The Primal Hunter

Even if they didn’t have to do the bonus objective to dispel the curse, they still wanted to kill this Prime Summoner, as it would no doubt reward extra Nevermore Points. Jake couldn’t really say he felt sorry about breaking whatever scenario Minaga had planned, though he could see what their host had been going for.

If they had done the first part without freeing the Demon Lord but had instead gotten help to teleport here, they would have met this Knight who was tasked with guarding the gate. He would then tell them about rumors of cultists recently appearing further into the labyrinth and task them with slaying the Prime Summoner because he feared that this cultist was trying to free the Demon Lord.

Jake and company had instead freed the Demon Lord themselves, and the Demon Lord had attacked and killed the Knight. Seeing them as intruders, the Knight would use a curse to make Jake and the others kill this Prime Summoner instead of merely asking them to do it. The curse would only have resulted in slightly lower overall resource pools and evil whispers from the dead Knight, admonishing them for their crimes and screaming at them to kill the Prime Summoner, so it would have been more annoying than impactful.

Now, back in the original story where Jake and company didn’t free the Demon Lord. What would have happened when they finally reached the Prime Summoner was that they would find her just as she was about to succeed. Luckily, they would have arrived just in time – no matter if they had spent an hour or a year walking the hallways – and would naturally best the evil Prime Summoner. However, just as she was about to die, she would sacrifice herself to still release the Demon Lord.

One might ask why Jake knew all this? Well…

“Then, when the Demon Lord is summoned, a magical circle will appear at the entrance of the room, and the formation mage who helped you in the first part will appear together with the Knight. The Knight will engage the Demon Lord, and they will have a totally epic battle! The Knight of Light’s Dawn versus the evil Demon Lord! Sadly the Knight is no match. He will tell you to run, and the mage will assist in teleporting you away into another part of the labyrinth. Sure, you would also be able to join the Knight and fight the Demon Lord as you did before and then have the demon teleport away again if you wanted to do that, and that would give an achievement, but I definitely find the first scenario way more fun. Ah, but the Knight would still die, having overused his boosting skill during the fight. This always happens… well, unless you knock the Knight out before he can use it. That has happened, but he stays back to protect this part of the labyrinth anyway, so it doesn’t do much in later parts… though that again rewards an achievement.”

Minaga had decided that while their party rushed through the hallways, he would narrate the entire story they had missed and really go into detail about the different scenarios they were now locked out of. Jake wouldn’t exactly call the story good or original, and Minaga did also interject with clarifications that the story was written solely to set up good challenges and not actually to tell some exciting story. Though… even if he did say this, Minaga also seemed overly interested in sharing his so-called “bad” story.

Besides an even more talkative Minaga, the thirty-second floor was quite similar to the thirty-first, with the biggest difference being that the hallways were no longer empty of life. Patrols of cultists wandered about, which usually wouldn’t be that much of a challenge, except that they had to fight them within the fog. Perceiving your surroundings and moving about was made more difficult, but at least this also affected the cultists as both sides struggled.

These cultists usually patrolled around in groups of three to seven, with their levels being around level 240. Jake had identified three types of cultists so far.

[Demonic Cultist Flameblade – lvl 242]

These were the usual fire types, and all acted like fanboys of the Demon Lord. They had similar skills, and their identical weapons all looked like replicas of the Demon Lord’s sword. They were pretty easy to deal with overall, as their blades all lit up and made them easily locatable, even within the fog.

[Demonic Cultist Cauterizer – lvl 241]

Fire healers. Somehow their fire was able to mend injuries, really bending the definition of cauterize to straight up make it healing. They could also do some offensive fire magic, making them double as mages. Individually they were very squishy, and Sylphie, in particular, liked killing them as she broke through the defenders.

This brings us to the last type of enemy.

