The Primal Hunter

Levels truly worked in peculiar ways, and the correlation between levels and actual combat prowess was often muddy and difficult to pin down. For example, a low-tier genius D-grade could sometimes beat even pinnacle D-grades who focused primarily on crafting if they also happened to counter their skillset well, and the individual they fought was just overall weak for their level.

Jake was a great example of this, having even a class focused on fighting more powerful foes and a profession offering him many benefits in combat too. For him to fight an enemy tens of levels above himself was just to be expected. He was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, after all, and a Progenitor. He had titles making his stats far exceed what one of this level usually would have, a class and profession offering, even more, stats further amplified by this, powerful skills, and so on.

This did mean that level itself was truly a poor indicator of actual power, yet it was the best people often had if someone didn’t outright release their aura and kept their presence and whatnot suppressed. Of course, anyone could still feel the grade someone was, but it was uncertain if the Monarch had any idea as to Jake’s actual level considering he couldn’t be Identified.

Now, using Identify not being a good way to gauge anyone’s strength didn’t mean there was no way. In fact, almost anyone with any talent in fighting could get a rough estimate for how powerful someone was merely by looking at them.

Jake’s bloodline didn’t create new instincts; it merely enhanced those that were there before to wholly ridiculous levels. As many beasts had displayed, some basic danger sense was present, some spatial awareness was to be expected, and even intuition was just a natural occurrence everywhere.

Intuition and danger sense working in tangent was what allowed one to estimate how powerful someone was by simply looking at them. Jake had both these boosted to levels beyond perhaps any other being in the multiverse meant his instinctual gauge of how powerful someone was proved far more effective than merely using Identify. Of course, it was not entirely perfect. Something like the damn blue mushroom down in the biodome was a good example of this, as while Jake could feel it was strong, he simply couldn’t properly understand it either.

Now, all of this is to say that Jake noticed some people be relieved for a moment after they saw the now-named Monarch of Blood had dropped more than twenty levels. Perhaps they believed he had given up some of his own power to spawn the elementals and the huge blood-like celestial object hanging above. But, unfortunately, this was an entirely incorrect assumption.

Because while they breathed out in relief, those in the air all prepared themselves. The Sword Saint got into a defensive position, Carmen used some magic to fully heal herself right away, and Sylphie, Casper, and Caleb all backed off even further away, knowing the situation had changed.

The Monarch made his speech as he talked of the True Ancestor as he spread his hands and launched the final act.

“Come. Let the will of the True Ancestor be done!”

Jake had no time to think about what the whole ‘crafty True Ancestor’ thing was about before he was attacked. He wasn’t the only one either. The Monarch had raised his hand and fired off a beam in each of their directions.

The Sword Saint pointed his blade up as water revolved around it. The beam struck the tip of the sword and was redirected away, hitting a Vampiric Blood Elemental below. Carmen crossed her arms as she blocked, her bracers activating some enchantment to facilitate this. Caleb dodged to the side along with Sylphie while Casper summoned a black wooden shield, successfully blocking the blow.

Jake simply stepped to the side, his danger sense having given him ample warning as he released an arrow in return. Not towards the Monarch, but someone else. He had noticed that the many spawning elementals below actively ignored a certain unconscious man, making Jake guess something.

so Jake decided to take a gamble and shoot him with one. The arrow fell and exploded when it hit the man

to observe the result as mist condensed behind him. Jake took a step forward, appearing on a platform ahead of him just as

be in a mood to talk much more but attacked Jake again, this time simply flying towards him. In response, Jake decided to get a bit more serious himself. Mana began condensing around him as crystalline orbs

his scimitar and his Nanoblade to block. Jake clashed with the vampire, finding himself outmatched in both skill, speed, and power. But not diversity and

the left side. That is when he noticed the Nanoblade that had already taken a beating begin to struggle. He saw

Malefic Viper to wrest control of the domain back, he was still not fast enough. The crystalline sword of the Monarch grew to resemble a two-handed heavy sword and, with a mighty swing empowered further by

the crack as the heavy sword hit

dozen or so arcane

terrain as an explosion blew up where Jake had just been, sending him flying even further away. He didn’t have time to mourn the loss of his weapon as he instead drew his bow again and fired into the remnant arcane energy left by the bombs. He ignored the wounds left by the blade and his bruised arm and side,

knew that this one had done nothing as he still vividly felt the Mark of

energy, and impacted the barrier the boss had made around himself. Two large cuts were left on it, one leaving a barely noticeable trace, while the other caused faint

made the barrier explode as shards of glass-like blood crystals flew everywhere, even hitting the people below who were now in a bitter battle with the blood elementals. A few of the weaker ranged fighters found themselves taking

away from here, Jake

also a risk the Monarch could absorb the blood of those below like the Counts could, making them all living health potions. He didn’t want to risk that happening at all cost as he

was clear he was the primary target. Perhaps the Monarch believed Jake was dangerous if left alone, or maybe the boss just wanted to fight him as he was

To make it more difficult, the weapon changed shape to a heavier version sporadically as it seemed everchanging. Yet when he focused on being purely defensive,

to get where he was today. The first truly strong foe he had fought was the Alpha Badger back in the first tutorial dungeon, and against that beast, he had been so outmatched it wasn’t even funny when it came to physical stats… but he had

archery and magic and all that, it was

One Step Mile. The game of cat and mouse was one where the mouse clearly had the upper hand as every move of the cat was predicted

of blood energy, every twitch of a muscle,

felt Sylphie chase after him, followed by the others, with the Sword Saint dragging along Eron. She kept him updated so Jake could focus on the Monarch and not divert his gaze for even a moment. Finally, the Monarch made a too wide swing, and Jake pounced like a starved beast as his own scimitar flew up and left a

around him as blood clones appeared all around him, all of them summoning their own crystalline weapons

Step Mile to get away as he left a Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter on each of them to keep track. There were five clones in total, and three of them

one of the clones as he prepared himself. The clone dodged two of the arcane bolts but was hit by two as they

his back while the clone attacked from the front. Jake chose to charge ahead towards the blood clone and engage that, avoiding the blow of the Monarch by a slight margin as