Bonus Chapter Welcome to the Jungle: Everything you Want

Thunder cracked, wood split and groaned, and the buzzing voices of insects shrieked at such a pitch to make mortal ears bleed.

Ji Rong’s fist burned as it cratered bark-y flesh and powdered bone, snapping the blood-red ape’s head to the side with a neck-breaking crack. Muscle tore, but bone held, and the body rocketed off to slam into the side of a tree ten meters off to the side of the road.

“Come on then!” he roared, setting his feet, and resetting his fists, bolts of blinding actinic light scorching the stone under his feet and the leaves overhead.

Behind him, the caravan train he’d been riding with rocked under the rain of stones and boulders hurled from the trees, the bright crimson-painted wood groaning. Its closed shutters rattled, its frame shuddered, but aside from a few flecks of paint scraping off, the structure held. All around, the battle cries of his fellow guards echoed from the jungle.

The Heart Rending Apes barrelling up the road toward him faltered in their loping charge as the crack of thunder from the leading ape’s body vacating the area faded.

And Ji Rong stepped right into the press of bodies.

Drive his fist into a belly, hear the sizzle of burning guts as lightning erupted, slam a backfist into a turning beast’s face to the sound of crunching teeth. Receive a blow. Endure the groan of straining bones. Hands big enough to palm his head seize his arm, fists hammer down. Burning spit and an eardrum-shattering roar wash over his face. Feel his blood twitch against his will in his veins, feel his heart strain as lifeblood thickens and clogs his veins.

Stare the big fucker hanging back ripping at his blood in the eye.

And become the lightning.

Lightning flows. Lightning pierces. Lightning goes where it wills, without fail.

Burning hair. Charring meat. Apes scream. A young dragon’s roar descends.

And Ji Rong’s sparking fist punches through muscle and skin, bashes through ribs, and punctures into what feels like a lung, going by the rush of rancid air that escapes as he rips his fist back out in a shower of gore.

Pfah. His arm was too short to punch out the back.

The massive ape tried to bellow, and it came out as a wet, bloody wheeze. He caught a fist bigger than his torso on his upraised, blood-soaked arm. Behind him, Refeng circled the pack of lesser apes he’d punched through, claws flashing, lightning falling from the churning storm clouds summoned by his circling coils.

“Picked the wrong target, ya fat fuck,” Ji Rong scoffed, tensing his legs, drawing lower as he pushed the apes wildly swung fist out of the way, and leapt upward, flipping backward to slam his foot into the apes jaw with a thunderous crack. His ears ringing from the sound, his foot dug into its cheek as he launched himself back, flipping in midair… and struck downward as a blistering bolt, he struck, and struck and struck, fists battering into the staggering ape’s skull rapidly, cratering divots in flesh and muscle cracking bone.

A massive hand sought to grab him and burned in the lightning he became as he crashed like a comet.

It took three dozen hits after that for the thing to stop twitching and pulling at his blood.

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He was soaked up to his elbows in gore and sweating like a pig to boot. Fuck he was looking forward to getting back to the basecamp. Ji Rong glanced over his shoulder; the sounds were fading, the stragglers were scattering.

Ji Rong cracked his neck and hopped down from the corpse before spinning, giving it a final kick and sending the massive lump of steaming meat bouncing off the road to crash into the underbrush.

Felt good to do a day’s work. He appreciated that.

“Brother! I see you were victorious!”

“Course I was,” JI Rong scoffed, lifting his arm, letting the young dragon rushing down land along his shoulder, body shrinking down to fit. “See, you cleaned up well, too. None of ‘em got past you?”