The Primal Hunter

Thousands of lasers the width of a pencil spun around the room, cutting through it at intense speed and power. Every single person in Jake’s party summoned their best defenses or tried to dodge, as Sylphie turned her entire body into wind to resist most of the damage.

The Fallen King intensified the energy in his shield as best he could, and Dina jumped back as walls of roots continuously rose in front of her to try and block the attack, layer after layer getting burned through. On the side of the Sword Saint, he summoned several veils of water along with an odd painting that radiated intense energy. They all did their best to block or lessen the damage of the attack.

All except for one.

The moment before Minaga unleashed his attack, Jake rushed forward, stepping down as he teleported. Despite the shockwave slightly destabilizing space, he got more than halfway to the Unique Lifeform as the laser show began.

Because there was one place where the attack didn’t hit: right below itself. Right where Minaga stood.

Jake sprinted as the lasers arrived, more than a dozen beams sweeping in from the side. Despite this, Jake did not slow down in the slightest. Both katars appeared in his hands just as the first beam hit, but Jake was ready.

Using Eternal Hunger, he met the first beam of light with the edge as he reflected it off the weapon, the beam moving so fast he had to use the Blackpoint Blade as a bridge to make the beam flash past him. At the same time, Jake dove in between two beams and found every small spot he could fit through as he briefly met the eyes of Minaga, who just stared at him.

He kept staring as Jake dodged hundreds of beams within a second as he arrived in the safe zone right below the disco ball.

”That is some bullcrap right the-”

Jake kept going with his momentum as he slammed both katars into the chest of Minaga, who was still casting the spell. He penetrated halfway to the hilt with both weapons before the light show stopped, and his danger sense exploded as Jake jumped back, not even having the time to try and pull out his weapons.

A beam shot down right where he just stood as Jake pivoted around it, slamming a dark green glowing palm into the Unique Lifeforms side while the beam of light burned a hole dozens of meters into the ground. Minaga seemed to have had enough as the sound of the disco ball shattering sounded out, and thousands of razer-thin shards of glass descended upon Jake, forcing him to properly retreat.

Jumping back, he failed to fully dodge his own Blackpoint Blade that Minaga sent telekinetically flying after him, leaving a cut on Jake’s cheek. Eternal Hunger had already been recalled as Jake made his retreat.

Jake wasn’t even sure how prematurely he had interrupted the large spell, but he was sure as hell happy he had. Seeing as Minaga was not following up with more spells, Jake assumed he couldn’t, as he pulled out his bow and began pelting the Unique Lifeform as he checked in on his teammates.

Sylphie had managed to come out of it mostly unscathed, but she had consumed a lot of energy just from thousands of beams of light sweeping through her elemental form. Dina had also come out okay, though she too had consumed a lot of mana, repeatedly summoning her root walls, with Bobo only barely managing to block what did get through. She did get a nasty cut right above one of her eyes, though, but she was quickly healing it.

The Sword Saint was surprisingly unscathed as he stood behind a large painting. The painting itself had been utterly burned to a crisp with a few holes in it, and the Sword Saint did look like losing that particular painting was not a pleasant experience. From the telepathic mark, he also made it clear that was a limited useability skill with quite a high energy consumption.

Finally was the Fallen King, who – to put it nicely – looked like shit. The constant barrage of lasers had managed to get through his barrier, leaving hundreds of burn marks crisscrossing his entire body. The only untouched parts were the mask and the ivory hands and feet that were too naturally tough to be affected.

didn’t hesitate to make a move to at least get some revenge. Golden energy gathered in both of his hands as

slicing winds surrounding her. The next few seconds resulted in Minaga getting

he shot out a howling blast of snow and ice, launching Dina toward the back of the room. Jake managed to dodge both of these as he navigated

and send him skirting back, but the Fallen King was less lucky. A spike of metal

Sylphie and the Sword Saint an opening as they both struck. By now, they had begun to get a far better read on Minaga’s abilities as well as his overreliance on hand motions to cast. They found more and more small openings as the wounds on Minaga accumulated a bit at a time, with whatever

a bloody chest, he suddenly stopped mid-movement

health! Do you all know what that means? That’s right,

a bad feeling as he heard this and wanted to shoot another arrow at Minaga, but he suddenly felt space around him warp as Minaga took

almost walk out of the original as the orb above him exploded, and

standing alone

power! Only after you have defeated it can you enter the arenas of your party members and assist them in killing their respective clones. After you have slain all of the clones, you

not weak by any means. What’s more, if they were all facing their own versions… Jake wasn’t sure how all the others would do, especially Dina, who had to consume a lot of energy this

Minaga said, sounding

If he could only help the others after he was done here, it meant he had no intentions of delaying. Mid-charge, his speed increased as Arcane Awakening activated

he did not believe Minaga was better at was dodging Jake in a melee

grinned at Jake’s charge as both staves appeared. One of them sent a flamethrower toward him, but Jake quickly jumped to the side and, with another jump, continued his charge. With a swipe of the other staff, a barricade of rock spears shot out of the ground, which Jake vaulted over before they had

final time, teleporting to appear right in front of the Unique Lifeform. A staff flew down towards his head, but Jake had already slipped by it and

shot out a shockwave of arcane mana, shooting them away before he managed to land another cut. Minaga retaliated fast as he unleashed an explosion of fire, making Jake jump back. Mid-jump, he pulled out his bow and fired a

relentless assault. Jake had no plans of letting up as he continued his all-out aggression to never allow Minaga to cast a major spell, assuming he could even do the major casts in this split form. This required him to make some sacrifices as his Scales of the Malefic Viper had to handle quite the brunt of magic attacks Jake chose to endure or only partly

get some distance. Jake tried to stay close, but a powerful

Momentarily.

Jake managed to avoid a

He had a nagging feeling that he was on a timer… as for if this timer was due to his party members being in danger or some unknown factor,

would be a swift victory, no matter

room was a glorious battle of two domains of magic fighting one another as a bird and Unique Lifeform flew within, trying to find chances to strike at one another. Both sides consumed vast amounts of

compulsion to compete was ingrained within both of them, even if Minaga was by all rights far more powerful, both in this form of himself within the dungeon and his true,

left them with a need to prove themselves superior. It was the same as with the Ashen Devourer. As such, their fight was fierce, as both parties

defensive, not even trying to attack unless it was to interrupt something she found too dangerous to block, avoid, or heal

final party member… the Sword

himself. The Unique Lifeform stood in front of him, seemingly just waiting for his opponent