Episode 11 - Behemoth Rises 3

“Well... that's a relief. I was wondering what part of you I should deal with, but your answer just now made it clear.”
“Hmph. You mean you're going to hack my thigh to pieces?”
“...Well, I was just wondering what kind of expression you'd make if I sliced off some flesh... fed it to you, and made you chew it.”
“......!”


Looking closer, this brat's eyes are completely deranged.
Gabelth's expression crumpled.
This sort of guy was the type he hated dealing with.
He'd figured out what he needed to know, and just as he was thinking of slipping away,


“...Where are you going? The course meal hasn't even started yet?”
“What?!”


Startled by Kaftin's footwork, which darted out even faster than before, Gabelth took a defensive stance and began to back away.


He had no desire to exchange blows with this unsettling bastard any longer.
Admittedly, the urge to fight was there, but judging by this guy's eyes and manner of speaking, he wasn't in a state fit to properly face a fighter like himself.


Besides, if he truly inherited the Torture Martial Arts...
There was still something he hadn't shown.


“Hey, hey, let's not get too heated, okay? This is a gladiatorial contest. It's a sport, a SPORT.
“I don't give two shits about that!


Catching Gabelth's counterpunch, Kaftin suddenly grabbed his own shirt and ripped it left and right.


The shirt, already stifling, tore apart, revealing his torso. On his abdomen, something faintly familiar to Gabelth's eyes was visible.


“...That...!”
“The Torture Martial Arts 49 Set... makes its appearance!”
“...Damn it all...!”


Though called Torture Martial Arts, strictly speaking, it wasn't pure combat.


While it included pure combat techniques that twisted and tore bone, flesh, and joints, the true essence of the Torture Martial Arts was the attack using the 49 torture tools collectively known as the Torture Set 49.


He had been wearing a large leather pouch containing those tools around his abdomen like a belt.


“You think I'll let you use them?!”
“Gotcha...!”


Gabelth immediately thrust his fist toward the abdomen, aiming to destroy the tools.
As if waiting for that moment, Kaftin grabbed the fist with both hands.


“...!! What?!”
“Fox Finger!”
“Kwaaah?!”


He swiftly snapped the index and pinky fingers of the captured fist forcefully back toward the knuckles, transforming it into a fox-like head, just as he'd said.
The moment Gabelth flinched from the pain of his fingers being bent, a heavy foot thrust powerfully into his lower abdomen almost simultaneously.


Gabelth's body flew across the arena with a thunderous crash, slamming into the opposite wall and shattering it.
Had he not been a battle-hardened veteran fighter, he would have vomited blood and lost consciousness long ago.


He had summoned his aura at full power the instant he was kicked to mitigate the impact, but even so, he had to cough up a mouthful of blood.


 “Kuhk…! Cough….”
 “…Huff….”


A human kick packs this much destructive force? This was completely wrong.
Had he not summoned his aura in time, it wouldn't just have blown his guts out—it would have shattered his spine behind him.


“You damn brat...! What the hell are you...?! Khk...!”
“I already told you. I'm Kaftin, a disciple of Vesren.”
“Don't bullshit me...! Your kick... that wasn't in the Torture Martial Arts!”
“Ah. I hadn't mentioned it yet. I perfected the Torture Martial Arts. This is one of those techniques.”
“......!”


Everything became clear.
Vesren survived, but his body was ruined, leaving him no strength to further develop his martial arts.
Meaning, the Torture Martial Arts he was now displaying was a completely new form, perfected based on what he had learned.


“Dammit…! What hellish luck…!”


No, the problem wasn't simply that the martial art was perfected.
Though we only clashed a few times, I could feel it clearly.


That bastard's strength was completely beyond human comprehension.
Fortunately, his reflexes seemed a bit sluggish, but he possessed strength that rendered that irrelevant.


For Gabelth, whose body had aged and whose prime had passed over a decade ago, facing him was not just burdensome—it was overwhelming.


In other words, he had to get out of there.
Of course, the vengeful specter before him wasn't about to let him leave so easily.


He desperately jumped toward the wall he'd collided with, struggling to somehow make his way back through the audience seats to the VIP section...


“Where do you think you're going-! Gabelthsss!!”
“Dammit! Don't come near me! You crazy brat-!!”


Kaftin's long-suppressed vengeance finally erupted, and he charged madly forward. Gabelth desperately tried to pull himself up, one leg hooked over the arena wall's railing.


“Hey! You guys! Quick! Pull me up! Hurry-!”
“Eh, ah! Got it…!”
“I thought the course was just starting-!”


Gabelth felt a tearing pain in the back of his left knee, the popliteal fossa, the part he hadn't managed to pull up yet.
Kaftin, who had finally flown over, had pulled out the torture device from his abdomen and precisely severed the ligaments in his popliteal fossa.


“GAAAAAAHHH?!”
“Come here…! You're not going anywhere now…!”
“Dammit! This crazy brat! Hey! Get that guy off him! Quickly-!”
“Ah, understood! You little bastard! Why won't you let go!?”


Finally, the organization members who had just been pulling Gabelth out of the stands, enraged, surged forward. As they hauled him up, some began hurling objects and swinging weapons at Kaftin.


But they didn't know.
How much worse this would make the situation.


Getting hit by the gangsters' weapons didn't bother him, but the problem was their sheer numbers.


The current situation, with multiple people oppressing Kaftin himself, forcefully pressed the trauma switch, the forbidden red line within his psyche that must never be touched.
A crimson glow gradually surged from the center of his dead pupils….


