Perhaps, if not for the gorilla's innate agility, its climbing speed through the jungle far exceeding that of most creatures, the injuries it sustained might have been even more catastrophic. Yet even battered and bloodied, this beast still embodied a terrifying presence. The night forest was merciless—a truth that applied not only to the ape-men but to any predator daring to step beyond its familiar domain.
A surge of fire roared skyward, flames licking the air with blistering heat. The gorilla halted, instinctively cautious, pounding its chest in defiance, unleashing a mighty, skyward howl. But upon seeing the small, fragile figures of the ape-men by the fire, memories of daylight humiliation flared within its mind. Fueled by fury, it forced itself past the instinctive fear, stepping from the shadows of the forest toward the summit, toward the blazing camp.
Dimming the firelight only slightly, Chen Xu squinted, his heart pounding. One thought flashed through his mind: Fortunate—only one clever gorilla, and it took tremendous effort to reach this summit. If more had come… tonight, this tribe might not survive.
Even so, the sheer mass of the creature—the mountain-like bulk of its four-meter frame—exuded pressure that made the air itself seem heavy. Now, without the separation of a thirty-meter cliff, the gorilla stood on the same plane as him. Chen Xu finally understood, in his bones, the oppressive majesty of these jungle titans. His teeth clenched as he imagined the impact if those enormous palms struck a man—they could crush stone.
The gorilla advanced, step by deliberate step, and the ape-men began to stir nervously. Beneath the weight of its towering form, their so-called courage melted away. For creatures like this, apex predators of the jungle, terror alone had once been enough to command obedience—just as prey on a riverbank would yield to the fangs of a saber-toothed tiger. Their only thought had always been survival; resistance was never an option.
Yet Chen Xu's presence—the fire god of this primitive tribe—kept them rooted to the spot. Though fear still gripped them, they did not scatter entirely. He knew well that a single misstep, a single premature move, would send the tribe into chaos and turn the night into a massacre. Even if he could later escape with his agility, all he had built would vanish. The fledgling community—the foundation for his dreams—could not be destroyed tonight.
The gorilla edged closer to the flames, its massive teeth bared, nostrils flaring. Chen Xu's grip tightened around the longbow. Ten meters. Only ten meters now separated him from the beast—a distance a single leap could easily bridge.
Fortunate… only one came, and already so grievously wounded.
He drew the bow from his back, selected four arrows, and nocked them with meticulous precision. Each arrow aligned with the deep wound on the gorilla's abdomen, the gaping, vulnerable site of its injury. Other points of attack were pointless; this was the strike that could decide the night.
Accuracy and arrow flight were secondary now. Chen Xu's focus was singular: strike, devastate, survive. The four-arrow load represented the maximum he could handle. Beyond that, his control would falter, and the arrows themselves might scatter.
He let his mind sink into the task. Every breath, every beat of his heart, every circulating pulse of inner energy coalesced into this moment. The gorilla, unfamiliar with ranged weapons, hesitated, the blazing inferno giving it reason to pause. Its eyes darted to the fire, but the arrows in Chen Xu's hands? Merely twigs in its perception—insignificant.
Chen Xu entered a state he had only brushed against before: a near-unity with the natural world. Senses sharpened, awareness expanded, inner energy flowing in perfect harmony with the rhythm of the jungle. For the first time, he glimpsed the edge of the Heaven-and-Man stage, a place where mind, body, and spirit converged into a singular, transcendent focus.
The gorilla's oppressive presence threatened to overwhelm him, yet in that pressure, he found clarity. His muscles no longer trembled, his heartbeat steadied, and his body aligned perfectly. The bow curved into a flawless crescent; in that instant, he became one with the wind, the night, the very earth beneath him. To any observer, he seemed to vanish, yet he stood resolute, radiating an almost mystical calm.
The gorilla, sensing this strange stillness, felt an unseen force locking onto it. Confused, it relaxed slightly, abandoning any instinctive defenses and continued its lumbering advance.
Now.
Chen Xu released. The four arrows, infused with his concentrated energy, surged forward like dragons emerging from the abyss. Darkness and fire danced around them as they tore through the night, striking the gorilla's gaping wound with unstoppable force. A resonant whistling echoed as the arrows pierced flesh, penetrating deep, following the wound's natural weakness, embedding entirely without trace of shaft remaining.
The gorilla's body shuddered violently, abdominal blood bursting forth in a crimson fountain. Its thick, serpentine intestines were torn asunder, cascading from the ripped cavity. Even its robust frame, known for withstanding tremendous impact, recoiled. Pain, pure and excruciating, forced it to stumble and collapse, hands pressing desperately to its wound. Yet this only worsened the devastation caused by Chen Xu's relentless strike.
Then came the roar. A sound that was not as mighty as a saber-tooth's bellow, but saturated with agony, despair, and desolation, rattling the surrounding trees and sending flocks of birds screaming into the sky.
As if answering the call, distant roars erupted from the gorilla's territory at the cliff's base. A chorus of kin answered, shattering the nocturnal tranquility, igniting the jungle with a sudden, raw fury.
Chen Xu's joy at his successful strike quickly turned to grim calculation. This was only the beginning. If the ape-men could not be relied upon, then the next moves were entirely his. Drawing bamboo spears, he leapt toward the fallen beast, arms blazing with inner energy, ready to strike at its face.
The gorilla, roused from pain into rage, eyes flashing crimson, blocked his assault. Its massive, disc-like palms absorbed the impact of the bamboo spears as though they were mere twigs against an iron wall. Chen Xu felt the force surge through his arms, reverberating like a strike against solid rock.
The battle had escalated to the next level—one of raw, primal strength against calculated skill, of fury against precision, and of survival against annihilation.