Chapter 114: The Giant Trees Challenge
"Demon Tail, Pounce!" the squirrels\' tails suddenly began to burn with a crimson fire, and their red eyes glared at Stark even harder as they all launched themselves at him.
The two remaining \'Branch Monkeys\' wouldn\'t just stand idle after seeing their companions die either.
"Jungle Roar!" they stood on their two feet and began to repeatedly tap their chests while shouting, the sheer intensity of their voice creating some sort of supersonic wave around it.
\'Jungle Roar\' is a skill used not only to boost the monster\'s attack and defense, a way to motivate them basically, but it also was supposed to cause the [Intimidation] or [Fear] status on the enemy target because of their anger.
But of course it wouldn\'t work, not only since Stark was from the domination class, but also because… his anger was far greater than the monsters\' one.
[Not affected by \'Fear\']
Their plan was to all attack him at the same time while he was affected by the \'Fear\' effect, but they didn\'t expect that their plan wouldn\'t work, and that was their biggest mistake.
"Invincible Dodge!" both he and his clone rolled away to avoid the tongues of the chameleons.
But… ~GRAB~
Stark grabbed one of the tongue while it was returning to its owner\'s mouth, restraining it.
Meanwhile, his clone was busy avoiding the attacks of several squirrels, their tails aimed to hit it as they would cause the [Demonic Burn] status, which was basically an upgraded version of [Burn].
Of course, some of them obviously aimed at Stark, but he was also too fast for them to even dream of hitting him face on.
He didn\'t let the chameleon\'s tongue go, and it was beginning to struggle now, trying to pull Stark toward it.
\'Disgusting…\' he groaned, and instinctively… he began to pull it too.
After a few seconds of struggle…
~CRACK~
The tongue broke, separating from the monster\'s body and causing the Aggre-Meleon to wince in pain and immediately fall dead.
"-82000!" it did the entirety of its health, and Stark immediately understood of this monster\'s weakness.
Now the only problem left were the squirrels, they were probably the most terrifying of the trio as they were both fast and strong, plus their appearance also presaged nothing good.
But even then…
"CRIMSON SPEARS," Stark\'s clone summoned them, and sent them all toward a squirrel who was currently jumping at it, meaning that it couldn\'t avoid them no matter what.
"-43827! -39482! -40301!" all three pierced its head, and it did immense damage not only because its defense was low, but also since its head seemed to be its weakness, a single spear hitting its brain would be enough.
"Monkey Charge," seeing that their roar did nothing, the two remaining \'Branch Monkeys\' used their boost in attack to rush at Stark.
But he didn\'t even bother to avoid it.
~CRASH~
He took in the two monsters by himself, stopping them with one hand each, and even though he was pushed back for a bit, he still retrieved the advantage.
"AURA SMASH," the clone, while still avoiding the squirrels, sent two fists at the two monkeys to aid its owner.
~BOOM, BOOM~
"-32762! -37265!" each of them received damage, in addition to the after-shock from both attacks damaging the other one too.
[Enemy stunned]
Now that one of them was gone, Stark easily overpowered the second.
"SPIKY BODY," but the monkey didn\'t want to get beaten by a human, after all it was supposed to be strong!
A wooden spike came out of its chest and headed toward Stark, it was a surprise attack and the speed was so great that it would have been difficult for many to avoid it from this clone.
~FWISH~
\'Holy, that was close,\' but Stark managed to move his head at the last second, \'Almost got me…\'
\'Gulp…\' the monkey looked at Stark, it had failed to kill the human with its final strategy.
~PUNCH, PUNCH~
"-31731! -32730!"
He punched its head two times successfully, resulting in it immediately falling to the ground.
Then without wasting anytime, he jumped in the air using the momentum of the first monkey falling, span around, and kicked the second who was stunned before finishing it with crushing its head.
"-34632! -44794!"
Now all \'Branch Monkeys\' had been wiped out, with 5 \'Aggre-Meleons\' and 5 \'Demonic Squirrels\' left.
But despite the loss of their kin, the remaining enemies did not falter in their aggression.
The five \'Aggre-Meleons\' lunged at Stark and his clone.
"HYPNO-EYES, POISONOUS BITE!" the former attack made it so that if you ever made eye contact with the chameleon\'s spinning pupils, you would immediately get the [Hypnosis] status, decreasing your precision by a ton, it was basically game over.
In the other direction, the \'Demonic Squirrels\' continued their relentless charges, their tails ablaze with demonic fire.
Stark and his clone adapted to the new threat quickly, they didn\'t even bother to avoid the chameleons\' pupils as they [Hypnosis] effect didn\'t affect them, and so all they did was dodge their bites.
~KICK~
Stark kicked one of the Aggre-Meleons away; sending it flying against one of the giant trees, then without wasting time… he did something risky out of nowhere.
While the chameleon\'s mouth was still full of poison, and while they were still attacking him…
He dashed toward one of them, then forcefully opened its mouth using both his hands, before grabbing the tongue inside of it and pulling it as hard as possible, causing the monster to let out a painful, startled cry as the tongue was detached from its mouth.
"-82000!" of course it died.
Meanwhile, Stark\'s clone was against the \'Demonic Squirrels\', and it managed quite easily to avoid them all.
~PUNCH~
"-28373!" it would even launch a small punch or kick at one of the squirrels as a counter-attack, meaning that slowly but surely, both their HP and stamina were depleting.
And so after only a few minutes of back-and-forth, while completing abusing of the strategies and weaknesses they knew…
"-40398!"
They finally managed to kill off all the monsters.
\'Phew…\' Stark sighed, his clone hadn\'t even died, maybe it was just as determined as he was?
…
[You have slain "Aggre-Meleon lv68", gained 76103EXP!]
[You have slain "Aggre-Meleon lv68", gained 74985EXP!]
.
.
[You have slain "Branch Monkey lv66", gained 71029EXP!]
[You have slain "Branch Monkey lv66", gained 72914EXP!]
.
.
[You have slain "Demonic Squirrel lv69", gained 79338EXP!]
[You have slain "Demonic Squirrel lv69", gained 78102EXP!]
.
.
And so just like that…
[+1,357,413EXP!]
\'Holy shit…\'
[Your level has increased to level 28, granting you two skill points and boost in stats]
[Your level has increased to level 29, granting you two skill points and boost in stats]
[Experience: 508904/628000]
Stark was beginning to level up extremely easily, and it almost became scary, was this the power of a Nightmare-Level rift?
[Skill Points: 8 Available]
In addition to that, the fact he was now getting 2 skill points per level meant that he could stack them and possibly upgrade a skill all the way in one go.
\'Time to finally upgrade Domination,\' he smiled as he had more than enough skill points to do that, plus some spare in case he wanted to upgrade anything else.
[Do you want to use 5 Skill Points to upgrade Domination to Level 15 (MAX)?]
[Y/N]