“GRAAAH! My leg! Quickly—! Quickly, pull me up…!“
”KRAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!“
”Wh-what the hell is this bastard?! He's completely lost his mind?!“
”Kill him! Kill him now!"


The gang members, terrified by the sight of Kaftin suddenly rolling his eyes back and roaring, grabbed their weapons and leaped down into the arena itself.


One member, desperate to stop this brat, swung down his axe.
The blade struck his shoulder, cutting slightly into the flesh before clanging against metal and stopping dead.


Worse still, the sensation of striking solid metal was transmitted directly through the leather of the hand gripping the axe.


“Aaah?! What the hell is inside this bastard's body….”


With a crunching sound, Kaftin's fist literally dug into the face of the gang member who had dropped the axe.


Gabelth turned ashen-faced upon seeing the fallen member, his face caved in to the shape of the fist, eyeballs dangling, bits of brain oozing from the eye sockets.


“Fuck! Damn it! What the hell is that monster?! Is that even a human punch?!”
“Gabelth-!!”
“Damn it! You bastard! Faster! Pull me up faster, damn it!”
“Ah, understood! Oi... Heave-ho!”


Gabelth, barely making it up to the stands, began limping painfully toward the VIP section. The other members scrambled onto the field to stop that crazy brat.


“You bastard! Die!”
“There's a 30-gold bounty on your head! Die!”


Despite the gang members' furious beating, Kaftin's half-rolled eyes were fixed solely on his limping prey, Gabelth.


But when the heads of the gang members blocking his view came into sight, his priorities flipped in his mind.


“Grrrrr!”
“You beastly bastard?!”


He immediately grabbed the wrist of the thug swinging a short spear right in front of him. Twisting the wrist, he then drove the spear into the heart of another thug standing beside him with superhuman strength, piercing clean through.


As the man gripping the spear screamed in agony from the excruciating pain of his arm bone twisting and joint dislocating, he kicked the man's knee from the side, rupturing the cruciate ligament and simultaneously shattering the knee itself.


Just as he heard the sweet screams echoing again, a heavy blow struck his head.


One member had fetched a mason's hammer and swung it down with both hands, striking his head.


Though the blow was powerful, far from shattering his skull, only the wooden handle of the hammer snapped, and his palm was torn open. He too stared at Kaftin's head in utter bewilderment.


“You son of a bitch! What the hell is wrong with your head?!”
“……!”


Without a word, Kaftin picked up the broken hammer head. He forcefully yanked out the broken handle section and tossed it aside, then began swinging only the hammer head.


The heads of the gang members in the path of his swing crushed like overripe melons, brains splattering everywhere. Some were kicked down, spitting blood as they collapsed.


“Damn it! For fuck’s sake! What kind of bastard is this!?”
“Damn it! What the hell is this crazy bastard wrapped in?! Hey! Bring Aura User here! We're all gonna die like this!”
“Aaaah! My leg-!”


The gang member holding the hammer, his hand painfully bandaged, picked up an iron rod someone had swung and dropped.


This time, he aimed not for the head, but for a relatively soft spot... no, a spot no man could possibly fortify.
Specifically... the two dangling balls between its legs.


Spotting an opening when Kaftin's legs parted for an instant, he lunged forward.


“Taste death yourself, you freaking monster brat-!”


With a sharp clang, the iron rod struck precisely between the legs. The gang member felt a surge of satisfaction.
Now this damn monster brat would be a little more... well-behaved.


The next instant, the head of an iron hammer slammed into his mouth, shattering every single tooth.


“Ugh-guh?!”
“……!!”


As he coughed up blood and frantically tried to pull the hammer head out with one hand, a flying kick aimed at his jaw shattered his jawbone, sending blood, saliva, and tooth fragments flying everywhere.


Though the gang member flew about two meters before crashing to the ground, near death, Kaftin seemed far from satisfied with the one who had touched his crotch.


Ignoring the attacks from the other members, he charged forward, repeatedly punching the hammer head lodged in his mouth until he shoved it deep down his throat. Only then did he glance at the other members.


“Die! Just die already!”
“Gwaaaaah?!”


At that moment, Athunga, who had been observing the situation, issued an order while hiding his shock as much as possible.


“What the hell are you doing?! You outnumber him! No matter how sturdy his body is, he's human! He has weaknesses! Surround and annihilate him! Don't give him any opportunity!
“…! Th-That's right! Master Athunga is right!“
”You lot, simultaneous attack! Coordinate your timing!"


The operatives, having changed tactics, created distance from Kaftin.
The operative clutched in his hand was already dying, limbs mutilated by torture devices, blood splattering everywhere.


Though some occasionally threw daggers coated in poison, Kaftin blocked them effortlessly, using the captured member as a shield as if he'd been waiting for it.


“That bastard…!”
“Hold on! We're going in on the count! One, two…!”
“Yaaaaaah-!”


Nearly ten different weapons swung toward him almost simultaneously, and soon he was pinned down by the barrage of blades.
As he writhed and growled like a raging beast, conviction flashed across the faces of the gang members.


It's working.
Even a monster like him can be subdued when we pool our strength against him.


“Press harder! Even a monster like him must have a weak spot! Crush him relentlessly until we find it!”
“Guhhh...! This monstrous bastard! Eleven of us are pinning him down, and he's not backing down at all!?”
“Guhhh...!!”


So, eleven of them pressed down on him with their weapons, while others climbed over their shoulders and began pounding Kaftin's head and back from above.


“Die! Just die, you bastard!”
“Dammit! My bat's broken!”
“What kind of creature is this...!”


That was when it happened.
A dark red mist began to rise and swirl from various parts of Kaftin's body.


-To be continued-