Clarence bolted in the direction where he had seen one monkey disperse. With the speed at which he was running, a figure of a monkey soon outlined in his vision.
Along the way, he also sprinkled blood of the recent monkey he killed to attract the rest of them because he couldn't always correctly predict and find where they went.
Unaware that he was being pursued, the monkey soon smelled faint traces of its companion's blood.
It turned around and sprinted in its direction, but before it could get far; it triggered a trap inadvertently, causing two high-speed darts to fly at it.
The monkey, as soon as it felt the thread at its leg, sensed an ominous foreboding and leaned its body backward, safely dodging the darts.
But the leaning back was all Clarence who had hid nearby needed as he had shot the dart in his hands at the same time as the trap was triggered.
His prediction came true when the monkey leaned back to avoid the darts, allowing the dart he had shot to accurately drill into its skull from behind, killing the unaware monkey.
The nearby bushes rustled, and two monkeys emerged a split second later, just in time to see their companion's body fall to the ground.
They looked up to see the culprit who was sitting on a branch, spinning two short and curved sharp objects in his hands.
The monkeys decided to besiege the target with a two-pronged attack and immediately split up to carry it out.
Clarence, upon witnessing it, turned to the side of one of the monkeys and sprinted at high speed.
He wanted to engage one of the monkeys and, if possible, injure it so that he wouldn't be as vulnerable to the two-pronged attack when the second monkey arrived.
As soon as he came in front of the monkey, he slashed his dagger at its arm, and followed up with an attack on its leg with the other arm.
The monkey deftly avoided the dagger aimed at its leg and blocked the one aimed at its hand with both hands' claws.
The claws, although broke immediately as the dagger was rank four and coated with golden blue energy, were successful at halting the momentum of the dagger.
The monkey screeched as the pain of its claws being broken was transmitted to its brain. Also, now that its only form of defense against the dagger had broken down, it was as good as extra baggage in the current fight.
This all happened in barely a couple of seconds and by that time, the last monkey had arrived. It was whom Clarence assumed to be the leader of the group.
The leader began its assault with a wide swing of its claws, which Clarence had to turn around and block with both of his daggers.
He followed up with a kick at the leader at the same time the daggers blocked its attack, successfully sending it crashing into the tree after the kick connected.
But before he could rejoice, he was struck in the waist by a powerful blow that pushed him back nearly a meter. He immediately knew it was the monkey whose claws had been broken.
He forgot beasts had top class physique, resulting in a miscalculation on his part that he had thought that the monkey's prowess was as good as zero without its claws.
Before the monkey could follow up, he put up a distance and threw a shuriken at it, after taking it out from his hidden pocket.
The monkey attempted to avoid it, but, as in the previous case, the shuriken abruptly changed course and struck its arm, leaving only a deep cut.
It was because Clarence couldn't put in much spin and power in that short time frame, causing it to miss by a few inches and hit the monkey's arm, leaving only a deep cut.
Clarence sensed that the leader had got up and was currently charging his way. So he quickly took out a few darts from his pocket and threw them at high speed.
He did it solely to stymie the leader's momentum, with no hopes that they would actually hit. As expected, to avoid the darts, the leader had to twist its body and change directions, which disrupted its momentum.
Clarence took advantage of the opportunity and closed the distance with the previous monkey and slashed at its neck. The monkey dodged and attempted to hold up both of its arms to block as a backup measure, but unfortunately, the arm with the deep cut couldn't move at all.
Clarence smirked upon seeing this, knowing that the rank five snake's poison which he coated on the blades of shuriken was doing its job. It had started to spread from the point of contact and had already rendered the entire arm immobile.
Clarence's dagger had successfully cut through the wrist of its other arm, which the monkey used to block. The monkey was dazed in that short time period due to the pain of its wrist getting cut.
Even if it had been completely alert, it had no means left of blocking the dagger coming for its neck other than to dodge, which it couldn't due to being dazed.
After Clarence successfully decapitated the monkey, he immediately chanted the spell and aimed at the leader's arm after turning around, whose claws were already dangerously close to his neck.
The spell hit its arm, halting it along with the claws, which were mere inches away from its neck.
Clarence took advantage of the leader's befuddlement over the phenomenon of its arm halting to strike at its neck with breakneck speed.
*****
Inside a certain cave in the Bluemist mountains sat a teen who was currently treating himself to a barbeque along with a fine wine. Around him was a cooling array, and he had transformed the whole cave to look like an extremely cozy room by placing mattresses on grounds and walls.
The mattresses were covered with soft bed sheets and there lay several books on them, some open, some closed.
A few distances away, on the boulder which blocked the entrance to the cave, there was a protrusion on which a monkey's head was hung by a rope.
The teen was naturally Clarence, who was treating himself to the fullest after successfully killing an entire group of rank two long tailed monkeys.
He had also hanged the leader's head on the boulder as a petty revenge to soothe his mind after eating continuous losses at the hands of the long tailed monkeys.
After fully indulging himself, he quickly fell asleep while reading the books.