13 - Wolfmonkeys

"Haa...haaa..." Arthur gasped for air, slashing through another Wolfmonkey.

His body was covered in cuts and bruises. Claire wasn't looking good either, she had gone invisible and was appearing near the neck of the Wolfmonkeys, slicing their heads off and then disappearing again.

Unfortunately, it looked like these Wolfmonkeys were smarter than she thought, one of them waited till she appeared behind him and instantly grasped her body and tried squeezing it to death. Arthur quickly ran and cut off its hand.

"Fuck...what do we do? There are just too many of them!" Arthur said. They had been fighting them for almost an hour now. Arthur made sure not to use his Essence, this was a battle of attrition, and burning himself out like that wasn't a smart choice.

"I told you that we needed a backup plan." Claire said angrily, holding her stomach from pain while slicing into another enemy. "Yeah fine you were right, now what do we do?" Arthur admitted.

"I can make clones and distract them while we run outside and regroup." Claire quickly came up with a plan. "Got it." Arthur said.

Claire quickly made clones and disappeared. Arthur used Gradus to escape, however, something unexpected happened!

The Wolfmonkeys completely ignored the clones, rushing to the exit and blocking it. "AH! AHH AH AH!" The Wolfmonkeys screamed."How did they know?" Arthur asked.

Before he could come to a conclusion, a Wolfmonkey somehow caught him by his feet. "Oh." Arthur said before being thrown against a wall. 

The impact shook the entire cave! Arthur coughed up some blood. "Now I'm getting pissed off!" Arthur said, slowly crawling out of the human-sized hole that his body created with the impact. He activated his Essence. The entire world slowed down for him. He sent an air slash, it being double as fast since he swung it with double the speed caused the Wolfmonkeys to be unable to dodge it. It cut through a dozen of them before disappearing. 

Arthur smiled. He sent out slash after slash, all of them taking down at least 10 enemies each. The Wolfmonkeys quickly realized and started predicting the slashes and jumping above them. When they were in the air, Arthur simply sent vertical slashes as well, cutting them in half. More and more of the Wolfmonkeys started dying. They screamed, seeing all their troop die. They ran away. Arthur stopped sending slashes and looked around himself. 

"That's it?" He said with a smirk. "I expected better, as soon as I used my Essence these monkeys couldn't do anything." He boasted. Suddenly the cave shook. It shook again and again in a rhythm. 'Footsteps?' Arthur realized. 

A giant Wolfmonkey appeared. It was much bigger than every other one of them. Its canine teeth looked sharper, its claws longer and most importantly it looked like there was some kind of metal-like protection around his arms, coating it and its claws. 

"Are you the leader?" Arthur asked. "AHHHHH!" The Wolfmonkey screamed, beating its chest like some kind of gorilla. It quickly rushed forward. Arthur instantly attacked as well, slicing forward with his sword. Before he could send the air slash, the Alpha Wolfmonkey was already in front of him, making an air slash useless. 

His sword connected with the claws of the Wolfmonkey, shattering in dozens of parts. The claw didn't stop there, it cut through the sword and sliced four deep slashes in Arthur's chest, causing them to bleed. "Ugh...fuck." Arthur said, quickly creating distance with Gradus. Unfortunately, just the natural speed of the Alpha was fast enough to keep up with Gradus! The Alpha didn't relent at all, clawing at Arthur every chance he got. Thankfully Arthur was barely able to keep dodging them, now expecting their arrival. 

'Not yet.' Elijah thought, who was watching this entire fight without stepping in. 'He has to learn to survive without me.' Elijah assured himself.

Arthur quickly learned the monkey's pattern, predicted an attack, and dodged under it. Using the opportunity he quickly uppercut the monkey in the jaw. The monkey simply took the hit and smiled down on Arthur, exposing its sharp wolf-like canines. 'Fuck-' Arthur thought, receiving a Gorilla-like punch in the stomach, sending him flying against a wall.

