Another night fell in the forest once more. Although, things would go a tad bit more… bloody for a certain giant prime ape this time.

As per usual, the prime was nonchalant about the sudden drop in numbers of its brethren. Initially, I thought it was just being stupid, but now, I didn’t feel that way at all. In fact, it just didn’t give a shit.

The ape was simply confident that it could deal with whoever wiped its entire pack of apes off. And to be honest, it had all the right to feel that way. Why should it be afraid of me? I certainly wouldn’t be if I were that thing.

Or, it was entirely possible that this thing was a lifeless entity that the system created.

I tip-toed from the hidden spot until I was below the cliff it slept on. Using the shadow step, I reappeared on the top, 50-ish feet away from the monstrosity happily snoring away.

Careful… Repeating that mantra to myself, I slid toward the sleeping beast, my eyes locked into its gaping mouth.

As I made my approach, the short distance between us revealed how much I have been underestimating the size of this thing. The gravity of the prime being three times as massive as the other apes wasn’t truly felt until I saw that its head was about the size of my entire body.

I summoned a spear to my left hand and aimed both my spears at its massive head. I held myself from yelling as I put everything into both of my arms into penetrating its brain, which felt like it worked... Well, until it didn’t.

The initial attack pierced through a solid few tens of inches before both my spears met a resistance that stopped their momentums. I felt a tiny crack as I possessed enough power and strength to almost break through, but ultimately, it wasn’t enough.

Its skull is so damn tough.

The attack obviously woke it up, as it let out a painful screech while trashing wildly on the ground it had slept on. I took out my iron spear as the other dissipated, rolling back to reposition myself and preparing for its attacks.

With a flip, it got up, rubbing its head madly to wipe off the blood dripping from the wounds I inflicted on it. If I had another chance to pierce that same spot again, I should be able to break through its skull completely.

The ape’s rage-filled eyes immediately locked on me. Wasting no time to let me breathe, its fists glowed while it began swinging its right arm. I jumped and rolled against the direction of the motion, immediately shadow-stepping as far as I could behind it once the cooldown wears off.

The ape turned around, but its eyes went wide when it struggled to locate where I went. During this time, The darkness of the night was still present, and the only source of light near it was its own glowing fist.

My cloak started emitting the dark haze again, covering me in black smoke as I retreated slowly towards the edge of the cliff. The confused ape looked around the cliff, constantly swiping the blood that was dripping from its wounds.

Shadow step’s off cooldown again. I thought, aiming for its right fist this time.

I summoned a dark dagger in my left hand, throwing it in the opposite direction where I intended to attack from. A light dink caused the ape to shift its focus to where my dagger landed. I reappeared beside its right hand, delivering another thrust at its extended fist. Luckily, it wasn’t as hard as the skull, as I met little to no resistance before my spear sank into the ground.

Yelping in pain, the ape hurled its right arm upwards, flinging me into the air as I held on to my spear that was halfway buried into its palm. I barely retracted my spear midair before I saw its eyes looking straight at mine, with its left arm in the middle of a motion of another heavy swing. There was no way to dodge this attack in mid-air, and the shadow-step was still in cooldown for another second.

Gritting my teeth, I triggered the explosion earlier by summoning another dagger and throwing it at its glowing left fist on its way to cleave me in half. Because of the size of its hand, this proved to be an easy act, but the explosion that happened after far exceeded my expectations.

In an instant, everything I saw was just pure red.

I felt a massive force pushing me further into the air, with the sheer noise of the impact almost rupturing both my eardrums. I lost my sense of balance before my vision returned, and what I saw after was the ape’s angry expression as it was about to punch me back to the ground with both of its bloodied fists. The prime ape’s speed was a notch above everything I’ve encountered so far, save for the shadow stalker.

Shadow.. Step…

The ape’s expression soured as it saw my figure dissipated into the darkness again.

I reappeared in the crater and ran towards the trees, chugging one of my healing potions on the way. My hearing returned, eliciting a sigh of relief as the ape landed on the crater and roared in frustration. Its left fist was still glowing, albeit with a dimmer light than it was initially.

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That leaves the tail as the only healthy exploding part.

Losing track of my location, the prime ape coddled its left arm with its right arm, the pain of its wounds taking its toll. Its tail was wagging wildly behind it; The bulbous end began glowing as it provided the prime much-needed light to peer through the darkness.

Deciding my next course of action, I checked my health, only to find out that that one blast attack dealt close to 200 damage even from a distance. My potion healed 50, and I was left with 164 health remaining. I couldn’t take another one of those attacks again at this rate.

Biting my tongue, I consumed my last potion, healing another 50. Now, I have enough health to tank another blast from a distance.

Next, I knew the beast predicted that I would go for its tail next. The whole charade of hiding its wounded left fist inside his right was a bait - an act of weakness. It’ll maul me with it the moment I show up again. If I wanted to play that game, that meant that it’d expect me to show up behind its back…

If I were the prime ape, I’d keep my tail attack as a surprise for later.

