The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1002: A Tale of Half-Truths Carmen just stared at Jake as he made his grand declaration of renouncing the Malefic Viper, even infusing his words with Willpower. She knew he and the Malefic Viper had been planning something, but this was… wait, was it even possible to make that kind of announcement without some kind of backlash? At least it had to trigger some kind of system prompt, right?

When he then explained how he couldn’t get rid of the Blessing, Carmen couldn’t help but feel weird about it. Jake wasn’t a good liar. He had never been. But when he said that he couldn’t get rid of the Blessing unless the Malefic Viper died, he seemed genuine. The other Chosen clearly also recognized this as he smiled and affirmed his interest in the discussion to come.

“Oh, lovely that you find my shitty situation interesting, real flattering,” Jake said in an obviously sarcastic tone before sighing. “But, fine, allow me to continue piquing your curiosity. I may not always do it, but I can admit when I’m wrong, and in retrospect, perhaps it was a mistake to jump into bed with a snake god who quite literally had Malefic in his name without properly understanding what exactly I was signing myself up to. But in my defense, I didn’t have a lot of information to go on back then, and it wasn’t like the Viper gave me a lot of time to think things over before instantly making me his Chosen. Say, do you know when I even became his Chosen?”

Ell’Hakan’s face didn’t change as he motioned for Jake to continue. “Do tell.”

“While still stuck in his damn Challenge Dungeon while infected with a poison that would kill me if I didn’t manage to cure myself in time. This was a Challenge Dungeon that had been made all the way back when the Malefic Viper was still active and had been purposefully made as part of an experiment to see if he could actually kill the challengers doing the Challenge Dungeon, and it had successfully killed every single other person who’d attempted it for dozens of eras until I came along,” Jake said in a matter-of-fact tone, and Carmen couldn’t help but keep staring at him as she hadn’t really known any of this.

“So do excuse me for wanting to take any advantage I could get, and everything indicated that being blessed by the god who’d also poisoned you would be a good way to survive. Back then, I had no idea about the implications of a True Blessing either, and the Viper didn’t even give me some smaller Blessing first but went straight for the True Blessing,” Jake continued.

“Now, that is admittedly odd. Why would he do that? You couldn’t have proven yourself much at that point, much less made yourself worthy of being his Chosen. He may be a washed-up Primordial, but he is still a Primordial and should have some modicum of pride,” Ell’Hakan said, seeming genuinely interested in Jake’s history.

“I would hope the answer is pretty fucking obvious,” Jake said in a half-mocking tone. “Same reason I reckon Yip of Yore made you his Chosen. It’s all in the goddamn Bloodline. Perhaps he knew about this entire Primeval Origins business back then and wanted to lock me down nice and early.”

Ell’Hakan looked in thought for a moment before he turned to the Augur of Hope sitting behind him. “Your thoughts on this tale?”

“While I cannot comment on the thoughts of those involved, I can confirm the sequence of events,” the Augur responded. “Jake walked out of the Challenge Dungeon with a True Blessing, meaning he must have obtained it very early on. I have also heard of the Challenge Dungeon in question from the Holy Mother, as well as others like it that were cleared throughout the eras. Many have fallen to them.”

“You say you won’t comment on the thoughts of those involved but do enlighten me nevertheless. Do you truly believe Jake here could have been tricked by the Malefic Viper?” Ell’Hakan asked the Augur, making Carmen genuinely afraid. If the Augur began to shoot holes in the story, things could easily get ruined faster than-

“Very possibly,” the Augur answered after only a moment of thought. “Jake had very little information to go on and was in a perilous situation. The Malefic Viper never truly gave him a choice and colored his view from the early days with the system. What’s more, and this is perhaps a bit speculative, Jake would gladly accept the True Blessing if it gave him power. His Path is a simple one, focused solely on the pursuit of furthering his own personal skills and abilities. It wouldn’t be difficult for the Malefic Viper to take advantage of his fact.”

“Which begs the question,” Ell’Hakan said, still speaking as if Jake wasn’t even there. “Why would he be willing to denounce his own Blessing, knowing the loss of power such a thing would incur?”

Carmen once again had to hold herself back from sweating. Yeah, he wouldn’t do that, right, and-

“Because there is no power without freedom,” the Augur answered without hesitation. “Should the True Blessing end up becoming a shackle, Jake would gladly cut off his own foot to escape, as long as doing so means he would be able to live on his own terms.”

“Not entirely accurate,” Jake pointed out before smiling. “Before cutting off my own foot, I would at least try to take down my captor whenever next he was dumb enough to give me the chance to. Also, pretty rude of you to discuss me when I’m standing right here.”

“I apologize,” the Augur said with a small nod, not trying to give any further excuses.

you claim that the Malefic Viper effectively tricked you into becoming his Chosen because he wanted your Bloodline, relied on your innate nature and lack of knowledge to keep luring you in, and now you are

cold tone. “You know why Yip of Yore chose to

Transcendent Skill in this universe and suffered the

fucking around in my Soulspace using his Transcendent

one to use lie-detecting skills or anything like that, the people present tended to be really good at

of how the Malefic Viper and met and their interactions,

--

as he kept trying to stick to the script as best as possible. He’d missed a few things and included some extra stuff here and

Stolen story; please report.

at all. The Augur was on the other side of the conference call, and yet he’d helped Jake immensely by pretty much corroborating everything Jake had said while giving him a great segue to continue

to get out of his narrative, which made Jake both confident and a

of story Ell’Hakan and Yip of Yore would both only benefit from. They had the motivation to believe what Jake was saying, and besides, why would the

getting progressively more willing to just listen, kept looking at Jake

exactly did the Malefic One do

Jake said truthfully, shaking his head. “The system blocked out any knowledge about the details. What I am certain of is that he altered parts of his Legacy within me, leaving

from Villy.

him to use it in

I didn’t,” Jake said, rightfully assuming Villy wouldn’t be a fan of Jake accidentally killing himself. “As for how he did it… this

frowned, seemingly unsure what that was as he

trial certain alchemists part of the Order of the Malefic Viper undergoes, but it’s relatively rare due to its… problems. It essentially involves soaking the alchemist in a grand mixture of poisons to stimulate their Palate of the Malefic Viper by absorbing all the poison. It has a rather high mortality rate dependent on the potency of the mixture used, and seeing as it only brings any real benefits when the potency reaches a level where it’s potentially lethal, many tend to avoid it and instead go with absorbing poisons over a longer period for more gradual growth,”

own blood containing their Records,” Jake added

room turned a lot more serious when Jake said this. Ell’Hakan stared at Jake with a level of disbelief that Jake believed was genuine, and even Jacob looked at him

mean to tell me that the Malefic Viper implanted a drop of his blood infused with Records

helped the Malefic Viper manifest himself within my Soulspace and do what he did in there. I will not deny this drop has been a boon at times, but I also realize it’s a ticking time bomb. As long as it remains within me, the Malefic Viper has a method to kill me at any time if he so desires. Shit, when I first had the blood implanted into

drop of blood relate to your inability to denounce your Blessing?” Ell’Hakan continued

“I can’t say it’s one thing that’s happened that led to the current state of things, but fact is, I cannot renounce my Blessing even if I wanted to. All I know

conversation had been going on.

held any faith toward the Viper in the first place, something I’m pretty damn sure he knew all along. My entire relationship with the Malefic Viper was one born out of mutual benefit. However, gods don’t tend to like that. They prefer worship and loyalty over anything else, and they cannot fathom a mortal seeing past their divinity for what they truly are: just another person. To me, they

words sound, I almost wanna say, blasphemous,”