Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 225: Interlude Monkey King

Sun Wukong was bored, and that was never a good thing, not for him, and not for anyone sharing his zip code.

He danced over the clouds, his regalia glittering in the sunlight.

When he’d gained his [Class], [Heir to the Intelligent Stone Monkey], he’d gained so many things, this outfit among them.

He’d also decided to ditch his old name, the one the stuck-up people who thought they were the boss of him knew. The kind that was only spoken fully when he was getting yelled at.

Really, this was the single best thing that had ever happened to him … well, at least if he counted this as a part of the [System], because that day had been when he’d begun to shed his shackles, to gain freedom.

… And then the people who thought they were in charge had tried to assert their control, he’d resisted and ended up kicked out of his home nation. No matter what his problems had been with that place, being forced to leave had stung. Not to mention that now, there was no one who he could pick a fight with just by existing.

Ugh, boredom was the wo-orst. Seriously, what was he supposed to do? Not like there were a whole lot of big bad monsters around for him to test himself against. And his mana pool was too small to summon anything worth fighting.

Dragon (Tier 7) has been summoned near your location.

Summon Location: Barren Field (17 km away, south by south-west)

Ooh, that looked like fun.

The treaty of Seoul states that an unleashed [Raid Boss] may be fought without the use of nuclear armaments, should sufficient forces be present.

Local military leaders have concurred that this is the case and thereby invoked the treaty’s support functionality.

Merely by deciding to support this endeavor, you will receive the following benefits:

Automatic addition to command-and-control network for as long as you fight to destroy the [Raid Boss]

Minimum 10,000 XP gained from battle

+10 to all physical Stats during the battle.

And now everything was set up under the control of some treaty. Eh, not like that was going to interfere with his fight. Gatekeeping [Raid Bosses] with a man cost was so annoying!

First Lieutenant Kade Benson, has been designated as Incident Commander.

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He has been granted temporary command authority over all responding forces.

Boo! Why was some random jackboot in charge when he was around?

For crying out loud, he was the Monkey King, it was right there in the name.

But a military rank did not a leader make, so he was just going to ignore the orders, what was that guy going to do, sue him?

[Cloud Sommersault] flung him off the cloud he was standing on, high into the sky, until he reached something his cloud-walking boots could kick off of.

He’d seen the dragon during his ascent and now that he knew where to find the monster, he could launch himself in that direction.

The humble hairpin he pulled from behind his ear as he fell first shifted into a regular quarterstaff, then transformed into its full size, a titanic iron rod seven meters long and as wide as a barrel.

Ah, Ruyi Jingu Bang, the [Staff of the Monkey King], a weapon with no equal.

Below, the dragon seemed to have noticed the incoming meteor and looked up, mouth open, and roared.

It was the typical Western dragon, a hundred and fifty meters long, with golden scales, two wings, four legs, and a long tail, a crown of backwards-facing horns at the back of the head, a row of spikes along its spine, and a series of wide scutes protecting its stomach.

Oh, and the others were also down there, a bunch of people in uniforms who’d decided they were in a position to fight one of the great beasts of the land, but they weren’t really needed here.

The dragon unleashed its breath, a powerful stream of flames so hot that the air around it shimmered from the heat. Then it hit with immense physical force, as if it were a liquid shot from the world’s strongest fire hose, rather than a cloud of plasma.

Not that it mattered. The Monkey King alone weighed over two hundred kilograms, and the staff’s almost 8 tons were even harder to shove aside.

And as for the flames themselves … his mythological forefather had found several ways to immortality, becoming harder and harder to kill until eventually, he’d obtained eightfold immortality.

Sadly, the full benefits of that hadn’t carried over through the [System], but he was still pretty happy with what he’d gotten.

[Eightfold Immortality, Sixth Immortality: Samadhi Fire Tempering].

He was almost completely immune to all elemental damage, except fire, which couldn’t harm him no matter what.

“What the hell are you …” someone yelled through the party he’d automatically been added two, but he ignored them.

“INCOMING!” Sung yelled, holding Jingu Bang over his head with one hand while waving at the little figures below to move away.

The flames petered out when he came within a hundred meters of the beast, put both hands on his staff, and swung it downwards. Throw in a [Power Strike] aaaaaand … BONK!

One moment, the dragon had been one of the most powerful and imposing creatures on the face of the planet. The next, its face smacked into the hard-packed dirt with enough force to make a meter-deep crater, unleashing a shockwave that shattered several of the barriers that had been erected around it, a massive dent in its skull revealing where it had been struck.

Jingu Bang shifted back into a regular ol’ staff, properly sized to be wielded, and he bashed the dragon, once, twice, cracking its skull at the temple with the first and popping an eyeball with the second.

But the dragon managed to withdraw its head from the earth, unleashing huge plumes of dirt and dust in the process. The skull hung limply, either the neck, musculature, or both apparently damaged, but it was still very much moving.

