The Primal Hunter

Jake spent the next day or so refining and making more of the poison that he would use to take down the Unique Lifeform as he waited for it to appear below. It took about twenty-six hours before Jake spotted the Ashen Phantom Devourer move roughly a hundred kilometers below himself.

Its form was truly massive, and to Jake, it looked like the sandstorm he had seen in the desert but made of ash and not sand. Without knowing better, he would not even have thought it a living creature. Black ash simply swept across the mountains as if a strong wind carried it. As it approached the residence of the Fallen King, the ash began to condense itself into a vaguely humanoid form a bit more than five meters tall.

The figure raised a long log-like arm as space seemed to distort. A giant bullet of ash was collected that was fired out of the domain and towards the residence of the King. The King responded as a barrier appeared, and the Unique Lifeform emerged.

Ash can leave the area, forcing it to generate more, Jake quickly concluded as more ash just seemed to appear within the domain. Focusing, he tried to look deeper and get a feeling for what he was facing. His high Perception had already allowed him to look past the clouds that blocked out his vision, but now he wanted to see something not visible to the naked eye.

The domain of the Unique Lifeform was its Soulshape, which meant it had to leave something there. Some part of itself, at least in the metaphysical realm. Usually, Jake saw the Soulshape of a creature by relying on the poison running through their bodies and using Sense of the Malefic Viper. However, in this case, he could not feasibly poison the Unique Lifeform to do this without it discovering his presence.

According to him, the King could see the full body of the Ashen Phantom Devourer. His sight was not the same as that of a human’s but far more magical in nature, and Sandy could likely also have sensed the body of the Unique Lifeform. The environment it occupied simply had to be different in some way, even if it was not currently within his visible spectrum.

The human eye had limitations. Examples were such as how it could not see infrared or ultraviolet light and overall had a relatively narrow spectrum of wavelength visible to it. Probably a good thing, too, as being able to see outside of it would be a miserable experience considering all the wavelengths in the air at all times stemming from phone signals, radio waves, the internet, and whatnot. Yet humans had found ways to still see these things. Measure them using devices to translate them into something humans could see and understand.

Jake had none of such measurement devices, and post-system, they likely wouldn’t even work either. What he did have was a superhuman body and Perception above anything a D-grade human should ever have. He could see mana of different affinities, use tracking to detect things that weren’t truly there, and even adapt and get used to these things, such as when he got used to dark mana. So why should he not be able to also see outside of the visual spectrum of humans and see the metaphysical? Gaze of the Apex Hunter already allowed him to “see” his opponent’s soul based on the description, and that skill had permanently modified his eyes to allow this. Shit, at times, he felt like he had seen someone’s soul, such as when he tried to get around Identify protection.

At this point, it was no longer just a theory that he could do it but a conviction that he simply hadn’t found the proper method.

The battle below continued as the two powerful entities crashed repeatedly. The Fallen King purposefully played it defensively and blocked most attacks with his powerful telekinesis while allowing the weaker blows to merely fizzle out upon encountering his barrier.

Ash formed into different shapes appeared to be the primary method of attack deployed by the Ashen Phantom Devourer, but Jake quickly saw it wasn’t that simple. The ash was not simply compressed but layered in odd ways. A single spear of ash looked like it was made of obsidian, making it far more condensed than what made sense. To add on, the ash could also change shape even when in flight, and rather than fly straight, it often seemed to teleport.

Because it did teleport.

Another thing the King had already mentioned was the ash’s ability to not only do damage but multiply by itself. Jake was not entirely certain what affinities ash existed of, but he assumed it had to do with fire of some kind. Now that he observed it in action, he became more and more certain of one thing that also made the Phantom part of the Unique Lifeform’s name make sense.

Dark mana. The ash is heavily infused with dark mana, Jake concluded. The dark mana materialized as the ash consumed the mana of the King whenever they clashed, and a reason why ash constantly filled the huge domain was due to the Unique Lifeform absorbing energy from outside into its territory at all times.

Every particle of ash also had dark mana within, absorbing some of the King’s simply by passively touching his barrier. This dark mana appeared weaker than its space and ash magic and pretty much only included the assimilation parts of the dark affinity. From Jake’s initial assessment, the King was superior in both power and resources, but the Devourer won out in durability and endurance.

Not that either of them wasn’t considered pinnacle creatures, even in their weak areas.

outline. Following that path, the outline turned entirely black as huge

knew this was the true body of the Unique Lifeform, and he now also knew he had severely underestimated the size of his foe. It truly was nearly as large as the C-grade

by resources remaining, Jake

order to move the domain, the ash had to “push” the perimeter of the domain by flying in the direction the Unique Lifeform wanted to go, meaning that a physical barrier would obstruct it. Jake breathed out a sigh of relief upon realizing this as that ruled out the Unique Lifeform fleeing below the ground by simply moving

began to become more transparent. He then began to see that light also refracted

even more than it already was. The King’s golden attacks seemed to do significant damage to the Ashen Phantom Devourer whenever ash was destroyed, and sometimes the entire domain seemed to

catalyst at the center of a ritual circle, condensing a body allows it to focus its energy into a single entity to then further condense

more energy than anywhere else. If the Unique Lifeform had been C-grade, it could

Lifeforms ended up taking around an hour. After an hour, the King began to launch larger and larger attacks, damaging the Devourer more and more. Yet it also left him open, and the

as he saw it reach a large hole in the ground more than fifty kilometers from the King. When it reached the hole, the entire domain shrank and entered. The domain was only about sixty to seventy percent of its regular size at that point, too, visualizing the damage it had taken. It had clearly gone to absorb more energy again and return at

if you are not in a rush and play it safe… to bad

token again, and as he saw the King retreat to his residence,

Miranda, that was fast. So, how you holding up down

I would barely be able to reach around sixty to sixty-five percent. I used my boosting skill liberally this time around to appear more desperate too. In reality, I can consume a few Soul Marbles, and I should be back to over eighty percent. Before you ask, potions do not help; besides, potions barely work on Unique Lifeforms. My guess is that the Devourer shall return within the next twelve hours in an attempt to finish me off. In fact, I think it wanted this battle to be

ready to inform the Sword Saint. I will eat my bow if

leave you to your preparations now. Neil has also prepared, and if everything

and I believe

part was naturally asked

ready,” the King responded

See you when the Ashen Phantom Devourer arrives. I will prick your soul when I engage.

more needed to be said. All that was needed now was execution, and Jake had twelve hours to make sure everything was

A working neurotoxin.

all

Lotus Leaf (Ancient)] – The leaf of a legendary rarity Umbral Lotus. This leaf is incredibly poisonous and releases dark-affinity mana all around it. Consuming it may lead to adverse effects. Many

had the lotus leaves. As he didn’t have enough of them to actually experiment, Jake had one in Palate since the day he began working on the

ingredient was

an incredibly poisonous creature only found in areas with extremely dense water affinity. Its very blood is toxic to consume and especially toxic if directly injected. The Lifeblood is of a neurotoxin

third ingredient, he also pulled out something he hadn’t really ever made use of. A reward from the entrance-exam dungeon of the