The Primal Hunter

”Lucky bunch! Found your way to the first room right off the bat without encountering any dead ends! Now to find the key… if there even is one here!” Minaga said with his usual glee as Jake and company walked out of what looked like a wall of fog and entered a massive chamber. As their host had explained, these large chambers did not have any of the usual mist, and it felt liberating to finally be free of the restrictive environment.

On second thought, merely calling the chamber they had entered massive was a bit fallacious. It was pretty darn humongous and seemed to be at least a good hundred kilometers deep with a width of about two kilometers. This narrowness was heavily used, as what appeared in the distance was a derelict-looking massive castle with plenty of defenses in front of it.

In front of the castle, a dozen rows of ramparts went from wall to wall, with every one of these walls filled with creatures. Taking a deep breath, Jake could practically smell the death energy emanating from the chamber, which made sense considering the enemies he saw on the ramparts.

Using Identify, the theme was pretty damn obvious.

[Skeleton Swordsman – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Spearman– lvl 240]

[Skeleton Marksman – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Mage – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Captain – lvl 245]

“Skeletons, huh,” Jake muttered. ”So original.”

He and the others waited for a few seconds, but nothing came. Jake looked at the ceiling of the chamber, wondering if their dear host had decided to leave, but he still felt them being observed. Maybe he didn’t talk while they were inside the chambers?

“I assume there is some kind of boss here,” the Sword Saint said.

“Let me check real quick,” Jake said as he jumped and summoned his wings. He flew all the way to the ceiling in little time and peered past the many ramparts towards the castle. There, standing on a large tower atop the castle, he saw a large skeleton in fine ivory armor surrounded by several Skeleton Captains.

[Skeleton Bonelord – lvl 250]

”Found it, level 250 at the central castle. Likely the one with the key. If not, it should be easy to find if we make it to the castle,” Jake said through the golden mark left by the King.

Now, why was Jake so sure the key was there in the room?

Finding the room itself had been pretty simple using his Pulse of Perception. Throughout the last fifteen months in Nevermore, Jake had to use far more Pulses than ever before, allowing him to slowly build up more and more resistance to the point where he could now do it pretty comfortably at regular intervals without getting a headache.

hallways that would make you walk in circles for a few

room he saw. In fact, Jake spotted four during their run, but this was the only one he had bothered entering, which leads back to the original question… why was he so sure the key was in this room and not any of the prior ones? The answer

Intuition.

other totally balanced advantages. His intuition had told him this was the room to check out, so even if Minaga tried to muddy the water by hinting that maybe the key wasn’t there, Jake didn’t

not to rush through this room and move on quickly, and on the way there, he and the others had agreed to do things fast. Jake wanted to get a good opening shot on the boss, and if they had to face every enemy on

explosion of arcane energy as his arrow of destruction surged forward. Jake had expected it to soar toward the boss and potentially even blow it off the tower, but things did not go as expected. The

Mages stand and channel with their staffs, led by a Captain also holding a staff. The barrier extended up from the ramparts but did not cover the

through each rampart individually,” the Sword Saint said, having

continue to bombard the barrier until

be faster to just go through directly,”

trying to destroy each barrier individually is a waste of time,”

When they got close, the mages stopped channeling energy into the barrier

groups clashed. One with hundreds of skeletons twenty to thirty levels above their opponents, and the other three humanoids, a bird, and a

everywhere as a giant golden hammer was swung sideways into a crowd of skeletons, crescent waves of water cut bones apart and sent limbs flying, arcane explosions bombarded all the skeleton mages as arrows fell from the sky while roots

green whirlwind that scattered their attack. Without even bothering to make sure they finished off all the skeletons, their party moved forward while staying close to each other to avoid getting ganged

to blow away all the skeletons guarding it. Jake, not wanting to be outdone, went ham at the sixth one as a fully-charged Arcane Powershot one-shot the Captain of the skeletons while blowing up several more skeletons unlucky enough to stand too close. Joining in on the fun, the Sword Saint went in first on the seventh as he used his Rainblade and released a torrent of slashes, killing dozens of skeletons within a minute while also taking down the Captain. Sylphie and Dina didn’t get to take down

buff. The Captains around the boss also seemed to get

gotten a quarter of the way, with a second getting embedded by a substantial wave of force. The Bonelord seemed angry and jumped off the tower, too, as it pulled out a giant axe of

was forced back with a few cuts on its otherwise pristine armor but was otherwise unharmed. What little injuries it had taken rapidly healed as it released a dense white aura of pure death energy. All around it, the death mana from the many slain skeletons began to

Saint failed to ever get any substantial advantage, even after he made slight use of his boosting skill. Jake ended up joining in as the constant army of skeletons storming out from within the castle started to die down, and Dina handled all those chasing after them from the earlier ramparts. Sylphie and the Fallen King would also

a ludicrous pace as Jake counted himself blowing off the Bonelord’s head at least ten times. It kept fighting with its axe and released death affinity attacks and ranged bone spurs, occasionally forcing the

handled, they finally managed to get the decisive blow, and soon enough, the Bonelord stopped regenerating and died. The

floated up from its body before flashing and disappearing. Jake faintly saw that a small tattoo of the

the room towards where the next key was. As they made it back to the hallway and into it, the disembodied voice of Minaga

even a key for you! Three more to go, and you can open

the second key in hand, a crumbling volcano, and hundreds of dead elementals of the lava

room holding a key into the next! Almost makes me think you found a way to circumvent all my checks and balances and aren’t just getting extremely lucky, but that can’t be, right? Nah, definitely

but three times? Now, that is a pattern. Then again, some people are really just that lucky, you know? Even I cannot get around some of the more intangible aspects of this world, and I guess it is entirely possible you merely have increased luck or perhaps some kind of reality-bending skill? Though my mist would stop that… hm… I

I think we all know this isn’t how things are supposed to work, and you clearly found a way to not only be aware of the layout of the labyrinth but also correctly determine which rooms hold keys, which is honestly impressive. See, if you, my dear guests, could do one of these things,

back towards the gate that required the four keys at a brisk pace as they listened to Minaga complain about their group. It had to be noted that he only complained. There was no interference or even direct questions posed to any of them. It was