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.

long cuts all over his body, including one several

minutes ago. He had also consumed two mana potions throughout the fight to keep up his

Scimitar of Cursed Hunger with the other. He cut the one remaining Crusher by extending

from the beast and delivered into him, restoring a bit of his health as some minor

back from the blow, the Matriach trying 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 of yet another Dervish that came flying

monkeys. Jake had 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

noticed 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

monkeys had also 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

whirling blow of tails from a 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

anymore directly but finished it off merely using Gaze of the Apex Hunter. Finally, only two living beings remained, staring down each other - One a heavily injured

quickly turned to despair as it began screeching in anger, but instead of attacking, it started sprinting away, back towards the

of its legs. It began trying to crawl before

Matriarch – lvl 146] – Bonus experience earned for

Arcane Hunter] has reached level 106 - Stat points

has reached level 104

[Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 107 -

left behind and couldn’t help but chuckle a bit to himself. Note to self, do not have big battles inside or too close to Haven, or we will require some

while doing a bit of alchemy. He wanted to create better Hemotoxin poison now that he had reached D-grade and discovered how good it was against the Matriarchs.

well, he would be able to wipe out those shitty monkeys

and a baby sat around a table, talking as the

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

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 am sure a lot of what was in them is still very relevant for a new parent,” Debra said as she played with her grandson. “How is Caleb doing these days? I feel like he is less and

influential forces brought together in one room, they want to be ready for any scenario and

it must be hard being both the leader of some assassination guild fashioning themselves a court and a father at the same time,” Debra said, clearly not approving of

a lot more complicated now than before, and I also find it hard to adapt. I am just thankful that at least we are all safe and together.

not being selfish to some extent was viewed more as a sign of weakness than strength. It was also just an