The Primal Hunter

As Jake charged his Arcane Powershot, there was one aspect of his usual opening salvo he became a bit doubtful about. Some basic sense of danger seemed to be an inherent ability of most beings in the multiverse, which meant landing powerful opening shots could be problematic if the attacks weren’t fast or powerful enough. Even then, some foes could still avoid it. Unless, of course, the attacker had some way to stop their target from evading – like Gaze of the Apex Hunter.

This is where Jake was doubtful… did a Golem have a soul as he understood it? Things like elementals did, but would it have a soul for him to gaze into if this thing was constructed? Only one way to find out.

Jake released the Arcane Powershot as it sent out an explosion of arcane mana around him. The stone beneath his feet still looked untouched besides a few remnants of arcane energy.

At the same time, he tried to activate Gaze of the Apex Hunter. He tried and felt like he couldn’t get a proper look at his foe. Like it was hidden behind something. It was not unlike that time with Phillip and his skill that blocked Identify… meaning this enemy had some kind of soul-protecting skill.

Usually, there was no way a level 117 human could pierce this defense and still activate the skill. But Jake was no normal human. He was a human that had thrown the vast majority of his free points into perception, had a bloodline that made the perception stat even better, and was using a legendary skill.

Thus, his piercing gaze shattered the veil that sought to protect it, and just as the golem was about to dodge, it froze.

*BOOM!*

It was hit by a stable arcane arrow, yet an explosion of mana was sent out, not by the arrow, but by what it encountered. Jake saw a faint shimmering barrier running along the golem’s exterior – a barrier that had completely blocked the arrow except for a nearly unnoticeable nick in the silver-like metal of the golem.

His opening attack that usually left his foe severely damaged if taken head-on had done barely any damage, but it had allowed him to see that it had a shield of sorts that defended it. Jake was not going to sit around and wait for it to counter-attack but took a step, making him teleport back over a hundred meters as he drew another arrow.

The golem several kilometers away turned his way, and Jake saw two blue mechanical eyes stare back at him. He saw them faintly light up, and his danger sense exploded.

Oh shit!

Jake took another step, making him appear not directly behind himself but to the side. This turned out to be a very good choice, as where he had stood just a millisecond earlier was now occupied by a blue laser beam of destruction.

It didn’t cause any explosion, but Jake saw a small mark burned into the stone ground from the laser, which was more than he could leave with his own arrows. That eye-beam was packing some serious pow-

He had to dodge to the side again as another laser came his way, forcing him to abandon his strategy of rapidly attacking before the golem could make it to him. Once more, Jake was happy he had his practically precognitive danger sense. If not, he could have likely taken a severe wound from that first laser.

By the way, he called it a laser because it was. It wasn’t just a beam of pure mana like the Indigo Mushroom had made, but a concentrated beam of light-affinity mana. The remnants of light mana left in its wake were apparent.

The golem fired off a few more lasers until it became clear it wasn’t going to hit. Jake would have happily kept going to have the golem run itself out of mana, which was likely also the reason it stopped – Jake spent far less resources dodging than it spent attacking.

It charged towards him, taking quick steps, but it wasn’t overly fast.

Jake finally took this chance to fire another arrow towards the golem. It split into five in mid-air – a new record – shortly before it reached the golem. His foe dodged in between them, but the moment they passed, all five exploded in a massive blast of arcane energy.

The golem came out of it, sizzling with energy but otherwise untouched. When it was around two kilometers away, Jake fired another arrow, and the golem also made a move.

Its foot landed on the ground, and just as it did so, a blast of mana came out of its sole, propelling it forward.

That’s-

less than a second, one of its arms transforming in mid-air. The metal seemed to fold and bend, forming a large crescent-shaped axeblade. An axeblade it swung with extreme momentum as a small hole opened up as the back of

-A fucking jet engine!?

swing, but before he could even retaliate,

to roll awkwardly to the side as

inspect it far more closely. Its body was made of shiny silver-like metal as he had first seen, but he had been unable to see the smallest details on it before. Incredibly tiny openings were all

Much like how Jake had used mana blasts from his

saw that its hands and feet were both modular of sorts. It wasn’t like liquid metal, but clearly,

hand on the handle and the other at the top of the flat body of the blade. A jet-like blast came out of its arm, making the attack even more potent. He was knocked back hundreds of meters before landing on his feet, only to block

the charging golem. It was taken by surprise, and Jake swung his scimitar with both hands like the weapon was a baseball bat, and the head of the golem was

a fraction of a second. A shimmer of arcane energy barely managed to form

arms. It

times in the air till two mana jets re-stabilized it, and the fucker attacked as if

I need distance.

over a kilometer between him and the golem within a few seconds. He summoned

transformed into a claw-like shape. It reminded Jake of those things used to lift up and crush cars… except far

the air as he saw the golem dodge his arrow. At the same time, he pumped out poison mist and began summoning two arcane bolts,

of damage. Not to the golem itself, but its mana pool. No being had infinite energy, so Jake had

learned that his poison mist could help disturb that along with the arcane bolts. On the other hand,

way, the poison

Jake even felt a prickling pain in his summoned wings as it passed through, but it failed to do anything other than deal

as the grappling arm extended and shot up towards him. For a moment, Jake thought it

he dodged the grab by firing a blast of mana out of one of his gloves as he swung his blade with the other, sending out a prolonged arcane blade down towards the golem. It didn’t even react as the

straight up at him as it did so – its eyes glowing

barely managed to condense solid mana below his feet to use

of the massive cube they were in, making Jake wonder if it even had a max range. He didn’t have time to think much about it while dodging the constant attempts to grab him or cut

realize that trying to fight it at range wasn’t possible right now, so he decided to engage it in melee. While difficult, it was still manageable. Unfortunately. this forced him to do something he had hoped to

his stamina more quickly was a big risk as he essentially aimed to outlast his opponent, but he really didn't

in, trying to stay rather close to avoid the extending grappling arm. On closer inspection, It reminded him of a certain doctor who used to fight a dude with spider powers in both form and

weapons as the impact was just too powerful, and it moved in absurd ways. Dodging a fast weapon was already hard, but dodging a

shield of his foe, depleting its resources. It wasn’t like he didn’t return the favor for every hit either, as he managed to land many attacks too. The issue was that to Jake, it felt like he was hitting a… well, a metal

sustainable, so Jake tried to switch up the situation again by also making use of magic. Sending out blasts of arcane mana here and there, as he found his destructive mana quite efficient against the

Jake’s insane perception and bloodline, he could

barely get around Jake’s arm and clamped down with immense strength. It wasn’t strong enough to do any damage by

sense screamed, but he could do nothing but see the blue crackle at the end of the golem's arm as the shock came. Blue lightning audibly crackled up the length of its entire arm as it sent a massive amount of energy

his scales, and luckily, they didn’t give a shit about the claw but still transformed his skin. Jake hadn’t used them earlier as they would only be a drain on resources while being