The Primal Hunter

His eyes snapped open as the remnants of the dream left him. But unlike normal dreams, he could remember every single detail vividly.

Jumping out of bed, he threw it back into his necklace along with everything else. Right now, Jake was in a really shitty mood.

He was angry. And sadly for the Den Mother, it had been chosen as his outlet. Jake was tired of feeling like he was stuck in some big game. Tired of not knowing why the hell people kept messing with him. Even now, he didn’t know exactly why Richard had wanted him dead or why that red-robed spearman had believed he had murdered his son.

No, instead, he would just do what he did best: Challenge and improve himself.

Taking out one bottle of hemotoxic poison, he recklessly splashed it over a bundle of arrows in his hand. He summoned his bow as he walked towards the beast.

Applying the Mark of the Ambitious Hunter was done as he lifted his bow, nocked the arrow, and charged an Infused Powershot. He didn’t aim for the head of the beast as it would likely miss.

Charging it as much as he could without affecting his combat-effectiveness afterward, he released the string. The arrow was released in an explosion of mana and stamina, as Jake didn’t even wait for it to hit before nocking another. He was angry but also oddly focused.

Perhaps he felt offended by his own thoughts - by his own perception of the weakness that he carried within. He was angry at himself for believing that he was weak. That the only reason why people wanted to manipulate him was because of his own weakness. And the best way to kill that feeling of weakness was to prove that he was strong. At least Jake believed it to be so.

On the other end of the cavern, the Den Mother woke up abruptly when the Infused Powershot was released. It instinctively tried to dodge but was still hit in one of its hind legs - a minor injury, but more than enough for the poison to enter its system.

The follow-up arrived far earlier than the beast had expected too. Five arrows struck it simultaneously, penetrating only a bit, but penetrating, nevertheless. The creature was surprised but not distraught as it located its attacker.

With no hesitation, it charged towards the arrogant human who had dared to attack it. It had been the Den Mother of this group of badgers for such a long time, and now some lone human dared intrude upon its lair? One that felt far weaker than itself even.

It felt the poison, it knew something was wrong, but it didn’t have the mental faculties to comprehend what exactly it was. All it knew was that it had to kill the human in front of it as fast as possible.

The first swipe was dodged by the pesky human as Jake Shadow Vaulted to the side, still releasing arrows whenever possible. The Den Mother had predicted this, as it turned its head and opened its mouth.

Out came a torrent of green gas that eroded the very ground it hit. It enveloped the human, as the Den Mother gleefully observed what it believed to be the death of its prey.

Instead, it was met by another Infused Powershot that tore right through its shoulder and out the other side. With the shot, the usual explosion of mana occurred as it blew away all the gas.

Surprised, the giant badger locked eyes with the human and felt something it hadn’t in a long time. The feeling it had when it looked at its Den Mother back in the day, the feeling it felt when the King of the Forest had confined it to this cavern.

Fear.

It had misjudged. What was in front of it was not prey; it was a predator, just like itself.

Screeching in fear, it hoped to throw Jake off balance temporarily. The sonic wave passed over him, but he just closed his eyes as he stood unmoving, firing yet another Splitting Arrow.

his neck. He felt the pain, but he didn’t care. He didn’t need his hearing right now anyway, and the pain was easily suppressed by the pure feeling of ecstasy he currently

and it had far more skills and what seemed like a higher level of intellect. But in this fight, Jake had something he had been lacking in many

the first time, Jake was the one entirely in the drivers’ seat. And the beast felt this

prey. A dangerous situation if

even with all that going for him, it was

Even in his arrogance, he

of arrows. The Den Mother’s wounds were slowly building up, as its once beautiful fur

retreated, a first for Jake. It ran back to where he had initially pulled it from,

the ground rumbled as three explosions of dirt fell down from

around the Den Mother as they guarded her. The Den Mother itself started giving off a faint green sheen as Jake felt the effect of his poisons lessen with his Sense of the Malefic Viper. Along with it, the wounds on its body started wriggling far faster

Jake thought, not discouraged at

hemotoxin poison left, as he quickly brought it out along with a handful of arrows as he doused them. He still couldn’t see the level of the Alphas, but he could feel that all of them were weaker than any of the others he had faced so far. The ones too weak to gain the favor

all seemed in a rush to earn as they charged towards Jake. They took a few seconds, allowing Jake to fire a fully powered Infused Powershot. The badger in the front didn’t have any possibility of changing directions as its speed was too high. Resulting in

a normal arrow’s penetrative force. He knew he couldn’t kill it with a single shot, but he could sure as hell make it roll around on

the beast, the shards of wood and metal all embedding themselves in its face - quite a few even finding their way into its eyes. One could only imagine

arrow on one of them before they reached him but didn’t have time to shoot the other. He hated to do it, but he was forced to return

arrows but quickly noticed something vital. The two badger’s teamwork was… lackluster, to say the least. Whenever he Shadow Vaulted, the beasts both struggled to chase him individually,

inspiration, he realized that the beasts weren’t allies to begin with. They were competitors. Both wanted to earn the favor of the Den Mother, and the best way to do so would be to kill the puny human that had wounded her. So both cared more about being the one to land the

he would

he dismissed his bow as he took out his sword and dagger. While the beasts were stronger than him physically, the gap had only narrowed since he had entered

still on the Den Mother. He decided to let it be to help keep an eye on the large badger. Besides, it was even damaging her little by little, as with every drop of blood that left her body, a pulse of energy that damaged her vital energy directly was released. Sadly, he could only

eye contact with him. They, like the Den Mother, felt

was enough for Jake to make his way to one of them with a Shadow Vault, as he stabbed an arrow in between its ribs. Only one of the beasts was poisoned before, after all, and it was only fair to

one fluid moment mid-dodge, he briefly let go of the dagger, as a bottle of Necrotic Poison

him, but its ‘comrade’ was in the way, so all it managed to do was to try and go around it

cuts here and there. He made sure always to stay extremely

and angrier as they started being more aggressive and less considerate of each other. The situation only got more interesting as the third Alpha charged over. It could only use

one joined. Like completely feral animals, they tried to crawl over one other and tried to push the other out the way to

wounds on each other, Jake of course gladly accommodating their carelessness. He honestly believed fighting one of the beasts would be more challenging than three due to

also managed to poison the third one as he kept

couldn’t avoid feeling a bit of pain himself too. He had taken quite a few scratches here and there. Luckily none of them used that skill to release their spikes of poison. Then again, it would likely help him if one of them did, as they would only hurt

was getting closer and closer to being fully healed

on the ground, Mark of the Ambitious Hunter being applied seconds before it died.

standing. It was too slow and weak by now to pose any real threat, as Jake simply left it to bleed out as he turned his

was starting to dip relatively low. The fight had gone in his favor,