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.”

damn powerful skill. The entire cavern now had the 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 with many other ultimate attacks,

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 of it, the skill even included

the Queen suddenly regrew her humanoid upper body and looked towards him, her eyes serious and… determined. He felt unsure of what she was planning when

at all cost, you

her humanoid upper body fell forward, limp. Her presence was entirely gone in the

– Bonus experience earned for

of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 202 -

has reached level 201 - Stat points allocated, +45

stared at the dead Queen, his

It made no 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

sending spider-web cracks across it. Jake’s mind was still processing what had

was the Hive King. All traces of external 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 anywhere near it.

beast compared to the

skill affected him, even if it was slowly being cleansed with every passing

Hive King that did not give any pause

Shi-

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

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

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

let out a deathly screeching sound Jake had never heard before. For a moment, he thought it was

let it get the upper hand again, so he teleported away, trying to buy enough time for the petrification to be properly dispelled. The Hive King chased him, displaying speed far above what it had been capable of before, clearly not holding back an

based on how much damage he did to the Hive Queen. It had to be

the earth mana far faster than the Queen could 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

foot. The Hive King capitalized fully, its

ram him. It pushed Jake further than he felt comfortable with, and even if he got faster

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,

fight continued like this, Jake felt certain he would eventually find himself on the losing end. The Hive King

an idea appeared. Jake quickly dismissed it, but it promptly resurfaced as he considered it. His guts

give it a

side of the cavern. He then changed his stance as he dismissed Eternal Hunger. He stared at the Hive King as he pointed the Blackpoint Nanoblade in its direction, bent his knees to brace himself, and used his entire body as leverage to keep his hand still and arm

wall and, like a bouncy ball, sprung straight back toward Jake. Jake stood unmoving as the creature flew towards him, crossing the several kilometers long cavern in

Jake still didn’t move.

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