F-ranker Sword Saint: My Soulbound Sword is Secretly SSS-tier!-Chapter 359: Monkey Mayhem

The dark aquamarine world erupted in a cacophony of clangs, barks, snarls, growls, and roars as black and gray met.

The branches were a battlefield.

The Ateles Mortises showed their strange mastery of swordsmanship, where long limbs, tails, and swing momenta are part of the kit.

They slashed while hanging, dodged by pulling themselves up with their tails, and predicted where the enemies would hang next, cutting off that branch with corrosive slash marks to knock their enemies down and injure them through falls.

It was definitely a fascinating start to the skirmish.

The grays were more numerous, though, as the members of the opposition are still en route to support.

Two of their elites clashed with the two elites of the blacks, while the last one led a small cohort of six to pursue the three hateful instigators.

Regretting their choices to chase this far wasn’t in the vocabulary of the deathly monkeys, though.

If anything, they only doubled down on their anger, wishing to tear the primates of lesser strength limb from limb and consume them with morbid vengeance.

Only then would they retreat.

Still, the Gray Ateles Mortises, even their elites, were aware that time was not on their side.

The pursuit party was moving quickly.

Brachiating from branch to branch, the elite overtook the three of them while the standard grays kept pace.

Daru and his comrades were now surrounded.

Another moment later, the elite Gray Ateles Mortis’s arm muscles bulged, and it launched itself a few dozen meters in front of the fleeing intruders who dared kill their kin, effectively sealing off their path of escape.

The three gritted their teeth.

Peter swung his sword once, seemingly imbuing it with the commands of the Crimson Heavens.

He then slashed at the air.

The elite sensed nothing, and while it angled its weapon to block instinctively, it suddenly felt something crashing heavily on its mind.

The huge monkey froze...but not for long.

The realization that the bastards would slip away again brought it so much anger that Peter’s mental binding instantly broke.

The elite then jumped back, ensuring the prey wouldn’t pass, sweeping at the pale air.

A massive, horizontal slash mark with corrosive properties flew at them with unbelievable speed in the next moment, forcing Daru and his comrades back as they blocked the attack with their Soulbound Swords.

Almost instantly, the five monkeys behind them jumped at the opportunity, launching at them from the trees with their swords glowing in monochromatic colors.

But Peter easily ruined their prime chance.

"Halt!" He barked at the perfect moment, then struck at a Gray Ateles Mortis’ neck with red, translucent qi concentrating on the edges of his scarlet jian’s blade.

Those dozens of exchanges earlier gave the Aziyan SSS-ranker everything he needed to know about the exact duration of his decrees against the primates when cast in a small area.

[-135,050!!]

Pungent gray blood splattered across the ground as a head rolled.

A few meters to the side, three diverging sword paths impaled at three of the standard Gray Ateles Mortises, some hit more squarely than the others, but nothing too lethal.

Still, those three were thrown back.

Lastly, on the right-most side, seven ethereal glasswind slashes took all the limbs of another in just a little over a second.

Daru was still unused to targeting different body parts using the Seven Glasswind Slash, so all seven were spent with him missing the head two times.

He was able to wound the neck, though, and the Gray Ateles Mortis targeting him fell with a nauseating thud to the ground, completely helpless.

It was alive but was unable to move.

The elite’s fury reached for the Crimson Heavens, but a black and gold blade — soon veiled completely black — intercepted, sending the elite staggering to the side.

Meanwhile, the three other Ateles Mortises grew wary and more careful after what had just happened.

The three lesser primates that they were hunting down...they were no joke.

Still, the monkeys worked together in keeping the two SSS-rankers occupied while the boss of their pursuit party was destroying the last of the foes.

The second, smaller skirmish was on.

With the monkeys’ goal changing from slaughtering their foes to merely keeping them busy, it was impossible for Peter to do the same trick, and so a dance of blades unfolded between five primates.

A few meters behind them, Daru was locked in a fierce battle against the elite.

==

(Elite) Gray Ateles Mortis Lv. 95

HP: 150,000 / 150,000

==

While he still wasn’t equipped to deal with multiple opponents, straightforward duels were his specialty.

His mobility, defense, and offense are quite balanced and have many possible sequences. There were naturally a few weaknesses that the huge monkey could exploit, but nothing Daru didn’t know.

He was more than able to hold his own.

***

Somewhere a considerable distance away, a man with flowing, shoulder-length hair of dark wine, breathed heavily as he fled west.

Behind him were three gray-skinned figures, weaving along the treelines, while further to the back, with furious expressions, were a little over a dozen long-limbed, black-furred monkeys.

The Black Ateles Mortises naturally wouldn’t allow anything other than their kin to exist in their territory.

Yet, it was the Vesharis who seemed to be more furious than they.

The human SSS-ranker, whom they planned to slaughter after making use of him to increase their chances of making it through this accursed graveyard, had betrayed them first!

The bastard had suddenly begun roaring his lungs out, calling upon the death monkeys in the middle of the night!

Oddly, the Vesharis appreciated the strategy, even though they were infuriated. Their actions are always based on cold logic, after all.

Sacrificing oneself in exchange for three enemies was a "rational move".

The Veshari trio knew that the human, Durandal, was not at all dumb, and they were expecting him to do something, just not this soon.

After spending such a long time trying to survive, he was suddenly trying to die?

This was what they couldn’t understand.

The only thing they knew about the SSS-ranker human was that he came from further east, met them two days ago, and agreed to their offer after a few displays of caution.

One of the three Vesharis wasn’t too sure before.

But now, he realized that his suspicions were correct. They were subtly being stirred westward by Durandal.

The bastard probably had an idea where his allies were all along.

They should’ve realized the moment they encountered him.

After all, if he secured a Verdant nucleus further east and was heading west, what else could he be doing aside from searching for his comrades?

Now, they were racing to prevent him from reuniting. Four humans, three of whom are SSS-rankers, are a deadly force.

This the Vesharis could not allow.