The Primal Hunter

The Heartwarden looked completely unaware of the hunter that was currently observing it. Yet Jake had a strong feeling it was aware of his presence. So even if it didn’t know where he currently was, it should have at least picked up that someone or something was coming.

This was why Jake didn’t aim to repeat his opening attack against the Prima. He was certain the Heartwarden had something prepared as while the Deepwellers weren’t the most intelligent creatures – mushroom worship, case-in-point – they weren’t complete idiots.

His Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter had the issue of only working on the intended target, meaning if the Heartwarden had put up some defensive measures, his attack would be completely useless. Jake wasn’t entirely sure it had, but he did notice that the area it was in was covered in what looked like four odd magic circles. All of them seemed inert, but that could just be because they didn’t get power poured into them at the moment.

However, they did look to be of the same making as the wall. All the circles were placed on black slabs of stone that Jake assumed were made of the same material as the wall.

Jake couldn’t see what was inside the wall due to where he stood, but he was 99% sure he couldn’t get in there without defeating the Heartwarden first. It would kind of be a shitty dungeon if you could just have your defensive fighter distract the big boss as you went for the loot.

Yes, Jake did believe the Heartwarden was the final boss of the Undergrowth – at least the standard part of it. He hoped there would be more powerful foes deeper within, beyond the wall. However, that would be for after the fight to discover.

Having learned from past mistakes, Jake began summoning his Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. While Jake hadn’t fought this particular variant of Deepdweller before, he had fought plenty to get a good enough understanding of them to summon the arrow.

It was an arrow much like the one he summoned against the others. The arrow was black and exuded a faint feeling of death due to its inherent necrotic properties. Jake doubled up by coating it on uncommon-rarity Potent Necrotic Poison, as well as using the same bottle to prepare a stock of stable arcane arrows coated in poison.

Once he was done, he didn’t fire the Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. The arrow was massive like all others, and more than a meter long, but Jake had a strong feeling it would be a waste to just fire it. Instead, he wrapped it up in arcane strings and put it on his back as he drew a regular poisoned stable arcane arrow and began charging his Arcane Powershot.

Through testing, he knew the Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter would remain for at least a while, so as long as he fired it within the next five to ten minutes, things should work out fine. However, he did feel it already begin leaking some of its energy even now, making him aware he was on a timer.

Arcane energy swirled around him as he nocked the arrow, took aim and drew the string. Arcane Powershot powered up as he focused on the sensation of the arcane mana across his skin and into the bow, the feeling of stamina welling in his upper body and allowing him to display strength far above his usual.

Once he felt his body unable to take the build-up of energy anymore before it would begin to take serious damage that could impede him in the fight to come, he released the arrow to an explosion of arcane power.

The condensed mana below his feet he had been standing on unsurprisingly blew up, but his wings were already summoned as they stabilized him. Another arrow was already being drawn as his opening shot arrived, Jake only sparing a moment to freeze the Heartwarden with Gaze of the Apex Hunter as he saw the results of his attack.

When the arcane arrow was 20 meters away from the Heartwarden, a barrier of green energy appeared in mid-air as a green rune lit up on the back of one of its hands.

The arrow impacted the barrier along with all of the energy from the Arcane Powershot. It held up for a moment until it shattered, and the arrow continued down towards the Heartwarden. But it was too late as it had already dodged to the side.

Jake landed his eyes on it again and saw it now had equipment in both hands. In one hand, it wielded a mushroom shield, and in the other, it had a crystal halberd. This was the first clue on what kind of capabilities this creature had.

At the same time, as he observed the Deepdweller, it clearly also regarded him with some magical sense just before it attacked. It cut the air and sent a wave of green energy flying towards him, using a type of attack that Jake felt like every damn creature fighting with melee weapons had.

In Jake’s opinion, a feeble attempt at trying to be a ranged fighter as he easily dodged in the air, firing another arrow towards the Heartwarden. The rune on the back of the hand holding the shield lit up as a barrier of green energy appeared before it.

Just as the arrow hit the barrier, it split in four, all of them exploding with destructive energy, burning away the barrier but also flooding the atmosphere in dense arcane mana. Enough for the creatures mana sense not to detect the follow-up attack in time.

had gotten unlucky, but Jake called

Poison successfully delivered.

hand light up again, and a barrier appeared – appeared inside and around the shoulder of the Heartwarden. He frowned as he felt the poison failing to spread through his Sense of

majority of the poison wasted. As for the wound? A

made the creature expend a lot of resources to remove the poisoned arrow. He had plenty of poison to give out,

high. It was flying a lot like the Shroomguards had, but it also appeared to be able to step in

also landing the occasional shot. The fight was honestly going a lot easier than Jake expected. He did have some

and Shroomguards, but the Fungalmancers too. The ground below him began churning as vines flew up and grasped for him. It also began spitting out a cloud of spores from

for the attack but sent out a blast of arcane energy down towards the grasping vines, blowing up a few of them while easily dodging the remaining ones. In

since that first one, with the Heartwarden blocking or dodging

every one of them, but at the same time, Jake also got a few scratches from vines or the green waves of energy

land the dose of death he carried strapped to his

hands lit up at once as the fungus vines came up from below far faster than before as they gave off a green glow. Barriers also began appearing around him to block off his path of retreat, forcing Jake to either

He chose the vines.

giant blast that destroyed hundreds of meters worth of airspace, taking the vines with it. He fired again and destroyed

floating in the air from the exploded mushroom vines, as it appeared like small fragments of wood had been within. All

over a thousand… all of them now headed straight for him in a rain of

up on its shield-hand, and when the halberd-hand lit up, so did the spears as green

of arcane energy in front of him. Simultaneously he flapped his wings and focused on his sphere and danger

minimize the damage. The rain hit him as he dodged the first few. He was hit in the arm, but he avoided one headed for his shoulder due to that. He took one in the shoulder but avoided one to the chest and took one

Jake broke free of the rain, and he saw all the spears turn in air and speed towards his back far

gaze landed on the Heartwarden, and it froze. Unfortunately, this would not be enough to stop the rain of spears as only its body was frozen. The Heartwarden seemed to have accepted to be hit by the Arrow of

He needed to break its focus and make it lose control over the spears for just a moment, so

with purple energy for the blink of an eye as it screamed in pain, the spears behind him becoming disorganized. Jake released his arrow straight towards the Heartwarden that was hit in the chest without even making the slightest attempt to dodge –

It would have been impaled if Jake’s arrow was able to pierce the wall, but he would just have to take the giant bleeding and festering hole in the Heartwarden’s

as the projectiles now fell towards his body without direction as their manipulator was busy getting blasted to

halberd and shield were absorbed into its body as it fell. Jake saw it start to enter its second phase – but he

Miles and he appeared where it would land. As it began mutating, it was unable to move properly, which Jake took

is until armor covered its body just like it had covered the Shroomguards when they absorbed a mushroom. Jake smirked as he kept firing where the armor

veins covering its entire body from over 25 poisoned arrows. The tentacles swiped

and diced and jumped back as the wriggling mass of tumors and flesh began trying to take on a humanoid form. Once more, Jake did not allow it to do as it pleased. This transformation time was a huge opening that he had exploited and

in poison as he moved in closer. The tentacles struggled, the body still forming. Where all the flesh came from, he didn’t know, but he saw it glow

flipped his wrist as two items appeared in it. One of them was a bottle with Potent Necrotic Poison, and the other was a small sphere pulsing with arcane energy. Jake pulled out the pin and put the sphere and bottle into the wound as

*BOOM!*