Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure

by TheFirstDefier

  Zac finished his meal and made his way back down the mountain slopes again and started trekking eastbound for the other peaks. He kept killing every monkey pack in his way, bringing a storm of carnage to the mountain. He was somewhat surprised that there still wasn’t a more concerted effort to catch him by the monkeys by now, as the monkeys seemed to care greatly for each other.

  But they stayed in their groups still and made perfect targets for him. He even gradually dared to attack larger packs as his confidence grew. Initially, he skipped the gatherings that were too large, but by now, he felt confident enough to attack most packs.

  Zac thought that he would actually gain another level this day, but he was forced to suddenly stop fighting during the evening. It wasn’t because he was hurt or lacked targets; the problem was his axe.

  His war-axe possessed a self-repairing and sharpening feature through its inscriptions, but it seemed it couldn’t properly keep up with Zac’s recent activities. During his barghest genocide, it had no problems staying in good shape, but here it was, dull and blemished after only one day.

  Zac realized that the tough rock plating on the monkeys’ bodies was the problem. His Strength and Endurance provided all the power he needed, but it was his weapon that failed him. He was quite confused about the whole thing, though. When he fought the monkeys, he always used his skill [Chop] to create the translucent enlarged edge to cover his actual axe-head. Still, his actual axe was worse for wear.

  It seemed that the skill didn’t just copy the edge of his weapon, it rather projected it. That was a disadvantage he hadn’t expected, but then again, it still was an extremely powerful and diverse skill for being the first attack skill the class offered.

  With no other option, he could only find refuge for the night again and instead spend greater time on practicing with [Axe Mastery] and meditating. He briefly considered whether to keep going, using one of the large swords in his pouch as a weapon instead. But he eventually decided against it.

  For one, he couldn’t use his skills with a sword, and there also was another reason he hesitated. He wanted to use other weapons as little as possible in general.

  When he picked his class, it generally looked like the options were based on his activities. Since his stats, skills, and experiences all were centered on the axe, he wanted to upgrade in this direction when he got the opportunity to upgrade the Hatchetman class. He was afraid that he might miss out on a good class upgrade if he kept using too many various weapons and not fulfill the prerequisites.

  That was why he also really wanted to find more axes, so he wouldn’t be forced to use knives as much for throwing or as backups. He even toyed with the idea of stalking the roving gathering parties on the island to find someone with axes and then take them out. But ultimately, it still felt like an unnecessary risk. That he’d managed to kill the party at his camp so smoothly largely could be attributed to the element of surprise. He felt that he could likely wipe out most of the parties by now, but he couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t be able to send out a warning signal like the flame mage had tried.

  Zac finally found a decent cave and settled in. As he was practicing his axe technique, he was pondering whether he already had to change his plans. The reason was the huge number of Nexus Coins he was racking up. A day of killing the monkeys resulted in roughly 100,000 Nexus Coins. That amount took him almost a week to gather when desperately hunting barghest.

  He currently had 347,000 coins and only needed two days to gather the necessary coins for the movement skill [Steps of Gaia]. He felt his current weakness was that his speed was lacking. If he could move faster, he wouldn’t have to keep throwing his axe at people, but instead simply run up to them.

  Allocating his free points in Dexterity was an option, but he felt it wasn’t the correct one. He had already decided to focus on one or two stats and let his titles take care of the rest. He already had 59 Dexterity, which should be considered a lot for anyone not having Dexterity as his or her main attribute.

  Besides, after observing the demons he fought, he realized they did the same thing. They were specialized in one or two stats as well. The mages didn’t have overbearing Strength or Dexterity and likely focused on Wisdom and Intelligence. Instead, they used things like magic shields and earthen walls to protect themselves from attacks.

  Zac felt that this was the way that people powered up in the Multiverse. Focus on the attributes that best empowered him, and have skills shore up the shortcomings.

  He knew he likely had survived the mentalist mage’s binding during his last bout with the demons due to his high Intelligence and Wisdom. But he assumed that normally a warrior would have a skill to protect their mind instead of wasting their free stat points on those attributes.

  The only problem for Zac was that he didn’t have a ready source of skills except the Nexus Node. But the choices there seemed quite limited, and he hadn’t gotten any new class skill quests yet. If specialization was the way to go, it also meant that he had wasted some stat points in the beginning by putting them into Vitality and Dexterity.

  Of course, without the points in Vitality, he might be dead by now, but not being optimized left a bad taste in his mouth.

  45

  Monkey Captain

  Finally, Zac reluctantly decided not to 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 backup 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 noticed 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’d 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 had cracked in two sometime in the distant past, which had created this path. That would hopefully only let a few monkeys charge in at a 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 the 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 mouthful of 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 the 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.

  As he finally was getting up after getting rid of all the monkeys, another projectile was flying in 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 at 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 on to the rock wall. Its fingers actually carved into the wall, and suddenly, he dragged 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, were 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 three 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 a 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 had 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 forty 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.

  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 hadn’t really seen any demons enter the mountains further than the cave, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t cultivator demons stationed here.

  He refrained from entering the valley at the moment, as he still wanted to thin the herd of monkeys in the mountains first. A large enough roar from the valley might be able to call for reinforcements from all four peaks, after all.

  The fight against the pack with the monkey captain had been a bit shaky, but it was mostly due to his mistakes. The monkeys on the peaks were slightly stronger compared to the ones he had fought earlier, but not to the point that they
could stop his onslaught. He only needed to kill the leader and then it was carnage as usual.

  There was one more pack he needed to kill on the mountain peak he had climbed. It didn’t have any captain, but the monkeys in general were slightly bigger even compared to the last pack.

  Zac entered the fray after having restored his energy and made short work of the pack. He made the interesting discovery that none of the monkeys dared to enter the valley, even when they were fleeing for their lives. Perhaps the valley was the private residence of the herald, and they had strict orders not to enter.

  Or perhaps something even scarier than Zac lived in the depths of the valley. He supposed he would find out later.

  Zac kept his momentum going, moving toward the next peak. He didn’t try any fancy tactics anymore; he only tried to knock out the leaders of the following packs by throwing a boulder at them. He didn’t even bother with the throwing knives, as they had trouble penetrating their stone armor. No matter whether the throw succeeded or not, he simply charged straight into the throng of stone monkeys, swinging away.

  At midday, he reached the third peak, having mostly cleared out the two earlier ones apart from a few who managed to escape. This peak was the easternmost and also the one closest to demon activity. The cave that the demons found so interesting was located not too far away from the foot of the mountain.

  Zac was unsure whether he dared to start a battle here, as it might attract the demons below. While the distance was quite great between his location and the cave, he was afraid the sound would carry all the way down. The monkeys got quite loud and agitated during the fights, after all. He decided to find a hiding spot with good vantage before deciding anything further. As he was somewhat ahead of schedule, he decided to wait for roughly an hour to gauge any activity in the area.