[Demonic Cultist Bulwark – lvl 242]

These were pretty standard defensive warriors wielding large shields, though they did also have the entire fire theme by making barriers of fire, and they could even release torrents of fire from their spiky shields. Usually, these Bulwarks worked hand in hand with the Cauterizers, but due to the small size of the groups, every encounter was too one-sided to truly get into insight into their synergy. These patrols were clearly just made to put the people exploring on their toes, and Minaga also shared some other reasons.

“Thematically, the patrols are to signify that the demonic cult has claimed this entire part of the labyrinth as their own. Mechanically, it is to combat a very obvious strategy many groups would have no doubt made use of on the prior floor: divide and conquer. While a lot of Perception-related abilities are blocked, blocking everything that allows party members to locate and keep track of one another is simply not feasible, and I wouldn’t want to even if I could. So, in order to make splitting up less safe, I introduced these patrols into the hallways. Sure, for a team like yours, you could still split up, but for the average party – even those capable of doing the labyrinth on Archmage difficulty – it would be incredibly dangerous and a risk they didn’t wanna take. It isn’t like a normal group can send their healer running around solo and expect them to return unscathed.”

“That does actually make perfect sense,” Jake said as they walked away from another patrol they had just killed.

they are closing in on

the Sword Saint had also easily figured it out. The patrols all came from somewhere, and by backtracking their paths,

the Prime Summoner, and some even purposefully tried to lead Jake and company into traps, but with Jake in the lead, they kept their course straight and rapidly made progress toward the Prime Summoner. At the edge of his most recent Pulse of Perception, he saw a room bigger than any before on this floor,

bother with all the optional rooms. The only potentially optional thing they would do was to kill this Prime Summoner for the bonus points. Was it possible that skipping this step would reward some kind of achievement? Sure, but it was equally possible

the prior floor, the fog dispersed as they

out his bow and sent one of them

old temple, but it was so large that towards the back of this temple, a large

the cathedral,”

as he rose into the air. The large temple hall was filled with cultists, and Jake spotted at least a few thousand, though it had to be noted that the

– lvl

elves, dwarves, gnomes, and a bunch of more exotic humanoid races Jake didn’t know. All of them burned with fanaticism and

of a woman wearing

daring to lift a hand against his honored lord, the only true recompense is

prepared to fight, but as they

as he walked forward. “This place seems fitting for something I have

what the old man wanted to show

and his aura spiked. Toward the ceiling of the room, rain clouds appeared out of nowhere as a light drizzle fell upon the entire hall. The Sword Saint charged forward into a crowd of Demonic Cultist

hand and gently pushed her down on his shoulder. “Let the old man have his fun.” The Fallen King also summoned a golden barrier to

way to not make them too bored and a chance to

rain fell down all around him, soaking the floor of the temple and creating puddles everywhere. The rain weakened all of the fire affinity fighters, and

demons. Jake checked them all from afar to see if the

Cultist Prime Summoner – lvl

Guardian – lvl

like these. They were humanoid, used fire affinity abilities, and the primary foe was a caster. Jake had seen him fight large

make their movements slower, making Jake consider if perhaps the Sword Saint had gotten inspiration from the underwater level or something. However, what Dina

every raindrop is infused with the concept of

He always scanned the environment but hadn’t bothered checking out the individual raindrops. Upon doing so, he realized Dina was right. Every single raindrop contained a bit of time energy. Individually, it was meaningless, but as the rain accumulated, it would rapidly build up and have a noticeable effect. But… the energy expenditure had to

Guardians properly joined the brawl, and the Prime Summoner began doing some magic in the background. The regular cultists had never truly joined the fight, but now all

subjects… today is

appeared, spanning a huge section of the chamber. All of the regular cultists began chanting, and the energy level in the room began rising as the Prime Summoner’s aura

about rituals to know what this was. He was about to tell the King to dispel the barrier and have them join the fight before the ritual could complete,

you being curious about my mythical rarity skill. Well, formerly mythical, now legendary,” the

Jake sent a