The Primal Hunter

The dryad didn’t seem to register the words immediately but finally reacted after a second.

“Huh?” Dina asked, confused. “I… I could… but why?”

The old man shook his head and smiled. “The four of us have either fought side by side or against each other before. We know about one another. I believe it would be pertinent to get a better idea of your skills, too, before we move on to the later floors so none of us are taken by surprise.”

Dina seemed to consider the words for a moment before nodding resolutely. “Alright.”

“I take it you are all fine with this arrangement?” the Sword Saint asked Jake and the others.

“It is acceptable to me as long as she does not take too long,” the Fallen King said.

“Ree,” Sylphie said as she flew over and landed on top of Jake’s head before quickly sitting down and resting. Apparently, she would need some time to properly digest the fairy queen thing.

“Fine by me,” Jake also shrugged, giving his approval. He didn’t really believe the Monarch of the Skies would give him a good fight, so why not share the love? Besides, he was interested in seeing how well Dina would handle the thing.

While the Monarch of the Skies wasn’t some pinnacle creature, it did feel pretty powerful for its level. Chances are it also had some of that special Floor Boss extra juice that Jake noticed all the other bosses had. The extra juice came in the form of expanded resource pools, specifically their health pools. That should push the Monarch up a level.

The highest-leveled boss so far in Nevermore had been the Lords they had just killed, and all three of those had been level 212. At 225, this did put the Monarch quite a bit above anything else and twenty levels above Dina herself.

Moreover, the environment obviously favored the Monarch of the Skies. Chances are it would turn into a battle in the air, and so far, most of what Dina had shown was summoning vines from the ground, throwing out seeds and growing soldiers, and some occasional enhancement magic.

Jake looked forward to what more she had to show, and he gladly sat back as Dina made her way down towards the large central island where the Monarch of the Skies stood with its eyes closed.

Still floating in the air a good distance away, Dina threw out two small seeds that grew to become spear-like trees. Using some kind of plant telekinesis, she kept them floating there as she took aim toward the Monarch below.

The second she threw them, the Monarch awakened. A whirlwind appeared around it instantly, and Jake and the others backed away to not get involved in the fight. The two trees entered the whirlwind unimpeded, but the ten-meter-tall winged creature still managed to dodge, resulting in the two trees stabbing into the ground, embedding themselves.

With lightning crackling on its wings, the Monarch was about to take to the air as suddenly vines exploded out of both trunks from the thrown trees, seeking to entangle its talon-like feet. It managed to avoid the roots with one of its feet, but the other was caught as Dina followed up her attack.

The ground below the Monarch erupted as hundreds of thorn-filled vines flew toward it. The Floor Boss reacted quickly and held out its hand as a lightning bolt descended from the thunderclouds above. The lightning hit the Monarch as its entire body exploded, getting rid of the vines and allowing it to get airborne. Moreover, the lightning had delivered with it a large white halberd that the boss now wielded.

“It is quite powerful,” the Sword Saint commented.

fact that it was effectively fighting within a giant formation that

out of her attack. Rather than retreat, she chose to engage the Monarch of the Skies directly as the two clashed

hadn’t even considered before. Dina was a druid that specialized in manipulating plants, but she was also a dryad. A part human, part plant lifeform. An obvious weakness of any kind of manipulation-based class would always be a lack of whatever they specialized in manipulating. They would try to shore up this weakness by being able to summon some of their element of choice, but this obviously came with some drawbacks and a highly increased

your own body? Well, you would

with the Monarch, a sea of vines grew from her arm and speared forward toward the boss. Surprised, the Monarch stopped in its tracks and tried to retreat out of range from the wall of spiky vines, but before it could, the vines were shot out like spears, a few of them managing to stab it in its arms and legs. Sadly for Dina, the breastplate

Dina pulled out a staff and pointed it towards it. Jake expected to see her summon root spears or something, but instead, the staff began to glow a green light before it released what looked like a

had been hit, the feathers began to fall off as the flesh began to rot within seconds. Jake’s eyes opened wide as she

Monarch retaliated with its own lightning, the two magics clashing in mid-air and exploding upon impact in flashes of white and green. After the Monarch failed to block

Willpower-based attack.

release bolts of will-empowered life energy into her foe, that rather than nurture life, carried with it intent to self-destruct. Which it promptly did, resulting in rot setting in and spreading to the surrounding flesh. It

which resulted in the wounds healing quickly. Dina also realized this as she stopped her attack and changed her stance. The staff began to warp as

into a melee battle, which did make Jake a bit worried, considering Dina was mostly a caster. However, it appeared he had once more underestimated

Attendant had mentioned this being, and so had Dina, but Jake didn’t believe they had ever seen it. Jake was naturally talking about the mysterious Bobo, the Guardian of Dina. He had hoped to see this Guardian during this fight, not realizing… Bobo had been in

wood speared out and penetrated through the breastplate of the Monarch. The halberd that had been aimed at Dina was also stopped as several branches grew out and took the blow. This allowed Dina to properly close in, and swinging

above her knees. It extended nearly all the way to her neck, exposing only

pushed back, the Monarch of the Skies counterattacked as it raised its halberd, making a giant bolt of lightning strike down at Dina. Before it could even hit, a spear of wood was shot out

it was in a bad position as blood dripped from its chest from several barrel-sized holes, and a large part of its chest was rotting away from the scythe hit earlier. It tried to back away, but Dina pursued with impressive speed as she continued attacking with ranged attacks in the form of wooden spears. Being hit by one of these

vines that dug into the flesh of the Monarch, and as it kept trying to retreat, Jake saw something frightening. Leaves began to sprout beneath the breastplate of the Monarch as he realized that the hit from her armor – Bobo – had done more than

used poison, Dina did something similar but far scarier in Jake’s mind. With her attacks, she implanted almost microscopic seeds that took hold inside the body of her foe. Jake hadn’t even noticed it before Dina chose to activate the many seeds she had planted within the Monarch, and damn, did it

bathing the Monarch in energy and pushing Dina back. Once the light faded, its form was

summoned on, it didn’t notice what

entire island exploded as thousands of meter-thick vines surged upwards, grasping the form of the Monarch. The vines

two trees she had fired at the beginning had launched seeds into the island, and vines had slowly grown within while she fought the Monarch. Then, during the fight, she eventually pushed the Monarch back to float just above the island, where her trap had fully germinated and was ready to be

wood armor grew wooden shields to block anything headed her way. The

the Monarch of the Skies, penetrating through

Defeat the Monarch of

the Monarch of the Skies within half an hour of

“Ree,” Sylphie commented.

agreed with a nod. “Definitely

but I must say I find myself impressed by her ability to make use of her skills

me wonder if her being a support

to her support skills after seeing her personal combat prowess,”