The Primal Hunter

Jake guessed he had to go get the Golden Mushroom at some point, but quite frankly, it just made everything easier for him currently. Jake just had to shoot in the general direction of the mushroom, and he was sure to hit several targets at once when his arrow went boom.

He had also inadvertently made the troll mad now, properly drawing the lines between the three competing factions. Jake called it competing, but his contributions as a faction were just bombarding them from several kilometers away with arcane death.

Half of the warriors were dead by now, the troll seemed not to heal as fast as before, and the Warlord was still nowhere to be seen after it had been blasted away. So Jake switched his focus to the Fungalmancers to take those down.

One of them tried to avoid Jake by sinking into the ground, but that turned out to be a very bad idea. The troll stomped on the ground, and a block of earth emerged – the Fungalmancer within. With a mighty swing, the entire block was smashed apart, sending rock, soil, blood, guts, and body parts of the Fungalmancer flying.

Right after, another Fungalmancer fell to a barrage of exploding arrows. The third and final one tried to get away but was hit in the leg by an arrow and a club from a troll right after. With no more Fungalmancers, the regular Deepdwellers seemed almost lost. The warriors tried to rally them, but panic had truly taken hold by now.

It all looked to be well and truly over for the Deepdwellers – until their true leader reappeared.

The Warlord walked through the air, blood dripping from a nasty hole in its chest, and most of its bone armor was broken. It had let go of the Golden Mushroom to keep hold of its halberd, which was glowing as intently as before. It sniffed the air and seemed to get a good grasp of the entire battlefield. It even slightly turned towards Jake, once more making it clear it was aware of his exact position.

Jake expected the Warlord to attack either him or the troll, but instead, it headed into the midst of the surviving regular Deepdwellers. For a moment, it looked hesitant, and then it did something Jake hadn’t seen coming at all.

It took the halberd, flipped it 180 degrees, and stabbed itself in the chest.

That was the moment Jake’s brain made a connection. Crystalline halberd… consuming crystal to hulk out… if that halberd was like those crystals…

Jake felt like a gust of wind appeared behind him, blowing towards the Warlord. He knew it wasn’t actual wind but the movement of the mana in the atmosphere. All of the life-affinity mana began being sucked towards the Warlord like it was it a black hole.

The body of the Warlord began glowing green, and the many Deepdwellers ran closer. The Cave Troll tried to make use of the opening to smash the Warlord, but all the remaining warriors got in the troll’s way, risking their own lives.

As for Jake? Jake sat back to see what it was doing.

This was when he remembered the Golden Mushroom and saw that one of the Deepdwellers had it – one that was running straight towards the Warlord.

The Warlord began mutating at a rapid pace, but unlike the others that had done so, it didn’t just affect itself. Instead, the green aura around it made all the other Deepdwellers also begin to mutate and glow green. Jake at first thought it was some kind of area of effect of the crystal to make them all stronger but was quickly proven wrong.

Once a Deepweller was sufficiently mutated, it ran towards the Warlord – ran straight into it. Literally. The growing Warlord absorbed the Deepdweller entirely, only adding body mass to its grotesque form.

It was all an extremely bizarre and unsettling sight. The troll seemed to agree as it tried to get closer to smash the Warlord again, but a warrior chose to go on a full-on suicide attack to make the troll stop. It jumped straight into the troll to tackle it as its spear glowed a deep green color. It succeeded in stopping the troll, but in return, it got grabbed and had its entire head bitten off by the troll. It turns out trolls have quite the teeth too.

In the end, the Warlord absorbed over 30 Deepwellers, and Jake thought it was done until one final Deepdweller choose to join the flesh collective – the one carrying the Golden Mushroom.

The moment it got absorbed, it was as if a pulse went through the entire now nearly 10-meter tall Warlord. Golden veins spread through its body, pulsing with life energy. Jake was a bit shocked that it chose to absorb it, and he feared the mushroom was now gone for good… he could only hope it was still obtainable after the Warlord died.

Heck, maybe this was the key to getting it infused? Because he sure was doing this on hard-mode now.

The troll smashed the final warrior to death with its club, leaving only three

– as he was battling

that he was vastly different in another area. The two forgetful monsters charged into each other as if they had completely forgotten the very deadly hunter not far away. Thus, it appeared that while the mutation made the Warlord a lot stronger, it also wholly ruined its

to do the most brilliant thing – kill the weakest enemy

the Warlord. It was smashed up and down as the earth quaked and split apart. The troll summoned a few pillars of stone

tried to strike back with its club but found itself restrained. It roared again in anger, sending out a

and replaced the now-missing flesh. The troll swung again, blasting off even more meat. It tried

the fight had been equal from the start, the troll would have likely beaten the large flesh abomination Warlord – even after all the boosts from consuming its comrade and the Golden Mushroom. But as it

wounds already. Poison from all the spears and all the magic from the Fungalmancers still slowly drained away at its life energy. Sickly green spots covered its body, and many of the wounds it had just received festered as they were

the chest of the Warlord but was just punched again. It tried to make another scream, but it couldn’t release any more sonic blasts, so it tried crawling back into its cave. The Warlord smashed the upper parts of

troll and finish it off as he saw something

small figures lay within the cave, in an area where the mushroom looked to have been. Both were bloody and injured but not dead as far as Jake could tell. A sinking feeling appeared in his stomach as he used

Cave Troll –

Cave Troll –

up to them and tried to cover them with its body.

move for over a second and couldn’t do anything either as

necrotic

turned out to be an awful decision by

all of them exploding and blasting off large parts, followed by another Powershot that tore an arm off. The

failed – to end the troll before what would

it from behind, but this time it was no arrow. Instead, it was a human with wings that stabbed two swords into its large back, followed by

the cave. His entire body burned with

something just flipped in his mind, and his body moved. He knew he was probably a fucking hypocrite and had flawed as hell logic, but when he saw what the

its children. Jake couldn’t fault it for that, as it just wanted to keep assisting them. It was defensive of the cave because the children were in there… he remembered how it hadn’t moved from the cave when the Golden Mushroom was taken. Sure, it tried to get it back,

stuck in this small pocket dimension forever. Even Villy had mentioned that taking a dungeon creature out of a dungeon under normal circumstances was a pipedream. Yet, he

but

taken little damage. From the throw, that is. Necrotic poison burned into it with more power than anything Jake had ever inflicted before, and the reason

giving it any time as he charged

a single step, he appeared before it, both blades now also shimmering with arcane energy. Then, just as he attacked, dark mana joined

energy he poured into the attack as veins popped on both of them, making blood spurt out. But it was more than successful. The entire abomination was split into four pieces as

all four pieces sprouted out tendrils and tried to assemble themselves once more, even with the necrotic energy and mana burning into its flesh. However, Jake didn’t let it as he swiftly summoned his bow and fired a Splitting Arrow that split into four – one for each body

entirely apart by the exploding arcane arrows, while the piece where the head was remained whole,

powerful green glow that Jake instantly recognized – the fucker was going to

of his strength, sending it flying away from the cave and himself. After he kicked, he took one more step as he appeared

barrier started forming in front of him as he covered his body

not unlike the one he had experienced before. This one was far more powerful, though. Fortunately, it was also a lot further away, meaning that in the end, the explosion that hit him was far