The Primal Hunter

Chapter 978: Unsettling Whispers ”Assistance is not offered; it’s provided whether you want it or not. Your thoughts on the matter and your opinions are only factors that will lead to needless complications. So stand down and retain your lives,” the Fallen King said, frankly tired of dealing with all these so-called “enlightened” that kept creating problems whenever he and the Sylphian Hawk merely wanted to provide assistance in killing the Prima Guardian.

The Fallen King was currently floating in front of a party led by the World Leader of this particular planet. Around fifty of their “elites” were scattered all around him, knocked out with weak soul attacks, having utterly failed to put up any fight worth mentioning. The hawk hadn’t even needed to do anything but had instead decided to clear out every Prima in the vicinity of the Prima Vessel ahead of time.

“Replacing one calamity with another is not assistance,” the human woman who wielded the title of World Leader answered.

“Consider your options. Join me in freeing the Prima Guardian and trust us to slay it before leaving you in peace or oppose our will and know with certainty you face two entities more dangerous than the Guardian,” the Fallen King said in a harsh and very threatening tone.

“If… if you kill me, you have no way to free the Guardian,” the World Leader said, trying to look brave. Her belief that her words were true was what gave her any kind of courage to argue and stand up to the Unique Lifeform. She believed the King needed her…

“You do not know, do you?” the Fallen King said. “When the World Leader and a sufficient percentage of the enlightened population are all slain, the Prima Guardian will automatically be released. Perhaps designed as a kind of mercy-killing by the system? I do not know. All I know is that your continued existence is an act of mercy on my part, and you are testing the boundaries of my benevolence.”

To clarify, the Fallen King had no idea if what he said was true. What he did know was that negotiating as a monster was overly tiring, as enlightened simply never trusted him, at least not those in a newly integrated universe. There were naturally some exceptions and even a planet with beastfolk where Sylphie easily convinced them as they worshipped her almost like a deity due to the power of her variant race.

For this particular planet, the Fallen King had quickly gotten the understanding that they would not volunteer any help… so he had chosen the forceful approach. From the looks of how the World Leader wavered and the signs of telepathic communication between the party, it appeared to be working, as not long after, the human woman gritted her teeth.

“Fine… but swear upon your honor as a Unique Lifeform that you are not deceiving us,” she said, quite cleverly if the Fallen King had to say so.

“I will swear that my companion and I are only here with the objective of slaying the Prima Guardian and will leave afterward without killing any of your kin,” the Fallen King answered truthfully.

Perhaps most would write off something as feeble as a promise, but this woman did seem to have a basic grasp of what a Unique Lifeform was. They were all prideful and wouldn’t do something like swearing upon their honor just to trick someone so much weaker than themselves. The Fallen King wouldn’t do so either. Such things were simply beneath him, and she knew it.

“Alright… alright, we’ll trust you,” the World Leader finally fully agreed, a bit too slowly in the opinion of the King, but quickly enough that this wouldn’t cause a needless delay.

“Then let us delay no longer,” the King said, and with the World Leader and her party of weaklings in tow, headed toward the Prima Vessel to free and kill yet another Prima Guardian.

Once they arrived, Sylphie was already done cleaning up anything close to it and just waiting for them to get there. They had to fly a good deal of the way due to how weak this planet was and how they hadn’t even managed to get any kind of teleporter within three hours of travel time to the Vessel.

Having the World Leader enter the Prima Vessel went as always. She got in, they all waited a few minutes, and then she quickly flew out, a Prima Guardian hot on her heels. It was yet another weak one, and without the Fallen King having to do much, an excited Sylphie tore it apart, the Fallen King only doing a little to speed things up.

At this point, this all just felt like busy work. They had cleared about thirty planets this way, and it had been more than four months since the hunter decided to temporarily cripple himself due to his own stupidity, causing immense soul damage to himself. Even the King had taken some residual damage he needed to heal, and the entire experience had only made it clear he needed to work on separating himself from Jake.

Anyway, the opponents they faced at this point were all too weak to really bother with. The Guardians didn’t even have the Honored tag anymore, and if the Fallen King hadn’t seen how utterly useless the native populations were, he would have questioned how any planet could lose to this system event.

Sylphie returned to the King and the cowering World Leader as they prepared for the

your promise?” the World Leader asked, looking at the Vessel. The King also noticed the woman’s party had already taken off during the fighting

King said. With Sylphie resting on the King’s shoulder, they entered the Prima Vessel with the usual design. A long hallway with a crossroad at the end, one leading into the control room, another

needed the World Leader to unlock them, which was why they had to keep the annoying weaklings alive

went to the control room, and the World Leader unlocked the barrier to enter and touched the metal orb that activated

many planets

bit odd but didn’t comment further. “Some. Once the entire galaxy is clear of

taken from Royal Road. Help

said with a

can also have people teleport to or from here to help you clean up the remaining regular Primas. Of course, you will need to

in Haven had

just became available, you needed to have claimed the Prima Vessel first, even if you had constructed one with knowledge provided by another planet beforehand. Assuming you hadn’t joined

the Fallen King stared at the World Leader. “You seem oddly informed

you for allowing me to realize

was pushed back by an explosion and was covered in blood as the World Leader blew herself up, the Unique Lifeform just

who had not been hit by the blood or explosion at

the Fallen King responded, quickly floating out into the hallway and seeing the barrier still blocking the entrance to the teleportation room and their way home… now with no World Leader available to unlock

with the Puzzle Box of the Seeker, the nifty mana-practice toy allowing him to put

even properly focus on things. As the hours passed, the feeling

ordinary. Everything was standard as it had been for the last many months. Still, Jake couldn’t shake it and had even checked in with Sylphie real quick with their Union Oath contract and gotten back a feeling of her being bored, likely waiting for the Fallen

– to properly distract himself, even after he had Miranda check up on everyone he knew and cared about. Jake even began to fear something was happening or was going to happen to someone he couldn’t even get in contact with. Had

were times it was very clear, while in other instances, it just gave him super vague feelings. On this day, all it told him was that something was wrong and that someone

feeling to fade with time. It didn’t, but it only kept growing worse and

but he was our best bet for finding out what was wrong… and he did find something suspicious enough that we need to

at the edge of his seat as the

this had to be very serious. The karmic mage hadn’t been one of the people who knew Jake was still suffering from a semi-permanent soul injury, and he was

there, based on how half his body had turned into metal, and he was even tied up with a

asked, looking at the tied-up