Cast Out (Book 1 Done; Book 2 In-Progress)

Chapter 3: Part 1

In The Boundary Forest

            Zhang POV

"Zhang, look out!"

Something pierced through the air, going so fast that it barely left me any time to raise my shield. Lucky for me, it was headed there already.

A loud THUD rang out as the thing crashed into my shield.

"DAMMIT!! I hate these annoying monkeys!"

We were already in the first outer layer of the forest, which also happened to be the part I hated the most.

Monkeys were up in the branches of the trees, surrounding us and making sure we couldn't go anywhere. I'd left my [Observe] skill on as soon as we entered the forest. There were only a few of the monkeys visible, the rest were too high up. What I saw would've been more than enough to scare normal people back in the real world.

These obviously weren't normal monkeys. How could they be? They might've only been the first guardians you would've had to get past if you wanted to travel between the territories, but they were still Boundary Forest Guardians.

Their arms were long and slender, and the hair on their bodies were the color of camouflage which made it easier for them to sneak around in the trees or on the ground. They stood to be 6ft tall, with strong, flexible tails were half their height.

I didn't hate them because they were sneaky though. If it was just that, then things would have gone a lot smoother. Any monkey that came and fought with brute strength, I could've kept at bay. Any of them that tried to sneak up on us would have had to deal with Alexa, who would've been able to block most of their attacks and give me enough time to take them on, but they didn't do either of those things.

They did something much worse.

"Incoming!" Alexa warned. The monkeys on our left had targeted Misa!

I quickly shifted her behind me, and I tried to angle my shield so that the attacks would slide off instead of taking it head on.

I deflected the first attack away from us, with a SCREEEECH! as it grinded against my shield before flying off.

I wasn't as lucky with the 2nd. With a THUD!! it caught my shield dead-on, leaving a dent. 'Ah crud, it better not be what I think it is!'

It exploded with a BOOOOM!!! Leaving the rest of the fragments to land on the ground with a Plop, plop, plop.

A foul stench wafted up to my nose after the last attack. I swept my eyes over my shield and what I saw didn't just make me angry. It made me FURIOUS!

Blasted into my shield were the remains of the monkeys' attacks.

Brown, smelly pieces.

"AAA, AAA, AAA!" The monkeys jumped up and down on the branches, laughing and pointing at what they'd done as if it were the funniest thing in the world. Above their heads were blue boxes that only people that [Observe]'d could see.

IRON-SH*T MONKEY: 1ST GUARDIAN OF THE BOUNDARIES

LVL: 50

KNOWN ATTACKS: