The Primal Hunter

A massive crash sounded out throughout the forest as a tree nearly 300 meters tall toppled over. The wooden behemoth that would ordinarily be borderline impossible to take down looked old and worn, its bark with many black rotten spots throughout, especially in the section that had been broken as a massive tail smashed into it.

Dust and soil flew up everywhere before being cleared by an explosion caused by a blast of force and an arcane arrow colliding. Blood was sizzling on the ground many places in the area, mixed in with non-toxic blood and flesh left by the over a dozen dead monkeys scattered everywhere.

Jake rolled and kicked up a bit of this blood-covered ground as he dodged the fly-by of a sluggish-looking Dervish. As it flew by, the long cuts on both his arms spewed out blood drops that hit it while it was also diving through the ever-present poisonous mist from his wings.

He smirked as he saw it collide with a tree nearby, its senses severely weakened due to its many injuries and constant exposure to his toxins.

It was nearly three hours ago that Jake first engaged the Matriarch.

One slightly annoying thing he had noticed was that the damn Matriarch was actually more of a mix between a Crusher and a healer than just a pure support-beast. It had managed to heal its own wounds and even counteract some of the poison he had spread, making the fight even more prolonged than he would have hoped.

To his advantage, though, he did discover that the Matriarch had quite the lacking mana pool. Or maybe it was just because it used all its magic too liberally, not hesitating to try and cure the poison Jake inflicted on its children, even healing many of their wounds.

This had lead to Jake shifting to a hemotoxin-based fighting style. To simply poison and bleed them out while always staying a step ahead.

Because he was a well-rounded fighter with high stats across the board, he could constantly adapt. He was durable enough to tank a blow when necessary, his resource-pools large enough so that he would not run out of magic or physical strength, his vitality high enough so that he could keep his body healthy, and his offensive power powerful, be it magic or physical blows that he chose to use.

The Suppressors required one to swiftly strike them down as they had weak defenses but could debilitate even Jake if he allowed them to stack up their weight-increasing magic for too long. Those were the ones he focused on first, killing them with potent poison and Arcane Powershots, not allowing the Matriarch to save them.

Crushers were relatively tanky and dealt significant damage, but they were the slowest of the bunch, not counting the Matriarch herself. For the most part, he could ignore them and just slowly poison and bleed them out. With the Suppressors gone, they simply had no way to ever catch him. At that point, they just became walking mana-drainers for the Matriarch.

Dervishes were overall the most annoying to handle. While they indeed were weak defensively, they were incredibly fast and hit insanely hard, making them ideal strikers. With seven of them on his tail, Jake was forced to fight them directly at times as kiting them was simply out of the question. The only good thing was that they couldn’t fly and were so fast that they could pretty much only attack in a straight line when they leaped for him.

He had already gone over the Matriarch, the one he was saving for absolutely last. She was incredibly tanky, could heal herself and others, and hit even harder than the Crushers – the fallen tree evidence of that – and could even do a bit of supportive magic. The downside was that.. holy damn was she slow. Coupled with a few monkeys, always staying close to defend her made it far easier to kite them.

If Jake was honest, then the group of monkeys would be more dangerous if they just abandoned the Matriarch and all went straight for him. Sadly for them, they hadn’t done that but allowed him to poison them all over several hours.

The fight was now in its final stages, with only a single Crusher, two Dervishes, and the Matriarch left standing. All incredibly injured.

his body, including one several centimeters deep, streaking across his entire chest – the result

half, and that was after drinking a health potion just ten minutes ago. He had also consumed two mana potions throughout the fight to keep up his constant bombardment of arcane arrows, poison mist, and even the occasional blood-covered Arcane Bolt for

smiled as he blocked a tail from a Dervish with his Venomfang while swinging the Scimitar of Cursed Hunger with the other. He cut the one remaining Crusher by extending the blade

and delivered into him, restoring a bit of his health as some minor wounds on his body healed. The

to push out a bit more mana to heal it. At the same time, Jake took a step forward but teleported back with One Step Mile, avoiding the blow

outlasted all of them, and none could put up even half of their total power by now. Their insides were more mush than flesh, and blood was flowing

many beasts had when heavily poisoned. They didn’t flee but instead just tried to kill him even more desperately. He had theorized before it was because they believed the poison would stop if he died, and he was only getting more and more sure of that. It was actually a good indicator that these monkeys were incredibly

given up their last-ditch suicide tactic where they amplified their auras. Jake had found a way to break that already and just One Step Mile away, leading to a Crusher and two Dervishes

Dervish, Jake managed to cut off one of them before the monkey could reinforce it with energy, and as it was distracted by the pain he grabbed hold of it with his other hand, holding it down to the ground. Touch of the Malefic Viper activated as the poison spread in the beast, and with a good squeeze, he heard a crack as the

Gaze of the Apex Hunter. Finally, only two living beings remained, staring down each other - One a heavily injured but spirited human and the other a Tri-Lighttail Monkey Matriarch that

but instead of attacking, it started

from behind, blowing off one of its legs. It began trying to crawl

have slain [Tri-Lighttail Monkey Matriarch – lvl 146] – Bonus experience

Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 106 - Stat points allocated, +10

Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 104 - Stat points allocated,

Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 107 - Stat points allocated, +10 free

Matriarch and the hellscape he had left behind and couldn’t help but chuckle a bit to himself.

and dead state, relocating in case more monkeys came to investigate, found a good tree, and sat down to recuperate while doing a bit of alchemy. He wanted to create better Hemotoxin poison

wipe out those shitty monkeys before it

larger city, two women and a baby sat around a table,

not a little unsettling,” the older woman said as she held the child. “Babies aren’t supposed to be this quiet

woman sat to the side, observing the grandmother hold her grandson, and smiled as she tried explaining what her husband had said. “Caleb says it has something to do with no longer having the same needs… you know, no longer as hungry anymore. Many of the other ailments usually affecting kids also aren’t really a worry either… gosh, did I waste a lot of time reading books on parenting that are

was in them is still very relevant for a new parent,” Debra said as she played with her grandson.

the upcoming World Congress with all of the other administrators. With nearly all the influential forces brought together

a

now than before, and I also find

of Shadows placed on Earth, had not held back from using his authority to help his family at all. He understood that not being selfish to some extent was viewed more as a sign of weakness than strength. It was also just an advantage that the Judge