The Primal Hunter

Chapter 999: A Day at the Lodge Carmen forcefully pressed Jake against the wall and pushed her own body onto his with all her weight. Jake responded by elbowing her in the shoulder only because she dodged getting hit in the head, the movement allowing him some leeway before she could headbutt him in the face as he struggled to get free. His blow managed to gain him some space as he quickly jumped away and stabilized, trying to regain momentum.

She pounced on him instantly, Jake escaping her grappling hands that tried to restrain him. He dodged her blows one after another as they swapped who was pushing the other one back constantly, the soft sand beneath them making it difficult to move fast but also allowing them to really get some proper force behind their attacks.

Dodging another swift blow, Jake quickly landed a low kick, making Carmen stumble. However, rather than fall backward, she dove straight into Jake’s incoming fist, taking it on the forehead as Jake’s knuckle and fingers hurt from the impact. He tried to retract his hand, but she managed to grab his wrist, and in a move Jake felt was out of a movie, she lifted her entire body off the ground and twisted, making Jake fall down alongside her, held in an armbar.

Pain shot through Jake’s body as his eyes opened wide because rather than use the move to pressure Jake into giving up, she straight up broke his arm. Probably a good choice as Jake had already determined himself to give it up as he used his legs to get leverage, and despite bending his now broken arm in a painful fashion, he tried to get on top of Carmen.

Sadly for him, she managed to roll away and quickly stand, Jake doing the same as he was forced to. Carmen looked at Jake as he stood there with his arm looking like just a useless slab of flesh. Smiling, she asked triumphantly:

“Wanna keep going?”

“I can still stand,” Jake said with a smile, refusing to surrender just yet while he still had the ability to fight ba-

Five minutes later, he had a broken leg and was pretty some at least one internal organ had entirely given up, and standing wasn’t really an option anymore. Carmen stood over him with her arms crossed and a big grin as Jake sighed painfully. “Alright, alright… let’s get out of here.”

The Colosseum around them faded away as the two of them had their consciousness transported back to their real bodies still within Jake’s lodge. They had both been sitting on the floor with legs crossed and opened their eyes at the same time as the emblem Jake held in his hand stopped glowing and powered down.

“That thing is really good stuff… a lot better than the one I got,” Carmen commented, not trying to hide her envy.

“Yeah, I probably should have been using it more before,” Jake nodded as he looked at the item he’d been rewarded for his performance during the Colosseum of Mortals Challenge Dungeon.

[Emblem of the Grand Champion (Mythical)] – An emblem infused with the powers and concepts of the Colosseum of Mortals, given only to those deemed worthy. This Emblem can create a replica of the Colosseum of Mortals arena within a virtual space for individuals to duel one another. Allows the user to choose two targets who must consent to take part in a duel within the virtual space. Those entering will leave their true bodies defenseless during the duel period. All levels and stats of those entering will be normalized. Most skills and abilities will also be restricted. Dying within the virtual space will have no negative consequences. As the owner, you can always observe the inside of the Emblem of the Grand Champion. Cooldown period: 1 hour.

Requirements: Soulbound

As he said, Jake hadn’t really been using the thing, and in truth, he’d only been reminded of it because Carmen brought it up. She’d also gotten her own emblem, but it was a lot worse than Jake’s in several ways. First of all it had a cooldown of a full day, which was kind of annoying, but the biggest thing was that Jake had way more options for customization within the Colosseum itself and the rules and restrictions the two people would be fighting under.

could also limit equipment and weapons effortlessly, making it a great sparring ground. At least for spars without skills, as most

a lot of new experimenting, and it allowed one to get more familiar with one’s skills than during regular practice while offering a new perspective and way to train. Especially if one had to pull off skills with far smaller resource

times handily. However, when they went purely unarmed, he got his ass handed to him every single time, which to Jake was

the fights, with Jake and Carmen both fired up from just having fought, everyone knows what would

Post-match analysis.

into favoring one side over the other, and while you really don’t have many openings, if your attacks aren’t able to do proper damage and create enough space in their own right for you to retreat, you tend to find yourself in trouble,” Carmen criticized him, pointing to a magic whiteboard she had been carrying around all this time and had been great during her stay in the lodge. “Sometimes your attack pattern can also get predictable. You pretty much always aim for vitals spots, which I get feels natural, but it’s also the most obvious. With a weapon, that isn’t as much of a problem, but when unarmed, the amount of damage

fights, pointing out how Carmen tended to rely too much on her tough body after becoming a fully-fledged Runemaiden, which was a problem when fighting in the Colosseum as she obviously

aware that it has been

test a weapon on her, only to quickly learn that he apparently had bullets able to shoot straight through her using the powers of void magic. The Sword Saint could also pierce her defenses with several attacks, especially when he worked in the concept of erosion, targeting singular areas repeatedly to weaken

the situation in the rest of the Milky Way, ate some food, and waited a bit before the cooldown was up, and they could dive into the simulated Colosseum of Mortals again

was still a bit surprised at seeing Carmen use a shortsword and a shield for these fights, but she explained it felt oddly similar to how she regularly fought, and it was better than going unarmed against Jake with katars. That didn’t mean she didn’t lose, with Jake not really ever having a hard time, but she insisted it was good practice, especially the last parts of the battle where she’d fought unarmed until blood loss

would have a fight while filling the time in between just doing whatever they felt would be entertaining – after getting done analyzing the fight they just

because they were experimenting with what was possible in there, and yes, a different kind of sparring was possible in the Colosseum, but that particular kind was definitely better in the

end, they ended up spending a bit over a day staying at the lodge, as honestly, leaving at nearly exactly the twenty-four-hour mark would definitely have just been weird and looked pre-planned. Carmen and Jake went straight to fetch Sylphie, who had been chilling with Vesperia in a small home the True

to Haven proper, Sylphie now in tow, one of their stalkers honestly got too close, and Jake couldn’t

looking as if he casually took a step forward, Jake instead used One Step and disappeared, appearing in the sky above. A second step brought him down to appear in front of a thin human male wearing a casual outfit while standing behind

stealth or consider if this is really the career for you,” Jake said in a dry tone as he glanced about, purposefully looking directly in the direction of a few more observers as he spoke up loudly. “Not like the

were five others, but the last guy was pretty far away, and Jake only knew he was there due to his Bloodline, so he saw no reason to

a rush today, so I’ll let you off with a warning to not be so damn obvious it gets annoying,” Jake smiled as he turned to walk away before stopping after a few steps and speaking loudly

as he went back

of the stalkers?” she

all of them… now let’s go,” Jake answered, the two of them picking up speed as Sylphie gladly was

Jake let know he’d seen backing off entirely, likely doing exactly what he’d told them to. He was certain their bosses would be very interested in what Jake had just said. Now, he didn’t actually know which factions these people were from, but he assumed at