He crashed into it with a massive bang! The cave's foundation became unstable. 'Maybe...?' Arthur thought. He then took a stone and hurled it towards the monkey, his Essence causing him to throw it with double the speed and power. It connected with the monkey's forehead, enraging it even more. It looked furiously at Arthur, who just grinned back. 

Suddenly, Arthur's nose started to bleed below his mask. All the damage and Essence usage had caused him to overload his brain! Arthur had no choice, he kept using his Essence and throwing stones towards the monkey. They caused no real harm, however the monkey kept getting angrier. 

Arthur hoped it would become angry enough and pick up on Arthur's tactic. It seemed like it was working. "GRAAAAAGHHH!!" The monkey growled, picking up a massive boulder and throwing it against Arthur. Arthur dodged it and the cave shook once again! Arthur wanted the cave to collapse. 

However, something that no one could've predicted happened! The monkey saw that the cave was about to collapse and made a few noises, causing all the other monkeys to run outside. It then grinned towards Arthur. 'Fuck, maybe I pissed it off a bit too much...it really wants me dead huh?' Arthur thought, seeing the monkey tell its subordinates to evacuate while it would stay and kill Arthur.

The longer Arthur kept his Essence up, the more damage was being done to his brain. It simply couldn't handle this amount of information at once. He even started to bleed out of his ears now. 'I need to end this quickly.' Arthur thought, his headache getting much worse. 

He rushed towards the monkey, using body reinforcement with his highest output! The monkey grinned seeing this, throwing out a fully powered punch as well! BOOM! The clash shook the entire cave from the pure shockwave! A lot of dust got thrown up, hiding both of them. As the dust settled down, the monkey looked around. Suddenly it got hit by a hit on the back of his head with a punch equaling the force from before!

Arthur had used the dust to move behind him and attack! The monkey took major damage to the back of its head and started stumbling. It then turned around and...blasted a sonic wave out of its mouth! The soundwave crashed into Arthur, sending him flying against the wall and being the breaking point for the cave to collapse! 

"You still weren't going all out?" Arthur asked. His body was completely destroyed. He had at least 3-4 broken ribs, his entire right arm which he used to clash with the monkey was a mangled piece of flesh and bone. He was bleeding out of his nose, ears and now even his eyes! He was a complete mess, every part of his body damaged somehow. 

"Haaa...did you have to wait so long?" Arthur said, seeing the blurry figure in front of him before falling unconscious.

~~~

"Just what am I going to do with these two?" Elijah said, shaking his head. They were currently in a medical facility in Vlas. "I can hear you, you know?" Claire said, waking up after two days of being unconscious.

Once she escaped outside the cave, she had to fight hundreds of Wolfmonkeys by herself while stopping them from escaping towards the village. Two 'Alphas' had shown up and attacked her with all the other Wolfmonkeys as well. She managed to take one down and kill a hundred or so Wolfmonkeys before also losing to the other Alpha. 

"Also this wasn't even our fault! It was a silver mission, there should've only been one Alpha Wolfmonkey at most! There was a total of three!" Claire protested.

"People often misreport the actual difficulty of the mission so that they have to pay the price of a lower-ranked one. You could've made a plan, scouted the cave, and realized it was misreported. Then you could've requested for backup. Instead, you both rushed in like idiots and almost got yourselves killed! If I wasn't there this time both of you would've been dead already. I expected this from Arthur since he is inexperienced but why did you just listen to him?" Elijah scolded her daughter.

Claire looked down and contemplated. "I'm sorry, Dad." She apologized. She was supposed to lead the mission, but her decision not to scout the cave is what caused both of them to almost die.

Arthur was still unconscious, having taken severe damage to his brain. Thankfully the medical Zealots here have said there will be no permanent damages, however, he will have to refrain from using his Essence for at least a month! 

'What a shitshow, maybe they weren't ready yet. I need to remember they're just kids.' Elijah thought. He could've stepped in earlier, however, he waited until the last moment before they sustained any permanent damage to teach them a lesson. They can't be this reckless again, next time if this happens and he isn't there to save them, it could end with them dying.

'I hope they listen to this wake-up call.' Elijah hoped.