The blast of energy obscured my view, but just in case, I shifted to the side. And not a moment too soon. The ground beside me exploded, and an imprint of a massive fist appeared on the ground. The fist itself came nowhere near me. Heck, I didn’t even see it.

[Fucking phantom strikes.] I grumbled. Immediately after, I felt my body get slammed again, but unlike before, I was not blasted back. It still hurt like a bitch though. Like I got slapped on my entire body all at once.

I willed it and a gust of wind blew away the dust and smoke, revealing the massive beast towering over me. Despite my size change, I still barely reached a third of the giant monkey’s height.

It punched again and I dodged. My Arcane Blast didn’t seem to have done much thanks to its extremely hard skin. Considering it looked exactly like stone, I almost thought it was some kind of gargoyle. But no, it was clearly just a larger version of the small gray monkeys. A really strong one.

I braced against another strike, my body quaking as the power rushed through it. Getting hit at a distance was really annoying. I couldn’t even move out of the way properly. I had to guess where the invisible fist would land, which was not ideal.

Luckily I was much faster than the giant, and considering it didn’t move from the stone platform, I could easily run circles around it.

The brute roared in frustration as I ran and delivered a punch of my own every so often. Its skin was really too tough, my claws and fists being unable to pierce it. It was way too thick. That’s one of the good things that came with size. They could really take the punishment.

[I could really use the Drums of War right about now.] I muttered, annoyed by my lacking strength. Drums of War were great for breaking defenses. Luckily I had a technique of my own.

[Disruption!] I shouted as my punch connected, releasing a blast of disruptive Qi directly into the lower back of the giant.

The effect was immediate. The gray skin cracked and small flakes chipped off, making the beast roar. It was not much, but it was something at least. I dodged its angry hand swipe and a quaking stomp, and punched it in the side of the leg, releasing another Disruption at the same time.

It retaliated. I moved out of the way, shifting my position to the other side, striking its other leg. My punch sounded like an explosion going off, releasing powerful vibrations into the world. The pillars around us shook, with the weaker of them crumbling from the shockwaves alone.

The beast roared and stomped the ground again. I felt a powerful pulse of Qi strike my body as it expanded outward in a circular fashion. The Spirit Beast moved, punching the air again. A strike hammered me into the ground and I groaned. Before I could recover, another struck me. And then another, and another, and another…

Faster and faster they came, one after the other, beating me into the ground as if I was on the anvil, getting beaten by a hydraulic hammer. The ground quaked with power, my body breaking with every strike, yet it healed just as fast. My scales cracked and my skin split open, spilling out my precious blood. The ground sizzled as it drank the crimson liquid, the corrosive properties of my blood stronger than ever. I couldn’t retaliate, and it was making me angry.

[ENOUGH!] I roared. Nearly 20% of my energy exploded outward, its disruptive nature spreading like a wave. The ground inflated like a balloon and then popped, throwing stones and earth sky-high.

Heart of Frenzy activated and my eyes filled with blood as my mind became consumed with rage.

I blasted out of my stone-y prison and stood in the sky facing the bastard who put me there. I pointed, and a Sphere of Qi flashed into existence at the tip of my finger. It filled with energy and then got compressed, before exploding into action with the sound of a firing cannon, burrowing itself deep beneath the skin of the stone monkey.

The Magic Bullet exploded with insane force, taking a great chunk out of the big fool. The beast roared as the blast tore its upper chest open and warm red blood began to pour across the gray rocky exterior. Surprisingly the flesh inside looked just like any other normal muscle and only the outer layer of skin had a gray look. The wound was large, but compared to its massive body, it was still but a flesh wound.

The beast roared and punched harder. I conjured a barrier in a split second, but it shattered immediately and I was once again blasted away spitting blood.

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I willed myself to stop and so I did, and with a thought, I flew back at supersonic speed. I slammed into the beast, knocking it prone and off the platform while delivering another devastating blast to its exposed wound. Wild energies exploded, tearing at its flesh, but its defenses were strong, and apart from bringing it great pain, it didn’t actually do much.

I changed direction and flew up, avoiding the retaliation attack. When feeling I was high enough, I turned around, two glowing golden spheres forming on my fingers. They expanded, filled with energy, and then got compressed into tiny marble-sized balls of death.

My eyes glowed as I dropped down, accelerating towards my quarry. A great beam of light split the sky, hitting the beast where it hurt, after which I fired off my Magic Bullets, one after the other, and they exploded in a blaze of glory.

