Kei stood his ground, wind swirling around him, his muscles taut, his breath coming in sharp, controlled bursts. Across from him, perched atop a broken branch, the Zephyr Chitter Monkey loomed, its eyes narrowing—analyzing, calculating.
It had underestimated him once.
It wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Neither would Kei.
This was a fight against time. He could feel it—the subtle shifts in his body, the rapid growth of his Breeze Force, his connection to Aether deepening with every clash, every movement, every breath.
But it was too much, too fast.
His body wasn’t built for this yet.
And the Zephyr Monkey knew it.
It exhaled slowly, and for a brief moment, the wind stilled.
Then—
It vanished.
Kei moved on instinct. His body already shifting. The air rippled to his right—a feint. The real attack would come from—
THERE!
His arm shot up to block—
BOOM!
A spinning back kick collided with his forearm, sending a jolt of force through his bones. The impact sent him sliding backward, his heels digging trenches into the dirt.
The Zephyr Monkey didn’t relent.
Before Kei could even stabilize, a blur of blue fur and wind closed the distance.
A flurry of strikes.
Palm. Fist. Elbow. Knee.
Each motion flowed seamlessly into the next—a hurricane of lethal precision.
Kei’s instincts screamed, his Breeze Force blaring warnings from all directions. He twisted his body, barely dodging a palm strike. Another strike came—he ducked. But—
WHAM!
A knee drove into his ribs.
CRACK!
A palm strike crushed into his chest, sending him reeling.
The world spun.
Kei clenched his teeth, forcing his body to react. With a desperate swing, he lashed out with his Jagged Bone Club, aiming for the Zephyr Monkey’s side.
But the monkey didn’t just dodge.
It folded into the wind.
The moment Kei’s attack passed through empty space, the Zephyr Monkey reappeared—above him.
Leg raised.
Kei’s eyes widened.
Axe kick incoming.
MOVE.
His Breeze Force responded, a sudden gust exploding beneath him, launching him sideways—just barely avoiding the meteor-like stomp that cratered the ground beneath him.
But—
The Zephyr Monkey was already in motion again.
As Kei evaded, the monkey twisted mid-air, using the momentum from its missed attack to redirect its body—
A spinning heel kick.
Kei saw it too late.
BAM.
The impact snapped his head sideways.
His body was hurled across the battlefield, dirt and debris scattering in his wake. Blood dripped from his lips, his vision swimming, yet his instincts forced him to move.
He couldn’t afford to stop.
Not now.
His hands clawed at the ground, forcing himself upright. His arms trembled, but his mind burned.
His will burned, a orange falme beginning to burn in his eyes
An unwilling determination to learn and dominate
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He felt it.
Every movement. Every shift in air pressure.
The way the Zephyr Monkey moved with the wind, not against it.
He had spent his entire life observing.
And now—
His instincts were beginning to understand.
His intelligence stat—finally breaking free from the restraints of the system—announced itself to the world.
For the first time, Kei felt the limits placed upon him shatter.
Whoosh.
A subtle step to the side—just enough to miss the oncoming furred kick by a hair’s breadth.
In that instant, the battle transformed.
The fight was no longer just between two bodies, two forces clashing in combat.
It was a tug-of-war.
For control over the wind.
For dominance over Aether itself.
And the Zephyr Monkey was on the losing side.
It felt it—the shift in control, the unnatural way the wind started to resist its command. The very element it had mastered, the force it had bent to its will, was slipping away.
Every movement Kei made, the wind whispered its approval.
Every shift in pressure, every flicker in the air—the wind tattled.
Snitching on the Zephyr Monkey’s every attack.
And Kei listened.
[Force Progression: 20% → 35%]
Aether pulsed around him, raw and eager. It surged towards him, responding with an almost childlike enthusiasm, thrilled to finally have his attention.
The Zephyr Monkey felt the difference.
Its seamless strikes, once undodgeable, now struggled to land.
Kei wasn’t just dodging—he was reading ahead.
A preemptive sidestep. A slight shift in weight. A well-timed sway of the shoulders.
Not flashy. Not wild.
And when an opening presented itself—
Kei struck.
WHAM.
The Jagged Bone Club lashed out mid-combo, smashing toward the Zephyr Monkey. It managed to weave through the attack—but something was different.
Again.
Kei swung. Aether pulsed from his grip.
The club hummed with an unnatural weight—its presence in the air heavier than before.
The Zephyr Monkey’s eyes narrowed.
Every strike Kei delivered, his control over Aether tightened.
Slowly.
He was infusing.
The Jagged Bone Club shuddered, its surface crackling with energy, veins of deep orange light bleeding through the weapon’s surface.
Suffused with Aether.
Reinforced.
