Defiance of the Fall

That meant that the final Herald apart from the monkey was either a juiced up gwyllgi or imp , depending on which of the two he had managed to kill with his lucky roll for survival . He wasn’t sure which he preferred to be alive , as both felt like they’d be a pain in the ass to fight .

It seemed that the monkeys stayed in the mountain due to their affinity with rocks . Zac often saw them perched and completely immobile on outcroppings as though they were gargoyle sculptures . Their natural habitat was likely in mountainous regions back at their home planet .

He had been happy to notice that each stone monkey gave a lot of Nexus Coins upon killing them . However , he still would rather farm the less lucrative barghest after his only encounter with the monkeys .

Zac thought he had finally managed to single out a solitary stone monkey . It was far away from any demon activity and seemed to be randomly walking around close to the foot of the mountain . Zac had planned to fight it to test it out .

What followed had truly exceeded his expectations . As soon as the monkey noticed Zac it didn’t try to fight . Instead , it screeched at the top of its lungs and started fleeing back up the mountain . While it was faster than a normal human , it still was no match for Zac .

Within a few seconds he had caught up to it , and a brief struggle erupted . The monkey’s fighting style was a full-on brawl , and it was a whirlwind of punches and kicks in a disorganized and confusing manner . It also had a pair of sharp teeth which it tried using when an opportunity arose .

Zac estimated the Strength of the beast to be somewhere in the 60’s , almost on par with Zac’s before he got his class . Its other stats were quite good across the board , even its intelligence seemed higher compared to Earth’s normal primates .

Of course , even with its strong stats , it was no match against Zac . He had grabbed an arm with his free hand and threw the monkey down on the ground . A quick swing and it was dead . The stone plating on the monkeys was quite hard but offered little resistance to his weapon .

The problems came after . The screech of the monkey had pulled a swarm of his brethren over , who all had seemed extremely enraged upon seeing their fallen comrade .

Thus Zac had been beset by an avalanche of angry fists and kicks coming in from all directions . Every swing of his axe had maimed or killed a monkey , but they were endless and fearless . Finally he had escaped , only because the monkeys seemed loath to leave the mountain and enter the forest . They had stopped right at the foot of the mountain , angrily roaring at Zac .

Zac was completely exhausted by then , both physically and his cosmic energy . Even new and improved pathways had barely managed to sustain him in his escape . He wasn’t sure that he’d make it out if that onslaught had started a bit further up the mountain . He’d be drained and then finished off .

The upside from that experience was that it had been the most efficient farming of currency and cosmic energy he had ever done , except from when he killed the heralds . In that free-for-all brawl , he had gained a level and over 10 000 Nexus coins . He wasn’t sure about how many he had actually killed during the escape , but it seemed that the monkeys each awarded around 350 to 400 nexus coins .

The individual gain wasn’t at the level of the imps , but there was a horde of monkeys but only a scant few imps from what he had seen so far . Of course , there still were many locations on the island he still hadn’t ventured to , and they might be a cluster of imps somewhere .

If the monkeys weren’t so territorial and had such teamwork , he’d never want to leave the mountain again . He’d gain enough Nexus Coins to buy the movement skill Steps of Gaia] in no time . But he deemed it too large a risk to farm these beasts , at least for now . He would have to venture up the mountain again soon though , as the Herald was probably hidden somewhere in there , maybe in the form of a monkey king .

He’d wait until he had his class skills first until he ventured back into the mountains .

He had also figured out the general composition of the demon forces . He estimated that there were somewhere around 5 000 demons on the island in total . Their current activities could generally be divided into three parts .

The first part was the construction of a giant palace in the middle of the town . It still wasn’t finished , but Zac was amazed by the design even before seeing the finished product . It looked like medieval eastern architecture had been fused with nature . The structure was made both from stone and trees .