For a split second, everything was still. Time itself seemed to stop.

In the first outer layer of the Boundary Forest, there were two people which faced off against more than 30 monkeys. These creatures made up the entire 3rd branch of the Martial Art Monkeys, and were the rarest. No Adventurer sought them out, because they were the Iron Sh*t Monkeys.

With long arms and a hard, flexible tail, these monkeys ate the armor and weapons of any fallen traveler, wanderer, adventurer and passerby that they could find. True to their name, their attacks were only limited by the amount of food that they had eaten beforehand, and all of their weaponry was stored in a special organ that contained spatial magic. This made it so that they could store their attacks almost indefinitely, and this was the reason why none fought them.

After all, who want to go into a fight with which you had a large chance of dying, only to come out with all of your possessions devalued with sh*t? Even if you happened to be a Traveler and had an almost unending number of lives, most people would still not seek them out and would just pay no attention to them at all.

But these two people had done the unthinkable and decided to fight against the monkeys!

At first it had only been a few of them that had turned up. The monkeys were hard to spot because of their natural camouflage, true, but this was nothing against a party with a rogue with a high enough level. After increasing their DEXTERITY to 50, rogues automatically got a skill called [sense presence]. This let them feel the presences of certain beings around them, after becoming familiar with them. The range on this ability varied based on the rogue’s skill level, but generally most rogues would have trained this skill enough to be able to know if there were monsters around themselves and their party.

Martial Art Monkeys had a high survival instinct. They wouldn’t attack strong people for no reason. But they also had a high sense of pride in themselves and their school!

Alexa had let them know by [whisper] that there were three of the Iron Sh*t Monkeys nearby. She should’ve known better though! After almost being defeated by them once, Zhang and Misa were both up for getting payback for all the trouble from before. The fact that they sent most of them running the last time wasn’t enough as far as they were concerned.

Alexa tried to be the voice of reason, but it was a lost cause. Whenever those two agreed on anything, she could never muster up enough will to go against them. But after Zhang, Misa and Alexa had killed these three monkeys, the entire school came! Right before the last monkey had died, it had let out a shriek, letting all the other members of the school know that it was in trouble.

All of the monkeys had a close bond with each other. After all, where else would they go? They were looked down upon by the other two schools, and this had helped to bring them all together. Which is why when the first three monkeys were killed, the rest of the school came to avenge them.

Plus, it was SPRING MATING SEASON!! If they didn’t do something about these people that tried to trample on them, how could they even think about showing their faces to the women they admired? Even if they normally would leave one or two of their brothers behind to ensure their school’s survival, even if they were normally smart enough to value their own lives highly, this time they didn’t and went all out.

All of this led to the current situation.

Zhang stood next to Misa, his mouth slightly open as he tried to suppress a scream of pain from a bolt of lightning coming from one of the pieces of armor which flew around them, as it struck the symbol of lightning on his chest. He was charred in several places, with dark smoke wafting up from his body.

Misa herself was oblivious to this, as she stood behind him facing the complete opposite direction, her arms outstretched with her staff in her right hand. Her eyes glinted with passion, a sadistic smile stretched across her lips.

More than thirty monkeys clung by their feet to the branches of the trees surrounding the duo, and their dome of flying armor pieces. Some were frozen with a hand at their backsides, others with a tail in mid-swing, the limb still fully armed with their choice of weapon. All while a large white ring hung above them in the sky, with a scarlet ring behind it.

-----------------

Unknown to the monkeys, Alexa and Wahshi were watching the whole thing from a good distance away. They too were perched in a tree, on separate branches.

“Alexa, get the f*ck away from here. These freakin apes have pissed us off for the last time! Zhang and I are going all-out for this one.” Misa [whisper]’ed.

Alexa’s face paled. Leaping off the branch and landing on the ground, she hurriedly called out to Wahshi. “Get off the branch, we’ve gotta run NOW!”

Confused, Wahshi slowly dropped down from the tree. As soon as he did, she grabbed his hand and started running as fast as she could away from where Zhang and Misa were. Tree after tree passed them by, as they zipped and dashed jaggedly through the forest.

“Alexa. Alexa!” Wahshi called out.

There was no response. Alexa just kept dragging him along with her. Unable to take it anymore, he pulled his hand from hers.

She spun around. “What are you doing?! We have to keep running. Do you want to die?!”

“Alexa, calm down. Tell me what’s going on! Why are we still running away from where Zhang and Misa are? Are they ok?”

“We don’t have time! Look, I’ll explain later but you have to trust me right now. If we don’t run then we might both die!”

Wahshi shook his head. “Look, I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what’s going on!”

“Ugh!” Throwing her hands up in frustration, Alexa caved in seeing that he really wouldn’t go with her without her telling him what was about to happen. ‘It might just be faster to tell him. But if we aren’t far enough away in time…. Fine I’ll risk it.’

She opened her mouth to tell him what Zhang and Misa were about to do when suddenly….

“Alexa, hope you got the hell away from here in time. It’s your own fault if you die though, because I gave you more than enough time to do it.” Misa [whisper]’ed.

Hearing this, Alexa knew it was already too late.

“Hit the deck!”

-------------------------

As if somebody had hit Play, the whole scene with Zhang, Misa and the monkeys unfroze.

“—and join your brother flame in madness and wild laughter!”

The white ring glowed so brightly that it hurt to look at it directly. It seemed to pulse briefly, then exploded outwards, sending the trees, monkeys and all the other creatures that were under it straight to the ground as if gravity had quadrupled.

The monkeys couldn’t even scream, the weight that was on them wouldn’t let them do anything but wallow in their own pain as their bones broke and their organs collapsed under their own weight.

