Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos

After waiting for longer than he would have liked, Vahn was beginning to lose his patience. As a result, he began to slowly increase the amount of pressure his aura put on the array, causing small bands of golden electricity to dance through the void. At the same time, he began to lightly tap the arena with his talon, each tap causing the entire stage to tremble slightly as his golden eyes began to blaze with increasing intensity...

Being ’glared’ at by Vahn, Shirou was feeling more pressure than anyone else in the room. Even he was starting to wonder what was taking so long. He assumed the delay had something to do with Sigurd’s condition, as Brynhildr would have undoubtedly made a scene, but it shouldn’t have taken this long. If the next person didn’t show up soon, he, or Hou Yi, would have to enter into the arena a little earlier than expected.

Fortunately, just as the tensions seemed to reach a dangerous level, a fluctuation occurred near the teleportation ward. Vahn sensed this before anyone else, causing him to turn his head out of curiosity. When he saw who appeared, however, his face formed the closest thing to a deadpan expression that a Dragon could manage, the vibrance of his eyes dimming slightly as he internally remarked, ("This is going to be a long day...")

Appearing atop the viewing platform was a ’woman’ with vibrant red hair that seemed to flow away from her scalp like flames, ending in a ponytail. Unlike a normal human, she also had hair growing from the sides of her face, giving her a monkey-like appearance, similar to a macaque. Her expression was perpetually fixed in a confident grin, set with two relatively bush eyebrows that, much like her hair, seemed reminiscent of flames above her ruby-red eyes.

Though the woman wasn’t a heaven-sent beauty, she was still relatively attractive, especially with her fit and shapely figure. She wore a sarashi-style wrap to cover her relatively buxom chest, and, though she had a golden chainmail shirt, it hung loosely from her left shoulder, leaving the right side exposed. To complete her outfit, she had a golden band around her head, set with phoenix plumes, red ’kung-fu’ trousers, black feet wraps that were patterned like storm clouds, and, most notably, an ornate red and gold staff...

While the woman’s appearance was rather ’unique’, what really stood out was the fact that her arms and legs were covered in rust-red fur. Though this could be mistaken as part of her clothes, closer inspection would reveal that the covering was, in fact, part of her body. What made this most apparent was the relatively thick, monkey-like, tail that was often wrapped around her waist like a belt...

As Vahn was lamentin his fortune, the monkey-like woman stood on the edge of the balcony, a toothy grin spreading across her face as she mused, "Wahaha, what’s this, what’s this? What a strange-looking lizard. I wonder, is your asshole also gilded with gold~?"

With the same ’deadpan’ expression as before, Vahn released an annoyed sigh before rising to his full height and saying, "Still pretending to be a woman, you damn ape...?"

Seemingly finding Vahn’s words quite funny, the monkey-like woman began to snicker and cackle, kicking and rolling in the air as if gravity had no bearing on them. Then, as if realizing exactly what Vahn had said, the froze in mid-air before flipping onto their feet and shouting, "I’m not an ape! You’re an ape! Your entire family is a group of apes! I’m a proud monkey! See this majestic tail!? How many apes do you know that have tails, huh? Are you some kind of lizard-brained idiot!?"

Snorting through his nostrils with enough force to create a small shockwave, Vahn rolled his eyes and asked, "How long are you going to continue stalling? Don’t tell me the Great Sage Equal to Heaven is afraid...?"

Almost immediately after the last syllable escaped his maw, Vahn felt a mild destructive pulse pass through his body as the monkey-like woman’s staff slammed into the spatial membrane that protected him. She seemed to have taken offense to his accusation, her eyes blazing like flames as she shouted, "I even bullied that Jade Emperor brat. Do you think I, Sun Wukong, am afraid of some shiny asshole who cowers behind a wall!?"

Following her initial attack, Wukong brandished her [Ruyi Jingu Bang] a second time, leaping back as the staff grew to more than ten meters in length, and three across, smashing into the spatial membrane with tremendous force. It was a weapon that weighed 7,960kg by default, but, based on Wukong’s intentions, it could increase to 81,000,000kg in an instant, growing to more than 150m in the process.

