Broken Weapon

The monkey slammed a foot into the ground before rapidly sending several jabs at Jessica. It was different compared to its first attack where it committed everything to one thrust.

Instead, the monkey decided to do several more weaker, but faster thrusts.

However, each time the monkey's spear shot forward, Jessica would also match by taking a step back and turning the other way.

Like it was a movie, she dodged all of them cleanly, each time moving before the monkey did so.

Mia's eyes widened when she saw that. After thinking of herself, Mia was fairly certain that she wouldn't be able to replicate that. It felt like she was looking at Jessica in a new light.

The monkey did not give up despite only hitting the air, taking a bold step forward with each jab, almost like they were in a dance. As for Jessica, while she was mostly dodging, she did eventually get good enough footing to deliver a counterattack, and she did.

She swooped low with her katana, attempting to catch the monkey off guard as it was doing a high attack. However, that hardly flustered it whatsoever. It spun the spear and slammed the spearhead directly against the katana before continuing to jab relentlessly.

However, Jess was still dodging as easily as before. When she saw an opportunity, she would attempt to counterattack, though it was parried as easily as she dodged.

Emma gently put a finger on her chin as she watched the fight go on, humming to herself.

"Hm... she has potential, even if right now her performance is subpar."

It was quite the standstill that went on for a while. From the outside perspective, it looked like Jessica was being pressured fairly hard by how aggressive the monkey was being. However, it was also not that simple.

The katana that Jess held onto was made out of very high-quality material.

On the other hand, the spear that the monkey was using was actually made out of some random stone and wood. The monkey appeared to be acutely aware of the difference, deciding only to clash with the katana with the stone spearhead and prioritizing deflections rather than directly clashing with them.

But despite that, the stone spearhead was already starting to wear down rather quickly.

At this rate, the monkey would lose its weapon and seemed to be trying to finish the fight quickly, so that Jessica wouldn't be able to press that advantage.

However, it just seemed impossible for her to get hit.

The monkey tried mixing it up, swiping with his spear like it was a sword, or attempting to bash her with it. That wasn't it either, as its legs were also used to sweep out in an attempt to trip her up.

Yet, Jessica managed to dodge all of them without fail, leaning back or jumping up just enough. Though she couldn't always do so, she did return counters when there was a good opportunity to do so.

The monkey wasn't always deflecting with the spear and sometimes just dodged Jessica's attacks. However, Jessica was also using her katana to block. Although it only happened on rare occasions, it was still enough to wear the spear down.

And after ten minutes of this clash going on, the stone spearhead snapped off.

Jessica immediately seized the opportunity, turning the tables and slashing aggressively while stepping forward.

The monkey still used what remained of the spear to block, but as it was essentially just a stick, it wasn't lasting very well. Clear cut marks quickly formed on its sides. While they were diagonal, preserving the stick's durability as much as possible, it was bound to end soon.

The stick snapped as Jessica slammed her sword against it. Seeing this, she became quite confident, as her opponent no longer had their weapon. It was quite logical to feel that way.

She brought down an overhead attack with most of her strength, intending on ending things here.

But as her sword shot down, she did not get the sensation she was expecting.

Her blade was knocked to the side, while the monkey stepped out of the way. Right after that, it threw a palm at Jessica's chest. Her eyes widened considerably as she felt a considerable amount of danger, before backpedaling several steps.

The monkey did not chase, instead staring her down with sharp and focused eyes.

"Ooh!"

It held out its hands in the form of palms like a martial artist.

Jessica furrowed her brows before rushing in once more and swinging her katana. Unfortunately, the monkey easily parried by slamming its palm into the flat side of the blade and counter-attacking a split second later.

She was just barely able to dodge and felt greater danger this time than before. This was very strange to her, as she didn't have much difficulty dodging the spear attacks. With this puzzle in her mind, she backed up to regather her bearings, while the monkey stared at her with clear eyes, not moving from its spot.

For a second, Jessica was confused. It seemed that the monkey was somehow more powerful without the weapon than with one. After thinking about it, she came to the conclusion that the monkey's main way of fighting wasn't with the spear, but actually with its hands.

It seemed the reason why the spear was cobbled up so poorly was just that the monkey wanted to try it out.

At this point, Emma's words flashed through her head.

'Just don't let your guard down.'

Jessica furrowed her brows as she came to realize that she did indeed let her guard down. The entire time, she was trying to destroy her opponent's weapon, thinking that it would give her an advantage.

But ironically enough, it was when the monkey had the spear she had the best chance of injuring it.

She cursed herself for not seeing it, thinking that she was foolish, being quite harsh on herself. Though it wasn't as though there were no signs of such, it would be quite hard for most people to come to that conclusion.

After taking a deep breath, Jessica once again mounted an offensive, hoping that the monkey wouldn't be able to parry absolutely everything.

She thrust her sword like a spear, with the aim of making the monkey's footing a bit unstable after dodging.

Yet, the monkey stood its ground, instead slamming a palm onto the side of the tip of the sword, pulling it the other way. Before Jessica could properly pull it back, a palm was already shooting towards her.

She barely dodged it, though another one came after in quick succession. By tilting herself away and turning to the side, she was just barely able to get away, though the monkey's palm still grazed her.

Though it was only a graze, she could feel the strength behind it.

If she were directly hit, she didn't doubt that a few ribs would be fractured. Not to mention, the speed at which the monkey could deliver attacks had increased several times over.

Jessica began sweating and pulled back once more.

The monkey took a few steps forward but stopped before getting too close. It seemed that holding the stance was very important to it for whatever reason. She stared at the monkey for a long while, wondering if it was even possible for her to beat it.

With the time that the monkey was giving her to think, she realistically went over her possibilities, which were admittedly not very many.

She took in steady breaths one after another, focusing herself.

Though it would turn out she didn't have much more time to relax, as the monkey had rushed over this time. While gritting her teeth, Jessica took a deep breath and struck first, once again performing an overhead strike to the right.

But stopped halfway through.

It was feint, one that caught the monkey off guard. She twisted her grip on the katana, causing it to twirl around, going from right to left in less than a second, heading for the neck.

The monkey for the first time was flustered but wasn't just going to watch the blade come. It once again shot out a hand to parry.

And in that moment, Jessica let out the breath she was holding and twisted the katana, changing where the flat part was.

With a bang, the monkey's palm slammed into the blade and sprayed blood into the air.

"OOOOOoh! OOOooh!"

Although the blow was indeed parried, for the first time in this long fight did one of them finally suffer an injury. Without reveling in her success, Jessica immediately swung once more. Despite being in pain, the monkey used its other hand to parry as well.

However, she simply pulled the same trick, twisting the katana and slashing into the other palm as well.

At this point, the monkey was completely enraged.

"Ooh! OOH! OOOOH!"

Once again, Jessica swung, but it didn't even try to block it. Instead, it threw its palms toward her.

Like it was planning on dying along with her.