The Primal Hunter

Welcome to the Seventy-first floor of Nevermore: The Nine Towers

You have arrived on a planet long abandoned by those who once lived there. Yet artifacts are left behind. Nine massive towers are scattered across the planet, once part of a greater purpose, each holding secrets and power of the civilization that once was.

Your goal is to explore each tower and then ultimately decide if you wish to activate or destroy them. But be warned, for even if much time has passed, the defensive systems of the towers still remain, and who knows what entering them might lead to, much less the outcome of their activations.

Main objective: Activate or destroy the Nine Towers.

Bonus objectives: Discover the true nature of the Nine Towers.

Current progress: Towers activated (0/9), Towers Destroyed (0/9)

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

Current Nevermore Points: 1,242,425

It was almost nostalgic reading the long system message about the floor they had just arrived on. Jake would rate it just about as nostalgic as the feeling of the Golden Mark left by the Fallen King, allowing them all to stay in communication even when far apart.

The five of them had appeared on top of a small hill, giving them a pretty bad view of what they were dealing with. Jake, taking the job of scout as usual, quickly flew into the sky and scanned the area before he made a rough calculation of the curvature of the planet and ultimately concluded it was pretty fucking big. It was not as big as Earth after the system, but maybe about two-thirds the size.

“You see anything?” the Sword Saint asked when Jake landed back on the ground.

“Bunch of beasts, but they are all weak and barely in C-grade. Ah, but there are quite a few elementals here and there, all levels around 280. I also spot two towers, one over there and one over there,” Jake said as he pointed in two directions. The others could see one of the towers far off in the distance, but only Jake had the Perception to see the tip of the second.

These towers were all roughly ten kilometers tall each, looking like huge skyscrapers. One of the two Jake saw had a red crystalline color, while the second looked more yellowish. So, it appeared that the towers had been nicely color-coded, which was nice as it made it a lot easier to communicate about what towers people were at.

Jake also shared the size of the planet and other characteristics as the others listened. Once he was done with his explanation, Dina briefly shared that the plants around told her that this planet was rather special in that it had absolutely no underground nor any bodies of water any larger than lakes anywhere on the entire planet. It was definitely a weird place, but confirming those two things was helpful as it meant they wouldn’t waste any time looking for hidden achievements underground or underwater.

“So, I guess we all know what we’re doing?” Jake asked after they were done talking.

“Split up,” the Fallen King answered without any hesitation.

does seem like the best way,” Dina

“Ree!” Sylphie agreed.

one will be nearby,” Jake added with a grin. “Then

almost giddy to set off on

would take the closest. Jake, the Sword Saint, and Sylphie would head off in three other directions to try and find a tower each. The Sword Saint did stay behind for a second, though, as he took out a canvas and began to paint one of his teleportation

Jake quickly used One

a second as Jake suddenly found himself far beyond where he had wanted to step down, temporarily disorientating him. What

his newly upgraded boots were, and concluded it was good but not overly impactful. That is until he took that very first step. He had

as he only now truly realized the meaning when it said Jake would always find a solid foothold. What also surprised him was the concept behind this effect. It was pure stability.

more steps, Jake continued to feel space warp as he began to pick up speed. The reason why space warped as it did was because the skill was getting pushed beyond what it normally allowed Jake to

To get good.

barely cost anything. It was that Jake was horrible at using One Step according to the standards of the mythical boots. Making the baseline improvement from the boots

quickly passed as Jake zoomed forward, pretty damn proud of his speed. He had improved a lot, but as he felt the Golden Marks and the locations of his other party members, he realized he was definitely not the one who had improved the most. The Sword Saint, Dina, and Fallen King were also definitely moving faster, but Sylphie? Sylphie was on a whole other level

first, he wondered if she was using her sprinting skill and was quickly running out of gas. But she kept up her utterly ridiculous speed for hours as she moved far faster than Jake… no, not just Jake.

Sylphie,” Jake asked through the Golden Mark. “You

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ree,” she responded, gladly explaining how she had managed to drastically improve her ability to move incredibly swiftly while at the same time

“riding the wind super swooshyly” means, but if it works, it works, I guess,” Jake responded, realizing no

as he had gone to the closest tower. Right as he

I see,” he communicated to all of them, as it appeared he had made an upgrade

of the tower was an odd shade of gray with weird lines going across it. He also saw what looked like veins running through the entire tower, as well as small wisps of energy in the ground and even some floating in the air all around the Fallen King. Because, oh yeah, the

is this how you see the world?” Dina asked

make it more interpretable to your minds,”

the reason the King’s sight was so odd. He viewed everything through some weird soul-sight or something at all times, which definitely had some advantages but also many disadvantages, as his view distance was

the limited vision pictures the Unique Lifeform repeatedly sent, everything was a mess inside. Nevertheless, he began exploring as he looked over the lobby, trying to find any clues for the bonus

was also what looked like an elevator there, but it was clearly broken, and the Fallen King also quickly confirmed that breaking walls and ceilings wasn’t feasible as everything was incredibly strengthened. That wasn’t to say it was impossible,

the second tower floor, the challenge of the tower began to appear as they got their first clue as to what kind of creatures had built these towers in the first place. Robot-like golems were stationed as guards on the second tower floor. Eight in total, with four of them patrolling, with four others sealed-off side rooms. Their levels were all 275 to 280, making them relatively strong… but far from strong enough. This was also where the King’s vision was good, as things like walls didn’t matter when it came to detecting living beings nearby… which kind of made Jake feel dumb for when he

floated into the room with the four guards. He was instantly noticed by the guards, who quickly proved to be aggressive as they attacked

force was blasted out the very next second, hitting all the guards. They all stumbled back, physically seemingly unhurt, but through the vision of the Fallen King, Jake could see it definitely wasn’t so.

of the four Soulshapes shattered on impact like it was made of glass as the golem fell dead to the ground. A