As fate seemed to be having a lot of things lately, Brock soon realised that creating a death trap using an unstable building was indeed a recipe for disaster. He prided himself in the fact that he at least had the hindsight to retreat back far from the monkey den, something which quickly proved the right move, as he almost brought a building down on his head at his first attempt and the process was in no way quiet.

Coming as a package with his lack of knowledge of architecture, Brock was quick to find out that he didn’t know the first thing about making a building collapse properly, let alone how to do it safely without some sort of timed explosive. The obvious start was to target the weakest looking parts of the structure, though to get the ball rolling it required him to use his Augment to blow the supports away.

In his first attempt, he hadn’t given a second thought about what would actually happen when he did so, and if not for the nearby window he jumped out of, he would have been smushed into tomato paste under the crumbling building. After that escapade, he had never dared to take the act of trap planning so lightly again. Not unless I wanna get squashed...

Several destructive attempts later, as well as the dozen or so fights that occurred as a result of the immense noise he created, Brock was still stumped as to how he was meant to execute his master plan. If he had access to timed explosives, the traps would be worlds simpler to rig, but it should definitely be possible otherwise.

As for what exactly he was trying to do, it was simple really. The plan was for him to weaken a building beforehand and lure both the Alpha and his simian goons inside, before escaping and making it fall down on top of them, hopefully killing them all outright.

Scratching his head, Brock clicked his tongue and downed his routine serve of canned beans. He couldn’t be sure, since the moon still hadn’t budged from its position in the sky, but it should be around dawn by now outside. "Probably."

Embroiled in his mad dash to make every remaining second of his timer count, Brock had neglected to sleep, leaning on the benefits of his improved body to push through. He hadn’t felt the effects of doing so yet, but he had never been one to do well without a good night’s rest.

Idly chucking the empty can of beans at his latest created pile of rubble, Brock watched curiously as it collided near the wildly growing tree that had once held the entirety of the structure up despite its clear lack of stability. Instantly, he deadpanned.

Am I literally stupid?

Cursing himself out, Brock slapped his forehead and sighed. The solution had been presented to him the entire time. Although the dust of the implosions usually obscured most of the details and Brock would almost always promptly leave the area to avoid nearby alerted beasts, his slashed and beaten body already in a great deal of hurt, he had caught sight of the weaving branches within the grey clouds a few times now.

While it wasn’t always the case, Brock had only seen a few unstable buildings without some sort of tree growing within or without it, holding it together. If he just destroyed the main trunk of the tree that supported it all, then it should only be a matter of time before it struggled under the weight and fell, giving him enough time to escape the implosion radius and acting as a timed ‘charge’ of sorts. Hopefully, this works...

He quickly got up and sought out a new building to test his newly improved destruction theory on. If it worked out, then he would finally have a hopefully reliable method to slay the overpowered Alpha gorilla. Ten minutes later, Brock stood safely outside the dangers of a collapsing building as it imploded, a roaring echo pervading through the area.

"I'm a fucking genius."

He knew it wasn’t a reliably certain timeframe, but when Brock had blown off the side of the main trunk holding the whole thing up, he was given about ten seconds to leave before the branch finally gave in to the weight of the building and it all fell apart. Feeling somewhat confident in his newfound trap method, Brock set out back in the direction of the gorilla and his monkey crew after a few more test runs.

Unlike the original quest prompt Brock had gotten, he could pull up his Trophy Hunter quest with a mental command.

Trophy Hunter: Approach the centre of this domain and slay the Alpha and his pack. Reward: Unique title, hidden reward, hidden reward. (0/2)

• Failure will result in the Source becoming permanently inaccessible to you.

Walking as he re-read it, Brock locked his eyes onto the rewards he would receive. Along with the fruits the gorilla had in its possession, killing the monkey would also net him with a unique title, something he hoped gave more benefits than the usual titles he had, and looking at the name, he was betting it being called something around the lines of the quest it was rewarded from.

The part that really drew his attention though was the mention of a duo of hidden rewards, or more accurately the implications of it. Were they hidden until he completed the quest, or did it grant him access to a set of rewards that were quite literally hidden somewhere? And even pushing all that aside, if Brock looked at the System’s track record of douchebaggery, what was stopping the hidden rewards from being just a fancy stick and a dog shit?

Though, he supposed it didn’t really matter what it was, as either way he kind of had to complete the quest.

The journey back was relatively uneventful, with Brock only being forced to get into a brawl with a group of stupid Void Toads, their spiked tongues harassing him and scoring several wounds on his frame before he finally put their squishy bodies to the graveyard. Assholes.