“Haha, so you can keep going?” Sun laughed as he leaped off the dragon’s head.

[Seventy-two Earthly Transformations] was yet another awesome ability copied from his mythological forefather.

Shift into a fly, make your way into your opponent’s ear, transform into a boulder, and watch all your enemies go poof!

… at least that was how it was supposed to go.

Instead, Sun was launched out of the dragon’s noggin amidst a spray of gore. Ew.

“So, you’re tough, hu- … whoa!”

He hopped backwards as the dragon’s great jaws snapped shut where he’d just been.

Damn, that dragon’s head was tough. Of course, it would have been boring otherwise.

The beast continued to chase him, catching continuous fire from all the people present.

Boo, spoilsports. This would have been so much more fun as a one-on-one fight.

Then, the dragon faceplanted against a suddenly appearing barrier, an almost comical look of shock and surprise on its face.

“Back off, we can’t keep working around you!”

“Fine, I’ll attack the other end.” Sun grumped. [Cloud Sommersault] flung him skywards, Cloud-walking boots smashed into the tiniest, wispiest thread of water vapor in the sky and sent him hurtling back to the earth with crushing force.

A once-more enlarged Jingu Bang hammered into the beast’s spine above its hindlegs, bringing the great dragon to its knees amidst the sound of breaking bones.

“You …”

And the voice was complaining again. Seriously, what was that guy’s problem?

Wham!

The dragon’s tail smashed Sun off the creature’s back like a bat knocking away a baseball. He hit the ground and bounced, once, twice, thrice, each hit blasting a sizeable crater out of the ground, until he smashed into the dirt for a fourth time, rolling and tumbling another fifty meters.

Sun lay there for half a second, slightly dizzy, staring at the sky.

He was surprised, and a little mad at himself for getting sucker punched, but [Eightfold Immortality, First Immortality: Teachings of Puti Zushi] had made him tough beyond all reason.

This time, [Cloud Sommersault] flung him straight at his opponent.

His temporary allies had taken this as a chance to unleash their big finishers, knocking the beast around like a bumper car.

Jingu Bang smashed into it next, cracking one of the bones in its foreleg, then he danced backwards to avoid a retaliatory snap of its jaws and bopped it on the nose.

Now this was a challenge worthy of him.

Grinning ear to ear, Sun danced around the monster, his staff a blur. There were others present, and more arriving, but there were only two people truly in this fight. Him, and the angry lizard.

Then, the dragon’s [Aura] burst out of it with renewed fury, fear smashing into all those within range like a physical thing.

Some stumbled back, others bulled their way through it through sheer force of will.

And as for Sun, well, he had [Eightfold Immortality, Fourth Immortality: Devourer of the Heavenly Feast] to keep out even the nastiest mental effects. He knew that there were still chinks in his armor, but as annoying as the fact that they existed at all was, he was still one of the toughest beings in existence.

Jingu Bang was raised above his head, transformed to its fullest size, and dropped on its head.

Oh, it hadn’t expected to be hit that soon after unleashing its trump card. The poor thing even choked on its own fire, giving Sun another free shot at its skull, the sound of cracking bone ringing out.

Perhaps now the earlier maneuver, vis-a-vis transformation, would work?

Aaaaaand pop!

This time, the monster’s head broke apart as any creature’s skull should when a boulder suddenly appeared inside its ear canal.

“Aha, just had to tenderize it a little first, next ti- … hey guys, how’s it hanging?” Sun asked, waving at the gathering crowd, Jingu Bang lightly resting on his shoulder.

The man in the front, an imposing black man wielding a large riot shield with the logo of the United States Marine Corps emblazoned on its front, glared at him.

“Who are you, and what the fuck do you think you are doing?”

“Hey, come on, it’s all in good fun,” Sun responded.

“This was a [Raid Boss] and if there hadn’t been a bunch of high-Level people present in the nearby military base, this would have ended with a nuke getting dropped on this place.” The apparent Marine snapped.

“But they were, no one died, and I had fun punting the dragon. I’m not going to tell you to loosen up, I know you government types enjoy having a stick up your behind. But I like to enjoy my life.”

Jingu Bang shifted back into a needle and returned to its place behind his ear as Sun jumped onto the dragon’s corpse “That treaty of yours has to have some kind of provisions about loot sharing, right? So, what do I get?”

He could practically hear the steam coming out of the marine’s ears. Oh, it looked like the fun hadn’t stopped alongside the dragon’s life.

“How about we all calm down, figure out where the dragon came from, if there’s going to be another one, and once we know shit isn’t going to hit the fan, we can deal with the loot.” A new voice rang out as a young man teleported between them.

The speaker was wearing what looked like regular street clothes at first glance, the only unusual piece of apparel being a pair of armored bracers, but there was more to it than that. Black hair so dark it seemed to swallow the light contrasted bright emerald eyes that flashed with exasperation, and something else that Sun couldn’t quite place.

Guilt? Fear? Some weird combination of the two?