Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?

The Zhen Clan scions and their allies were not having their clandestine conversation in that crappy residential cavern that they were first dragged to when they had arrived to the mines.

Instead, follow a path that the Kaijin had mapped out, Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai led their group to that hidden cave where the former had reunited with the kaijin.

A little after that reunion, the aforementioned trio went and rescue their other compatriots, Alefa and Joseph, from their tense battles.

"I had to respond to those Radiant bastards! The Twilight Lands were—"

"Don't care, save it for when we are outside of this shitty mine."

"Alright, was that beef with those guys personal or something?"

"Nope. Just old-fashioned intergenerational grudges between ancient enemies."

"That...that still sounds like personal beef."

None of the mortals knew why or how this cave managed to stay out of sight and detection from the enemy Kaijin, but it worked for their purposes.

Namely, the planning of how they were going to overthrow this mine from the inside out.

A major part of the plan entailed recruiting additional warriors to try and hold back the enemy kaijin as well. The more allies they recruited, the less likely they would have to worry about them suddenly turning heel for the sake of selfish gain.

Maybe.

The worst-case scenario is that Zhen Liu's Kaijin could erase their memories, but still.

Nevertheless, there was one major issue in their recruitment attempts: where were they going to get the warriors to help?

The obvious answer was to rally the enslaved warriors to rebel against their captors, but that was easier said than done.

Many of the enslaved were human-shaped hollow husks who could give less than a rat's ass over things like going hungry or missing limbs. Hell, some of the gathered conspirators had heard from fellow slaves that the corpse disposal cave was actually filled with not the dead, but people who were so apathetic about life that they were simply tossed in and were waiting to die.

As for the remaining portion of enslaved warriors that still had some fight in them, they weren't exactly getting along.

For whatever dumb reason, a good chunk of these warriors had decided to hold on to whatever blood feuds they had with rivals, political enemies or just anyone they didn't like.

There was a chance that this hatred was based on their stubbornness and pride, but there was some speculation that the Kaijin were actively encouraging and creating these rivalries for no reason other than to make sure that the slaves remained a disorganized mess.

Then again, it was also possible that the Kaijin were doing this in order to entertain themselves.

Regardless, the other possible source of warriors that the Zhen Clan scions and their allies could use as a means of fighting back was the prison cavern that Lythero and Olstenna were held in just hours ago.

Every single last one of those poor cocooned bastards were apparently too rowdy and rebellious even by this mine's loose standards, meaning that they would be the perfect for the Zhen Clan scions and their machinations.

There was just one big problem.

"Wait...you guys were only in those cocoons for about...eight hours, give or take, and y'all are already making a suicide pact if you end up in such a state again" Zhen Tai noted."Then...what will happen if we try to free the ones that have been here since before even that?"

"That..."

As soon as this little realization dawned on the group, they began to seriously believe that they were about to hit shit creek without a paddle.

Well, everyone who wasn't Zhen Xing and Zhen Tai.

"Alright, so we can't fight these monsters in straightforward manner because, not only are we horribly outbumbered right now, but our only sources of actual damage is a pair of Aether Masters. Why the fuck did we agree to work with you guys in an attempt to rebel."

"Because they said they could teach us how to hurt those monsters?"

"Right...when are we going to get around to doing that?"

"Soon," Zhen Xing answered.

"Soon as in soon, or soon as in you're stalling?", Alefa retorted.

"Soon as in the guys we need to help hammer these lesson in an efficient manner are currently busy with something important,' Zhen Tai responded.

"Important? Like what?"

"Determining whether it's possible or not for us to just abuse the local environment to cave these assholes elsewhere."

...Let's see how Team Mysticlassic is doing...

When Nepherage and Blazejudicator reunited with the Zhen Clan scions in the hidden, they made sure to immediately share this information with their fellow kaijin and curators at the library.

Whether they were in the mines or outside it, anything and everything that one Kaijin learned about, everyone else learned about it too.

As such, the Kaijin were able to transition from one plan to another completely on the fly and on the field.

Razorstella, Springerdermain, and Screamira's original mission was to simply scout out the layout of the mine and determine points of interest, but with the bigger goal being to reunite with their creator's cousins.

However, since the latter was achieved by Nepherage and Blazejudicator, their new goal was to focus exclusively on scouting out the mine...as well as one other goal.

Thanks to the efforts of the curators in reviewing the data gathered by the kaijin of their counterparts, they had realized something weird: the amount of Kaijin active didn't line up with Dante's cultivation level.

Zhen Liu's current cultivation was equivalent to an Aether Grandmaster, and it allowed him to have twelve active Kaijin in combat at any one time.

Even if they took into account that Dante was the equivalent to an Aether Lord, maybe even an Aether King, the fact that his [Cores] were some fucked-up artificial copy, and the fact that his Kaijin were weaker on a one-to-one basis, the numbers didn't add up.

Every Kaijin, regardless of their source, had to be connected to a mortal's soul in order to be anchored to reality and be fed [Chaos] or else they'll go nuts

Sure there were exceptions, like a certain hornet bastard and his fucked-up surgeries, but even then, those guys were still predominantly mortal with only an accent of Kaijin power.

The ones running this mine were originally all aether beasts and, in the eyes of the curators, closer to abominations than kaijin. However, they all had the telltale connection to Dante that made it clear that they were Kaijin.

It wasn't a strong connection, even weaker than the one that Zhen Liu was currently dealing with, but it was connection nonetheless.

As such, the Mysticlassic kaijin were tasked in figuring out how Dante was able to maintain so many kaijin.

And they had finally reached a point where they think they had an answer.

Thanks to not needing to sleep, the trio of Kaijin were able to watch as their fake counterparts went about their day in the mines and they realized that these guys were operating on a schedule like the slaves.

As such, Razorstella, Screamira, and Springerdermain had decided that tailing one of these Kaijin throughout their day was a good way in figuring out how they ticked.

Most of the day consisted of the kaijin torturing and abusing the slave miners, occasionally fighting another rival kaijin and general tomfoolery.

Eventually though, the trio followed the kaijin to a part of the mines that was just...weird.

[Alright, Screamira, you were right. These assholes are just gathering in this one cave.]

[Told you, Razor.]

[I suppose the bigger question is why.]

This cavern was weird, not because it was full of weird energy or because there was an abundance of mutants.

Rather, it was weird because of what it was lacking: mortal evidence and energy.

Every other part of the [Mines of Malevolence] showed evidence of mortals being somewhat present.

Whether it was the ambient work noises, the remnants of spilled blood, or even entire dead bodies, the entire underground of the mine had signs of human involvement.

Not this one cavern though.

On top of that, they could see that coming and going from this cavern was a variety of Kaijin that, oddly, didn't fight each other on sight.

Now, such a concentration of Kaijin would cause a massive concentration of [Chaos] and should be noticeable from even the entrance to the entire mine.

However, for reasons they had yet to discover, the Mysticlassic kaijin could only sense the individual kaijin coming and going.

[So...we definitely need to investigate that weird ass cavern, right?] Springerdermain asked his sister kaijin.

[No shit, we need to investigate,] Razorstella agreed. [But there's definitely a possibility we're going to have to fight our way out due to an unforeseen incident...Screamira, sorry, but you're going to have hang out here and keep watch.]

[What? Why?]

[Because we need subtlety and your abilities are way too loud.]

[Oh...fine.]