Defiance of the Fall

He immediately jumped into the fray , now fighting both monkeys on the ground and those hanging on the wall . He madly flailed the axe around , the only thing keeping him safe was the great reach of Chop] .

He soon got the answer from where the monkey captain found its stalactite . As he was desperately defending against the deluge of rabid monkeys he saw the captain grab onto the rock wall . Its fingers actually carved into the wall , and suddenly he dragged out another stalactite straight out of the wall .

It actually looked like the monkey could use a skill , or at least an early prototype of one . It wasn’t as fancy as the spikes the earthen mage had used , but he was shocked that a dumb animal could do it . It seemed that skills , and perhaps even exploring the Dao , was not something exclusive to humanoids .

He didn’t have time to reflect on it further before another projectile came flying toward him . He saw it coming this time and grabbed a monkey to use as a shield . The monkey absorbed most of the blow , but Zac was still pushed back somewhat .

The monkey captain seemingly was able to keep generating these projectiles , as he once again moved his hand toward the wall . Zac didn’t want to keep this status quo going . He wasn’t really hurt apart from some bruising so far , but if he didn’t do something soon he might run out of energy or get hit by a lucky projectile .

He stopped his retreat into the crack and instead started to furiously push forward . He was a whirlwind of carnage as he pushed through the horde of monkeys . He wanted to finish off the leader first and then whittle down the others .

Monkeys started to climb around and charge Zac from the back , but with his 90 Endurance he could shrug off the strikes for now . The only time he stopped his onslaught was when some monkey managed to grab his legs and risked pulling him down on the ground again .

The leader threw another large rock at Zac , seemingly trying to impede his advance .

Zac saw the projectile approaching this time , and swung down his axe in a fierce vertical strike to cleave it . He had expected the two pieces to slam to the sides of him , but was sorely mistaken . The only result from his strike was that two boulders hit him instead of one , slamming him back once again .

Zac could only redouble his efforts and ignoring his cosmic energy expenditure kept utilizing Chop] to the max .

Finally , as he was 3 meters away from the captain , he couldn’t be bothered getting in close with it , and overcharged the skill , increasing the length of the blade with a full meter extra . With a roar he swiped in an upward arc , and the captain was split in two . He could only maintain such a length for a second , but one second was all he needed for one quick kill .

After that , he simply planted his back against the wall and kept killing until there was no monkey left willing to fight . There were a few monkeys who kept screaming at him from the distance , but Zac hurled another rock at one , instantly crushing its head . Then finally the last remnants of the pack finally fled .

Zac was truly exhausted and hurting from the fight , but he forced himself to get up and move away from the battle . The sounds carried far in the mountains , and he didn’t want to be around if either the Herald or some demons heard the noise .

He kept sneaking up the mountain and soon reached the entrance to the hidden valley far up in the air . He didn’t dare enter yet , but instead opted to hide between some rocks and recuperate from the battle . The melee reminded him that just because he had gotten the Axe Mastery] skill he still was by no means a master fighter . His planning impeded him rather than helped , and he would probably have been better off just charging in as usual .

It felt like he had been fighting for his life on the island for an eternity , but in reality he had only been on the island for roughly 40 days . Before that he’d just been a desk jockey , completely oblivious to any fighting tactics . He had made a few real beginner mistakes in this fight , and could only strive to do better in the future .

Chapter 46 - The Hunt for the Herald

As Zac stood at the edge of the valley he was shocked by the density of cosmic energy . The amount in the air was already quite a bit higher in the mountains compared to down on the ground , but in this secluded vale it was a whole tier higher still .

The density made his suspicion that the Herald hid in the valley much stronger . He was sure that the Monkey King would prefer the increased amount of cosmic energy if even the monkey captains were able to use skills and maybe even cultivate .

The amount of cosmic energy made Zac worried that there might actually be demons here as well . While he had observed their activities for a few days he didn't really see any demons enter the mountains further than the cave , but that didn’t mean that there weren’t cultivator demon’s stationed here .