A tropical jungle, a gorge closed in all sides but one by cliffs.
Since their conversation, much time had passed, during which Henry'd been busy in the labours of man, studying the stage of their destined conflict and reshaping it to his purposes. At one end of this gorge, the starting grounds for their contest, monolithic stones with runic carvings fenced in a grove of palm trees, each hundreds of metres tall. Balancing on horse-sized fruit, songbirds tweeted love songs to their prospective mates; with so many of them, their music caused a dense network of ropes connecting the branches of the palm trees to vibrate slightly and the hatchets tied to these to swing. The grove's base was littered with piles of lumber on the edge of an artificial lake, which fed a river that wound like a snake through the length of the gorge. From the lake's waters, a shabby donkey lapped and quenched its thirst.
At the entrance to the gorge, opposite this grove, the old monkey hobbled in, a hummingbird flying around its head sipping nectar from its crown of flowers. When one of the monkey's footsteps triggered a
The old monkey spotted the human scrambling up the trees, dressed like a ninja with a red and blue cloak. Arriving at what he perceived to be a safe height, the human stared back through binoculars.
"In the southern lands," the old monkey clicked, its message carrying across the gorge, "a dumb but kind gorilla invited me to dine at his grove. There, without any knowledge of its value, he handed me for lunch a Finwick Apricot. This bulbous fruit, with the proper preparations, could be created into a panacea capable of curing any ailment known to man. It had a lovely taste."
On the other side of the gorge, Henry, receiving the message, supposed this was the monster's senile way of commenting on the trees he’d grown. The local flora hadn't been tall enough for his purposes, so he'd crossbred them with seeds he’d taken from the giant conifers in the winter forest.
"Did you remember the prophecy?" Henry asked.
The old monkey had. "I watched that cloud come and go. The Bold...The Giant...it promised to revive my species in exchange for your life."
"That’s not a bad cause."
The old monkey shook its head. "A child's rationale. I do not weep for what is gone. With the time that has passed, my brothers and sisters will have Cycled through the forms of ants, flowers, snakes, and, perhaps, humans, too. I can't see any reason they'd yearn to return to one permutation in the recesses of a forgotten past. This drive to preserve what we are, it lasts only as long as we are."
"Then why are you here? Did you want a snack? Feel free to help yourself." Henry pointed to the ground, to a spot near the donkey where a wooden bowl containing freshly-made fruit salad lay beside a hammock - he'd been in the middle of dinner before the interruption.
"I still wish to fight," replied the old monkey.
"Supposed you're bored, too."
"I sense that my departure from this aged form is imminent. I defied The Cycle of Death and Rebirth once, but it will not be fooled twice. Before it erases me for good, I wish once more to enjoy what I've been in all my perfect aspects. Although twilight dims the sky above my head, I can still make out some of the clouds that blazed at the zenith of my glory. Like you, human, I am a creature of peace and war. But, mostly, war."
Henry smirked. "It’s fine to admit that you just want the ring back."
The old monkey, who’d been ogling his hands madly throughout the conversation, laughed at its petty desires being unearthed. "It and I are connected, although I do not know by what means. Do you?"
Henry did.
This senile old monkey had once called itself The Redeemer. A God, a former owner of his ring, and the sentient monster who’d eradicated the bulk of this world’s population 7600 years earlier.
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What had tipped Henry off was the mention of disguising itself as a human and wandering the land. According to the histories, the human Gods, much more numerous back then, had formed a global organisation that strived to build humankind's power and protect it from external threats. The Redeemer, pretending to be a person, had spent several centuries infiltrating this organisation, documenting its members and secrets, before assassinating most of them in a single day.
How it’d killed the Gods so fast had been a mystery, but, now, Henry suspected the method was using the strange instakill bite these monster kings seemed to possess in combination with the rapid transport method of the ‘Blueskins’ it’d alluded to in its first message. As a Yin-Yang Monkey, if its hyper-speed Yang-state had mutated far enough, then the Gods may not have been able to react before being swallowed.
