Chapter 105 — The Cunning Monkey
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The first thing Elder Phenius felt was shock.
Someone had stopped him at the most crucial moment — after everything that had been planned, every preparation made, every guard posted — and someone had still gotten through.
His shock deepened when he saw who it was.
Socrates. The brother of Amelia. The poor broken boy that everyone had already assumed was dead — not only alive and standing here in flesh and blood, but seemingly in possession of something valuable. The gauntlets alone told that story.
Elder Phenius glanced at the moon. Then back at Socrates — who was staring at him with the kind of eyes that had already decided how this ended. His grip on the flashy sword at his side was tight enough to whiten the knuckles. If looks could kill, Elder Phenius would have died a million times in the last few seconds alone.
"Know your place, boy.."
The words came out wrapped in killing intent — and a crushing amount of pressure descended on Socrates simultaneously, slamming down from above like a ceiling collapsing.
Socrates was forced to his knees.
Almost.
"I refuse to kneel..." He cried out through his teeth, pushing back against the pressure with his sword raised between himself and the weight of it, his whole body shaking with the effort. His knee hovered just above the stone — close enough to almost be touching, but never touching.
Elder Phenius analyzed him with narrowed eyes. 'How is he withstanding my pressure? His meridians are still blocked.. What kind of treasure has this young man gotten his hands on?'
He pointed a hand at Socrates.
"SCRAM."
The word came out like a command to the world itself — and bubbles of water condensed instantly, gathering into a dense churning ball that launched itself at Socrates with the full output of a Master Cultivator behind it.
Socrates saw it coming. He couldn't move his sword under the pressure — couldn't raise it, couldn't pivot — and the attack swallowed him whole.
Before, when Socrates' physique was still at the Ocean Rank, an attack like that would have torn his foundation apart from the inside. But his body had been refined now — tempered and rebuilt — and instead of breaking, it held. The impact sent him crashing backward through the wall behind him, stone and dust exploding outward around him as he landed hard in the middle of the army that had already been on alert since his arrival.
At that same moment, six Foundation Establishment realm experts arrived from another direction — and stopped short when they saw the Ashur clan members. Both groups registering each other with the same sharp surprise.
Socrates bounced up from the rubble.
He felt the attack in his body — the unease of it settling through his system — but his vitality pushed back against it, keeping him looking strong and steady even surrounded on all sides by enemies. He stood in the middle of it all and the only thing his eyes were doing was searching for his sister.
Amelia was still on the altar. Still exposed. Still vulnerable.
"Fuck—" He launched himself toward her immediately — and three Foundation Establishment experts stepped directly into his path.
"Socrates, Son of Trueblood.. You have nowhere to go.." They said it almost together as they charged at him — coordinated, practiced — and Socrates found himself fighting with one eye on them and one eye fixed desperately on the altar behind them. He blocked. He dodged. Their attacks were overwhelming and his focus was split and he knew it and couldn't fix it.
Behind him, Elder Phenius was already moving.
He conjured a water blade — condensed and compressed into the hilt of a new dagger, the blade it formed blue and shining and precise — and directed it swiftly toward Amelia on the altar.
It hit the altar.
Only the altar.
Phenius squinted. His gaze moved left — and there she was. No longer on the stone surface but held in the arms of a silhouette that was most certainly not human. Ancient golden armor covered every part of the creature from head to toe — every part except the face.
Elder Phenius stared at the face.
"A golden ape?" He asked — genuinely, with the innocent curiosity of a man who simply wanted clarification.
The creature's expression crumbled.
Sun Wukong stood there holding Amelia with the face of someone who had just been informed of a terminal diagnosis — his eyes going glassy, his mouth working silently — before he gently set Amelia down in a safe corner and pressed the back of his paw slowly against his eyes.
"How far have I fallen..." He said quietly, to no one in particular. "No one recognizes me anymore."
He stood there for a moment. Then his face shifted — grief folding itself neatly away, something sharper and more deliberate replacing it. He raised one armored hand and pointed it directly at Phenius.
"You dared touch my Master's sister." His voice had changed entirely — steady now, carrying the weight of someone who had decided to be serious. "And now you've insulted my prestige. How do you intend to compensate for that?"
Meanwhile Socrates was trying to watch what was unfolding while simultaneously dealing with the three experts in front of him — and failing to give either his full attention. An energy arrow found the gap in his focus and punched into his side ribs. He grunted and kept moving, bleeding now, accumulating damage in the small ways that add up quietly until they don't.
Elder Phenius studied the Monkey King with the practiced eye of a man who had spent a lifetime evaluating assets.
'He called that kid his Master... What kind of treasure house did Socrates rob to acquire something like this... I'll take it for myself.'
"Hey, Ape." Phenius said — keeping his voice measured, almost warm. "You clearly possess some intelligence. Why not become my subordinate instead? I promise to treat you well."
Sun Wukong's eyes lit up immediately.
"You'll treat me well?" He stepped forward, head tilting. "Does that mean you'll give me my freedom?"
The Elder nodded.
What happened next moved faster than anyone was prepared for. Sun Wukong rushed forward and dropped into a deep bow before Elder Phenius — once, twice, three times, four, five, six — pressing his forehead down with the practiced sincerity of someone who had done this many times before and meant it every single one of those times.
"Old master treats me terribly.. This subordinate greets his new master."
Elder Phenius watched him with visible satisfaction — and turned his eyes toward Socrates to see the reaction.
The Son of Trueblood had heard every word. The growl that came out of him was raw and loud — the sound of someone who had not expected betrayal from his own summon and hadn't had time to hide the fact that it hurt.
"Now then." Elder Phenius raised his hand — and bubbles of water rose around Amelia, wrapping her gently and pulling her up from the corner where she had been placed, drawing her back across the air toward him.
Then his mouth opened.
Not by choice.
He coughed — and what came out was blood. A significant amount of it, hitting the stone below him in dark drops. He looked down slowly.
A hand was in his chest.
A golden hand. Belonging to the creature who had just bowed before him six times.
"Apologies." Sun Wukong said simply, pulling his hand back out with the same calm he might use to retrieve something from a shelf. "But it seems I can't betray Master even when I want to."
He pushed Elder Phenius' body to the floor — and it stayed there.
Amelia dropped as the water around her dissolved, and Sun Wukong caught her before she hit the ground, setting her back down gently in the safe corner.
"Master—" he called out, turning toward the chaos. "The situation is under control. Your sister is safe with me. You can now fight to your heart's content."
Socrates was already moving before the sentence finished — bloodied, surrounded by nearly two dozen experts, most of them Foundation Establishment realm, the wounds on him telling the story of the last several minutes clearly. But something had changed in him the moment Amelia was safe. The desperation was gone.
What replaced it was different.
He appeared in front of the nearest Foundation Establishment expert in an instant — Bloodsucker coming down in one clean slash — the movement so sudden and so precise that even the Monkey King's eyes widened from across the space.
Sun Wukong stood beside Amelia and watched.
"Oh damn..." He murmured to himself, his golden eyes following every movement. "A banana in hand would have made this scene truly fantabulous."