"Fight him without the Penalty?! Are you crazy?!" Zero spoke with anger towards Andres.

"Yeah, that's the only way to potentially convince him to join us: beating him without the Penalty." He answered to Zero.

"This is crazy! That bastard is way too strong for even the three of us to beat, and you don't want him to incur the Penalty?!" Zero then pointed at Marcus. "Even if this fucker right here lose control of his psychic power, Ugong will just ragdoll his ass across the entire forest!"

"Oh yeah? But unlike you, I…" Marcus paused briefly before speaking again. "Man, I had the perfect insult… Anyway, Andres is right though. It's the only way to show Ugong we're capable."

"That guy could murder the three of us any time of the day! And you'll fight without the help of the Penalty, seriously?"

Marcus continued speaking without batting an eye to his companion. "Stop whining, man. If you're scared, just say it. Sure, he can beat our ass, but that's it. If we beat his, we have the son of the strongest High-Ranker as an ally. Who wouldn't want that?"

"Who the fuck said I'm scared? I'm just being realistic here. That guy have no weaknesses! He wasn't compared to the power of a Ranker when he was born for nothing."

"Everyone have weaknesses, alright?"

Andres then spoke. "Yeah, everybody do have weaknesses. But sometimes, they are just too powerful to exploit those weaknesses. But that's alright, we'll find his weakness and try to exploit it somehow. No matter how strong Sun Ugong is, the Tower wouldn't make it impossible to compete against him. No matter how powerful he was born as."

"That's true, the Tower doesn't give impossible tasks." Marcus added. "He's most likely being affected by the passive Penalty, just not the active one incurred from engaging in combat, lowering his stats way lower than his original."

"Ugh… This is suicide…" Zero suddenly remembered something. "Right… Weakness! Yeah… His staff… that could be his weakness…"

Marcus asked. "How so?"

"He uses a staff and you said he was lazy, right?"

"Yeah…?"

"That must mean that whatever martial art he's using with that staff must be part of his Bloodline Power… and also we obviously have to take it away as soon as possible. It's an Astra, after all…"

"You mean, take away Ruyi Jing Bang and he suddenly becomes a sandbag?"

"Exactly…! But is that the same staff though? Did his father gave him his staff?"

"It's obviously a duplicate of the original. It's still an Astra, though, so it should be quite powerful. I doubt Sun Wukong will just give away his weapon, even to his only child."

"I guess so…"

Marcus then glanced at Andres.

"I get it, you two… It's worth a try... Let's make that our focus. Unless he inherited a hand to hand combat technique as part of his Bloodline Power, then we have a chance."

…

Back to the present, as soon as the time stopped around Ugong, he quickly wielded his staff with both hands and bashed it forcefully towards Andres, although despite the hit being clearly strong, it never moved Andres for whatever reason. Ugong then quickly grab hold of Zero's neck, but was unable to move him too.

After two seconds, the time resumed, and Ugong quickly slammed Zero towards the ground as Andres flew away.

"Andres!" Marcus shouted and he pulled him mid-air with his power.

Clearly in a daze, Andres asked, "What the fuck happened?"

"It's hard to explain, but time around Ugong stopped for two seconds."

"Was that so? I only felt getting hit instantly when you tried pulling us away..." He said as he caressed the area that Ugong hit him hardly on.

"Damn, that guy really is too strong..."

"That's right, but we can't give up now. Let's save Zero."

Zero tried freeing himself from Ugong's grasp and despite being slammed once, Ugong remained holding onto him and slammed him once again like a ragdoll.

"Damn this fucker—!"

Before he was about to slam him a third time, his body was restrained once again by Marcus, who also forcibly opened his hands with telekinesis.

"Come on…" He smiled awkwardly.

Using the opportunity, Zero quickly delivered a series of punches towards his face as soon as he was freed.

"This is payback! You bastard!"

Andres arrived from behind once again, turning his hand into a blade and stabbing Ugong from behind.

"Shit! It's shallow! What kind of reinforcement is this?!"

Once again, that large amount of mana began gathering towards Ugong's hand, but Marcus quickly appeared from above and restrained his arm.

"No, you won't!" He shouted as he grab hold of said arm.

With Marcus focusing on his other hand, he quickly used the other to strike the ground with his staff.

"Shit!" Zero was about to grab hold of that other arm too, but he was too late.

Rumble—!

"Scatter!" Andres commanded.

The earth rose up and quickly formed an enclosure around Ugong, but the three fortunately escaped fairly easily.

That said enclosure rumbled and suddenly, everything was hurled towards the three of them.

They all tried avoiding and blocking it their own ways but Ugong strikes the ground once again and rushed towards them.

As he dashed, he opened his unoccupied hand and began hurling yellow clouds to the trio. As each of these clouds made contact, it explodes and became a large smoke screen.

He raised his hand and a series of earthen spikes rose up towards the enemies' locations.

"Come on! Show me more!"

Swish—!

"Sure..."

"Teleportation?!"

As he turned around, he thrusted his staff backwards, but Andres dodges it, who then counterattacked by punching him right on the face.

"That hurts!"

Andres continued attacking him and he fought back with his staff. But with such a close range, his staff is significantly less effective, thus, despite him being able to hit harder, he simply can't hit Andres with a decisive hit.

He continued stepping backwards as punches and kicks augmented by energy propulsion landed on his body, but on his last step, a forcefield was blocking his retreat.

Zero appeared from within the clouds and quickly tackled him, however, Ugong remained standing due to his strength.

"This guy won't budge at all…!"

Andres quickly formed a sword on his hand, which, this time is made of metal, not bone.

He stabbed Ugong with it on the shoulder, cut open a wound on him, and quickly stuffed something inside his gaping wound using his other hand.

"Let go! Zero!"

The two of them quickly disappeared as an explosion took place right from within that shoulder of Ugong's.

Boom—!

Flesh and blood flew everywhere, but they were not done. Marcus then hurled multiple tree trunks towards Ugong from above.

"Shit… did we kill him?" Zero exclaimed while he pants.

"If he died with only this much, he wouldn't be called the 'Strongest of the New Generation'."

"Fair enough…"

With telekinesis, Marcus scattered the remaining clouds from around Ugong so that they could get a proper look at him.

As soon as they got a proper look at him, they saw Ugong being a bloody mess, the insides of his right side are exposed, he was missing an entire arm, and part of his right jaw was exposed, too. But despite all of that, he was smirking and was standing wobbly while looking at a slight downward angle.

"Fine, I admit, you guys are capable. But I'll only join you if you can bring me to the brink of death!" He raised his head towards them as he declared with a smile. His body began regenerating rapidly! Soon, even his entire arm that was missing from the explosion was as good as new.

"What a monster…!" Zero exclaimed.

But Andres simply chuckled lightly beside him, "Hah, this is crazy…"