The Primal Hunter

Yeah… this could go better, Jake thought, as he barely managed to roll out of the way as a giant tree-spear was shot towards him.

He managed to dodge it with Shadow Vault, but more were coming. And not just trees. Several large boulders were also thrown after him, along with pretty much anything within hundreds of meters of the King.

Dodging and weaving in between the attacks, he managed not to get hit by a single one. A slight positive, but ultimately, he was only buying time - time that wasn’t to his advantage.

The King of the Forest was clearly multitasking as he worked on clearing away the curse from the Nest Watcher and the energy from the Horde Leader as he attacked. Jake, on the other hand, was slowly running out of his resources. He had gotten back quite a bit of health from the potion, but both his stamina and mana were draining.

Limit Break had been active at 20% from the very first Infused Powershot. In reality, it had only been minutes, but he was already starting to feel it taking its toll. Deactivating the boost wasn’t an option as he would enter a state of weakness - a shortcut to a quick death for sure.

His remaining tools were limited. He only had two weapons left - an old common-rarity bow and his Venomfang dagger. The bow could handle at most one Infused Powershot before breaking, with the blade obviously his most reliable weapon.

His last tool was the Corrupted Mooncore Shard. A plan for that was beginning to form in his mind as he observed the floating King.

Despite everything looking so bleak, Jake wasn’t distraught in the least. He was shaking, not with fear, but excitement. At any moment, with the slightest mistake, he could die. Yet, he didn’t feel it was impossible. He felt like it was a long shot. A very long shot, one he would gladly take.

He was quite confident in his aim, after all. This was what he lived and would gladly die for. Not that he planned on seeing his path end quite yet.

Jake knew he couldn’t give the King too much time to heal the wounds caused by the Tusk and marble. He was currently circling as he dodged, slowly getting closer to the King floating above the crater he had created earlier.

He did also notice one other thing. The aim of the King was outright terrible. The only reason why he had to focus so much on dodging was the type of projectile used. The huge trees and boulders were just that: huge.

If it had been smaller spears and not freaking trees, he wouldn’t even have to dodge. The aim of the King was obviously compromised from the curse that inflicted him. This was likely also the reason why he didn’t shoot those ridiculously overpowered blasts of force.

Jake made use of that by running in more unpredictable patterns. Huge clouds of dust were kicked up with every attack, and Jake was more than happy to hide within them and use them as cover as he got closer.

At the same time, he took one of the arrows out of his quiver and held it in his hand. As he was avoiding being squashed, he began channeling dark mana into it.

By the time he was halfway there, the King was out of things to throw at him. So he began throwing words instead.

“What do you hope to accomplish? Do you believe you can win? Truly just an unwise beast.”

Jake ignored it as he snickered. Keep talking, you childish arrogant fuck.

as he nocked the arrow infused with dark mana. With a rapidly charged Infused Powershot, he fired it upwards at the floating

exploded in a cloud of dark mana. Dark mana that didn’t hurt the

arrow exploded, Jake jumped upwards using Badger Jump. However, he wasn’t

both hands behind him from up there as he released two blasts of mana from his gloves, propelling him downwards once more, sending him

the King flew upwards to escape the cloud of dark mana that Jake had made. Still unaware, he flew straight up into the rapidly descending Jake, who had

on the handle, he smashed the knife down. Descending Dark Fang with its full power on

crown of thorns blocking some of the blow, but he did succeed in bringing the creature down with

of the damage from the accelerated fall. Flipping his dagger to

from the impact had, however, forced him down on one knee. The illustrious King of the Forest made to kneel before a human far

Jake swiftly switch target. Next, the King felt a stab his chest, and then a second and a third – directly into the wound left by the Tusk

inflict his poison. At the same time, he was holding a small fingernail-sized object in his other hand - Touch of the Malefic Viper

faster than Jake could in any way react to, the

chest, as if it aimed to rip his body into several pieces.

the Primal

light it gave off amplified by the slowdown. Even more ridiculous was that the claw was still visibly moving,

barely registered this as he made his move. He opened his hand as he pushed forth the small shard in his hand,

Mooncore, corrupted by an immense amount of toxicity. It is unstable by nature and will not last more than a few months in its current state. Contains highly concentrated volatile

he remembered from before had led him to this gamble. Within it, the energies were in equilibrium. But no more. Touch of

he gave it a final injection with Touch of the Malefic Viper on full display. He felt it crack as it lost contact with the hand pushing it forward. Making its way into the hole left by the Tusk of

spread across the shard as it very slowly

the Bulwark of the Horde Leader and began channeling mana into it. Something he barely

released from the claw as five deep scars were cut across the tutorial’s entire inner zone,

the Kings perspective, all he saw was his golden claw about to reap of the life of the human in front of him, as suddenly the figure disappeared. A movement faster than the King could ever imagine the weak human being capable of, his position had suddenly shifted to standing slightly to the right of the claw, now holding

it. A familiar kind of mana that he hoped to

It was the kind of being that dealt in the realm of mysticism - in types of magic far more complicated than any the King ever dabbled

Of all the Beast Lords, the Great White Stag was the

were the only thoughts he had time to make before a second explosion sounded out before the first even had time to stop echoing out. Yet it wasn’t a big bang or a great fireball.

and the artificial sun above was covered by a fractured moon, as the sky darkened. Like night had

stars all floated around the black rotting moon. A moon that was shattered and broken leaking out copious amounts of dark green energy. It had lost all

as the world around it. Like the moon itself had exploded on the ground, a spherical explosion was released. The sphere expanded tens of meters each second and

two living beings in the midst of it all, taking the brunt of

part of his body coated in dark green scales. He flew back nearly a kilometer until he found himself embedded in a wall for the umpteenth time that day. More bones were broken than not, more organs ruptured than