The Primal Hunter

Across the planet, the chaos brought on by the United Cities Alliance and Ell’Hakan continued. Beasts attacked like never before, and millions died within only a week as many settlements fell, unprepared and too weak to resist. Those who held on still took losses, and the survivors all had a newfound hatred. The work that had been made to establish positive relations between monsters and humanity was thoroughly broken.

The problem was that people did not see the actions of beasts as those of individuals but that of a monolith - as a tribe. They put all monsters in a box and vilified them in their minds as aggressors. This was not much different from what humans did to other humans before the system. People loved to hate others, and it was just easier to hate an entire religion, country, or appearance than recognize that each person was an individual making their own choices.

And this feeling was reciprocated by the monsters.

They, too, viewed humanity as something they wanted to wipe out. Their reasons varied, but their goal was the same. Some saw humans as destroyers, having ruined their natural habitats before the systems and thus nothing but a scourge on the planet. Others had been mistreated and abused by humans all their lives. A small part just looked down on humans as weak and pathetic creatures not worth keeping alive. Others still did not truly care much; they just wanted to hunt without restrictions. As with any good hate group, they didn’t need a unified ideology, just shared hatred.

With every beast that killed a human, humanity’s hatred of beasts grew. With every human that killed a beast, the beasts’ resentment of humanity grew. One would maybe think that monsters getting angry at humans killing beasts while defending themselves wasn’t fair, but how was it different from what humans usually did?

Human hunting parties entered the territory of monsters often. They killed hundreds of beasts or elementals or whatever they came across that gave them experience before retreating to their cities. It was so normalized no one questioned it. The monsters didn’t even question it, as fighting and the law of the jungle were just the rules of the multiverse.

What they did question was the Fallen King then coming and trying to tell them they had to leave all human settlements alone. Leaving some alone was fine, but all of them? Would the humans have accepted the same terms? A unilateral ban from entering and hunting monsters within their homes?

The answer was no.

This was not a question of right or wrong but simply reality. Humans and monsters both needed to kill to progress, and humans had a tendency to want to avoid killing other humans, making them target monsters instead. This was how the universe had worked for Eras, and there would never truly be peace between all the different races. Especially when the enlightened races kept their sense of superiority, thinking the life of a human or elf was more valuable than that of a beast. War and conflict were simply inevitable.

Unless, of course, a powerful enough influence could make humanity and all monsters back down and search for prey elsewhere than their own planet.

Miyamoto felt the token in his spatial storage vibrate once more and decided to take it out this time. He had chosen to wait out and assess the situation before making any further moves, but it appeared it was time to discuss their circumstances.

“Ms. Wells, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he answered, allowing her to take the initiative.

“It pleases me to know you are doing well, Sword Saint. To the world, you are still considering missing in action and potentially dead,” she said.

“I am aware,” he answered as he smiled to himself. “And it is intentional. So please, do me a favor and keep it as such.”

“Alright?” Ms. Wells said with some confusion. “May I know what happened after you were presumably attacked?”

information,” the Sword Saint

as they circled him. Both of them were melee combatants like him, and from their small initial clash, he

his abilities. One of the greatest counters to water was not extreme heat but extreme cold. It would

back to avoid the blow of the other. His original assessment that they were about as strong as the Judge from the Court of Shadows was correct. The difference was that they were both already using their boosting skills, wanting to

to revolve around him as the ice swordsman took a step back, and the other engaged with a curved sword in each hand. The man’s speed was impressive, and the Sword Saint

he only activated it at a low level. His opponents still attacked with an upper hand as they pushed themselves to their extremes. The Sword Saint took injury after injury as trump cards were revealed from the other side, and soon enough,

and a bit

the Noboru Clan is not part of any religious faction. We are an independent force. Would the United Cities Alliance not want us on their side?” the

clan,” the other attacker spoke. “You are the only one worth killing here. With you gone, they will fall into shambles, and we are already aware of the internal struggles your family faces. It won’t be hard to convince them to

answering with gusto. “I will never let that

man ran through the plans, but he was simply too slow. A blade of ice flew from behind and hit him in the shin, making him fall over. He rolled to the side to avoid the non-magical warrior’s scimitar but still took a nasty cut. In a final gamble, he tried to take down one of them with him, but he was too slow. He managed to cut the shoulder of the ice warrior but was stabbed in the heart by a scimitar. The old man tried to do something, but before he could, the second scimitar swept up and severed

notification?” the

the second

communicate through it. A few seconds passed before he

of the old man suddenly moved as a spear appeared in his hand. The second warrior was stabbed in the back as his eyes opened wide. The corpse quickly stood up as he healed, a head regrowing and his body changing.

into the air, still holding the token. He screamed

to retaliate as the old

“Thousand Waves Slash.”

up and landed several blows before cutting off the head of the man he identified as a Nahoom.

Sword Saint looked at the

thought me acting as your doppelganger for so long would

a lot in common, with Iskar having a wealth of knowledge stashed away in his head. He did not remember everything, but with time, the former A-grade recalled details. His existence was an interesting one due to its link with

skill set was incredibly vast and varied and included high-level illusion magic coupled with hypnosis. Enough to fool the

Noboru Clan. He planned on staying dead in the eyes of the public, and leaving behind only one unrecognizable corpse should keep up the illusion, at least

meant he had a prisoner - a prisoner likely holding a

keep it a secret from her. Jake trusted

don’t understand why you need to fake your own death even to your clan… do you fear it

struggles as

would be the power of the clan, but it had become too much. They had begun to treat him as more