Accompanying the roar of the Monkey Queen was a huge change in her aura. The intimidation her aura carried grew much greater, and the earth armor she wore became shinier. The cannons on her shoulder were engulfed by a golden yellow light, and when the light receded they had grown bigger and a tad longer.
The earth drones also underwent a change. Two more wings grew on each drone, and they became at least three times faster than before. A golden light appeared in her palms, and a long beautiful golden rod was formed. The weapon looked dense and highly destructive. It had a different feel to it – the rod. It didn't feel like something that had been fashioned right this minute, but a weapon that could be summoned at any time. After all, both Mane and the Monkey Queen had the same level of proficiency with earth, and Mane knew that to do something like this was highly improbable. To create a weapon that could give off such an aura comparable to a high grade weapon was even unlikely if one reached Full Mastery, much less at the Mastery Level. It was similar to the rod Silver summoned when he fought Mane, only stronger. But how this weapon appeared or what it was made from mattered little right now. For Mane had to face the person wielding it. As if that wasn't enough, a small crown appeared on her head, and Mane could feel that her strength had entered into the ranks of a 9th Stage Heaven Realmer!
"Are you sure you can handle her?" Hildegarde was next to Mane, so she could see all that he saw. And she could feel that the Monkey Queen had become much stronger. For a 5th Stage Heaven Realm beast to possess such power was indicative of the high talent that it possessed. Mane couldn't help but wonder if Silver would also become this powerful, since he was bound to be a Monkey King in the future.
"I don't know," Mane frowned and replied. A 7th Stage Heaven Realmer was his limit. Maybe if he fought with his life on the line he would be able to handle an 8th Stage. But a 9th Stage was something else. That was the peak of the Heaven Realm! And it was bound to be much more difficult to overcome.
"Man it would have been great if I could also use Endless Wave," Mane thought whilst exposing a wry smile. Endless Wave was analogous to Takeover. Takeover was from his mother, Endless Wave was from his father. And both gave massive increase in strength. Unlike Takeover, Mane still couldn't freely use Endless Wave even though he had already unlocked the Glow. If he could, it would have helped him massively.
"What are you going to do?" Hildegarde asked. They needed a plan if he was going to come out victorious. After all, his opponent was very much outside his league.
"I don't know," Mane had never been this out of sorts before. But this was life. Even geniuses had times of unease where they were grossly outmatched.
"However I do know this: I cannot allow her to make the first move," Mane stated and sprinted towards the large and majestic Monkey Queen. His fiery figure moved like a blur, and the heat of his flames melted any and everything it came into contact with. The oxygen in the cave diminished sharply as Mane pulled them towards his flames to strengthen them. And his fire got even hotter. In next to no time, he was right before the Monkey Queen. And he wasted no time and mounting an attack.
"Prideful Sword: Wrath of the Half-Moon"
Along with the humming of his swords and the shaking of the cave, the blades in Mane's hands produced several sword lights which became one to produce a massive sword light that was a long as Silver's arm yet as thin as a strand of Mane's hair. Mane's face grew pale after producing the sword light. It was clear that it took quite a toll to produce such an attack. Wrath of the Half-Moon was the strongest of the Prideful Sword series and was very draining. Added to the fact that it had to be made as big as the Monkey Queen to cause any real damage, it took a lot out of Mane to activate.
The aura of the sword light was so threatening that even the Monkey Queen couldn't disregard it. Without wasting any time she struck the ground with full force and produced an earth shield so dense that even the iron walls of Asher City paled in comparison. And then she struck the shield towards the incoming sword light.
*Boom*
Along with a deafening explosion, the powerful earth shield was sliced into two clean halves. Although the sword light had grown dimmer and weaker, it was still travelling towards the Emerald Crystal Monkey like a man on a mission. As it whizzed past the air, the feeling of the dread it carried travelled to all watching.
Lily and Silver were joined by the recently defeated monkeys to watch the duel. Those who were still unconscious had been dragged here. And those who were awake could feel, just like Lily and Silver, the overwhelming power behind that sword strike. None of them would have been able to break through the Queen's earth shield, even if they all attacked together and had been given several tries. Yet that thin sword light had done the business seemingly easily. Although it had been weakened, it still looked powerful enough to cause their Queen a major headache.
True enough, the Monkey Queen furrowed her glass eyebrows when she saw the approaching light. At her command three of her drones flew away from her, each one with their turrets out and golden lights loaded to fire. At her behest all three were driven into the path of the sword strike, each one shooting energy beams along the way.