While it was an absolute pain in the ass to deal with the frogs when they were in groups, Brock supposed it was good practice, as he still was a bit iffy on group fights. It would help him deal with the remaining monkeys, assuming not all of them were killed in the collapse. As for the big bad ape himself, Brock wasn’t actually sure if a falling building would even be enough to crush him dead. For good measure, he would locate the tallest one he could find beforehand.

But back to the monkeys, he had two predictions about how they would be involved during the fight. The first, and the one he hoped was the one that came to fruition, was that upon sighting him, the gorilla would just let its grunts do the work for it, meaning Brock could just fight them without the pressure of their powerful leader.

The other, was that being the dictator type that the gorilla seemed to act, it would see his appearance as a direct affront to its ‘rule’ and meet Brock head-on personally. If this was the case, then he would have to first crush the gorilla, or at least put him out of combat for a while, and deal with the monkeys that would most likely follow their Alpha into battle. Or deal with them first instead.

If it did devolve into the second option, Brock just hoped they followed their leader closely, so they too would be obliterated by falling rubble crashing down on their heads. Alas, his life never turned out to be that easy, and he doubted that’s what would happen.

He sighed, "I have a strong feeling that this is gonna turn to shit..."

Eventually, he once again arrived at the street corner that led off to the monkey den after scouting out a building a distance back. Glancing around, Brock crept up to the turnoff and peeked his head out.

All he could do was blink, however, when he was met by the sight of a monkey eating its own boogers, staring right at him and meeting his eyes directly. Ignoring the fact that it was really awkward, Brock swore and spun back around the corner, hearing an enraged monkey's cry echo behind him only a moment afterwards. Quickly, that single cry became a cacophony of raving screams.

While Brock was panicking at the suddenness of it all, he felt a slight amount of relief that the silverback hadn’t called out too. Then, as if he raised the ultimate red flag, he heard a deep bellow resound throughout the streets and his blood froze in his veins. Glancing over his shoulder as he bolted away, Brock bit his lip and watched three dozen or so silver furred monkeys skid around the corner, their eyes manic with fury and their sharp fangs bared readily.

Their target could only look on in shock, however, as the gorilla roared out once more and a moss-covered car exploded through the top of the building standing on the street corner, showering its raving followers in rubble and even crushing two of them with a particularly large piece of falling debris. Uh... thanks...?

Wincing, Brock watched as the car continued on and crashed into a space on the road not too far from him, pelting him in a light spray of both dislodged flora and specks of asphalt. Ignoring the light pricks of pain on his skin, the office warrior powered through and forced his legs to move as fast as they could possibly carry him.

Going through with the solid plan to crush the gorilla, Brock kept his eye out for the building he had scouted and breathed out in relief when he spotted its tall rooftop peeking over the others adjacent to it, albeit still slightly hidden by the dark haze that permeated the area.

By now, the gorilla had appeared behind its faster-moving pack, lumbering down the street in chase of the deviant that had dared to intrude upon its holy domain. Brock spared another moment to look at it over his shoulder, and immediately recoiled from the sheer rage that seemed to be contained within its scrunched-up, human-reminiscent features. Oh shit!

Names began to wildly flicker into existence above the horde as they quickly closed the distance between them. The monkeys were known as an aptly named Silverfur and all around the range of level 12 to even 15, while the gorilla was something stranger. It possessed an actual name.

[F] South, The Ape of Pride (LVL 19)

Its level was certainly the highest he’d seen so far, higher than even the Crocodilian Treant. Luckily for him, the gorilla seemed to be far more invested in Strength than anything else judging by its rippling muscles and was expending a lot of effort to keep up. The name gave Brock pause for a moment, despite the other glaring features that demanded his attention.

South, The Ape of Pride, huh…?

It didn’t take much thinking for Brock to see the connection here. If his starting location was somewhere east, this should be the south of the city, meaning that the gorilla had most probably earned its name from that. Slowly, the office worker’s face began to fall. If there was an Alpha in the east where he had started, were there also Alphas in the North and West? Would he also have to kill them too?

Fortunately, the situation didn’t allow him to think much more as the first monkey was suddenly upon him, leaping in his direction with a snarl. Brock had long pulled out a knife from the repurposed drink holders on his bag, however, and his weapon found itself promptly embedded down to the hilt in the monkey’s eye socket, shaving its brain.

Screeching in agony, it hit the ground rolling behind him, miraculously still alive, but grievously injured. With the abruptness of the attack, his blade was torn from his grasp, and instead of lamenting on it, Brock just assumed a new weapon within seconds. Fortunately for Brock, these creatures appeared to have neglected to put points into Constitution.