Summoning another spear in my free arm, I shadow-stepped right where it expected me to appear from. The ape’s eyes twitched delightfully as it saw my form and released both of its fists, turning its waist and slamming at me with relentless fury. However, what it saw after was the tip of both my spears penetrating both of its forearms.

I expected something of this sort to happen. Right when I realized what type of attack it wanted to do, I shifted slightly forward to avoid its fists and jousted both my spears upwards. I felt the edges of both spears boring through its flesh and bones as the slam landed, and they reduced the momentum enough from the slam to not flatten me to the ground completely.

Great. Both its fists are now useless.

The ape screamed in pain and jumped up, its tail glowing bright red, contrasting the cool tone of the night sky.

Here it comes.

It curled its body, aiming to slam the ground with its exploding tail. My sense blared me with the premonition of incoming death, to which I fully agreed, but I had one more plan up my sleeve. The tail’s bulbous ends were moving around too much for me to stab accurately, and I didn’t want to risk another contact with the glowing parts since it would cause an explosion.

The only option I have is to cleave its tail off.

Summoning a dark sword on my dominant arm - which marked this as the first time I’ve wielded a sword, discounting the blade I used to kill the queen - I jumped up after the ape was about to finish its descent. At the apex of its attack, I felt a strong resistance on the bladed edge of my sword when I sliced its tail just a few feet below its glowing end. The combination of its momentum and my swing ensured that I hacked its tail off in one swing.

Landing with its battered limbs, the ape screamed, but this time, frustration and fear crept up on its facial expression. Confidence began building up inside of me, as I knew it had lost all of its trump cards.

In a straight-on 1 on 1 fight with no explosions, I’m certain that I can beat this thing.

Sensing its demise, the ape began looking around for an avenue for its exit. It immediately turned back when it found the closest path that led to the forest, but I was having none of it. A part of me felt disappointed that it acted as foolishly as it did.

I shadow stepped right at the trajectory of its exit, fully piercing its chest with a decisive stab. Blood poured from the newly made hole in its torso as it began swinging its arm in retaliation. I let go of my spear and rolled backwards, dodging both of its attacks with ease, then rushed forward again while summoning another spear.

Thus began the ape’s desperate attempt to keep me off by thrashing all of its limbs madly. While it was severely weakened at this stage, the size and weight of its body meant that any hit on me would cause severe damage. I weaved through its wild swing and gradually closed our distance, eventually stabbing one of its arms as it made its way toward me.

Another limb now lays limp as my dark spear dissipated. The ape’s screeching grated my ears as I yanked out the spear that was lodged in its chest, rewarding me with another burst of blood exploding out of its chest.

The ape, now losing most of its blood, lost its ability to stand upright and dropped with a tremendous thud. It met my glare as I approached. Now, both of us fully recognized what was going to happen next.

This i-

The ape suddenly yelped forward, surrounding me with all of its limbs in an attempt to grab me. I was caught off guard initially, but what comes next struck fear into my soul.

The entirety of its body began glowing bright red.

Cries of the giant ape reverberated throughout the crater as its luminosity grew. I’ve dealt with more than enough of these damn apes to know what’s going to happen next and judging by the size of this thing, the next explosion was going to be catastrophic.

I looked around for an avenue of exit through the holes between its limbs and shadow-stepped outside of its grab. But that’s far from being enough as I desperately ran away from the crater, fearing the unknown radius of the incoming demolition.

Even when I was facing away from it, the ape shone so brightly that it lit up the entire scene like it was a god-damned sun. The night forest turned today for just a few seconds before a powerful Shockwave blasted from the crater, absolutely shredding everything on its path away from the epicenter of the explosion.

I was sent flying even after I’ve made about 20 meters worth of distance from the ape. Tumbling through the sky, I gritted my teeth as my fall was fortunately cushioned by the branches of the trees on my way down. Steeling all of my limbs to ease the impact of my fall, I hit the ground with such force that I cried out in pain. The drop wasn’t enough to break my arms or back this time, perhaps from my increased constitution, but man, it was still painful as hell.

“Fuck.. *Cough*”, I coughed as I gasped for air, watching the scene of destruction a few hundred meters away from the initial explosion. Smoke and embers were what was left of the scene as I was congratulated by the system.

[You killed Lvl 19. Prime Scarlet ape - elite]

[Congratulations! You gained a level!]

[Congratulations! You gained a level!]

[Congratulations! You gained a level!]

[The Coveted Shadow class has leveled up! You gained : + 2 Dexterity, +1 Capacity, +1 Intelligence, +1 Strength, +1 Constitution]

[The Coveted Shadow class has leveled up! You gained : + 2 Dexterity, +1 Capacity, +1 Intelligence, +1 Strength, +1 Constitution]

[Congratulations! You gained the achievement: Mark of the Elite. Be the first to defeat an elite in your sector. +2 to Main attribute points.]

I stared at the system messages, dumbfounded by the gains that I received.