A shift in battle was happening.
The Zephyr Monkey knew it.
Knowing that things were rapidly taking a turn for the worse, the Zephyr Monkey hurriedly retreated, pulling the wind around itself, desperate to maintain what little control over Aether it still had.
But Kei sensed the shift.
This was different.
The way the Zephyr Monkey folded itself into the wind’s currents, the circulation of Aether, the manipulation of flow—it all clicked.
His intelligence stat, now unbound from the system’s restraints, burned through the calculations at inhuman speed. Every movement, every adjustment, every subtle command the monkey used to meld into the wind was processed and absorbed within seconds.
Then—
Kei disappeared.
He folded into the currents, chasing after his enemy.
[Status Screen]
[Name]: Kei Yuichi
[Title]: He Who Denies Fate, Hidden Title (Yet to be accepted)
[Class]: Locked
[Force Alignment]: Breeze
[Level]: 0
[HP]: 7/15
[Aether]: 10/50
Attributes:
- Strength: 11
- Dexterity: 7
- Agility: 10 → 13
- Constitution: 7 → 10
- Intelligence: 10 → ??? (Temporary)
- Will: ????
- Charisma: 10
[Remaining Stat Points]: 0 + 3 (rewarded for gaining a hidden title)
[Force Progression]: 35%
[Equipment]:
- Beginner Sword (Broken) [Uncommon]
- Tattered Cloth Hood [Uncommon]
- Jagged Bone Club [Uncommon] (Destroyed)
The Zephyr Monkey reappeared mid-air, its arm cocked back, body twisting in perfect synchronization with the wind. It launched forward, the force of its movement distorting the air itself, a razor-like storm funnel forming around its extended fist.
Below, the Fangcub still struggled, its body wracked with violent tremors.
The Zephyr-blessed Ginger coursed through its veins, raw, untamed power flooding every cell. It had tried to help Kei throughout the fight, tried to move, tried to fight—but its body refused to listen.
It could feel it.
The Aether in the environment was aiding it.
The same familiar feeling it had sensed when it bit Kei before.
Something in Kei’s Aether was resonating with its own, pulling the surrounding energy into itself, forcefully speeding up the assimilation process.
But it was still defenseless.
And the Zephyr Monkey knew it.
It dived.
Kei reacted.
Folding into the wind, Kei appeared before the Fangcub, his club held out in a desperate attempt to intercept the blow.
CRACK.
The Jagged Bone Club shattered.
Splinters flew through the air as the sheer force of the monkey’s strike obliterated the weapon on impact. The shock traveled through Kei’s arms, his bones rattling from the sheer power behind the attack.
But Kei’s mind wasn’t on the broken weapon.
His eyes burned, locked onto the Fangcub.
It was still struggling—still fighting against the rampant energy inside it.
Kei felt it—the Aether in the air, shifting, bending, waiting.
His last command—no, his last plea—
“Help it. Help it now.”
His Will surged, blazing, no longer restrained, no longer bound by the system.
The Aether responded.
It rushed toward the Fangcub, pouring into its body, forcing the energy inside it to settle.
Then—
The Fangcub’s eyes snapped open.
And the Zephyr Monkey’s fist was still coming.
You already know how this ends.
BOOM.
Kei's body twisted unnaturally through the air, sent hurtling like a ragdoll.
A moment later—
CRASH.
He struck a tree, the trunk splintering on impact before his momentum tore him free, flinging him through the air once more.
WHAM.
The rocky face of a mountain greeted him next, the impact forcing the air from his lungs as the stone cracked beneath the force.
Then—another hit. No moment to fall, no time to breathe—his body was wrenched from the rock and slammed downward.
BOOM.
The earth buckled. Soil blasted into the air. Trees snapped in half from the sheer force of his landing.
It should have ended there.
It didn’t.
The instant he hit the ground, a shadow loomed over him.
A hand gripped his skull, yanking him up like he weighed nothing.
Then—
BAM.
His face met the ground again.
Then again.
And again.
A relentless cycle of impact and agony, his blood painting the dirt beneath him as his vision flickered in and out of focus.
His body was too battered to resist—he wasn’t just being beaten; he was being toyed with.
Like a predator toying with its prey, enjoying the slow, drawn-out suffering before the inevitable end.
His head spun as he was lifted yet again—only this time, he wasn’t thrown.
This time, something pierced his abdomen.
He choked.
A thick, grotesque wetness spread down his torso, and it took a second for him to register—
He’d been impaled.
His body spasmed involuntarily, pain blooming from the wound like wildfire. His breath hitched, but no sound escaped his lips. He didn’t even have the strength to scream.
He should have been dead by now.
He wasn’t.
And somewhere in the distance—
The Fangcub howled.