Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?-Chapter 1553: To Share in the Feast

"Fine," Zhen Liu sighed as he mentally prepared himself once more.

Zhen Liu took a deep breath before he started performing a more advanced version of the biting attack he had just performed.

In the legends and stories, Cipactli is described as being covered in a whole lot of mouths. A disturbing number of mouths.

As such, a technique bearing her name should enable its practitioner the ability to manifest this multitude of mouths whenever and wherever they are needed.

’Okay, now instead of just directing all of the [Chaos] towards my mouth, branch it out towards the rest of my body...’

Just like before, Zhen Liu circulated his [Chaos] to his stomach, focused on his innate hunger, and then redirected the power towards his mouth. However, once it reached his mouth, he branched it towards other parts of his body...which wasn’t an easy task.

Zhen Liu could feel his body actively push back against the idea of manifesting additional mouths across his body...which was weird given that he was able to mess with his form before.

Maybe it was because he was psychologically repelled by the idea of manifesting so many mouths?

Maybe it was because that previous time, he was still more or less human despite all the physical changes?

Zhen Liu didn’t know for certain.

That all stated, though, he was still able to manifest at least three additional mouths on his upper torso, with two at the shoulders and one on his chest.

’Fuck it! Worked with what I got!’

Once he had manifested these mouths, Zhen Liu charged towards the training dummies and began to feast once more.

...

[Well...that’s mildly disturbing to look at.] Hurricroak commented as the sight of Zhen Liu grabbing one of the dummies made of meat and shoving it directly into the manifested mouth on his chest. [I’m vaguely reminded of that one horror story about the incredibly inbred family and their demon-goat spawn. What was the name of that book again?]

[Wait, I think I read that one. I think it was called the Dunwich Horror,] Springerdermain answered while watching Zhen Liu proceed to somehow move one of the mouths from his shoulder to his hand, grab on to a training dummy made of stone, and toss it at another made of metal. [Also, I was thinking more along the lines of Shub-NIggurath and one of her fucked-up children.]

[Why are we talking about works of fiction while the Caretaker performs a massacre on these training dummies?] Corpse Doll asked as Zhen Liu had apparently decided that for the last dummy, one made of bones, he was going to tear into it like a wolf eating an obese hog. [Shouldn’t we be like... taking notes or something? Planning on the possibility of him channeling our power to help fuel this weird new attack of his?]

[That’s normally the case,] Nepherage confirmed for the proto-kaijin doll as Zhen Liu was just about to finish destroying the last of the training dummies, [but there’s something weird about this new technique. Like...it would probably be a bad idea for us to get close to our Lord when he uses it.]

[Ah...does that mean we should just leave then?]

[No, because we’re probably going to get roped in for some secondary experiment.] Razorstella pointed out to her younger counterpart. [Just wait for it.]

...

"My stomach...feels like I just ate three plates at an endless shrimp buffet...which was then followed by a giant bowl of baked beans and extra bubbly cola. Ugh," Zhen Liu groaned.

It was not an uncommon practice amongst aether warriors for them to try and absorb certain types of aether in a concentrated form in order to elevate their cultivation. However, it was common knowledge that the only "safe" ways to absorb such concentrated energies were either through the consumption of aether medicines or materials that could only be harvested from aether beasts.

Aether treasures and minerals were known to have higher concentrations of the aether, but trying to absorb the energy in those was usually considered quite dangerous unless the warrior in question had a special method of doing so.

As Zhen Liu learned from firsthand experience, [Cipactli’s Feast] was one such method. The energetic mouths that were produced by the namesake art were more than capable of breaking down even the most stubborn and volatile materials into energy that was readily absorbed by the user’s digestive system.

However, it came at a cost: incredible indigestion.

Certain types of energy were only digestible by certain aether formulas and the channels they created, while also being repelled by the rest.

Zhen Liu’s lack of a proper aether formula meant that he could technically digest any type of aether without any issues...unless he decided to stack multiples of aether inside of himself at once.

"Logos...did you purposefully make some of those dummies out of high-tier materials because you knew this was going to happen?" Zhen Liu asked, despite his stomach feeling as if it was going to burst at even the slightest provocation. "Seriously, my everything is in pain over here."

=Partially, milord,= Logos shamelessly confirmed. =But it was also to test the limit of your abilities. The defensive properties of some of those materials were actually registered as being resistant to your cultivation level, even with the addition of [Chaos]. The fact that you were able to bite through, let alone devour them, is a testament to just how compatible you are with that [Chaos] art.=

<Yeah, most aether warriors in your position would explode from all the conflicting energies inside them by now,> Pathos pointed out.

"Whoop-di-doo," Zhen Liu grumbled as he focused harder on the energies conflicting inside of him.

Zhen Liu had thought about trying to create the channels necessary to digest all of the aether inside of himself in a methodical manner, but he discarded that idea once it had dawned on him that doing so might agitate the other types of aether inside of him into violent reactions. Therefore, he only had two methods of proceeding from this horrific circumstance.

Option 1: Slow and painful digestion.

As long as Zhen Liu had the mental fortitude to do so, he could focus all of his energy on distributing the energies inside of his belly to the other parts of his body and formula to reinforce his cultivation to an absurd degree. This would make it so that he could still hit above his weight class and cause people to turn their heads in disbelief that he was able to do so.

That stated, Zhen Liu felt like a bloated whale and was not in favor of this slow digestion in the slightest.

Option 2: Share the love.

Zhen Liu had done this before, sending his [Chaos] and aether to his kaijin in order to empower their attacks and defenses. However, that particular action was done with aether that was already a part of his being.

The young Kaijin Lord had no idea if he could still do so with the "loose" aether that was roiling around in his stomach, but he figured he might as well try. He just needed to figure out who was going to be the first kaijin to test this on.

’Okay, the last thing I ended up digesting was...a dummy made from the leftover flesh that we salvaged from the Redoxa’s parasitized bodies...fuck, did I just commit low-grade cannibalism?’

The aether Zhen Liu managed to digest from this questionably sourced chunk of flesh just so happened to be death-aligned, mostly as there was still a touch of something he couldn’t exactly identify, so he had not just one but two perfect candidates to receive this sudden burst in energy. Granted, one was a proper kaijin, while the other was still only a proto-kaijin.

’Fuck it, let’s try it anyways.’ Zhen Liu eventually concluded. ’Screamira. Corpse Doll. Prepare yourselves for possible empowerment.’

[Of course, Producer.]

[Wait, what?]

Without elaborating any further, Zhen Liu concentrated on his connection with Screamira and Corpse Doll and began to redirect the aether in his stomach towards the two undead-type kaijin.

In his mind, there were two possible outcomes to this haphazard empowerment method of his.

Either the energy dissipated entirely due to being improperly integrated into Zhen Liu’s being, or it just did what it would normally do and empowered the kaijin.

What ended up happening was... slightly unexpected.

[Whoa!]

[That’s...new.]

Through his connection, Zhen Liu could feel that both Screamira and Corpse Doll were more than accepting of the aether he just directed towards them. However, there was an unexpected mutation.

Literally.

Both Scremira and Corpse Doll began to exhibit higher levels of aether in their auras, which was to be expected, but they also suddenly developed parasitic growths that made them look like mutants from a certain videogame about an evil corporation named after a common rainy day accessory. However, this mutation was only temporary, as both Screamira and Corpe Doll reverted back to their original forms after a couple of moments had passed.

"What the fuck?"

This reaction, however, caused Zhen Liu to hear the one set of words that he hoped to never hear come out of Logos’s and Pathos’s mouths.

<=That was new. =>

":Fuck."