Needless to say, Wukong was a physical powerhouse, and, though she had no understanding of things like Space and Time, it didn’t matter. By simply ’wanting’ to deal damage, she was able to ignore most defenses and obstacles, the result of their Divinity and an irrational understanding of ’Strength’ Laws. This was one of the reasons Vahn didn’t like fighting her, as, not only did she talk a lot of crap, but all of her attacks actually caused him a considerable amount of pain...

Though his spatial membrane was still holding up, Vahn wasn’t going to just remain idle as the enraged monkey continued beating on him. His body radiated an intense light, enough to blind most people, as he spun around, smashing his tail into Wukong as she attempted a third strike. This sent her flying like a meteor, crashing into the wall and causing a small cave-in when one of the viewing platforms collapsed.

Wukong’s [Golden Chainmail Shirt] actually made her invulnerable to most attacks, but, with his Source Energy, Vahn could still hit through her defenses. This meant they both had the means to deal significant damage to the other party, but, in his transformed state, Vahn had a significant advantage over her. Unfortunately, Wukong actually had several other forms of immortality, so, even if she could be beaten down, she bounced back even faster than Heracles...

Proving Vahn’s point, Wukong burst forth from the rubble, steam flowing from various wounds on her body as her blood seemed to simply evaporate. Then, in a somewhat feral tone of voice, she shouted, "Suck on this, ya shiny cunt...!" before increasing the size of [Ruyi Jingu Bang] enough to block his vision.

Though his spatial membrane held up, Wukong’s attack caused fractures to spread more than a hundred meters, shattering part of the arena and causing the surrounding space to tremble. Vahn was also given a considerable migraine, vanishing just as quickly as it had set in. Then, resisting the resonating shockwave generated by the pillar-like staff, golden light ran from his abdomen to his throat before culminating into a soul-shaking roar.

Wukong had a ferocious grin on her face while attacking, but, seeing the golden light erupt from Vahn’s maw, her confidence quickly receded as she muttered, "Oh, fu-"

Before she could finish her expletive, Wukong’s body was bathed in golden light, its radiance so bright that even shadows seemed to be erased from existence. Fortunately, Vahn had constrained the beam somewhat, preventing it from causing too much destruction as it tore through hundreds of meters of stone, piercing through the Forbidden City and continuing even beyond the planet’s atmosphere...

Though Wukong was relatively fast, she didn’t have the ability to dodge attacks that, according to Da Vinci’s calculations, were roughly 73% the speed of light. This was actually the ’slowest’ Vahn could make the attack go, as, when he went ’all-out’, it was impossible to quantify just how fast his Dragon’s Breath was able to travel. It could even strike entities that existed beyond the Time Axis, so, theoretically, it could travel from one side of the Universe to the other before a photon could cover a single attometer.

By the time he closed his maw, a perfectly cylindrical hole had been carved at a roughly thirty-degree angle in the ceiling. As for Wukong, she was nowhere to be seen, but, while others might be worried for her safety, Vahn lazily eyed the hole her body had created previously, asking, "Do you really think you can hide from my senses, little monkey?"

At a glance, the hole seemed to be completely empty, but, if you were to look very closely, it was possible to spot a few strands of fine red hair. In response to Vahn’s words, these hairs began to slowly levitate, before, moments later, erupting into plumes of white smoke. By the time it cleared away, there were a total of twenty-three Wukongs littering one side of the increasingly destroyed arena, each with cheeky, taunting, smiles.

Snorting through his nose, Vahn spread his wings wide as he asked, "They say that ten million ants can even topple an elephant. Is that what you had in mind...?"

Hearing Vahn’s words, each of the Wukong’s furrowed their brows, chorusing, "Are you trying to say we are just ants? If so, you’re one deformed elephant. Is that why you cover yourself in gold?"

Rather than dignify Wukong’s remark with a verbal response, dozens of magic circles began to emerge on the interior of Vahn’s wings. This was one of the benefits of being a True Dragon, as, while he could certainly emulate the feat in his ’human’ form, Dragons were simply ’wired’ to be able to spam Magic. He still struggled with manifesting it outside of his body in a cost-effective manner, but, if it was just serving as a glorified artillery platform, that wasn’t too difficult...

Further enhancing the power of his attack, Vahn chanted, "Gather, 101 spirits of light, shoot at the enemy. Magic Archer, Convergence of 101 Light Arrows!"

