Chương 147: Chapter 3-146 – More Monkey Love

I couldn't bring Flowing Silver High Emperor here, of course. The Nine-Tailed Silver Fox was far too powerful to pass the Portal successfully. At most, He'd get a paw through before it broke. That said, He had instantly recognized the Summoning Magic and who Cast it, and had allowed it to manifest.

The Monkeys could all see Him towering over a view of a mountain valley, the primal Mana of the Beast Realm glowing on every tree and rock, ruler of all He surveyed, a High Emperor of Beasts, looking over His magnificent Domain.

"Healer Fae," the almighty Voice of the Emperor rumbled through the air and our minds, only a little lessened by having a dimension in the way.

"Come. Look upon the Realm of Beasts, little Monkeys. A rare gift she gives you." Barely able to hoot, the Monkeys nevertheless were instantly on their feet, scrambling over and atop one another, soon stacked three and four high as they looked in awe out onto the Realm of Beasts.

"Before you was a blighted land, heavy with cursed Shadow and the touch of the dead." The image before them wavered into the ancient, shadow-painted landscape that had existed there before I arrived, and the Monkeys all hummed and groaned in pain at the sight, rocking back and forth.

"It was burned to whiteness, and this has grown in its place, all thanks to the white fire she brought us." He took control of the magic, and zipped the view across a hundred miles in a rush of motion. It was easy to see where He was going, as a great column of Light rose into the air to mark it. White vivus poured down the sides of the Pyramid, now cut up by flows of vines, grass, and flowers that had grown over its sides, somehow making it seem even lighter as it floated there above a sea of mistfire.

The signal column that guided the many Beasts in the area there to be Healed rose into the sky, a beacon to those who needed succor, even in the Realm of Beasts.

"The little Human helped heal the entire Realm of Beasts, and those who fought the Shadow here. If you doubt her, you doubt Me, and all the other Emperors whose territory she returned to Us and to the Lord of All Beasts." I didn't have to see them shudder to realize how dangerous those words could be to Beasts.

"You have been seen, King Dorado of the Monkeys. Beware the Shadows, they bring nothing but death." The Portal broke apart smoothly, and the hypnotic view of the Beast Realm, every plant and animal there more magnificent than they could possibly be on the Mortal Plane, faded from sight before us. The Monkeys all trembled and sighed. Many were sniffling and hooting softly, even as they remained stacked and balanced on top of one another. Even their King had three of his Guard standing on top of him!

Yet he hadn't lost his hold on his Stick, and he pounded the ground with it once.

"Flowing Silver High Emperor has seen the Monkeys of Dorado!" he howled out, and like that, the mood of the Monkeys changed to utmost jubilation. In the blink of an eye, they were jumping and capering everywhere, showing their glee and ecstasy at being acknowledged by a High Emperor of Beasts!

I kind of leaned back against Reynard, and was joined by Sama as we watched the pandemonium of wildly celebratory Monkeys bouncing around in seeming non-control, but none of them were running into one another, at least not without joining arms and dancing in circles when they did so.

"A High Emperor of Beasts really does know your name, Fae," Sama mused, shaking her head.

"That is... an incredibly high status among Beasts, you know."

"Maaaaybe I earned it, just a little bit?" I hazarded to nobody. Sama promptly reached over, grabbed me, and noogied my head.

"Is someone getting uppity, now that she's truly famous on an interplanetary level?" she asked, grinding in her knuckles a bit.

"Ohhh, a jealous Hag! That's never happened before!" My punishment was promptly to get noogied harder.

There were Monkeys in the Beast Realm, so I wasn't unfamiliar with them and their antics. Whatever, hanging with Briggs and Sama seemed to have done something for them. Sama had no problems eating raw meat, treating it as no different from seafood. I wasn't quite so blessed, and I didn't want to cook the stuff and offend the Monkeys, but they were considerate and just plied me with fruit, sweet bugs, honey, and a dazzling array of nectars.

Sama had also introduced them to the idea of spices, and there was a solemn class of Monkey cooks who were very serious about taste, presentation, and variety, and they even had favorite dishes and recipes for King Dorado and his court. Of course, they were Monkeys, so the place was an absolute din. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

They somehow worked out a ranking system to request spiritual healing from me, and I complied in between some of the best goddamn berries I'd had since the Beast Realm. As expected from Tribes near a source of Shadow, spiritual injuries were not all that uncommon among the tougher Monkeys. Lesser Monkeys just died from the attacks, of course. Humanity was considered to belong to the Monkey Tribes, not the Apes.

The big difference was that nobler Monkeys tended to be somewhat smarter than the Apes, but didn't grow as large. King Dorado was close to the upper limit of what Monkeys could become at nearly twelve feet tall standing up, and would still be towered over by any Warrior-Class true Ape, barely of a size with some of the Servants of the stronger Ape Races. The Ape Rulers and Emperors could be the size of King Kong, of course...

Humans never grew in size, and definitely not much in strength, but our magical prowess and intelligence outranked any of the other Monkey species. We didn't follow true Beast progression in gaining strength at all, so we were like the odd duck of the Monkey Tribes. The fact true Monkeys could just pull apart most Humans didn't help, of course.

