This is a problem.
“You just had to run your mouth about social strata and warrior caste. Why do you do that every single time things are going well for us? Why?”
While he advanced through the jungle, Wolf noticed that the slumbering apes grew bigger and more robust the closer he got to Corpsewood’s center. Oddly enough, all Monster Beasts were dormant. However, the group at the very heart of the forest was awake.
Before Wolf stood a glade filled with medicinal plants, exuding a soothing aroma so potent the miniature beads of fragrant oils lingered in the luminous mist. Ten towering male apes, bulging with muscles, sat on crude seats and lay on primitive beds padded with fresh leaves of the herbs, which surrounded them.
Fifty females, distinguishable by their enlarged mammary glands, walked around, wearing disturbing grimaces, which Wolf guessed passed for attractive smiles among Gilded Apes. The females worked hard, rubbing the muscular males’ backs, arms, and legs. They peeled pink, melon-sized tangerine-like fruit with reverence and dunked the pieces into honey before feeding the lounging males.
Wolf focused on the Gilded Ape facing him. He used a trick he had learned ages ago, looking into the misty air next to the giant gorilla, lest he reveal his presence. The golden simian had a satisfied, intoxicated grin tugging at the edges of his lips, pulling them into a mocking smirk which begged Wolf to slap that smug face and bring the monkey down from his kingdom of clouds.
This is the height of debauchery.
“But there’s nothing obscene about it.”
Debauchery doesn’t have to be obscene. Look at how they are indulging themselves, enjoying massages and what are presumably beautiful women feeding them. Nobles in Silver City getting drunk in brothels, raping, and tormenting women never experienced this kind of bliss.
“Don’t tell me you want to indulge yourself like this?”
You know that’s not my thing. However, I think I would love to find something which could fulfill me like that.
“You would grow bored after a day or two.”
That is probably true. It could be more, it could be less, but spending a day or two content like these monkeys is not bad.
Wolf’s other Mental Aspect had the urge to argue, but found himself without openings, and no way to poke at the one moving the body. So he changed the subject.
“That’s the crux. How do we take it?”
Wolf examined the fist-sized orb floating two meters above ground, straight at the center of the Gilded Apes’ pleasure pasture. The sphere was green, glossy like an emerald, and pulsated with verdant light, giving off a holy feeling, one which mortals should not blaspheme.
It looks like a beating heart.
“I had the same thought.”
You are me. Now shut up and stop quarreling like a child.
“You’re the quarreling child! Your mind dissolved in inferior bodily chemistry.”
Wolf ignored his Mental Aspect’s tantrum and focused on his prize.
The crux is a hundred meters away, and the apes are unaware of my presence. If I could use the air-typed movement art Elder Dreadingham taught me, I could reach them in a second, snatch the crux, and be out of this place.
“I have only trained in that art conceptually, never using proper Qi circulation, since my Qi was lacking before I advanced. I have nowhere to practice, unless I cross the moat again.”
How hard can it be?
“Please don’t do stupid shit just because you’re in charge of the body. That’s how you nearly collapsed our soul and disabled two out of three Mental Aspects.”
We could just plow through them?
“How about we try sneaking up to them? Look at them. They are limp. Like putty in the masseuses’ hands, about to ooze out of their beds and chairs?”
What putty? Have you started doing drugs? Look at that she-ape massaging that gorilla’s biceps. The vein in her forehead is throbbing from the effort, yet she’s unable to deform his muscle even a bit. She’s a peak Blood Saturating Monster Beast, yet all her body’s strength can’t do anything to a single muscle of his. He’s like a mountain. I’ve seen bronze statues more malleable than these lounging Gilded Apes.
“It was a figure of speech, you moron. What I wanted to say, and you know what I wanted to say, but are bickering about my choice of words, is that they most certainly are not keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings.”
Fine. We can try it your way. If worse comes to worst, I’ll dash forward and reach my goal in three seconds.
Wolf climbed down the tree, careful not to make a sound. He wore the camouflage cloak, and tiptoed towards the center, feeling like he had joined a tortoise race, intent on taking the last place.
The jungle’s canopy grew thinner, and the world before Wolf grew brighter, until he was a single step away from the glade.
He hesitated for a moment, examining the Gilded Apes, however, none moved a muscle at his approach. He moved and his foot entered the clearing. Then the world changed. In an instant, the calming, curative scent became a rotten reek. Flowers beneath Wolf’s feet withered and turned black. The ten sleepy apes snapped their eyes open, but Wolf did not wait for them to take action. He coiled his leg muscles and burst with speed.
The Gilded Ape guardians and their females jumped, exploding with Qi. Sanguine light blazed from their bodies, crashing into the air like tangible substance and painting the world crimson. Mixed with the menace of their bloodshot eyes, their presence would paralyze hundreds of manlings. However, Wolf was indifferent towards their murderous air.
A female pounced at him, the half-peeled tangerine in her hand squeezed into a pink pulp. She did not move to strike him, but threw her bulk before him, blocking his path with her three-meter-tall body.