The surrounding jungle was torn up, the pillars collapsed, and great flames burned the vegetation.

A second later the final blow came, as I smashed into my opponent like a meteor, delivering the strongest blow yet as I increased my weight with gravity manipulation.

I jumped back up and let the dust clear, and though I didn’t expect the fight to be over, the results were very unsatisfying. The giant ape stared back at me with such rage I could taste it, and one of its hands hung limply by the side, broken, as it was the one that it used to block my attacks.

[Damn Spirit Beasts… They are too strong!] I complained out loud to nobody in particular. I was more just frustrated that I had already used a third of my energy stores and yet the damn beast was still fine. Relatively speaking.

I flew back down, another flyby with Magic Bullets and Arcane Blaze as I shot beams from my eyes and fired destructive pellets of pure energy. In response, a barrier shimmered into existence over the skin of my quarry, and though it was quickly blown to bits under my assault, it managed to block a great part of the energy, leaving the giant mostly unscathed.

With its remaining good hand it punched out, and I could feel its anger and rage in every one of those strikes. They were becoming more material as the energy each of them contained grew, and I could see great transparent fists flying at me with ever-increasing speed. The air didn’t even flicker as they passed, completely disregarding the concept of air resistance.

I dodged where I could, and blasted them apart with Disruption where I couldn’t. They were all still just Qi attacks, so destroying them was relatively easy, it just took a whole lot of my damn energy.

I had a lot, but even my stores had a limit. I was already approaching 50%, yet the beast was still nowhere near done.

I realized the fight was going to become very difficult if I didn’t do something drastic. The beast had centuries of lifespan over me, and its Dantian was proportionately larger as a result. It had more energy to spend, not to mention it could use Spirit Qi which was much more powerful and efficient. I had to compensate for my lack of Spirit Qi with a great quantity of Golden Qi, even though I was quite close to gaining the former.

I formed another ball of golden energy, only I didn’t let it grow smaller. Instead, I expanded it, growing it bigger and bigger, while changing its shape. The glowing gold sphere elongated to its limits, forming a sort of lance. It was only a meter long and about two fingers wide, yet the energy it contained was enough for ten Magic Bullets. The color changed as I compressed it, from a glowing metallic gold to a more pale color. It came closer to Spirit Qi than ever.

I held the javelin in the palm of my hand and began imbuing it with another kind of energy. Chaos.

I coated the entirety of my javelin with a thick disruptive layer that I could barely hold under control. It would unravel as soon as I let it go and blow up in less than a second, but that split-second was all I needed.

Holding the glowing weapon tightly in my right hand, I flew at the beast. It tried to stop me, throwing punches and blasting me with shockwaves, but I held firm. I avoided what I could and tanked what I couldn’t. With one final look, I blasted a scorching, fiery beam at the beast, and it had no choice but to protect its face by lifting its one good hand.

That’s when I threw it.

I threw the javelin at its chest, and it pierced through the thick hide, the disruptive energies unraveling almost instantly and breaking the defensive enchantments the beast had. A moment later, the javelin exploded as well, its harsh density unable to keep itself together, and it exploded like a fragmentation grenade, sending shards of energy flying in every direction together with the blast itself.

The massive explosion pushed me back and made my ears ring, yet I remained firmly anchored in place where I stood in the sky. My draconic form remained pristine as I watched the destruction unfold. It took a few seconds for everything to finish and the secondary explosions from broken fragments to settle.

The area of destruction was vast, but I had my eyes laser-focused on one spot only. I was looking at the beast, at where it fell.

As the smoke cleared, it just confirmed what I already knew. It was still alive.

[Damn it.] I quietly cursed and dropped from the sky. My energy was nearly exhausted, I couldn’t bring out another attack like that.

I walked closer and discovered the giant monkey lying in a crater of its own creation, chest split open, and with blood pooling around it. I got a weird feeling of deja vu, but that quickly passed, as I had a job to finish.

I summoned my Arcane Ferrite Wardplate, and the armor morphed and stretched, growing over my expanded form. I realized it was thinner than usual, but that was to be expected as it had to cover a much larger area of my body.

I summoned my two Spirit Metal axes, jumped on top of the beast, and walked towards its head with confident steps. Its heart was still beating, but just barely.

[Heh.] I grinned under my helmet as I lifted my weapons. I had a monkey king to kill.

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[Two down, three left.]

Victory was mine.