The Primal Hunter

Spending time with Carmen was always eventful, and Jake thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe it was because they were very much on the same wavelength, and both had a bit of a screw loose. Then again, which talented individual didn’t have a bit of a screw loose? It was pretty much a requirement in Jake’s mind.

Carmen was just his type of weird. Both were driven, fighting maniacs and were willing to do dumb shit to try and progress. Their little experiment with infusing her with Touch of the Malefic Viper was a prime example of this. Through their brief experimentation, they discovered that the problem wasn’t the amount of energy Jake infused but that Carmen was sitting still while he did it.

If she moved around and punched, the energy would be dispersed faster than even Touch could infuse it. What had happened was simply that the energy piled up too much for no reason. Jake also had to admit that the entire experiment was quite beneficial to him. It was rare he had the chance to use Touch on people without them dying pretty quickly, and especially to use it on someone with such high resitance to the skill.

Overall, it was a great time for them both, even if Carmen ended up losing a few more limbs before they figured stuff out. While she recovered and trained by herself, Jake worked on the Demon Prince ritual, making sure no time was wasted.

Anyway, he and Carmen had spent four good days chilling in the Valhal compound before it was time for Jake to head toward the Demon Prince. He had considered staying a bit longer, but he had gotten quite excited about pulling off the ritual once he had fully formed a plan in his mind. Shit, he had even made a few minor changes to make the ritual suit his particular set of skills better.

When Carmen saw him off, and he left the compound, Olaf was naturally also there, along with a few others who gave him knowing looks. In retrospect, maybe spending all his time alone with Carmen inside her private residence could lead to some unforeseen rumors. Not that it hurt Jake in any way, and these rumors had been around ever since their meetup on Minaga’s City Floor anyway… they weren’t exactly wrong either.

”I guess I’ll see you back on Earth,” Jake said as they stood at the exit of the compound.

”If you remember to show up,” Carmen teased him.

”Eh, I’m pretty damn sure someone will remind me if I don’t,” Jake played along. He had never missed a system event so far… but it had been kind of close a few times, hadn’t it?

”Worst case, we’ll just handle this Prima Guardian on our own,” Carmen said with a shrug. ”Shouldn’t be that hard, though I do expect our Guardian to probably be the most powerful in the ninety-third universe. At least that’s what Valhal’s intel indicates with how many Primas we killed.”

”Let’s hope so! That way, it can put up a good fight,” Jake said, looking forward to the fight in… slightly less than two years now.

”For sure,” Carmen agreed. ”I’ll probably be back on Earth before you, so see you there.”

”See you,” Jake said as he also said his goodbyes to Olaf and those muscly dudes who always accompanied him before he headed off toward the Demon Prince. Even if he was looking forward to this Demon Prince ritual, he was also looking forward to getting back to Earth and seeing how things had changed there.

They had been in Nevermore for just about three years in Realtime with the time dilation, putting the intensity of the dilation at about 16x. It was not extreme but far from insignificant either.

him. When he initially heard about Nevermore, he was told that the time dilation would get stronger the more floors one did, but with how everyone seemed to finish so close to one another, he didn’t really feel like that was

those competing on the Leaderboards. So rather than it going from 10x to 25x, the version he had done only went from 14x to 17x or something like that. Jake didn’t know for certain, but he had a feeling this had something partly to do with the upcoming system events and whatnot and to make sure that those who

teleports later, he was at what looked more like a grand estate rather than a compound. It was just one

residence at the Order of the Malefic Viper and vast personal

as he approached, ready to greet him. The demon looked elated upon seeing Jake, making him guess the demon hadn’t

unable to visit,” the Demon Prince said with a big smile as he looked at Jake

man of my word, and having looked over the ritual in detail, I must

a busy man,” the Demon Prince continued as he motioned for him to follow. ”Please, this way. I’m sure you’re curious to see the real thing after

Demon Prince into the large mansion… and down into the basement. Yeah, Jake felt like someone was pulling his leg. To have a demonic ritual take place in a large creepy cellar was almost too on the nose, but nope, they were entirely serious. What’s more, when he arrived in the main ritual chamber, he saw that everything had been drawn in blood, and the circle was indeed shaped like a pentagon with a

star-shaped symbol formed in the middle by drawing lines

been pilfered from Royal Road. If found

mean easy, though. Each of those Demon Lord Hearts contained intense power, and Jake would have to manipulate the energy of ten at once. And that wasn’t even close to the hardest part. No, that came when

the pentagon, the Demon Prince would be the center of the entire ritual and also the one taking the biggest risk by far. Because when Jake gave him the signal, he would remove the crystal from his own forehead, as that gem was what Jake was supposed to infuse with energy. Removing that gem

resulted in him never being able to level up again with debilitating soul damage would be him getting lucky. The far more likely

some of the best experts I could find in the field, and this was the best we could come up with. I will also admit it was made after we became aware of your existence, as you gave me and my clan hope to pull something like this off. The entire concept is based on

sure everything matched what the disc had said. It did, and Jake nodded as he looked

[Demon – lvl 280]

the Demon Prince’s smile quickly fade. ”For anyone

Prince readily admitted. ”If rituals like these were possible with our current means, we would be doing them far more often. If we succeed for the very first time, the gains would be unimaginable. Perhaps it’s foolish of me, but I’m willing to take this gamble and believe in you. Also, to clarify... my elders are very much against

few things making more sense now. He also wouldn’t want some junior to pull off a massively risky ritual performed by some virtual stranger. It was peak-gambling. The gains if Jake somehow succeeded could

The demon was willing to take massive risks for a small chance to grow stronger, and he was clearly not willing to just be another demon who would become an elite mortal. He was aiming for the peak, even if it killed him, and Jake could respect that. Jake could also respect that the higher-ups among the Demon Prince’s clan wouldn’t like this, so it was good

lacking approval from your higher-ups…” Jake said as he waved his hand,

Demon Prince quickly scanned it, unsurprised, and nodded. ”A contract between two individuals… personal choice… knowledge of risk… karmic

sense it could be on a single piece of paper. However, he

mine is a bit less thorough, though. I do not have the authority