The Primal Hunter

Jake didn’t know how long they were falling. It felt like minutes, yet also hours. No notification ever popped up, and no prompt asked them to enter. They did not have to register or do anything to confirm they were a party, as the system handled all that. All they had to do was enter together and fall together.

Then, suddenly, Jake felt solid ground beneath his feet, and his sphere spread out to reveal the world around him. He also opened his eyes and was nearly blinded by the bright sunlight beaming down on him from above.

He and the others found themselves standing on a large rock in the middle of a giant desert-like landscape. Sand stretched infinitely no matter where one looked, and the wind was utterly still. Jake did not see a single living being anywhere either.

“So, this is Nevermore,” the Sword Saint spoke.

“It’s-“

Jake was about to say something when he was cut off by a notification.

You have entered Nevermore.

Welcome to the first floor of the C-grade portion of Nevermore: the Sunlight Dunes. In order to progress to the next floor, the main objective of this floor must be completed, and the entrance to the next floor must be entered together with all surviving party members.

Completing events, achievements, and objectives rewards points that count towards the leaderboards and final rewards.

Main objective: Defeat the Lord of the Dunes.

Bonus objectives: Gather at least 1000 Sunlight Fragments of the Dunes to open the Lord’s Treasury.

Current progress: Lord of the Dunes (0/1), Sunlight Fragments of the Dunes (0/1000)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Godspeed, Chosen of Vilastromoz; I look forward to your performance. Do not expect any assistance.

Current Nevermore Points: 0

Jake read the notification and smirked a bit at it getting personal towards the end. While this was indeed a mega-dungeon and a World Wonder, it was also the domain of the Wyrmgod. Even now, Jake felt an odd presence observing him. It felt different than when Villy looked and more like it was passive in nature. Rather than an individual looking, it was more like a trained AI kept an eye on things.

“Lord of the Dunes, huh? And a thousand of these Sunlight Fragments?” the Sword Saint once more commented.

“Ree,” Sylphie complained loudly.

“The wind is oddly silent, huh?” Jake commented. The lack of wind affinity energy in the air was an issue for Sylphie for sure, and when he looked at the Sword Saint, the old man simply nodded.

“I do feel this environment is less than beneficial than it could be,” he said. “However, it is not truly an obstacle. Besides, this is not one of the difficult floors, now is it?”

He then turned to Dina, who looked to be in thought. “How about you, Dina?”

“There aren’t that many here,” she said in a sad tone. “This land is… dead.”

Not good for her either, huh?Jake thought. He suspected she was talking about plants, so the environment was also bad for her.

“I am unbothered,” the Fallen King said. “How about you, hunter?”

“All good here,” Jake smiled. “Now, let’s not delay and get going right away.”

environment was maybe shit, but they still had one thing going for them. Jake smiled

hidden in the sand, all about ten

sec,” Jake said as he quickly teleported over to the closest one and, with a blast of mana, blew up the sand and sent the shard flying into the air. With a string,

progress: Sunlight Fragments

grinned even more as he quickly made his way back to the others. “Aight, the shards appear hidden beneath the

his Perception build

that orange thing?”

happy she was even talking

Dina nodded. “Okay.”

somehow put her entire hand into. Then, she pulled out a handful of seeds and threw them onto the sand below. The moment they landed, she sent out a green blast of energy that soaked

and a wellspring of vines popped out everywhere. This happened to every single one, as soon there were several hundred. Jake curiously used Identify on one of them, not expecting it to work, and was surprised

Soldier

summoned and not a “true” creature. Closer to

many Vine Seed Soldiers. Without any indication they even understood her,

that will work?”

what to do,” Dina said with

seeing no reason to question her. He did wonder how they would bring the shards, but he had no idea how long they would spend there, so

this area cleared out already and move on to

complete this floor would be a waste when all subsequent floors give more points,” the Sword Saint also voiced

need to find the end boss, and I do still think we need to collect these thousand fragments, so finding this Lord’s Treasury is also a priority. That

three nods and a ree in

and took on a solid, physical form before flying out to each of them. Once

We good?”Jake

and clear,” the Sword Saint said

bring in some walkie-talkies made by Arnold but came to learn that items like that were either not allowed or significantly weakened within the mega-dungeon. The same was true for many other supporting items, formation discs, and pretty much anything that one didn’t create

explained, the skill was originally made to keep in contact with his servants, and each orb could also be used to track through. The entire thing functioned by using the King as the focal point

of them being lucky… one thing many groups needed more than a proper method of communication in dungeons was

an attempt by the system and the Wyrmgod to introduce some level of fairness for those

the jobs he had been assigned: scouting. Jumping, Jake took to the air as Sylphie threw a gust of green wind his way, propelling him up faster than he could possibly fly on his own. The others spread out in the immediate area where Jake had pointed out seeing Sunflight Fragmented with his sphere. As he took off, he also saw Dina take out more seeds to bolster her army

As far as Jake could tell,

that served as a limiter on how far people were allowed to fly up. Jake felt his skin begin to hurt a bit from the sheer heat, and

stop. Using his stable arcane mana, he condensed a parasol to cover himself as he turned to look down

through the soul walkie-talkie. “Got a diameter of around nine to ten thousand kilometers based on my estimates. Can’t spot any boss quite yet, but there are quite a few elementals

the Lord and this hidden treasury?”

the plan,” Jake smirked. He scanned the planet beneath him one more time before he began flying. Down below, the others got to work collecting fragments, with Dina covering a huge area with summoned vine soldiers while Sylphie kicked up tornadoes to send anything and everything hiding under the sand flying up into the

hard… Jake had

ground below, he finally noticed the environment truly begin to change in

to the other side of the planet. Seeing as the shadow seemed to get closer faster than he flew, he had also correctly flown counter to the planet’s rotation. The sunlight energy had slowly been weakening for a

Ice elementals.

his party as he kept flying into the darkness, and soon after, it was as if he had passed some threshold. The warmth of the sun was gone, and rime began to form on his body and even his parasol. Seeing no need for it anymore, Jake dispelled the magical

finally, Jake faced his first enemy. A

–

even bother stopping as he simply summoned two spears of destructive arcane mana and blew it up. The creature’s form was dispersed, but it managed to reform itself behind him. Luckily for it, Jake was long gone, and

handled it. He did begin flying a bit closer to the ground as the constant drain on his resources to fight off the unfriendly environment was

if this was also where this Lord of the Dunes was. However, not long after, this theory was dispelled as he saw something on the horizon. A large mountain of some kind of limestone-looking rock appeared, the entire thing covered in dense ice. At

the Dunes