279 Death from heartbreak

Slowly, ever so slowly. Zhao Wei had never required so much focus, his eyes strained as his nerves bulged from his thick layer of skin, threatening to burst at any moment. In fact, since his time here he hadn't ever met such a challenging adversary.

He'd rather fight Jormugandr several times over without the aid of his traps and strength than face another one. Yes indeed, he had lost far too many times, and chances were, he was about to lose again. But it was something he wanted, nay, something he needed to do.

If he couldn't even do such a thing then all the powers in the world would be worthless.

*Snap!* It was a moment, just a single moment where his mind had fleeted, and he had lost.

Cup number 165 has broken.

He felt utterly useless, even after several attempts he'd been unable to do something as simple as bringing a cup to a nearby river, gathering some water, and drinking it.

Frankly he didn't know how much longer he could continue to do this, it was so straining to be in such a position. He could feel it now and then, the looks the apes and monkeys gave him as he went back and forth, they were mocking him, maybe he couldn't understand everything they said but they more or less compared the guy who was supposed to transform into a super strong being after being in the cocoon after so long, to their children.

Especially those who were hurt in his earlier rampage. Usually they weren't the type to hold grudges, especially considering they would be frequently taken down in battle among their own kind. But somehow they all remembered what he did and decided not to let it go.

Even worse was the fact that the village was running out of cups. When he asked Gowan why the cups were running out when there were so much more apes and he only used a few. Gowan couldn't look him in the eye and settled for a different answer.

[We don't need things like cups to take water, we live in the field of fighting... uh, and drink the blood of our enemies.]... If he didn't want to waste pottery on him he could've just said so.

A bad lie was so painful to watch, for one you had to sit there and wait for the person to fix their lie up which usually (like in this case) made it worse. And the bad part was that at the end of the mess they were in such an embarrassing position that their only way out was to look at you guiltily and almost plead with you to go along with it. Sitting there like you're enough of a an idiot to buy whatever it was they were trying to shove into your mouth

But what was Zhao Wei supposed to do!? If he pretended like he understood wouldn't the apes take him for even more of a fool. And if he didn't, they'd both be too embarrassed to talk to each other ever again.

They'd spent time and again sparring with each other, and even if he'd released those shackles he was still much slower than the small monkey. In fact, his increased strength actually made it harder for him to fight.

In the first place he wasn't a bruiser who simply charged at his opponents, his attacks were wild but they were accurate at the very least. But with the increased strength, suddenly his senses were in disarray.

He himself weighed only 76kgs, so far he'd been carrying the weight of several buses due to the amount of mana flowing into the shackles. For comparison, the weight of the lightest average bus is around 12,000kgs per bus, he had 8 shackles meaning, at least 96,000 kgs at the very least.

Every time he wanted to take a step, even with his utmost control, he was still launching himself too far. The result was that he was never in a position to properly counter, attack or even defend properly.

Though, the bad part about this wasn't that, at most it was an inconvenience. The biggest detriment to having this strength was on a whole other dimension in terms of fatality. The worst issue that came out almost killed him.

Panda no longer wanted to be petted.

...

IT WAS THE MOST HORRIBLE EVENT THAT COULD'VE EVER OCCURRED.

Well considering what happened to every ape except for Gowan that crossed his path, he didn't blame her. Especially with her physique which focused completely on speed, if he accidentally put in too much strength, they might need to have rabbit meat for dinner.

But still, the moment she ran away from him when he wanted to feel her fur after touching ape fur for so long, it nearly broke his heart and killed him.