In the dilated flow of time, she howled, her voice a rumbling of rocks crashing down a jagged cliff-side. Wolf summoned Eviltongue and swung it at the disturbingly human-like simian trying to hug him with her arms spread wide.
“If I hadn’t changed my old height, I could’ve dodged her, and I would have had three operational Mental Aspects this whole time.”
Fuck off.
Wolf’s Qi coursed through Eviltongue. However, the Gilded Ape’s crimson aura drowned his orange light. The two barriers whined for a split instant, before the one coating the flamberge shattered. Still, Wolf drove the wave-patterned blade forward, relying on physical might, and the weakened Qi screen burst.
In an eye blink, Wolf had slashed into the ape’s wrist, severing the tendons, and her hand went limp. Wolf did not engage her. He stepped on the dead limb, yanked out his sword from her flesh, and leaped.
His goal was mere sixty meters away, and fighting to the death with an enemy he could avoid was not bravery, but waste of time. As Wolf soared through the misty air, a four-meter-tall male stood with his weapon at the ready, just a handful of steps away. A club, three meters long and over a meter thick, screamed, crashing towards Wolf’s torso.
They are slow.
Wolf twisted his body, bending above the ton of wood used as a primitive weapon. He kicked off of it for a negligible speed increase, and to change his downward trajectory into an upward one.
Barely two seconds had passed since the first ape shrieked, but the jungle behind Wolf’s back erupted into pandemonium. The apes at the Corpsewood’s core drowned the noise from all other directions, but he guessed every single Gilded Ape in the secluded world was alert, out to kill him.
The huge alpha male before him was the first one to try. The beast roared, spraying foamy spit and fruit chunks, slamming Wolf’s flying form with a gale of sweet, fruity breath. The sudden gust had little impact on Wolf’s speed, but there was no avoiding the furious enemy, who held his club in a two-handed overhead grip, the weapons tip reaching over eight meters above ground. The ape slammed down, trying to swat Wolf like an insignificant intruding insect.
If I dodge that, I won’t have the chance to continue forward.
“That’s over four tons of hard, World Energy-saturated wood, swung by a two-ton ape blazing with Qi. It had probably gone through a body tempering too. My body can’t handle that.”
I can take that hit.
“No!”
Wolf’s body spasmed. He moved his arms to shield the back of his head, ready to use the blow to jump between the ape’s legs, when his back arched against his will.
What are you doing!
“What are you doing!”
This is a problem.
“You just had to run your mouth about social strata and warrior caste. Why do you do that every single time things are going well for us? Why?”
While he advanced through the jungle, Wolf noticed that the slumbering apes grew bigger and more robust the closer he got to Corpsewood’s center. Oddly enough, all Monster Beasts were dormant. However, the group at the very heart of the forest was awake.
Before Wolf stood a glade filled with medicinal plants, exuding a soothing aroma so potent the miniature beads of fragrant oils lingered in the luminous mist. Ten towering male apes, bulging with muscles, sat on crude seats and lay on primitive beds padded with fresh leaves of the herbs, which surrounded them.
Fifty females, distinguishable by their enlarged mammary glands, walked around, wearing disturbing grimaces, which Wolf guessed passed for attractive smiles among Gilded Apes. The females worked hard, rubbing the muscular males’ backs, arms, and legs. They peeled pink, melon-sized tangerine-like fruit with reverence and dunked the pieces into honey before feeding the lounging males.
Wolf focused on the Gilded Ape facing him. He used a trick he had learned ages ago, looking into the misty air next to the giant gorilla, lest he reveal his presence. The golden simian had a satisfied, intoxicated grin tugging at the edges of his lips, pulling them into a mocking smirk which begged Wolf to slap that smug face and bring the monkey down from his kingdom of clouds.
This is the height of debauchery.
“But there’s nothing obscene about it.”
Debauchery doesn’t have to be obscene. Look at how they are indulging themselves, enjoying massages and what are presumably beautiful women feeding them. Nobles in Silver City getting drunk in brothels, raping, and tormenting women never experienced this kind of bliss.
“Don’t tell me you want to indulge yourself like this?”
You know that’s not my thing. However, I think I would love to find something which could fulfill me like that.
“You would grow bored after a day or two.”
That is probably true. It could be more, it could be less, but spending a day or two content like these monkeys is not bad.
Wolf’s other Mental Aspect had the urge to argue, but found himself without openings, and no way to poke at the one moving the body. So he changed the subject.
“That’s the crux. How do we take it?”
Wolf examined the fist-sized orb floating two meters above ground, straight at the center of the Gilded Apes’ pleasure pasture. The sphere was green, glossy like an emerald, and pulsated with verdant light, giving off a holy feeling, one which mortals should not blaspheme.
It looks like a beating heart.
“I had the same thought.”
You are me. Now shut up and stop quarreling like a child.
“You’re the quarreling child! Your mind dissolved in inferior bodily chemistry.”