The monkeys were apparently the least of Brock’s problems, however, as a metallic groan rung out a ways above him, and he saw a shadow zoom past him. Moments later, another car smacked into the road, forcing Brock to suddenly stop and run around it, gasping in relief at the near-miss.

He was almost upon the building now, and Brock quickly ran through the plan in his head, though he had to alter it slightly to accommodate for the veritable abundance of smaller nuisances. Another monkey cut his mental briefing short when it leapt at him and tore some skin from his ankles, its rough, but ultimately blunt nails doing nothing more than inflicting a painful flesh wound.

It fell behind as it slammed into the road and got back up to give chase. Idly, Brock noted that the next monkey was only a handful of meters away. It didn’t matter, however, as he was merely a dozen or so meters from the structure where he was to execute his master plan. Unfortunately, life seemed to have a way of fucking him over.

Brock’s next step was punctuated as the entirety of his lower body and select portions of his upper body began to flicker, the limbs consumed in red and black electricity, “No. No. Fucking NO!”

Without any resistance underneath him, Brock readily slid into the ground, and while he was inwardly in turmoil, he felt some sense of relief as a jeep flew right over where he had been standing seconds earlier and crashed into the road. He noticed that its tip had been suffused by a strange blue energy that made even Brock’s immaterial body parts tingle ominously.

Idly, he found that as soon as the spectral blue appeared, the strange presence of the Ape’s Augment disappeared from the air, freeing his own Augment for use once more.

In a matter of seconds, he was once more freed from the ground, landing lightly and instantly breaking back into a desperate sprint as he twisted around and slammed his fist into a snarling monkey’s face. A sickening crack rung out and teeth flew from its mouth. Twitching and groaning, it collapsed to the ground, its head caved in slightly.

Without wasting any more time, Brock skidded into the building and noticed how its roof had begun to slump more than he’d observed earlier, probably from the continued car crashes outside. Discarding it as merely a safety hazard, the man made the SWAT proud, kicking the door leading to the stairway off its hinges and beginning to frantically ascend the stairs.

It only took a few seconds before the monkeys started to stream into the chute of stairs, though Brock was already halfway up to the second floor by that point. Instantly reacting to the screech of a monkey further down, the panting office worker infused his current knife with his Augment of Sparks and lobbed it at the creature, the force of the throw brokering no spin as the red-hot blade sliced straight through its forehead and into its brain, killing it immediately and forcing its companions to spend an extra second to climb over its limp body.

I know it’s not the time, but that was fucking awesome.

Beneath him, another car coated with blue energies rolled through the building, making it shudder ominously and smearing a trio of the slower monkeys across the floor. It was slight, but Brock noticed the way that the space around the car seemed to shift and distort, seemingly making the rubble around it squish and stretch to make its passage easier.

That alone proved it. The big monkey was using an Augment, and if the Treants used something like an Augment of Shifting, then this was definitely Warping. Well that's just great.

Appearing entirely nonchalant about the gruesome deaths of their own, the monkeys crawled up the stairway, some even shedding use of the stairs themselves and instead opting to climb either the walls or the stair rails. Either way, they were getting to Brock faster than before, and he was running out of time.

Seeing as the car had torn through the building, it was evident to Brock that his initial plan to kill the gorilla had fallen through, as the beast seemed content to refrain from entering the unstable structure and let its monkeys tear him apart on its behalf. He gritted his teeth and continued onward. For now, he just needed to survive. Worrying for the future was a safe man’s privilege.

He also just now realised that the gorilla probably wouldn’t have even fit in it anyway.

...You fucking idiot!

Attacking himself mentally, Brock finally crested the fourth floor where the main branch system began to heavily weave through the side of the building. It originally came across from an adjacent building, the vast canopy of the tree within branching off and infesting the structures nearby.

As soon as he saw the door, Brock was already shouldering through it and onto the floor, slimly avoiding hitting a thick trunk overhead. The floor was an absolute maze of wood and vines, and while usually the monkeys would be in their home territory right now, Brock had already found a path to the main trunk beforehand.

Ducking and dodging torso thick trunks of wood, the man heard the deafening mania of the monkeys behind him and picked up the pace just a little. Just as he slid under the final trunk barring his way to the main branch that held everything aloft, a bone-shaking roar echoed out, and Brock snapped his eyes over to his right. The appearance of the gorilla as it climbed up the side of a tree-consumed building caught his attention immediately.

Or more specifically, the SUV that was barreling toward him.