Chapter 1742: Pounding out Pounder - Nepherage

[Stone Spike Kick!]

Propelled by Steel Pounder’s attempt to suck me in for a sucker punch, I had positioned my body in such a way that I could land a flying kick against him.

However, understanding that merely kicking him wasn’t going to be enough, I made sure to coat my leg in enough [Chaos] and aether to cause a rock spike to form around it.

If my opponent was a normal aether warrior, than the sight of a crimson jade spike barreling towards them would be a cause for alarm.

This would then normally prompt them to try and throw up a shield or dodge before the attack could land.

Steel Pounder, though, had this look of vicious anticipation on his face.

A look of anticipation that stuck around even as my jade spike of a leg impaled itself deep into his chest.

"Thank you for coming at me in such a blatant manner! Now break for me!"

[Oh shit.]

Honestly, it should’ve occurred to me that the Affixed would have weird anatomies despite being originally human.

However, I didn’t have time to think about my mistakes.

Steel Pounder proceeded to bring both of his fists down towards my leg, hoping to either smash or break it off.

Not wanting either of those outcomes to occur, I channeled fire aether into the leg that was impaled and rocketed my leg out of Pounder’s chest. But that wasn’t all I did.

Before launching myself free, I twisted myself inside of Steel Pounder so that I was facing his legs as opposed to his face. Once I was properly positioned, I grabbed Pounder’s legs.

The force of my leg’s excision pushed me in such a way that I managed to force Pounder into a power bomb towards the ground.

Well, I think it was called a power bomb. Either way, I slammed Pounder into the dirt back first.

If he was a normal aether warrior, I would’ve heard his bones crack by now. But since Steel Pounder was made of steel, I had to make do with the sound of metal plates being warped by high impact violence and the dislodgement of internal components...if he had any.

Either way, once Steel Pounder had been power bombed, I made sure to create some distance between myself and him.

"Raaah!"

[Huh...]

I was about halfway to leap my desired distance backwards when Steel Pounder managed to get back on to his feet with an energetic roar. Not only that, but the gaping chest wound I left in him had begun to close up.

Although, not completely.

A small noticeable dent had formed in the center of his chest, making it clear to me that while these Affixed guys were weird and tough, they still had limits just like everybody else.

The question was, just how far could they be pushed before finally breaking.

I hoped that whatever this hypothetical limit was was soon though.

I could sense that my fellow kaijin were having similar issues in facing their Affixed foes and that this situation was even worse for the scions and their fathers.

In other words, I needed to take this fucker out now before things got worse.

Thankfully, the Affixed warrior decided to come to me instead.

[Smashing Iron!]

The aether art Steel Pounder used was a mere Corporeal-class aether art. However, when infused with [Chaos], high quality aether and an aether treasure’s power, I could feel a sense of danger coming if I didn’t get out of the way.

But I didn’t dodge. Instead, I leaned into the lunch and jerked my head to the side.

The sound of powerful winds and a large fish the size of a bowling bowl flew right past my ear as I threw a punch from a weird angle towards my opponent’s face.

I didn’t use an aether art for this moment, I simply enhanced my fist with [Chaos] and allowed myself to use brute force to pound Pounder’s face in.

The sound of crunching metal was all I needed to hear to know that my fist had landed, and the fact that Pounder stumbled backwards a couple of steps in surprise helped a lot too.

’Got to keep up the pressure,’I thought to myself as I pushed forward, and began to perform a boxing combo that Pounder would’ve probably done to me if I hadn’t gotten out of the way on time.

As opposed to crunching metal, the sound that my blows elicited from Pounder’s body as I slammed my fists into their abdomen one after the other was more akin to a rhythmic drum.

I kept this pace up for at least a dozen or so punches before finishing my combination attack with an uppercut to Pounder’s non-existent jaw.

I’m fairly certain whatever weird bullshit was done to transform a mortal warrior into an Affixed one had removed the necessities and weaknesses of mortal living, but it was at least worth a try to abuse such notions.

Either way, an uppercut to the bottom of the face was never useless.

Especially when the uppercut was actually an aether art.

[Erupting Uppercut!]

My fist glowed red as magma formed around it, and I slammed it directly into Steel Pounder’s face.

I didn’t knock his block off as I was hoping, but I was fairly certain I heard something pop followed by the sound of something definitely breaking.

"Grk..."

Steel Pounder stumbled backwards as I also took a step back, his gait shaky like he had been drinking nothing but hard liquor.

"Grk...hah! Why wasn’t I... compatible with any recovery treasures?!" Steel Pounder gurgled as I just realized I had hit him in the face so hard that he was unable to move his neck and head like a normal person.

He was moving and acting like a robot with an overextend neck joint.

Eventually after a few moments, which gave me time to prepare for an attack, Steel Pounder eventually figured out how to reattach his neck joints in a way that allowed him to move again.

Once his neck was more or less realigned, he directed a gaze towards me.

At that moment, I swore the man’s face had somehow changed in a way that I couldn’t really describe in detail other than this one single statement: it was like the aether treasures that were composing his body was starting to rebel against him.

Seconds after this thought, Steel Pounder’s face went back to looking how it during the beginning moments of this fight.

"You know...her ladyship said that you Kaijin, no, the thing that created you, was the key to her ultimate goal," Steel Pounder suddenly said. "Her ladyship is greed personified and has always been in search of something to slake that hunger."

As he shared this with me, Steel Pounder’s aura began to take on a more dangerous edge than before.

"If she can figure out how to turn her own [Desire] into a kaijin, she believed that she would be able to finally satisfy that hunger. To fill the hole of greed that is her very soul."

Understanding what was about to happen next, I kept quiet and ready to respond.

"Which is why for her sake, I’m going to destroy you!"

Steel Pounder let out a roar as she charged towards me one last time, his body glowing with power as he activated every aether treasure that was embedded inside of his body one after the other.

A giant glowing fist than began to eclipse my vision as Steel Pounder threw a punch in my direction.

[Fist of Greed: Utter Domination!]

The attack barreling towards me was strong, stronger than anything I had ever dealt with before and was something I definitely couldn’t overpower unless milord was with me.

However, I never planned to overpower Pounder’s attack.

Moments before the attack came barreling towards me, I channeled aether into my legs and launched myself upward at the last possible moment, making it so that Steel Pounder wouldn’t be able to redirect attack or be able to follow up with another punch.

Once I was airborne I began to channel even more power I to my legs and repositioned myself in the air so I had the angle directly over Steel Pounder’s head.

As I settled on my new position, I began to circulate the aether in such a way that my entire leg began to glow bright and hot.

[Volcanic Guillotine!]

It was then, that I dealt the final blow in this fight: a volcanic axe kick that slammed down on the very top of Steel Pounder’s head.

Once again, though, I was unable to behead the Affixed warrior.

Instead, I had to settle for the fact that instead of a simple crack of his metallic head, I heard the sound of satisfying crunch.

Needless to say, without the active circulation of a warrior, the glowing fist that was dense with the power of greed, disappeared in a cloud of golden dust.

[One down.]