The Primal Hunter

The last time Jake had faced the hydra, it had ended in his defeat due to a timer. In this dungeon, there was no such timer and no interruptions to their battle. Jake could spend an as much time as he wanted, as long as his resources allowed it.

Jake had no idea how long it would take, but inside his Soulspace, he already felt sim-Jake begin his part. Charging forward, Jake prepared to meet the hydra in battle. It still showed the same lack of intelligence as their first fight, but its power had grown significantly, as one would expect from a beast getting 39 more levels.

However, Jake had gotten even more levels and power.

The two-headed hydra turned toward him and got ready as he approached. Its instinctual knowledge was enough to identify Jake as a strong opponent, making it clearly take him seriously from the get-go. One maw snapped forward as the other waited to strike, evaluating what Jake would do.

Its massive teeth-filled mouth missed Jake as he side-stepped and jabbed one katar into its side swiftly. The blade only went five or so centimeters into the flesh as he retracted it, the scales and flesh of the hydra too durable for Jake to ignore. If he tried to really jam it in there, he even reckoned it would get stuck.

As expected, the second head descended and tried to snatch Jake up. Jake again dodged and tried to counter, but the first head swiped to the side to hit him. This forced him back as the second head lifted itself towards the sky and breathed in.

Space itself appeared to distort from the inhale, with Jake feeling the movements of massive amounts of mana. Air mana primarily. It was being extracted and absorbed in huge quantities at a time, making it look like a maelstrom had formed above the hydra. Even the clouds several kilometers up in the air were affected.

Needless to say, all this took a bit of time, giving Jake ample opportunity to move. The other head of the hydra naturally moved to stop him, and the four-legged beast even tried to stomp him with its large legs to keep him away as Jake dodged the head and got beneath. He ran quickly but managed to stab four times into the underbelly of the beast, each blow delivering a solid dose of poison from Fangs of the Malefic Viper.

Just as he got to the other side, the hydra roared with the head not inhaling. Jake felt his entire body tense up as the second head bent and aimed its maw straight at Jake.

Let me have it.

A massive sonic boom rocked the entire marsh as a bubble of pure air was released. Trees were uprooted, and Jake found himself impacted straight in the chest. Blood pooled in his mouth as he spat it out, flying through the air through a few trees that had survived. He slid to a halt as he landed on his feet, using both katars to slow himself down.

The released air had been far more potent in the beginning but was just a mild wind by now. Jake felt his ribs hurt a little from the impact earlier but still smiled. It needed to at least be this strong.

He stepped down as he teleported forward and, in only three steps, appeared in front of the hydra once more. Without hesitation, he attacked again. The beast happily responded as the two heads capable of swallowing him whole descended from above to eat him like a snack. Sadly for the hydra, such elementary attacks had no way of hitting.

but it was outmatched. Jake had gotten stronger, and the level gap was severely lower than last time. He was no longer a complete idiot when it came to melee, either. In fact, he felt better than ever. A part of him had feared that only practicing with sim-Jake for so long would have made him worse

disappointed. Then again, he knew he couldn’t expect too much. It was common knowledge that the smarter a beast was, the more dangerous it was. If this hydra had the same level of intelligence as a human or even just the Phantomshade Panther, it would be

that Snappy had been weak when he was

legs several times, hoping to weaken it. He circled the large beast, making it harder for the heads to pin him down and attack him, positioning himself in such a fashion that only one head could strike at a time. Even if the hydra was

with its tail, sending him flying back from the impact. It did little damage to him, but it did buy the beast some time. Instantly

try and take advantage of this slight opening, Jake let it finish. Soon, a hydra about four and a half meters tall stood before him, its gray scales now a darker shade. Jake felt its dense energy from

shot forward like two snakes, the many teeth biting down on air as Jake had already teleported back. With the very next step, he teleported forward again to counter, but a leg was raised to

beast. The only chance he got was for a slicing attack, but the bone katar just

upped everything it already could to a whole new level, Jake concluded. It maybe did have

came for Jake as his body exploded with power, Arcane Awakening activating at the safe 30%. His body was flooded with energy as he dodged the attack, landing a solid jab

hit him with its tail. Jake angled himself and pointed both weapons towards the tail as he jumped slightly. The impact sent him flying, but the momentum of the blow also made both katars penetrate the tail as if the beast had just

before stepping down and teleporting to keep up his constant assault. Wanting to really push himself, Jake even boosted

durable, making slicing attacks difficult, while the regeneration of the hydra made its wounds heal incredibly swiftly. It didn’t even feel like it drained a lot of health points doing this, as the beast probably also regenerated that at an insane pace. Moreover, Jake came to discover the hydra did have one

one had to not only outpace the regeneration that increased the more damaged the hydra was but also keep up this high damage output while the hydra got stronger and faster. It was indeed true the beast had few abilities, but those it had all seemed to synergize and turn baby Snappy into a

human soon got into a status quo of exchanging blows. Jake focused on what he had come there for as he finally felt himself be pushed, the occasional stunning roar and absorption blast putting him on the back foot at times. He knew that a single slip-up with end up losing him a limb to the maw of the hydra, making it all the more exciting. Jake also bit onto the fact that

a few other tricks up his sleeve for when

of death with his opponent as the ball

Soulspace, sim-Jake stood in front of the massive curse beast with one hand on its head. He had his eyes closed as

ruin the entire purpose of this exercise, though. Sim-Jake felt the rush of adrenaline running through his body as it ran through Jake’s body outside. As he stood there, he carefully observed how

of a fight, there were several choices that could be made when responding to something. Dodge, block, counter. Even while dodging, he had a few decisions to make, the

just be considered a full-on counter. Every counter had a myriad of methods behind them, too, though often only a few would be optimal. Adding in

was all he ever felt like he was good at.

never really had any reason to not act out his inherent impulses, even if it was a world that had developed to not accept them.