The scared monkey, its fists glowing as it unlocked a former power, transformed into a whirlwind of jabs, punching one log speeding towards it after another.

  Within three blinks time, they’d all been blown away.

  But the monkey's panic didn't fade there.

  No sooner was it free did it redirect its blurring fists against the trunk of the palm tree, carving out a chunk of wood with each strike. In a second, a burrow had been created, which the monkey slipped inside to hide from the human trying to murder it.

  Henry, not expecting that response, stared at the hole it'd vanished into with relief.

  Luckily, the tree was thick enough that the creation of the burrow hadn’t caused it to collapse.

  As for the fist attacks, their damage had actually been typical for a Level 4 boss monster. Unlike the disc dropped on to smash its head, which'd gained their force from pure gravity, the momentum of those 'attacking' logs came from the Landworker skill, meaning they'd been nullified upon contact with the monster’s fists.

  Henry had, after all, been hoping it would use its Leap rather than try to stop them.

  Still, he wouldn't weep at learning something new.

  Half a minute had passed since Henry'd made the inquiry, the result finally returned.

  Henry considered, using the pause of the monster hiding from him, the consequences for his plans. The 8.4 figure was consistent with what he’d observed so far - although, the real figure was probably 8 exactly, the game-developers favouring round-numbers for these types of abilities.

  A hyper-perception this fast eliminated many, many options but not all.

  Ice distraction. Clobber. Taunt bait. Escape.

  As a simple combo came to mind, he used the data he’d gathered so far in conjunction with to highlight the sections of the tree that would act as his workspace. The goal now, Henry having gathered enough for today, was to get out here without dying.

  Inside the burrow, the old monkey was sucking its thumb, shaking in fright at the logs flying perilously outside.

  A voice in its head caused it to tense up, the human speaking directly into its mind.

  "Stop with the childish act. It’s nauseating coming from someone wearing that ghastly outfit."

  "Outfit?" said the monkey in confusion.

  Its focus shifted from the immediate threat of the wood-attacks to itself.

  On its stomach, a human infant on its stomach was singing a hymn through teeth clenched with pain.

  "When the earth opens up, we will beg for Her love.

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  She is our grace; she is our grace.

  And when the wheat fails to sprout, we will beg for Her Love.

  She is UGHHHHur graaace; sheeee—"

  Another on its shoulder was simply shouting, "STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!"

  The monkey was covered in the ghastly things, the faces sticking to every part of itself, screaming at it.

  Shrieking in horror, the monkey tried desperately to rip the clothing off itself, but the material was too tough to tear.

  A moment later, though, the shrieking in the burrow stopped.

  The old monkey emerged from its hiding place and howled at the human with repugnance. "This is NOT my work. It is a creation of one of your vile kind, a religious lunatic. The devil thought it would curry favour for his followers. It didn’t. I killed him. I killed everyone one of his brainwashed sycophants, just as I’m going to kill you!"

  Henry, with the monster coming after him again, reinitiated the falling discs to block any vision of his next actions.

  A couple dozen hatchets around him detached from the ropes they’d been dangling from, fell, then chopped into the wood to create a Canopywalking-style ladder in a section below. The end of a rope connecting with the branches of a distant tree then slithered down to the top of this ladder.

  His binoculars were unsummoned, while three of the Spelltomes on his chest were swapped for three new ones. The cover of one depicted a mountain of ice, one a translucent hand, and one a castle undergoing constant fluctuations between its completed state and ruins.

  Placing a hand on the last of these, he began to chant. “En. Nak. Ku. Ne. Ram...”

  This was , a Tier-3 spell from the Tempicanist speciality of the Arcanist class, the same sub-class responsible for . It gave the user a temporary buff that made the next spell require only a single gesture as long as the spell’s normal cast-time was shorter than 20 seconds. Afterwards, both the chosen spell and would go on cooldown for a day.

  The old monkey, continuing its climb, laughed in dismissal. "I hear you. You use magic I don't recognise. So what? Nothing you have can stop me. You are a fly. I AM THE SUN!"

  “KAL!” Henry completed the spell, the skin of his gesturing hand becoming pale and wrinkled, as if it'd aged a hundred years.

  Stepping off of the branch he’d been balancing on, he dropped down a bit, landing on a platform built at the base of the hatchet ladder.

  Ice distraction.

  Activating another Tome, he grabbed a spell-constellation shaped like a miniature Ice Auroch. "KOM!"

  At once, the years imbued in his withered hand were transferred to the tiny beast. Its horns lengthened; its body grew thin and sinuous.

  The summoned creature, snorting a plume of frigid air, leapt onto the tree and stampeded 30 metres down its length, before head-butting the bark and exploding.

  From the point of sacrifice, a pillar of ice sprouted, perpendicular with the trunk.

  The surroundings froze at once, a layer of frost building up on the palm tree’s surface and the humid tropical air crystallising into snowflakes.

  This was , a Tier-3 Shaman spell available to disciples of the Frost God Nutkuk. Anything that approached within 15 metres would be slowed.

  Following the spell’s completion, Henry scrambled up the ladder of hatchets. When he’d put almost 60 metres between himself and the , he stopped and began casting from the Spelltome with the translucent hand on its cover - .

  The old monkey, at the sight of the , was spurred into another mood shift, its disgust being replaced by a conflicted admiration. "In my wandering, I joined a mercenary group led by a Gandrian called Yol’mah, The Tundra Wind. He was not so bad for a human. On assignment in The Never-Ending Desert, he gave his life to save us from a Karleoc Wyrm. Following his return to The Cycle, it snowed for four days and nights. The way the desert sunlight sparkled in the snowflakes, it was a fitting last testament."

  This was not the distraction Henry had intended.

  He paused his cast. "I’m not that dead dude."

  "Indeed, you might as well be a different species. Yol’mah respected the perfection of nature. You have desecrated these lands for your machinations - an unrepentable sin."

  The old monkey continued its attack. When it reached the effect range, its white hair was matted with clumps of snow. The closer it drew, the more its movements became sluggish, although its speed never dropped below that of a person's.

  As it drew close enough to attack the , another disc of falling lumber came down to wallop it.

  “MEL!"

  The old monkey widened its jaw, both consuming the and opening a hole in the disc.

  Emerging on the other side, it saw a volley of arrows, the Skeleton Archers coordinating their shots.

  Clobber.

  A plank dislodging from the lumber-disc that was slipping past was suddenly grabbed by a translucent hand. The plank shot back up.

  The old monkey, distracted by the arrows and under the destroyed residual slowing effect, could not react fast enough.

  CRUNCH!

  It took a heavy blow to its back, its spine snapped, and its internal organs were shattered, the force causing the monkey to grow a second tail as its guts extruded like toothpaste out of its arsehole.