Speed Is King

STAB.

An ethereal sword pierced through the side of his chest, narrowly missing his heart!

GRAAHHHHH!

Wu Kong let out a roar of pain!

He immediately punched out at Hila. But Hila had retreated as soon as her sword pierced Wu Kong. Her mission was accomplished and she was content to retreat to let her poison do its work.

The spot where Hila’s sword pierced Wu Kong immediately turned an ugly black as Hila’s poison attacked Wu Kong’s lungs.

Hila’s lips began to curl slowly into a smirk. “This battle is over. If the Beast Masters don’t declare this my victory anytime soon, the poor monkey would probably die.” She thought to herself.

However, before her lips could finish its curl to form a complete smirk, they froze.

The black spot on Wu Kong’s chest which was expanding rapidly, had now reversed its course and started to disappear. In fact, it was disappearing at a much faster rate than it was expanding earlier.

Within a split second, the black spot was gone.

Hila stared at Wu Kong’s enraged expression with a dumbfounded one of her own.

“What the heck happened?”

But there was no time for her to dwell on the questions that were bursting through her mind.

The wound she had inflicted on Wu Kong had completely driven him nuts.

Wu Kong raised his rod up high as before, but this time, he held nothing back in reserve.

As he did that, a loud and ominous CRACK! Could be heard as a horrifying deluge of mysterious energy came rushing out of Wu Kong!

The energy was filled to the brim with a cold and unfeeling sensation that seemed to disdain everything. And not just simple disdain. It was a disdain that contained a deep and unfathomable killing intent that evoked the most fundamental sense of horror in all of them.

It was like the energy was formed with a single purpose, and that was to eradicate life!

In that instant, Aunt Hillary and El’Taras knew that if that energy were to be allowed to impact Hila, she would be erased from existence without a single doubt.

Aunt Hillary immediately pointed at Wu Kong and unleashed her Hegemon aura! And not just that, a rush of energy, much heavier and much more powerful than Wu Kong exploded from her towards Wu Kong!

Her energy was calm, gentle, but completely relentless. It surrounded Wu Kong and attempted to freeze his movements completely before he could kill Hila.

But in a turn of events that completely stunned all the veterans, Wu Kong’s rod continued on its path and smashed apart the initial surge of energy coming from Aunt Hillary!

It was only until Aunt Hillary stopped holding back and unleashed her full power that Wu Kong was thrown backwards towards Elliot once more.

Elliot caught Wu Kong, and immediately got him to dispel his Feral Judgement transformation.

He too had felt the tremendous and mysterious power that Wu Kong had wielded earlier, and had determined that it would be fatal to Hila as well.

He wanted to dismiss Wu Kong to save Hila’s life, but Aunt Hillary had beaten him to the punch.

Of course she did. She was a Hegemon and had identified Wu Kong’s lethality far earlier than Elliot had.

“Go back, Wu Kong. You’ve done well.” Elliot said. “Go back, all of you. Unless I’m reading the mood wrongly, this friendly spar is over.”

“Yes Master.” Wu Kong had released his Feral Judgement transformation and was back in his normal form.

The wound he had received from Hila earlier had also miraculously disappeared!

There were definitely questions that Elliot had to answer, and he didn’t need his Apostles around for that.

With a swirl of energy, Elliot dismissed his Beast Apostles. Across him, Monkey King did the same as well.

All of Monkey King’s Beast Apostles, except Hila disappeared. Although she was Monkey King’s Beast Apostle, she was completely out of his chain of command. She could do whatever she wanted, and that was part of her deal with Monkey King.

At that moment, she stood at Monkey King’s side with a troubled but also amused look on her face.

In all her long years, she had never come so close to death before. The experience was a fearful but at the same time, highly refreshing one. And she wanted to know more about the person who commanded such a powerful Apostle that could threaten her life so.

“Well well. I wonder what that was?” Came a friendly voice which they all identified as El’Taras’, the Chairman of the Gaming Commission.

“Indeed. I am very curious as to what sort of power allows a mere King to resist my powers to such an incredible extent, to the point where I have to unleash my full power to stop him? If he manages to break into Emperor level with such strength, I doubt that I would be able to stop him then!” Aunt Hillary said half jokingly, half seriously.

In truth, she completely had no idea if she would be able to stop Wu Kong once he got to Emperor level!

“My good lady, Hillary Sands. It is good to meet you once more. I apologize for not being able to greet you in person.” El’Taras greeted Aunt Hillary politely.

“Chairman El’Taras. It is my honor to be able to… communicate with you once more.” Aunt Hillary curtsied lightly.

Both were powerhouses in their own right, and decorum had to be maintained.

“The honor is all mine.” El’Taras replied.

“Now then, Elliot my boy, I don’t mean to be rude on our first meeting, but pry, I must. Please tell me what happened earlier.” Chairman El’Taras said politely.

But for all his courtesy, Elliot was no fool to believe that his request was anything but.

It was a demand for information.

Or worse.

Afterall, there are many fates worse than death.