Two hours later, they encountered their first monsters. A spider monkey the size of a gorilla dropped out of the trees, and like an actual spider, it had eight limbs. Six arms extended out of the top half of its body, and a snapping mouth was affixed to its tail. It was an intimidating sight, especially coupled with the aura that it produced. It was a high G Rank monster, which meant that it was perfect for the weaker members of the party to fight.
“Alright, this one is yours,” Sam called out as he withdrew.
Claude gave him a look of disbelief, but then the spider money punched him in the chest, propelling him backwards. Claude rolled to his feet with a grimace, and drew his throwing weapons from his belt. They started to glow with electricity, and he threw them at the monster. One of them missed as the creature jerked to the side, but the other one struck home. It shuddered for a moment, and Ava moved in. Pulling an ax from her side, the woman chopped at its leg, succeeding in cutting a deep rent into the flesh. Jane drew her daggers, and started to slam them together. A spark formed in the air, and a beam of fire shot out and into the wound. The spider monkey roared in agony, and it lashed out with one of its fists at Ava. The woman crossed her hands to protect herself, but the blow still sent her flying.
She skidded to a halt about a dozen feet away, and spat out some blood. Rising to her feet, Ava roared, as a red energy started to course through her. It produced a faint haze around her, and when she moved next, her movements were noticeably quicker. Claude threw another dagger, but the monster batted it away with one hand, focusing on Ava. As it ran towards her, Rax tackled it from the side, knocking it off course. The herpetopede snarled and sank his teeth into one of the monster’s arms, before tearing it off with a sickening noise. Rax jumped backwards as the spider monkey tried to grab him, and narrowly avoided being crushed between its arms.
Jane ran past Rax and high speeds, and she leaped at the last moment, bringing her dagger down into the monkey’s eyes. It let out one last howl, and collapsed backwards. Essence rushed into the trio, and Jane leveled up. The woman nodded in satisfaction, and removed her daggers from the monster’s head.
“See? You did have it in you. In fact, that fight was almost trivial,” Sam said to Claude, who had been having doubts about fighting the monster. “You’re going to have to fight a lot more monsters than that eventually.” Sam could tell that Claude was somewhat apprehensive about the prospect of having to fight monsters, but he would get over it eventually. It would have been more of a problem had he wanted to fight them, with almost no prior experience. Claude had served as a sort of intelligence officer within the faction headquarters, and his only experiences with fighting monsters were from afar.
In any case, the man had done well, and a tentative smile crossed his face. The women were a bit more subdued, as they had fought with many monsters before, with Jane having been permanently damaged by one. Actually, surely there was a way to restore lost body parts by now? Sam had never seen such a thing before, but he was relatively sure that it existed. That was a question for later however. To get such a thing, he would have to go to the Interweb, and he did not want to do such a thing in the middle of a monster infested forest.
Rax ran over, his muzzle red with blood, and he leaned against Sam’s leg. Sam thought that the herpetopede was trying to look for pets, but then he saw that he was actually rubbing some blood off on his leg. Rax let out a short bark and ran away before Sam could catch him.
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“Is it just me, or is Rax starting to be more mischievous?” Claude asked as he saw the herpetopede’s antics.
"Well, it would make sense. His development was drastically heightened by something, and he is only starting to even out now. He has to process emotions like this before he can mature.” Sam answered.
“So Rax is like a teenager now?” Ava asked. “God, I remember that time well. Sometimes I still cringe at the things that I did.”
Sam had personally not really had this, as most of his teenage years had been spent trying to survive without any parents. He had had moments of angst of course, but nothing habitual. In any case, most of them had been well deserved. Rather than being annoyed that some other person in his class was more popular than him, Sam was annoyed at how his life had been so miserable. He still nodded at Ava nonetheless.
They left the corpse of the monster behind, and continued deeper into the forest. As they went, the trees slowly started to become larger. Not larger as in taller, but larger in presence. Sam could have sworn that he felt eyes watching him, even when there was nothing there. The trees were beginning to glow softly with an internal light, and Sam could feel traces of a foreign Dao in the air. It was a calm force, rather than an overt one, and it actually made him feel at ease. As far as Sam could tell, it was not hostile towards them.
More and more of the spider monkeys came towards them as they walked, and a line of corpses were left in their wake. Thus far, none of the monkeys had been strong enough to challenge any of them, let alone Sam. That was all about to change however.
As they passed between two especially ancient trees, a figure dropped from the sky. It was a gigantic spider monkey, the size of a small elephant. It stood at least 10 feet tall at the shoulders, and was three times as broad as Sam. It beat its chest with all six of its arms, creating a deafening cacophony of noise. With a savage bark, it slashed at the air. A line of crescent moon shaped arcs of energy shot towards Ava, and Sam dashed forward, placing Mjolnir in the way. He had initially sensed that this was not a monster to play around with.
“Get out of the way!’ Sam shouted. “I’m going to take on this one,” he said as the energy blasts sparked off of his weapon. Everyone else scattered into the nearby trees, just in time for Sam to be sent flying by a vicious uppercut. He flipped backwards in the air, landing on his feet. His jaw stung, but that was it. This beast was strong, but Sam was stronger.
He snapped his hammer out to the side, a grin forming on his face. Mjolnir started to crackle with energy as he drew power from his Dao and core, and the spider monkey took a step back. With a roar, Sam pushed off the ground, his hundred plus points in Strength and Dexterity sending him off like a cannonball.
He smashed into the spider monkey like a living meteor, and his hammer pulped bone and flesh alike. With a whoosh, the monkey shot back into a nearby tree, and collapsed forwards. It set one of its fists in its path and steadied itself, before baring its teeth at Sam. One of its eyes started to glow a red color, and the other soon followed. Twin vortexes of energy replaced the orbs, and all of the blood that coated the beast was sucked into them. The monster began to swell in size, but Sam could see that something was seriously wrong with it. Its flesh was tearing apart, starting at its feet. As it raised all of its arms in unison, Sam realized that did not matter.
He ran backwards as fast as he could as the monster brought its limbs down. There was a shattering noise, and a ten foot square area of ground was blasted outwards as the monster’s attack landed. When the air cleared, there was nothing left of it save a bloody smear.