The Primal Hunter

Jake and Villy moved to the living room of Jake’s mansion, and when Jake went to grab something to drink, the Viper just pulled out two beer bottles that gave off a response from his Sense of the Malefic Viper. Poison beer, nice.

They sat down across from each other as the Viper leaned back on the couch and began talking.

“Bloodlines have quite the history in the multiverse. As those with Bloodlines are often compared to Transcendents, it only leads to more scrutiny and interest, especially from those who possess neither. Bloodlines were a thing from the beginning, and many of those with Bloodlines in the first universe did grow up to be powerhouses who dominated, even if they failed to make it to godhood. Naturally, as time moved on, many also became gods… but their survival rate back then was just abysmal.”

“Why?” Jake asked, a bit confused. Did a Bloodline not give an advantage if it was beneficial?

“Hm… did you know not a single one of us Primordials had Bloodlines? At least not ones anyone knew about?” Villy asked

“No,” Jake shook his head. “I had kind of assumed someone did… though it is true I didn’t feel one from Valdemar, and does the current Eversmile even have one? I didn’t feel it. Not from Stormild either, now that I think about it…”

“Stormild does not have one as far as I know, while Eversmile does, his is just hidden due to the nature of his Bloodline. Well, he may have had it always, but no one knew, not even others with Bloodlines. The point is no one with a known Bloodline became a god during the first Era.”

“That is odd,” Jake thought out loud.

“No, not if you understand the landscape back then. You see, people are greedy. Beasts, humans, elementals, it doesn’t matter the race. We are all greedy for power. So when we see someone with something we don’t have, and we don’t know how to get it… we try anyway to take it, no matter how futile the effort. If you had a Bloodline back then, you had a target on your back. In the beginning, because people wanted to capture you and try to extract it, with even rumors spreading that you could gain a Bloodline by consuming someone who had one,” the Viper explained, shaking his head.

“That sounds fucking rough,” Jake said.

“Oh, it was. This was how the entire first Era went. Most with Bloodlines were slaughtered before realizing their potential, and those who survived lived as test subjects until their death. It was a curse more than anything else. Some with Bloodlines were used as Bloodline Detectors and were strutted around to find others with Bloodlines to capture them. Towards the end of the first Era, I don’t think a single person in S-grade even had a Bloodline.

“When the second Era began, people seemed to have gotten the message that you can’t steal Bloodlines, especially as we Primordials spread it with our nascent factions. However, it was discovered that they could be passed down, so I guess you can imagine the next step in the evolution of Bloodline hunting?” Villy asked grimly.

“Treat them like cattle?” Jake asked with a deep frown.

it was even worse than before, especially due to how propagation works with the system. Have we ever

a feeling I know. You can’t

both wish for it to happen. In what should not have been a surprise to absolutely anyone, people with Bloodlines that have practically been turned into sex slaves aren’t exactly excited about becoming parents. Women and men alike were forced

also felt disgusted as he nevertheless

captured them young and indoctrinated them into pretty much making them true members of the clan… some also just broke and began helping out of desperation. Ultimately, it wasn’t efficient in the least, and there is also the fact that you want the one with the Bloodline to be powerful. The Bloodline alone is nice,

approach. The ones who genuinely made them members of their factions, nurtured them, allowed them to prosper, and even sometimes had them end up the new leaders. In fact, this is how many still-existing factions began. There was also a growing tendency to just leave those with Bloodlines

hell did they hunt them down? I doubt those with Bloodlines themselves would help, and unless something was drastically different back then, I don’t see every team of

Bloodline. Odd affinity they are good at? Bloodline. Anything at all making you slightly stand out from the masses? Probably a Bloodline. It even expanded to beasts where variants were often confused as ones having Bloodlines… the entire situation was utterly fucked and in no way sustainable long-term. Yet it continued, and this craze came in waves. However, there was a shift as more with Bloodlines came to be in power, especially when ones reached godhood. Bloodlines began to propagate, and blindly hunting them down became frowned upon, and it became

will just

Nobody will dare try,” Villy said, shaking his

of my Blessing,

a treaty that still stands today, banning the abductions, enslavement,

pry but knew better. Instead, he asked a question, slightly changing the topic. “Who was

the seventh Era. It was signed by nearly all publicly acting gods at the time. All of us also act as executioners of any who breaks this treaty. The most known example was during the eighty-second Era when a Pantheon emerged that didn’t seem to care. They had many gods among them and were desperate for expansion. At the same time, a small clan that was rapidly growing to power appeared within their territory, all having powerful Bloodlines. The Pantheon’s leader was a god who was most known for having fought the Starsiezing Titan, another Primordial, and the fight having been mostly deemed a draw. He was confident, but he felt like he needed more. So he looked to this small clan and saw the potential of their Bloodline. He wanted it to expand his faction’s power. However, this small clan did not agree

closely as nothing came as a surprise. He knew factions could

clan to be his own mistresses to sire powerful children and the men to copulate with his own daughters. This was caught within a week of it happening… and this moronic god learned the

began, the god in charge fled to his realm, where he was promptly followed and

either? I have a hard time seeing someone

won’t. Eversmile is a bit of a bastard, but he is not a liar. His word means more than you can understand due to the Path he walks. A promise made by him

was an asshole. “Anyway, to conclude, this treaty means I am

much other reason to. As I am sure you can imagine, they would have loved to make Bloodline Holders into slaves, but you can’t enslave people with Bloodlines as we talked about

now. “The method you

recruits someone with a Bloodline as a member or even just bribes

Bloodlines are still treated as commodities,” Jake