Following Vahn’s chant, 101 beams of pure white light erupted from his wings, each, despite their name, only moving around Mach 10, roughly 12,000km/h. This allowed agile opponents to easily evade a few, but, when there were more than a hundred, things became marginally more difficult.

As each of her ’clones’ was able to think and act on their own, the horde of Wukong’s each took evasive action to try and evade the magical barrage. Their [Golden Chainmail Vest] would have been able to protect them from most magical attacks, but, after having fought against Vahn in the past, Wukong knew it wasn’t exactly wise to tank his attacks. She wasn’t too fond of pain, so, while she would heal from almost any injury, avoiding damage was preferred, rather than taking it...

Of the twenty-three clones, nineteen were pinned down by the unforgiving barrage of magical arrows, each able to bend at nearly ninety-degree angles in order to home in on their target. This allowed Vahn to seemingly ’blink’ through Space in an instant, appearing like a burst of golden light as he snatched the suppressed Wukong’s with his claws, ripping them to pieces or crushing their bodies in an instant. His Strength had long reached the EX-Rank, so, if he managed to get his hands on something, no amount of conventional resistances could save them.

Fortunately, due to the nature of Wukong’s clones, there was no blood and gore. Rather, when he destroyed them, they shattered into small stone fragments, almost as if they were nothing more than statuettes. This was due to the fact that Wukong was originally a ’Stone Monkey’, born from a magic stone that was cast off the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. Their true nature was closer to a Divine Spirit than anything else, albeit one that had established itself, for a time, as a ’demon’...

By the time his ’rampage’ had ended, Vahn had dealt with all but one of the Wukong’s, making it the ’original’ by proxy. She had the ability to produce upwards of a hundred clones by shedding her fur, but, in exchange, her power was equally divided amongst each of them. She also only had a single [Ruyi Jingu Bang], so, while her other armaments could mysteriously be copied, it wasn’t too difficult to discern who the ’real’ Wukong was.

After watching Vahn destroy her other bodies, Wukong showed an ’impressed’ expression on her face as she shouldered her staff and mused, "Wow, quite brutal, aren’t ya? I’m starting to think we have some enmity between us. I wonder...did my comment about your shiny asshole make you a little butthurt? Wahahaha~!"

Feeling his eye twitch slightly, Vahn began to slowly ascend into the sky as he muttered, "I should have just summoned Sanzang...I suppose this is what I ought to have expected when I summoned a Trickster God with more muscle than brains..."

Seemingly finding Vahn’s comment amusing, Wukong began to laugh as she brandished her staff and said, "Hey now, there is no reason for remarks like that. I already became a woman. Shouldn’t you be a little more grateful? That monk wore her britches so tight she probably had to spend an hour each night just removing the stains. Don’t compare me to her. Aren’t we having fun?"

Rolling his eyes, Vahn remarked, "Fighting against you is enjoyable, but hearing your voice is the stuff of nightmares. If you’re going to change your appearance into a woman, the least you can do is change your voice as well. Do you know how weird it is to hear your gravelly voice when your body is like that?"

Hearing Vahn’s remark, Wukong began laughing uninhibitedly, her voice deep and resonating, a harsh contrast to her appearance. The whole reason she adopted her current form was to mess with Vahn, so, hearing him complain, she felt both amused and vindicated. Unfortunately, due to how costly her Skills and abilities were, she was already beginning to run low on Mana. Her only method to extend the fight was to use her Reality Marble, but, after what happened the last time, doing so provided more benefits to Vahn than herself...

Despite being considered a relatively famous ’idiot’, Wukong was also a notorious trickster. She had even fooled some of the ’wisest’ Gods and Goddesses in the Nine Heavens, so, despite her laughter, her mind was actually mulling over various solutions. By the time it seemed like Vahn was going to attack, she had regained her confident smile, enjoying the look on his face as she said, "Well, I guess that was enough for a warm-up. I never got to state my condition, so none of this counts. Seriously, weren’t you trying a little too hard? The fight hasn’t even started...!"

(A/N: Alternate Titles: ’You’ve gotta be kidding me...’,’Vahn is kind of OP...?’,’This fella really knows how to monkey around xD...’)