Finally Zac reluctantly decided to not get the skill for now. He wanted to find and kill the third Herald first.

He really wanted the power-up, but he also realized he was working against the clock here. He was already somewhat surprised there wasn’t a monkey army hunting him in the mountains after his activities. It wasn’t a small number of stone monkeys he had killed in the last two days after all.

He was also getting closer and closer to the area where the demons were active, and they could notice his activities at any moment. The mountains were getting filled with sites of desolation, with hundreds of monkey carcasses adorning the hills by now.

He was afraid that if he spent another two days grinding monsters, and then one day to travel to his camp and back to get the skill, his window of opportunity to kill the Herald would pass.

After all, the cave where the demons worked all day was quite close to the easternmost peak. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume they would wander around the peak as well, looking for more of whatever they wanted in the cave.

He needed to find the Herald quickly and kill it. He decided to spend the day moving toward the valley and kill any packs that were in the vicinity of it. Then he’d finally try locating the Herald early the next morning.

After he woke up he briefly meditated, and after confirming his axe was back to tip-top shape, set out toward the cluster of peaks. He gained a level on the first pack he encountered, bringing him to level 31.

He soon arrived at the foot of the westernmost peak of the four clustered mountains. He planned to scale it halfway up, which would lead him to the entrance of the valley. Then he’d make a circle around the peaks to kill off any packs close to the valley.

That would both let him scout out the four peaks for anything out of place, and also kill any potential back-up that the Herald could call for. If the herald was on one of the peaks rather than in the valley he hoped there would be something different about it to give him some hints.

As soon as he started climbing the first peak he started to notice an increased resistance. The packs grew slightly larger, and there were stronger monkeys in the packs. Monkeys in the wild usually had an alpha who led the group of primates, but he hadn’t really seen that so far in the groups he had killed. Zac simply assumed that the Herald was the big boss of everyone, but it didn’t seem that simple.

But now there was a monkey with bulging muscles standing a head taller compared to the others. Zac used Eye of Discernment on it, but it still was only called a Stone Monkey. The other Heralds both had names, so he could only assume this was not it.

The alpha monkey maybe could be considered a captain, and the Herald was the general. Just the fact that the packs were getting stronger felt like a good indication that he was on the correct path. It showed the Herald likely was nearby as he hypothesized.

Zac hesitated for a second, before doing his customary sweep of the surroundings.

The monkeys in general seemed stronger compared to the outer packs, so he needed to do some preparation. Close to the pack he found a narrow path up in the mountain, with sheer wall on both sides. It seemed that the rocky formation cracked in two sometime in the distant past, which had created this path. That would hopefully only let a few monkeys charge in at the time. It would slow down his assault but he wanted to play it safe until he could gauge the strength of these juiced up monkeys.

The next part was to lure the monkeys over, and Zac simply picked up a boulder the size of a head. With a grunt he threw it straight into the clump of monkeys, and with its huge momentum it smashed a poor monkey’s head in.

The monkeys angrily roared and flooded toward him. Zac slowly backed away and placed himself some ways into the crack. He planned to kill a few and then back further in to make room for the corpses.

The battle started as intended, with Zac quickly reaping the lives of a dozen monkeys in quick order. But as he retreated further in he noticed a very bad sign. The monkeys had no problems climbing the sheer rock walls.

Zac wanted to slap himself in his scarred face. He should have realized that rock monkeys were good at climbing rocks. He had simply forgotten about the nimbleness of their primate brethren as the stone monkeys always seemed to sit immobile among the rocks rather than climbing them.

Just as he berated himself he heard a loud roar from the back rows of the group of monkeys. Suddenly all monkeys in front of him threw themselves to the ground in perfect harmony, and taking their place was a rock hurtling toward him. It was twice the size of the one he had thrown, and he didn’t have time to react before it slammed into him like a truck.

Zac was flung backward from the momentum and spit out a mouthfulof blood. It seemed the monkey captain wanted revenge for his earlier throw.

Before he could get up multiple monkeys hanging on the walls jumped down on him. Rather than trying to pummel him like monkeys used to, it seemed that they tried to pin him down. They gripped his extremities with all their might and tried to keep him from getting up.

Unfortunately for them his strength was 160 by now, and he could lift the monkeys like they were children. He ignored the monkey clinging to his axe arm and furiously swung the axe, killing the monkeys who were gripping his legs. ᴡ ᴏᴠʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛʀs ᴀʀ ᴘᴜʙʟsʜᴅ ᴏ Nov(l)Fre .t

As he finally was getting up after getting rid of all the monkeys another projectile was flying into his direction. This time it was a sharp stalactite, and Zac couldn’t understand where the monkey captain had gotten it. He managed to deflect it in the last minute with his axe, but the force made him fall back a few steps.

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.