The Primal Hunter

The cavern was still, entirely blanketed in silence. There were no plants, no movement, and seemingly no life. Save for one creature.

A large Hive Queen still stood in the middle of the grand cavern, looking tired. As she began moving, a second figure also let itself be known. Cracks spread all over a statue of a smaller termite, the Hive King wrestling itself free from the petrification.

This was naturally to be expected. As the spawn of the Hive Queen, the Hive King was nearly immune to her magic. The fact that a layer of rock had still covered the King’s body was proof of its power. It was a spell the Queen had used to slay many whenever she had delved deeper with the Hive King to conquer more area for the hive. However… it had not been enough.

The Hive Queen sent a mental command to the King to find and kill the human. The lack of notification was proof of life, even if his survival surprised her.

A shame, the Hive Queen thought. The seed of a powerful human such as him would have helped create a far more powerful generation, practically assuring their conquest of the planet. Such a shame indeed that he proved too volatile to control.

Searching the room, the Hive King soon came upon a large ball of stone, one large enough to contain one of her Guards. The Queen frowned upon seeing this. Was it the barriers of the human? The barriers should not have been petrified, but then again, he did have an interesting form of magic the Queen’s innate knowledge did not shed any light on.

“Destroy the rock and the human within. Hold nothing back,” the Queen commanded her King as she assisted by empowering her ward further. If the human was truly trapped within, it would be best to-

*Crack*

The Queen rushed to attack, but it was too late as the sphere of stone exploded, sending rock shards flying everywhere. Normally, these would be of no consequence, but the Queen felt an odd energy within them. As they flew through the air, the rocks slowly dispersed into nothing, and left standing at the epicenter of the explosion was a single human who looked more broken than whole.

Petrification had set in on different spots of his body, and the earth mana had invaded his body deeply… yet she felt it all slowly disappear. Be destroyed. Purple cracks lined his skin, seeping out energy, including the destroyed energy of her attack.

His body was overflowing with power, and the Queen knew it spelled trouble. The King moved, but the human reacted and side-stepped the attack, kicking the Hive King away, displaying more power than at any prior point in the fight.

The human’s gaze then turned towards her as he grinned, his lips cracking and blood flowing out from the act. At that moment, the Queen understood. Understood how he dared delve deep into her nest.

“Nice skill.”

He was insane with enough power to survive his own insanity. He was too dangerous. An eternal threat to the hive if he survived. She knew he had been in the hive before, only a D-grade then, and now he had grown powerful enough to battle her and the King. There was no other choice, he would have to die now, or there would be no future. Even if she died, other Queens lived and could take up the mantle.

All for the hive.

Jake had felt the earth affinity energy invade his body, turning him to stone from the inside as he struggled against it. The energy was powerful and overwhelming, but it still found trouble when it got inside him. It tried to petrify his blood but found the toxic substance resist heavily, his veins serving as purifying streams as the poison killed the energy wherever it passed.

Even then, it would not be enough, and Jake would have found himself unable to move for too long. His Sphere of Perception remained active, and he saw the Queen and Hive King both move towards him, going for the kill. That is when he knew he could not hold anything back.

Energy welled up from within his soul as he flooded his body. Pink-purple sparks appeared in his blood, stability and destruction mixed, and he pushed Arcane Awakening to its full potential. It felt like he set his own body on fire as his skin cracked and began peeling off. He hurt all over as the boost actively harmed him with every passing second, but he also felt what running pure destruction through your own body did to any foreign energy.

Whatever parts of him had been petrified were quickly purified by the baptism of destruction, his arcane energy passively flooding it and overwhelming it. With an internal groan, Jake released his energy outward, blowing up the sphere of stone. The King tried to attack Jake, but he easily kicked it away as he looked toward the Queen and grinned.

“Nice skill.”

same brown color, and the explosion had even gone up the tunnel towards the upper reaches of the hive, turning anything and everything it passed over into stone. However, as

Jake, the outcome would have been a lot different. Sadly for her, she was far from skilled enough to do that and probably also lacked the stats to even pull it off. Looking at the Queen, he felt how tired she was after using that skill. It was not the kind of thing she could do twice, and from the looks

and looked towards him, her eyes serious and… determined. He felt unsure of what

all

Her presence was entirely gone in the very next moment, as Jake got a

[Isoptera Hive Queen – lvl 272] – Bonus experience earned for killing

Edge] has reached level 202 - Stat points

201 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free

the dead Queen, his mind

bloody sense, and Jake was still utterly flummoxed as he felt something behind him. A towering presence sent a chill down his spine, and Jake barely managed to sway to the

flew straight by Jake, impacting the cavern wall next to the Queen, sending spider-web cracks across it. Jake’s mind was still processing what had happened as he felt warm liquid run down his arm.

energy were gone. No golden lines marred its body from the Queen’s empowerment, no golden aura lingered around it, and not a single trace of mana was

whole other beast compared to the Hive King

cleansed with every passing second. Jake knew he needed to buy some time, but

not give any pause as it

Shi-

with both katars as the mandibles tried to crush him, his arms creaking from the pain and his skin cracking open, spewing out blood. He did not have time to brace himself as a leg slammed into his side, sending him flying through the air. Jake wasn’t even allowed to slam into

on impact, and Jake struggled as he rolled to the side, avoiding having his chest impaled by a powerful leg stab. He rolled several more times as the Hive King tried to stomp on him, each stomp sending explosions of rock and dirt flying while making the entire cavern

the sixth roll, Jake could not keep up, and he turned his head towards the termite just as it lifted its leg. Gaze of the Apex Hunter activated, freezing the Hive King long enough for Jake to blast himself up into the

let out a deathly screeching sound Jake had never heard before. For a moment, he thought it was some kind of attack, but it truly was just a screech

what it had been capable of before, clearly not holding back an iota of power. He understood why too. The

to the Hive Queen. It had to be some kind of berserker-like skill by proxy, not triggered by the Hive King being injured but by the Hive Queen. With

have possibly predicted. It was helped along by Jake summoning new scales that absorbed some of the mana, his blood constantly draining it, and even Palate trying to get involved when his blood mixed with earth mana, turning it into an earth-like poison for him to absorb.

but for now, he was still on the back foot. The Hive King capitalized fully, its attacks

legs flying out with insane speed, and sometimes it used its near-indestructible body simply to ram him. It pushed Jake further

did slowly become able to fight back as they exchanged hundreds of blows. He tried to cut the Hive King but found its natural armor had also only grown stronger, so he began aiming for the termite’s joints, finding minor success here and

fight continued like this, Jake felt certain he would eventually find himself on

an idea appeared. Jake quickly dismissed it, but it promptly resurfaced as he considered it. His guts told him it should be possible… even if it seemed dumb. He had the tools,

give

King, followed by a massive blast of mana, launching the insect to the other side of the cavern. He then changed his stance as he dismissed Eternal Hunger. He stared

flooded the surface of his body, stamina his inside. In the distance, the Hive King hit the back wall and, like a bouncy ball, sprung straight back toward Jake. Jake stood unmoving as the creature flew towards him, crossing the several

Jake still didn’t move.

sense screamed at him… screamed, and then triggered a certain skill. Time slowed, and Jake knew this was his moment. An Eternal Shadow appeared, dodging the attack as the real Jake remained unmoving. The arcane energy flooding his body on the inside and outside suddenly changed as Jake shifted