Chapter 135: Monkeys
The degenerated macaques came down on them like a torrent of claws and yellowed fangs. Dylan deflected a swipe that would have ripped his face open, but a searing pain tore through his shoulder—another monkey had sunk its teeth deep into him. On impact, his white stigma lit up like an ember beneath his tunic, and the torn flesh sealed itself shut in seconds, leaving only a bloody trace.
"Go for the eyes!" Elisa repeated, her spear slicing deadly arcs through the air. But there were too many of them. When one deformed macaque lunged for her throat, her golden pupils dilated abruptly. Her green stigma pulsed along her neck—and the beast was flung back before it could even touch her, its skull shattered against a rock. An emerald glow hovered around her trembling hands.
Maggie laughed—a harsh, joyless sound. She had just skewered two monkeys in a single swing of her flail-halberd, but three more were already coming from behind. Then her red stigma flared to life, bright as a burn on her left forearm. Her muscles tensed—not in raw brute strength, but with lethal grace. She turned, and her blade became a perfect whirlwind:
The first macaque’s throat was slit in an upward motion.
The second took the blade through its eye, to the hilt
The third was knocked back by a precise pommel strike to the temple
"Still so damn cute, these little bastards!" she spat. Her eyes gleamed with supernatural clarity—as if every muscle, every weapon, every angle of attack was being revealed to her in a language only she could understand.
But the largest one—a male with streaks of white in his fur—lunged at Dylan from behind. Too fast. Its fangs sank into his back with a sickening crunch of bone. Dylan screamed, and his white stigma blazed like a beacon, sealing the wound in a storm of nerves knitted by pain. He collapsed, unable to breathe.
"No!" Elisa stretched out her hands. Her green stigma flared, and the macaque was yanked off Dylan by an invisible force—but the wound still bled, too deep, too raw.