Wolf ignored his Mental Aspect’s tantrum and focused on his prize.
The crux is a hundred meters away, and the apes are unaware of my presence. If I could use the air-typed movement art Elder Dreadingham taught me, I could reach them in a second, snatch the crux, and be out of this place.
“I have only trained in that art conceptually, never using proper Qi circulation, since my Qi was lacking before I advanced. I have nowhere to practice, unless I cross the moat again.”
How hard can it be?
“Please don’t do stupid shit just because you’re in charge of the body. That’s how you nearly collapsed our soul and disabled two out of three Mental Aspects.”
We could just plow through them?
“How about we try sneaking up to them? Look at them. They are limp. Like putty in the masseuses’ hands, about to ooze out of their beds and chairs?”
What putty? Have you started doing drugs? Look at that she-ape massaging that gorilla’s biceps. The vein in her forehead is throbbing from the effort, yet she’s unable to deform his muscle even a bit. She’s a peak Blood Saturating Monster Beast, yet all her body’s strength can’t do anything to a single muscle of his. He’s like a mountain. I’ve seen bronze statues more malleable than these lounging Gilded Apes.
“It was a figure of speech, you moron. What I wanted to say, and you know what I wanted to say, but are bickering about my choice of words, is that they most certainly are not keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings.”
Fine. We can try it your way. If worse comes to worst, I’ll dash forward and reach my goal in three seconds.
Wolf climbed down the tree, careful not to make a sound. He wore the camouflage cloak, and tiptoed towards the center, feeling like he had joined a tortoise race, intent on taking the last place.
The jungle’s canopy grew thinner, and the world before Wolf grew brighter, until he was a single step away from the glade.
He hesitated for a moment, examining the Gilded Apes, however, none moved a muscle at his approach. He moved and his foot entered the clearing. Then the world changed. In an instant, the calming, curative scent became a rotten reek. Flowers beneath Wolf’s feet withered and turned black. The ten sleepy apes snapped their eyes open, but Wolf did not wait for them to take action. He coiled his leg muscles and burst with speed.
The Gilded Ape guardians and their females jumped, exploding with Qi. Sanguine light blazed from their bodies, crashing into the air like tangible substance and painting the world crimson. Mixed with the menace of their bloodshot eyes, their presence would paralyze hundreds of manlings. However, Wolf was indifferent towards their murderous air.
A female pounced at him, the half-peeled tangerine in her hand squeezed into a pink pulp. She did not move to strike him, but threw her bulk before him, blocking his path with her three-meter-tall body.
In the dilated flow of time, she howled, her voice a rumbling of rocks crashing down a jagged cliff-side. Wolf summoned Eviltongue and swung it at the disturbingly human-like simian trying to hug him with her arms spread wide.
“If I hadn’t changed my old height, I could’ve dodged her, and I would have had three operational Mental Aspects this whole time.”
Fuck off.
Wolf’s Qi coursed through Eviltongue. However, the Gilded Ape’s crimson aura drowned his orange light. The two barriers whined for a split instant, before the one coating the flamberge shattered. Still, Wolf drove the wave-patterned blade forward, relying on physical might, and the weakened Qi screen burst.
In an eye blink, Wolf had slashed into the ape’s wrist, severing the tendons, and her hand went limp. Wolf did not engage her. He stepped on the dead limb, yanked out his sword from her flesh, and leaped.
His goal was mere sixty meters away, and fighting to the death with an enemy he could avoid was not bravery, but waste of time. As Wolf soared through the misty air, a four-meter-tall male stood with his weapon at the ready, just a handful of steps away. A club, three meters long and over a meter thick, screamed, crashing towards Wolf’s torso.
They are slow.
Wolf twisted his body, bending above the ton of wood used as a primitive weapon. He kicked off of it for a negligible speed increase, and to change his downward trajectory into an upward one.
Barely two seconds had passed since the first ape shrieked, but the jungle behind Wolf’s back erupted into pandemonium. The apes at the Corpsewood’s core drowned the noise from all other directions, but he guessed every single Gilded Ape in the secluded world was alert, out to kill him.
The huge alpha male before him was the first one to try. The beast roared, spraying foamy spit and fruit chunks, slamming Wolf’s flying form with a gale of sweet, fruity breath. The sudden gust had little impact on Wolf’s speed, but there was no avoiding the furious enemy, who held his club in a two-handed overhead grip, the weapons tip reaching over eight meters above ground. The ape slammed down, trying to swat Wolf like an insignificant intruding insect.
If I dodge that, I won’t have the chance to continue forward.
“That’s over four tons of hard, World Energy-saturated wood, swung by a two-ton ape blazing with Qi. It had probably gone through a body tempering too. My body can’t handle that.”
I can take that hit.
“No!”
Wolf’s body spasmed. He moved his arms to shield the back of his head, ready to use the blow to jump between the ape’s legs, when his back arched against his will.
What are you doing!
“What are you doing!”
