Thirteen didn't see the creature drop from the canopies. It was too fast. He could make out the sounds of a thick branch shattering under heavy weight, before suddenly everything was black.
He could see nothing. He could feel nothing. He could hear… a ringing.
After a second, the sound of a bestial, high pitched roar broke through the ringing sound. He didn't know how close or far away that roar was.
The first sense to return was his sense of touch. His sense of pain.
A muffled groan made its way to his ears. No, not a groan. A scream. His scream. Incredible pain wracked his body through and through. He was sure to have broken a great amount of bones.
Just as his lack of vision was beginning to scare him, all of his senses began to gradually clear. Though that ringing remained, it was much fainter now.
Laying on his back, he could feel his body healing itself at an incredible rate, which only brought more pain and threatened to render him unconscious.
"Ten?" he called out in a gravelly, pained voice.
No one replied.
"Teeen!"
He was unable to move much at the moment, everything bringing pain, so he instead listened. He tried to ignore that annoying ringing sound to listen for signs of life. He could hear no great monster which left him relieved, but could also not hear Ten.
Gritting his teeth for the pain to come, Thirteen forced his body to heal as fast as possible, which also just happened to be as painful as possible. But he bore with it, pained grunts and harsh breath escaping through his clenched teeth. As a result however, within a minute, he felt his body awash with warmth as the healing completed and the pain was soothed, leaving only the incredible exhaustion to body and mind.
Climbing to his feet, Thirteen stumbled as the broken ground shifted beneath his feet. Looking around, there were no trees in his vicinity. Only dirt and broken earth forming a bowl-like indent. A crater, tens of meters in diameter. As he scrambled his way from its edge to the relatively flat land beyond, he saw a layer of trees thrown away from the crater, the older ones snapped while the younger trees uprooted.
They lean now against those trees further back, creating a messy wall of foliage.
Activating his lifesight, Thirteen began to scan the area, looking for Ten.
"Oh no"
Thirteen ran immediately to the group of snapped and uprooted trees, where a silhouette of life could be found beneath the logs and branches.
Employing his unnatural strength, Thirteen began to shift logs and rubble out of the way, trying to reach that silhouette. When finally he saw it, he breathed a sigh of relief.
It was Ten. Alive, but unconscious. She was lucky in that she got blown back past the line of trees that stood firm, and so while she was hit with a lot of rubble, the uprooted trees were stopped by those that stood firm.
Dropping to his knees, Thirteen caught his breath as he tried to help her heal. In his lifesight, he could see that while she was injured and bruised, as if by miracle, the only serious wounds were on her left arm and collarbone.
Lifesight couldn't tell him what was wrong, he could only observe which places the body was employing its own lifeforce to heal over time, and judge the vague severity of a wound.
His lifeforce could bolster her own greatly, but it could not help others achieve what he could. A person could only heal as quickly as their body had the capacity for. Now as cultivators that capacity was certainly increased, but it would still take her a while.
"Hey. Ten." he called out as he shook her good arm slightly.
Gradually, she came to, her eyes opening bit by bit.
"Thirteen? Where's the monkey?" She asked in a dazed, dreamy voice.
Thirteen looked back to the large crater and broken ground behind them, remembering the name of that species of monster; Crater Monkey. Whatever they just ran into, it had to be the most fearsome of its kind.
"It's gone. I think it chased our target for us." He replied with a forced smile. "Come on, let's get you up."
As he helped her stand, Ten's mind was gradually becoming clear, the pain in her arm made itself known but she didn't cry out, only gritting her teeth as she resisted the urge to hold her injury with her right hand.
"We need to find Nine. He should have been close by the time that thing attacked" She said.
"I know. But if there's anything Nine is good at, it's foreseeing danger. He shouldn't have gotten the worst of it. Let's go."
Thirteen supported Ten for a few steps before confirming that she was fine on her own. She then looked at him strangely. "How are you fine? You got whacked by it."
"Whacked?" He asked with shock.
"Yeah… When it landed, it swatted you aside while the earth broke. I don't remember much after that, I got swept away, but shouldn't you be messed up?"
"Messed up… thanks. I'm fine. If Nine can avoid danger, I can patch myself up just fine afterwards."
"I'm glad" She said softly, looking at the shattered ground beneath them.
After walking for a moment, the two gradually began to pick up the pace. They knew not to act rashly when injured as the mind doesn't always recognize the state of the body, and recklessness would only lead to further injury.
