fuck?^
Shortly after Razorstella started crying, the other kaijin began to showcase other displays of sadness and frustration.
Nepeherage started sulking while squatting, Screamira started banging her skull against a nearby boulder and Springerdermain flopped on to his back.
The only one amongst the kaijin who didn't appear absolutely miserable was Blazejudicator, but his flas were looking oddly gray and dim.
This display of emotions was completely out of left field for the Bloodliner, as she was used to seeing nothing but rage and violence from the Kaijin she had seen in the past.
Honestly, I she wasn't sure if she found this change of Kaijin as refreshing or absolutely unnerving.
"Hey, whoa! Why are you guys panicking like this?" Zhen Tai asked, while getting the idea of what he was about to be told.
[We lost him!] Razorstella managed to yell out in the midst of her crying.[Like a repeat of the mistake that led us to coming to shitty jungle, we lost him when he was right in front of us!]
"Lost him?" Zhen Tai related. "What do you an lost him? Is he dead?!"
[No, our lord is alive and well,] Nepeherage answered first while sounding incredibly dejected. [The issue is that he decided to so sothing incredibly stupid, without us there to back him up.]
"Sothing stupid? What kind of stupid?"
[The kind that involves him giving himself up as a slave as a ans of infiltrating the mines,] Screamira answered next. [Which is compromising and beyond stupid!]
[Agreed,] Springerdermain added on. [I would've preferred a full frontal assault. That way we could just use violence to get so answers.]
[And take out a bunch of those regenerating knock-off bastards,] Razorstella followed up.
[An]×4
^What the fuck...^
If seeing the Kaijin display emotions other than rage and violence wa confusing, seeing them get along with each other was absolutely mind-blowing.
By now, she was expecting them to start blaming and eating each other, not lan together in shared sadness.
Maybe these Kaijin were different from the ones in the mine.
And if that was the case, then maybe they could...
"Godsdammit, godsdammit, godsdammit!"
"Huh?"
Before the Bloodliner could finish her though, Zhen Xing suddenly ca flying back from the direction he just flew towards.
All the while, he shouted out a warning that made the souls who heard him feel just a touch more panicked.
[ENEMY KAIJIN ON MY ASS!]
[FUCK!]
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