Nevertheless, with our ability to live in virtually any terrain, make tools, and wield magic no other Primates could imitate, we had spread far, far further than any other Primate species, and lands that knew no other Primates often had Humans living there, somehow. King Dorado was quite familiar with Humans, although he had never been a Contracted Beast. The golden Monkey Kings were quite smart, which was how he'd made friends with Briggs and Sama in the first place, delighted they could understand his people...

and that they were killing Night Weavers. Reynard was having a great time. Six Monkeys were grooming his silky fur, and he had a whole court listening to his tales of the Beast Realm and some of the tricks he'd pulled there, Monkeys hooting and jeering at his antics and giving him new things to try to eat.

The sixteenth Monkey with chronic spiritual injuries was Restored under my hand as I mentioned to Sama, who was getting involved in some sort of philosophical discussion on just how tipsy certain nectar mixtures could make someone, "Hey, Sama, I know it's orthodox in prep for spear, but are you going to teach the Monkeys Oak and Willow, in addition to Imperial Sun stickwork?" Sama left off her critique of some fantastic combo of flowers, nectar, honey, and fruit in a bowl, and frowned.

"This is going to sound bad, but I don't actually know Oak and Willow. My stickwork all comes from the Sun and Fire side of things." I blinked.

"Oh." I had literally had no idea. I was too used to thinking of Sama as good at pretty much all the basic weapon styles.

"Ho, what is this 'Oak and Willow'?" King Dorado asked curiously.

"Staves up!" I shouted, Noble flashing to my hand and pounding once on the ground. There was an explosion of movement, and in less than five seconds the whole cluster of Monkeys was wielding their Sticks and thumping the ground solemnly with me.

"Spears out!" I snapped my fingers, pressed a stud on all those tetsubos, and every Monkey there let out a shriek of surprise at the same time as the Spear-head shot out of the tip of their big Sticks. Sama just smirked, and watched as the Monkeys gingerly brought their Sticks down, poking at the Spear-heads gingerly, cutting themselves a bit, and yakking at one another. Nope, they'd had no idea their Sticks could do that.

I had the appropriate stud glow, pressed it again, and with simultaneous clicks, all the Spears retracted into the top of their Sticks, totally unseen. They naturally examined the top of the Sticks, tapping on them and trying to see the points, and then carefully pushed that stud again. The Spears clicked out again, and the Monkeys all hooted and yowled and got all excited. I lifted Noble, brought it down.

Thump, Thump, Thump, they all joined me quickly and solemnly, interrupting whatever they were doing, silence and discipline falling down again. I exposed Noble's long and elegant point, more like a needle than a proper Spear.

"Sama taught you a style called Imperial Sun. It encompasses the basics of Staff and Spear. She hasn't taught you the Spear style yet, probably because it is a very different style of fighting than you all are used to. We good for a moment on the healing?" I looked around, got a couple hoots, and King Dorado waved his hand.

"Okay, let's give you a demonstration of the Spear styles. Sama?" She grinned, hopping to her feet, and Tremble morphed into a gleaming, adamantine-tipped real Spear, chiming readiness.

"Watch closely how different this is than normal Stick fighting, and yet, everything of the Stick is in the Spear," I told them, sliding over to a place opposite Sama.

Sama was just hands-down better than me on all fundamentals, and even had the Rising Sun Style Feat at V, which was just crazy. But, we weren't trying to beat on one another, we were showing the uses of Spears to the Monkeys, who watched with crazy and absolutely silent intensity as we went back and forth across the rough floor. The Imperial Sun spearwork tended to be very linear, while the stickwork was more circular, as might be expected.

The flashing thrusts, knocking parries, and complex interplay of the fast-striking heads mesmerized the Monkeys as we slid back and forth, the basic lunges of the Stick style becoming deadly repeated snake-fast thrusts with a Spear. It was hard for the Monkeys to follow it, as that kind of linear thinking was pretty alien to them. Nevertheless, they had very considerate gazes of the sharp metal on the ends of their Sticks when we finished up. Naturally, with a throwing competition.

Sama could spit a fruit a hundred feet away with a toss every time, amazing and delighting the Monkeys, who all had good throwing arms... for rocks and fruit. There were a few rounds of very ineffectual monkey spear-tossing before I started thumping the floor again, and they all hooted and zipped over to retrieve their Sticks before I took up my place opposite Sama again.

"Okay, I'm now going to show you some Oak and Willow Staffwork." I had to smile at them.

"I think you are really going to like this stuff."

And they did. Oak and Willow was ALL Stick forms, both bo and jo-type forms. The big difference from Imperial Sun and Fire Dragon forms was it was totally about stickwork, not styles applicable to weapons, and it had no boundaries. If you could use a stick in some way, Oak and Willow acknowledged it and incorporated it. Doing a vertical handstand and splits off the top of your Staff in the middle of a fight so you could tight-roll into a two-handed power smash? Sure.

Bouncing your stick off your foot for a faster rebound? Sure, why not? Baton-twirling it at buzzsaw speed for a really nasty multi-angular attack potential? Of course! Pushing off walls, vaulting in mid-fight, advanced tripping and feinting techniques, dominant hand switching, back passes, dual ends, one-handing parries? Sure, sure! Everything was good!