They did eventually enter a sprint safely however, navigating the rough terrain of the woods with ease, though Ten was very mindful of her left arm. Eventually they employed Lightness and were flying along through the woods.
——
Nine was frustrated.
He had wanted to use this mission to prove his strength. He was a year older than both Thirteen and Ten, and had even begun to successfully cultivate the Eye of Fate, something that both Nicholas and the manual said would be nearly impossible before reaching the third stage of qi cultivation, Core Establishment.
Yet despite that, he could never beat Thirteen when they sparred. When they first started learning to fight, they were more or less evenly matched, but as the years went by he fell behind again and again for seemingly no reason.
Why was he never in the spotlight? It was always Thirteen and Four. It's not like he blamed them, it was just so incredibly frustrating. It happened again today. All three of them did combat with their target, Lukas Junill, a well known augmenter. Thirteen took a fierce hit that broke bones but soon rejoined the fight with passion. Nine took a similar, though far less dangerous hit and was incapacitated.
Was it the attributes? How is that fair? He has a physical attribute now with Agility, he shouldn't be falling behind. But the others were all on their way to becoming Knights already.
Gritting his teeth, Nine continued to chase after Lukas and his friends when he heard an earth shattering boom in the distance. The sound of trees bending and breaking forced his eyes wide in horror.
A scene flashed before his eyes. A large man in his late years, obviously Lukas Junill, running past him, being chased by a large monkey-like creature, roughly eight or nine foot tall with a large and heavy gourd on its back. The creature's fur was stark white and longer than other Crater Monkeys. It's eyes burned with wrath and as it passed a stunned Nine, it swung that heavy gourd by a braided rope, crushing the boy against a tree.
Having returned to reality, Nine had no time to spare as he dived into the bushes and hid behind the trees next to him, holding his breath.
Sure enough, after a second or two had passed, the two large shapes came barreling by with great force, rushing right past the position in which Nine had hid. The monkey jumped between trunks of trees while Lukas ran on the ground, avoiding obstacles like tree roots or stones, and slowly fell behind in speed.
Even after they had left, Nine remained where he was, stunned and scared as he held his breath, hoping his friends were okay. He no longer dwelled on thoughts of inferiority of selfishness, calming his mind as he had learned to do over the years, Nine thought about what to do next.
Abruptly standing, he decided the most important thing right now was to ensure his friends were okay. Nine's own injuries were mostly healed thanks to Thirteen, but he feared that after expending so much lifeforce to help him, his brother would be left unable to save himself.
Right, his brother. Pride be damned, they were all family by this point. If he wanted to prove his seniority he just had to improve faster.
——
As Thirteen and Ten were rapidly shooting through the woods, Thirteen said to stop as he recognized something coming for them. It was a humanoid figure and Thirteen was sure he knew who it was as he smiled in relief.
"Found you!" Nine shouted as he approached them. "Are you okay? I saw a huge crater monkey, what happened?"
Nine spoke almost too quickly for the still somewhat dazed minds of Thirteen and Ten to keep up with. Raising a hand to try and quiet his friend, Thirteen spoke.
"We're fine. Whatever it is, it's beyond our league, and may have just stolen our target."
"You're okay?" Nine turned to Ten.
"More or less" She replied casually, her arm still recovering.
Nine gave her a long and concerned look which irked Thirteen for whatever reason, so he decided to move on.
"We should follow. Worst case we'll abandon the bounty if the monkey can kill him, but if we leave and he survives then the mission will be a failure."
"Yeah, they passed me earlier. Come on, I'll lead the way" Nine replied.
They traveled for just under ten minutes before finding Lukas and the monkey. The two imposing figures were locked in incredible combat. The large monkey, 8ft tall while hunched, swung around a large and heavy gourd like a light toy, bashing it against the ground and trees as Lukas dodged in the most ungraceful of panicked maneuvers.
The monkey screeched as it attacked, breaking trees and destroying the ground. The gourd in it's hand seemed to change weight as it was swung, the monkey channeling its own mass manipulation into it as a weapon. When swung it would become increasingly heavy, but when lifted again it would be light. Well, as light as a 5ft tall gourd as thick as that could be.
Liquid was clearly swashing within the makeshift weapon, but the disorderly weight distribution that brought seemed unable to impede the monkeys' actions.
"Be ready to run," Nine whispered as they watched from the trees a small distance from the battle. Neither Thirteen or Ten replied, their eyes glued on the battle in fascination.