A second clue was The Wolf Empress’s prophecy, 'Of entities whom shall he meet...Redeemer, Ten-Hands, Deathless One.' Henry had interpreted this figuratively because the three were, supposedly, dead. The Redeemer had committed suicide when its monster empire began to crumble, an act witnessed by its human slaves. However, how it could be alive now was explained by the broken amulet around its neck. This artefact was an Amulet of The Vilified One, a name one might recognise from the voice that'd boomed in Henry's ears during the rabbit ritual. These necklaces, gifted by that ultimate big-bad, were worn by a number of apocalypse-seeking bad guys and allowed them to reincarnate once after death. The Redeemer, by using the item to fake its demise, would have hidden itself, growing its strength in the shadows until an opportunity to return.
That the monster had been a monkey had also never been revealed, likely due to it using the ring's disguise abilities. The Redeemer had also made a concentrated effort to wipe out humanity’s collective knowledge during its reign by burning libraries and assassinating anyone learned. This action had set the game world behind technologically, to the extent that it had still yet to recover fully. It’d also made most of the game’s history between the present and the former instalment blank.
As for how it had arrived in this jungle world, Henry could only guess. The most logical pathway to him was that it’d been the monster king for the Yin-Yang Monkeys for a much longer time, and someone else millennia ago, who’d undergone the trial he was doing, had failed at this step, releasing the monster upon the world. Then, after its reincarnation from the amulet, the monkey had somehow been reinstated to its former position.
Regardless of the lore, the next step in Henry's questline was clear: he had to use his Level 5 character to solo-kill a reincarnated God that'd itself solo-killed thousands of Gods, with the price of failure being unleashing the monster for a second reign. The stage had, yet again, ramped up a hundred times in difficulty from the last one.
But victory shouldn’t be impossible. The reincarnation amulet made an NPC restart from Level 1, so this old monkey probably hadn't retained all of its former abilities. Plus, it seemed to be senile, its dying neurons unable to sort through its millennia of memories.
"I know, and I don’t know," Henry answered, evading the question - he wasn’t going to help remind it and unlock its battle experience. "Let’s just get on with this."
"Very well." The old monkey agreed, its Spatial Bracelet pouring out lights that covered its body and condensed into a long, flowing patchwork leather robe of many colours. "This interesting garb was stowed among my possessions. It seemed useful for increasing the thrill of battle. Humans, to my recollection, fight with more intensity when their blood is hastened through their veins by fear or anger."
Looking closer at the robes, each patch resembled the face of a human newborn, their mouths stretched open by a circular wooden disc. It wasn't imitation leather.
Henry shrugged. "To be honest, I'm better when calm."
"As am I. Nevertheless, I will continue to wear it. Seeing it on me now, I feel this sparse mind being repopulated with the beautiful clouds of the past."
The old monkey's muscles suddenly bulged, and its black hair turned snow white as the surrounding air was whipped into a violent frenzy, scattering leaves and dust. A horrific noise began to emanate from its robes, causing the birds around the gorge and in Henry's grove to take flight. The wind flowing through the wooden discs in the newborns' mouths had created a cacophony of tortured howling and swearing, sounding like people having their intestines dragged out of their open bellies.
“Libeni!”
“Erisi...erisi...ERISI! AGHHHHHHHHHH! SHIII! SHIIIIIII!”
Each newborn's mouth produced a different voice, a different memory of anguish.
The old monkey smirked contemptuously at its hideous garb. "The fibres with which they are stitched together are their mother’s hair. The screams are replications of their father’s final moments. This abomination was an offering from a Mullah who lived in The Desht-a Chawir, a religious leader for a barbarous people. By some strange logic, he believed the gift would purchase salvation for his congregation. In a sense, his belief was not wrong. With great benevolence, I freed them from the burden of their sick, human forms."
Attacking, it turned into a blur.