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?”

by information,” the Sword Saint

were melee combatants like him, and from their

without any obvious magical characteristics. Seeing the opponent using ice magic, he quickly realized these people were aware of his abilities. One of the greatest counters to water was not extreme heat but

one as he stepped 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

began 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 was forced

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, he was blasted back as his left arm was

a bit tired, but otherwise, fine. The man

doing this… the Noboru Clan is not part of any religious faction. We are an independent force. Would

spoke. “You are the only one worth killing here. With you gone, they will fall into shambles, and we are

Saint nodded before answering with gusto.

and retreat. The old 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

the ice

second warrior

took out a token and seemed to communicate through it. A few seconds passed before he smiled.

stabbed in the back as his eyes opened wide. The corpse quickly stood up as he healed, a head regrowing and his body changing. Rather than an old man, a

into the air, still holding the token. He screamed as he

retaliate as the old man bent his

“Thousand Waves Slash.”

before cutting off the head of the man he identified as a Nahoom. Turning to the other

alive, the Sword Saint looked at the former Monarch, who

have thought me acting as your doppelganger for so long would come into play like this,” Iskar, the former Monarch

and had 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 the Divine item left by Sanguine, but he was a fully-fledged lifeform when

set was incredibly vast and varied and included high-level illusion magic coupled with hypnosis. Enough to fool the two attackers into thinking they had actually

from the direction of 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

just one corpse meant he had a prisoner - a prisoner likely

this to Ms. Wells, not believing there was a need to keep it a secret from her. Jake trusted her, and so far, she

need to fake your own death even to your clan… do you fear it would leak if they

like that. They require me to be their Patriarch to continue their existence and rely on me far too much. Moreover, there have been more internal struggles as we have grown. There were even those pushing to join the United Cities Alliance. So I wish to see how the clan will act when I am believed dead. I want to see if the clan is worthy

and truly pursue what he cared about. His power would be the power of the clan, but it had become too much. They had begun to treat him as more than an