The Primal Hunter

Jake’s mind went blank for a moment as the realization sunk in. Yet what he had expected to follow next never came. There was no anger or desire for revenge… just a belief that he had to get the fuck away from the moon as fast as humanly possible.

Anything capable of killing Sandy wasn’t something Jake was confident in facing, and just feeling the aura from the thousands of vines extended up from the surface of the moon, Jake knew that this wasn’t just some weak low-tier B-grade. It was already quite a few levels into B-grade and a powerful variant on top of that. The mere fact it had a range extending all the way from the center of the moon to the surface was proof enough of that.

Luckily, it didn’t seem to attack him as he flew away. The eye had also faded away, and all the vines began to retract back into the ground, leaving a battered Lunewood Forest behind. Many rotting spots were left where the vines had shot up from, and hundreds of Lunewood creatures had died. For some reason, the B-grade didn’t seem to care about the forest at all, and it had more or less just been collateral damage while trying to get Jake to leave.

Speeding up his flight, Jake just went further and further into empty space. He didn’t have any particular direction he was flying in, he just wanted to make sure he was out of range from any potential attacks that could reach beyond the moon. Only when he was many thousand kilometers away from the exit of the moon’s exosphere did Jake slow down before he stopped and had a while to think. And the first thought he had was to reach out to someone who had to know what had happened.

“Villy, what the fuck happened to Sandy? I felt the Mark disappear, and I think they died, but-“

“Sandy did die,” the Viper just answered in a casual tone.

Jake’s mind went blank a bit again before he quickly gathered his thoughts. “Then why am I not-“

Suddenly, Jake stopped as he felt his spatial necklace act odd, as if something wanted to break out.

“I think you’ll find the answer is quite obvious,” Villy commented, still clearly unbothered.

Things within the moon had not gone as planned for everyone’s favorite Cosmic Genesis Worm.

Sandy had met their fair share of powerful beings while traveling around the multiverse and eating stuff, and sometimes, one naturally gets into trouble when eating the tasty snacks of others. Yet, this was definitely in the top two for most dangerous situations Sandy had ever gotten themselves into.

The wound on the worm’s side was already rotting, and more vines were closing in as the Ghostvine kept sending those nonsensical telepathic packages, yelling at Sandy to leave while not giving the poor worm any chance to actually do so. Sometimes, a worm had to be decisive, so Sandy steeled themselves and didn’t think twice before doing what had to be done:

“Begin operation clean up and consolidate! Go, go, go!” Sandy yelled to all the people and creatures in their internal worlds – also known as all the different stomachs - as Sandy opened gateways between all of them. They also quickly tried to spit out the Lunewood Meteorite Fragments hoping they were the cause of the aggression, but it didn’t make the attack stop.

A dozen vines closed in as Sandy shifted in space, teleporting out of the way. Entering Sandy’s Sand World wasn’t possible with space this unstable – the place not really made for fleeing either. It was made for traveling, first and foremost.

Sandy did have other defensive means, though.

Hardening the cosmic dust, Sandy slowed down all the vines, going for the worm. At the same time, the wound was rapidly healing as space shifted, launching Sandy toward the tunnel the worm had entered the core chamber from. Vines moved to block the worm, but with Sandy’s intense momentum, they managed to slip through, entering the tunnel.

Yet it wasn’t enough, as more vines just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. They just popped into existence without any rhyme, reason, or warning. It was as if the entire moon was part of the Ghostvine’s body, which probably wasn’t that far off.

The Ghostvine had integrated itself with the moon’s core, after all.

Sandy kept going through the tunnels, teleporting, dodging, and blocking vines, but they just kept coming. A few managed to slip through, leaving nasty wounds all over the worm’s body and eating away at Sandy’s vital energies.

within the belly of the beast. To escape and do long-range teleports, Sandy needed to get out of the vast tunnel network

Too far.

than escape, the name of the game was dragging things out as long as possible to give Tom and the others enough time to get everything prepared. Thus, Sandy did their best, as the wounds got worse and worse, and Sandy knew that death

before death came, Sandy

“We’re done.”

at full speed back toward the core chamber. The Ghostvine wasn’t ready for this, allowing Sandy to get pretty damn close before too many vines

the worm mobilized the rest of the energy in their body. “But

body began to glow in a silvery light until suddenly, the worm was just gone… a faint mark left

necklace was giving off an alarming response, and his eyes opened wide as he felt as if it was about to burst. He didn’t hesitate as he pulled out the item that was acting up. Jake had already realized by now what it was, as

Space itself shuddered before Jake saw a familiar tail pop out of the bottom of the egg. Then, the entire thing

worm wiggled in excitement - a feeling of excitement that quickly died down as the worm turned to look at Jake solemnly. “I think we should postpone moon exploration for a

as he blurbed out the first thing

“Are you okay?”

just existing hurts right now. I’m also super weak, so please don’t make me

said with some concern as he was silent for a dozen seconds, just allowing the worm to wriggle back and forth a bit, getting used

to lay with the

to everything Sandy had eaten? More importantly, what happened

your many stomachs? Such as the

fine,” Sandy

he had inadvertently got a few

stomachs only, especially when each has its own environment that I spent time cultivating. Heck, it’s impossible to do. Now all of those fun biomes are gone, and I have to start over,” Sandy explained in a sad and annoyed tone. “But, together with the people in there, such as Tom and that dietitian that was forced upon me, I can gather everything and everyone important in the two stomachs I keep to at least make the losses not as worse as they could be. Again,

Jake muttered. “That’s a big sacrifice but a cheap price to pay for a second life in the grand scheme

back to what it was. Not to mention the literal pain of having the majority of your stomachs implode. Gotta wait for everything before I’ll feel whole again,”

will take?” Jake asked

have some stuff already in my emergency rations to speed things up, but even if everything goes well, it will take me a few months at

moon only for this to happen. From the looks of it, the worm hadn’t even gotten anything out of the

now. I can’t even eat a lot before

I understand why you said you would be fine no matter what. That skill is the one you got from the True Blessing of the Lord Protector, right? I must say, it makes me a bit jealous that you have a skill that

Malefic Viper interjected, as

bad soul damage and curses are two examples of this that the Big Boss pointed out. Then, there is, of course, karmic magic, which can

share all the weaknesses of what’s arguably your biggest trump card with others? Even if

something, I’m screwed. Also, I can’t control which one I use; it’s always the closest,” Sandy continued, over-explaining their abilities with a sigh. “So, anyway, I will need to reconstruct

Jake answered honestly, remembering the Challenge Dungeons in Nevermore, especially the Colosseum of Mortals

think we should both strive to not