The Primal Hunter

So, there were a few things to address.

First of all, the second Twin Emperor turned out to be quite a bit different from the first one. Rather than carrying around a staff and wearing robes, he had on durable metal armor and carried around a massive two-handed sword on his back at all times. While Jake avoided the guy, he was confident that this second half of the Twin Emperor was a far more physical fighter.

Secondly, this entire war was indeed a plot by the Twinhead Ogre. In traditional Nevermore fashion, information could be found just out in the open within the main residence of the second Twinhead Emperor, which Jake had managed to sneak successfully into after the boss left the capital – likely to meet up with his other counterpart.

In the home of the boss, Jake found written records, as well as some books and even communications from the other Twin Emperor, where they discussed what they were doing. To summarize, the Twinhead Ogre wasn’t natively from the Vast Plateau but had ended up there after his own homeworld was invaded, and he used an ancient teleportation circle to try and get away. After arriving on the Plateau, he quickly came to realize there was a severe lack of enemies that would allow him to continue progressing and reach B-grade.

Without evolving, the Twinhead Ogre believed he had a low chance of being able to leave the Plateau to explore the rest of the multiverse, so the two heads hatched a plan of using all the enlightened life in the Vast Plains to fuel their own evolution. At that time, they had clearly been unified in their goal, but when Jake read the notes of the Twin Emperor now, he saw that things had changed.

Jake had been off when he theorized the ritual was to permanently split up. That had never been the plan at all. However, after the split, the Twin Emperors both experienced independence for the first time in their lives, and it turns out they both quite liked it. At least the warrior Twin Emperor also suspected the mage variant also preferred their split state.

Researching more, Jake discovered that even if the warrior variant looked like a pure warrior, he was more akin to a death knight. He was capable of quite powerful death magic, and the bone spheres had been created back when the two of them were still merged into one body, using both of their powers.

Meanwhile, the mage variant was something called a hex shaman. He was capable of using shamanistic magic along with hexes, wherein curses were a sub-category. So, one head focused on physical combat and death magic, while the other focused on shamanistic magic and hexes. A pretty damn strong combo when combined, Jake would reckon.

The problem now was that the two of them didn’t want to fully recombine, which was a bit of a problem if their party wanted to fight a recombined version. Jake even found evidence of the warrior making plans to use his death magic to ”kill” off his counterpart when they did the grand ritual to re-merge and hopefully gain enough Records to reach B-grade. At the same time, Jake didn’t doubt the mage was making similar plans to also get rid of the warrior in a similar fashion, something this warrior version already suspected.

So, yeah, things were a bit of a mess, which spelled problems for Jake and company. If the event boss was the re-merged version of the Twinhead Ogre, they couldn’t make do with one of them ”dying” during the re-merging, as that would undoubtedly weaken the final product. Something this Twin Emperor also fully recognized, but his desire to remain independent made the lower overall power worth it in his head.

Interestingly enough, Jake also found out that the two ogres recognized the presence of Jake and company. There were several correspondences related to their party and how a third party had appeared, but so far, the two Twin Emperors did not seem overly concerned. In fact, they were almost thankful that their party sped up the process of killing everyone, doing such a good job on every battlefield by leaving no one alive. For some reason, the two ogres also felt the need to insult their party for not realizing they were just helping the ritual along, but Jake wasn’t going to get angry about that. He would get even in time.

Jake ended up spending half a day or so going through all the information the warrior Twinhead Ogre had just left spread throughout his home. Some of it was sealed away and hidden, sure, but Jake easily found everything using Sphere.

One could ask why all of these plans and correspondences between the two Twin Emperors were just left all around the place and not destroyed once the warrior had memorized everything, but Jake wasn’t going to question the flawless logic of a Nevermore floor. It hadn’t made sense on any of the prior floors either, so why suddenly get all up in arms over this one?

He managed to sneak out of the second Twin Emperor’s residence before anyone caught him, as Jake moved to meet up with his other party members once more. Sylphie had already rejoined them after helping Jake get most of the way to this other capital, and the four of them were busy making a mess on more of the battlefields.

were still good. They still had a few months left to finish off this floor and defeat the re-merged Twinhead Ogre. The plan was to fight the strongest version of the Twinhead Ogre possible, and to do

their ritual, we need to make the two of them realize that they need to merge with one another fully to stand a chance against the five of us. If all

being an event boss far too powerful for them to beat. Yep, Jake was definitely going to enjoy this final floor, especially what would happen over the next few months… because

looked out at the vast plains in front of him. It did not get better when his party member, the Dungeon Engineer,

a sigh. ”This floor got two main bosses from what I can sense, and in order to get the best reward, we need to do something with the two of them. Not just kill them both, but something more

cultivated. Do we need

I sense a lot of focus points where both death and curse energy are gathered. As you said, it’s all happening in a rather artificial fashion, so probably someone that’s being done by one of those Twin Emperors,” Casper shook his head again as he looked at Azal. ”Sorry boss, no way to do everything

unlawfully taken from Royal Road;

boosting skill, making her weakened for more than a year afterward. Luckily, the Risen had sent a replacement from one of the other elite teams for their dead party member. This meant another team was crippled by losing a member, but there

acceptable in the eyes of the Blightfather,Azal thought. No, hoped. If not, he could potentially lose his title of Ghost

he was standing there considering the situation, his party kept

two Twin Emperors and quickly pass

one or both of the two Twin Emperors will do,” Casper said. ”It would also just be too easy

We got a month

my opinion, the best way to optimize points would probably be to hunt down at least one of these bosses. While it won’t be as good as clearing the floor, hopefully, it will give us a few achievements. We can also try and do a few bonus objectives, but yeah, the best thing is probably to just kill a Twin Emperor or two. I would assume that’s

top spot of the Leaderboards as his Patron had hoped, he

Holy Church to come to see him. His former bodyguard and current Guardian had

really satisfied with this?” he asked after

can do more good here, helping those who have questions or are beginning to doubt if their Path needs improvement. Especially as most finish all the Challenge Dungeons on this floor,

grunted, not entirely satisfied with the

the unique bond between a Guardian and an Augur, they were still two separate people with their own Truesouls. This meant they

an Augur were highly valuable, allowing them to often skip many time-consuming steps. Back

could pull off some interesting moves, considering Bertram’s near-immortality and ability to be resurrected repeatedly. He could use boosting skills far beyond where one would die and wield

state, Bertram was only a good warrior. He was skilled for sure and was considered an elite, but compared to the others they had in their

to floor seventy-one. Instead, they had been replaced by two others from the Holy Church. In fact, the Church had split up their entire party and made one with the five best prospects to go as far as they could during the final decade or so. It would be the very best the Holy Church could muster

didn’t try and do some more floors to at least gain a few more levels, but to someone like Jacob, staying back on the City Floor

have one more left as he didn’t die in D-grade, the Church believed