Lukas had no weapon originally, but now wielded a sharp piece of metal in his hand. The top half of Thirteen's longsword which had been stabbed through his chest.
The blade was made of good steel, but was not a cultivator's weapon. It was a mundane blade that could not stand a frontal clash with something like this beast. Lukas knew this, and so he used it whenever he found an opening on the creature, which was quite often.
The Crater Monkey was strong. Ridiculously so, but it's intelligence was limited, and it's fighting was influenced by the natural conflict of the animal world as opposed to the structured learning of martial arts. Everything it did left openings, it was simply a matter of whether you were able to act on them.
The battle carried on down on the ground, booms and breaking sounds ringing out every second, as gradually Lukas became bloodied and tired.
With a swipe of its left fist, the large monkey broke and fractured the arms Lukas used to guard and sent him flying backwards into a tree where he lay still.
Shrugging and making quieter animistic sounds, almost akin to the snorts and harrumphs of the arrogant, the monster walked over to Lukas on all fours, dragging the heavy gourd with it.
"Get ready" Thirteen whispered.
"I know" Ten replied, leaning forward while Nine was filled with the distinct impression they weren't talking about fleeing.
As the monster reached its large hand down towards Lukas' body, it pushed a weighty finger down on his chest to test for reactions. When that supernaturally heavy finger pressed down, Lukas' body released the air in its lungs and made noise, but did not react the way a living thing would.
With a bestial snort, the monkey released its gourd and set to work tearing off Lukas' shirt and ripping open his pouches, looking for something. After a moment, it fished out a small pouch and upturned it to find the half dozen remaining Liquor Sacks that Lukas had not yet put to use.
Cheering in a very monkey like manner, the monster picked them up and turned to look at his Gourd.
At that moment, Lukas' eyes shot open. With great core strength, he pulled himself to an upright sitting position and with his fractured left arm he plunged the shard of metal deep into the neck of the unprepared beast.
As it howled in pain and fury, everything moved at once.
Thirteen and Ten kicked off the branch they were readied on, flying toward the scene of the battle with Nine forced to follow behind.
Lukas stood as quickly as possible and jumped to his side, rolling out of the way of a fierce swatting by the monster who raged in pain, blood pouring from its neck.
Thirteen conjured his greatsword in the air as he flew in the direction of the monkey, having put everything into his legs when he launched off the tree. With a deep squelch and an impact so fierce it brought pain shooting through the wrists and arms of Thirteen, the greatsword was impaled deep through the creature. Thirteen himself pushing off of its back to land on the ground where he grabbed the braided rope of the 5ft gourd.
Ten too attacked the creature, channeling a great amount of qi through her good arm, she performed a single palm strike to the back of it's head, dazing it physically and spiritually as much as she could before bolting after Lukas.
Nine on the other hand, received a flash of foresight as he reached thirteen, and pushed him aside, using the same motion to move in the opposite direction, both of them avoiding a hammer fist from the large Crater Monkey that split the ground beneath them.
The monster was dazed, it's movement limited by a large blade stabbed through its back ,and losing a great deal of blood from another steel blade in its neck, and yet even still it thrashed about at them as the two boys escaped and caught up with Ten.
Thirteen could hear the monkey giving chase, but it was slow, and it's cries and screeches were growing fainter.
They caught up to Lukas Junill very quickly, and the man too realized this.
"WAIT! Just leave me alone! I didn't mean it! I'm just trying to surviv–"
It was Ten who silenced him, throwing a dagger as she ran.
Lukas had no final showdown, no timely reaction or explosion of anger. The sleek steel blade of Ten's projectile sank through the back of his neck with such force that it severed his spinal cord and his body fell flat as the three continued running.
Silence reigned for a moment as they continued to run. The wilds were never safe, and who knows what else would be attracted to the noise like that monster had.
Thirteen found the gourd he carried, while of course as heavy as its size and contents would make you think, was nowhere near as heavy as it had been in the monkey's hands. The monster had truly increased its weight by an incredible amount.
It took them an hour to escape from the woods, having battled deep into the wilds of it. When they again found themselves near the artificial plain, and saw the village in the distance, all three of them collapsed to the ground in panting breaths, where they each lay on their backs.
It was Ten who laughed first. Her clear and bright laughter breaking any resistance Thirteen had as he did the same. Nine did not take it all so lightly, but as he lay on the dirt by his friends, he felt the laughter contagious and soon couldn't help but join them.
And there they lay for minutes still as they calmed down and rested their minds.