There was a pause….

And then the all of the wind in the area rushed towards the spot where the white ring had been. It’s SHRIEKING was like a thousand people scraping metal against metal, the high pitched sound making all the creatures that hadn’t been flattened to the ground by the blast start bleeding from their ears. Right before they were dragged up towards the sky by the raging tempest winds that were HOWLING their way into the void that the explosion had caused.

Trees were uprooted, monkey corpses were dragged upwards, and various other creatures and monsters were torn bloodily towards the wind’s destination as they tried futilely to cling to the ground.

Suddenly, there was a moment of silence.

The air stopped moving, and all of the things that the wind had dragged with it hung in the sky.

Right next to the red ring, which started to bulge outwards.

Then the silence was broken by two words, which came from the center of all of the destruction and mayhem. From a face full of sadistic glee. A person that had her arms outstretched, almost like she was embracing all of the madness, staff in hand.

“[Helios Flare]” She whispered….

The last ring shattered with the sound of broken glass into a thousand sparks.

And a 100 foot wall of flame ROARED out from the place where the sparks were!

The flames were so intense that everything it touched turned to ash in an instant. Trees evaporated, creatures and monsters alike turned to soot, and even the ground that the flames touched was affected. The wall of flame formed a giant red ring of death where the two former rings had been.

The burst of flame couldn’t have lasted more than a second. But all traces of life that used to be there were gone. Ash and soot were the only things left, and even the ground had turned to molten slag.

In the midst of it all were the remains of what was once gleaming, steel armor which lay in a circle large enough to fit two people. It had been sh*t on, dried to a crisp, and then forced to endure heat that was more than enough to melt it.

Inside that circle was a body charred to a crisp. If you brushed off a part near the chest, you would’ve seen a faint purple lightning symbol, which would’ve flaked off the moment you touched it. Sparks still occasionally flew out from it, landing near the second thing that was in the circle.

A woman in her 20’s that faced the sky. Her chest still shook with silent laughter and glee, and the expression on her face would’ve terrified anyone that saw it. It was a look of pure sadistic ecstasy, as the moment of utter destruction still flashed in her eyes.

--------------------

Two people sat against opposite trees facing each other. Both were panting loudly, their skins were split open in so many places that blood flowed from them in small rivers. Both of their clothes were ripped to the point that they were hanging on them by a few stitches. One of them, a woman, cracked open an eye and looked at the other person, a man.

She tried to speak, but found that her lips and throat were too dry. Swallowing some of the blood that flowed off her, she found that she was somewhat able to make sounds again. “Do I have to say ‘I told you so’?”

The man looked over at her and shook his head slightly, wincing as he did.

Laughter bubbled up out of them in relief. They were both still alive!

“We’re lucky that we got that far away before you stopped me.” She said.

They both knew it was the truth.

T

hey also knew that if either of them moved right now, their injuries would get even worse. They might even die.

“Haha. Yeah, next time I’ll just trust that you know what you’re doing.”

‘Now what though? Neither of us can move. I guess the only thing left to do is hope that Zhang and Misa can get here with a health potion fast enough. I don’t know what the hell that was, but at least we won’t have to worry about getting attacked anymore. That crazy thing should’ve wiped out all the monsters near that thing. Which makes me wonder if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that the wind dragged us all the way back here.’

-----------

At that moment, a window appeared in front of the three party members.

SHIIIING

Misa looked it over and could only smile. Glancing over to the burnt-out shell that used to Zhang, she stood up and walked over to him. Bending down, she opened her inventory and pulled something from it. It was nothing more than a glass flask with a cork at the top, and a red liquid that swished around inside it. Popping the cork, she slowly tipped the contents of it into his mouth.

Zhang’s body slowly grew back its muscle, veins and skin. All of his wounds disappeared, and the blackness that came from him being charred from lightning slowly faded away until he lay there perfectly healthy. His silver shirt and black leggings had grown back as he healed, the system making sure that he was never actually noticeably naked.

His eyes popped open. Seeing Misa standing over him, he smirked. “Hey Misa, did you get the same notice that I did?”

She smirked back at him. “Yeah, I think I did.”

DUE TO YOUR ACTIONS DURING THE SPRING MATING SEASON, THE IRON SH*T MONKEYS HAVE BEEN WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE WORLD. THEY NO LONGER EXIST IN RALIA. A NEW FEAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED: GENOCIDE

GENOCIDE FEAT ACCOMPLISHED. AS A REWARD, YOU HAVE ACQUIRED A TRAIT: INTERSPACIAL ORGAN OF THE IRON SH*T MONKEY.

YOU HAVE OBLITERATED THE 1ST GUARDIANS OF THE BOUNDARY. ACCESS TO THE 2ND LAYER OF THE FOREST IS NOW AVAILABLE.

SYSTEM-WIDE ALERT: THE RACE FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE 1ST GUARDIANS OF THE BOUNDARY HAVE CEASED TO EXIST. AS A RESULT, ALL MONSTERS IN THE FIRST LAYER OF THE BOUNDARY FOREST WILL ENGAGE IN A COMPETITION TO DECIDE THE NEW 1ST GUARDIAN. UNTIL THEN, ALL MONSTERS AND CREATURES IN THE 1ST LAYER WILL NOT TAKE NOTICE TOWARDS ANY NON-MONSTER/CREATURE UNLESS PROVOKED.

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Author's Note: Well, that was pretty tough. Creating action scenes is pretty hard for me. Let me know how it was, and if there was anything I can do to improve on it. I write these stories to help me get better in writing, so please help me out everyone!

Also, yes I know it was a late posting. In my defense, I was sick over the weekend and couldn't finish writing this. Sorry.

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