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
With a few bangs, all three drones were destroyed, much to the annoyance of the Queen. However, they weren't useless, for the sword light had grown even dimmer, and its aura was far less menacing than it was before. Now the Queen felt that she could deal with it, and so she did.
*Roar!*
With a loud roar she shot a Sonic Blast out of her large mouth and onto the beam, reducing the light of the sword once again. And without stopping, she dashed towards the sword light whilst spinning her rod, creating a small whirlwind in the process. And when she reached it, she struck it decisively.
*Boom*
The powerful rod proved to be more than a creation of the earth. For it crashed into the sword beam and dispersed it without even a scratch on its surface. As if taunting Mane, the Monkey Queen gave a loud cry before she dashed towards him.
"Prideful Sword: Dance of the Half-Moon Butterfly"
Mane quickly activated his movement technique when he spotted the approaching monkey. He was lucky that it was so large and the cave wasn't, because this severely limited the movement of the beast. However, it was still very fast. So much so that Mane was struggling to avoid each blow. For about thirty seconds the two played a game of cat and mouse, with Mane successfully avoiding every attack that the Queen threw at him. Alas, he couldn't always get away.
The Monkey Queen span her rod with the expertise of a rod user and swung it towards Mane. Before the large rod, Mane looked like a small bug that could be easily squashed, but he had successfully escaped this ill fate each time by being as slippery as one. And that was what he was planning to do.
The eyes of the Legendary Class Emerald Crystal Monkey Queen flashed with a sinister light, and she stomped her foot onto the ground. Her action caused the small cave to shake as though it had been rocked with a massive explosion, and Mane who was in the process of avoiding another one of her blows, lost his footing.
Mane's facial expression grew tense when he felt his feet leave the ground, yet he remained composed. He was also an earth user, and the Monkey Queen seemed to have ignored this. Allowing himself to fall onto the ground hands first, Mane morphed the earth as he saw fit and shifted himself out of the way, rolling away from the large rod which pounded the ground furiously. Yet when his eyes caught sight of the two flying rotund figures that had sandwiched him, he let out a bitter smile.
The Monkey Queen hadn't forgotten who he was, neither had she ignored his talent with earth wielding. The rod was merely a distraction. After all, she didn't want to kill him. If she did, he wouldn't have lasted so long with his battle prowess only at the 7th stage opposed to her 9th stage strength. The true attackers were the drones.
The two earth drones already had their turrets out, and even before Mane caught sight of them they had been loaded with energy blasts just waiting to fire. As if that wasn't enough, the cannons on her shoulders also lit up as small balls of light slowly grew.
"I see," Mane seemed to come to a realization when he saw the sneaky drones. As the golden light of earth filled his body and clothed him with a hastily assembled earth armor and a small earth dome that surrounded him, Mane understood a few things.
Distort wasn't a skill exclusive to Silver. The sneaky beast didn't tell Mane that his mother had it as well. It may as well be a skill that all Emerald Crystal Monkeys possessed. Secondly, Silver's mother's Distort was a level higher than her son's. For Mane could still feel everything in his surroundings. He could sense everything. And maybe that was why he had arrogantly thought that nothing could surprise him. What happened was that the drones had been clouded from his senses. It wasn't his Trace skill that had been disabled, but the ability to pick up the drones.
Mane learned from Silver that to use Distort on a person, he had to get in contact with that person's aura. If the principle was the same, then Siler's mother was no different. But to shield only the drones meant that she had to get the drones in contact with Mane's aura.
"Which means all the drones are connected," Mane realised, and the feeble addition to his scholar energy was the evidence that his thoughts were right on the money. It seemed that the drones were linked, and Mane smashing a few of them had given them the prerequisite to hide from him. And it had worked out charmingly.
*Boom*
The force of drones and cannons weren't to be underestimated, for the damage they caused was beyond just Mane. There was now a huge hole, one large enough to create a small stream in the cave.
Along with a loud explosion, the earth dome was shattered into countless little fragments and Mane was sent hurtling across the cave, with the cries of Lily and Silver's angry roar filling the space. Yet when the two – Princess and Prince – tried to move towards Mane, they were forcefully stopped. Not by the Monkey Queen, and definitely not by the Earth Stage Crystal Monkeys. What stopped them was the sight of Mane's fallen figure being submerged in the light of the Light Tree.
"I didn't want it to come to this," Mane mumbled with a wry smile, with blood seeping out of his mouth and onto his lips. He slowly bathed in the light of the Light Tree as several speck of white fell upon his frame. He opened his mouth and let out a small sigh. He was very much unwilling to do this, for he didn't know what the consequence of his actions would be. But he had to. For Silver's sake.
"Devour"