The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1024: Jake Thayne vs Ell'Hakan (1) A barrage of explosions filled the core chamber as Ell’Hakan dodged or blocked every attack Jake made, but he wasn’t able to find an opening to counterattack either. At least, Jake assumed he couldn’t, but it turned out he was somewhat distracted by something else in the room.

The Planetary Pylon was obviously an object of interest to Ell’Hakan, more specifically, the arcane-tinged black snakes that had wrapped themselves around it. This resulted in the first attack Ell’Hakan launched not being aimed at Jake but the core instead as the nahoom was probing what would happen.

A blast of deep yellow flames erupted from his trident and enveloped the large Planetary Pylon, doing absolutely nothing as a thin, nearly invisible barrier appeared around the entire Pylon, blocking any and all attacks.

All it took was this one attack for Ell’Hakan to conclude he wouldn’t be able to do anything to the Pylon as he instead fully focused on Jake. It was evident whatever was going on with the Planetary Pylon still bothered him a lot, but he just as evidently realized that now wasn’t the time to try and figure it out and that, more likely than not, whatever was happening would end with Jake’s death.

During his brief probing of it, he’d smartly also tried to use the Pylon as cover during his attack but hadn’t been prepared as two arrows curved around the large Pylon, one from each side.

He blocked one of them but failed to fully avoid the second as a small cut was made on his shoulder. Usually, such a wound was nothing, but against Jake, the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, it dealt far more damage than it normally would, courtesy of Jake’s homecooked Heartrot Poison.

Ell’Hakan didn’t seem bothered by the attack, though, as he instantly went on the offensive. Flying over the core, he beelined for Jake, making the hunter jump to the side, having decided to use the vast open space within the core room as the initial site of this battle. He knew Ell’Hakan relied on celestial concepts and was very skilled in using the sun affinity, so hopefully, fighting underground would weaken him a little.

While dodging, Jake loosed an arrow that split into dozens before exploding, but Ell’Hakan stabbed forward with his trident, unleashing an explosion of burning light that canceled out Jake’s attack as he continued his chase.

He’s fast. Faster than expected... but not too fast.

Right as Ell’Hakan reached Jake, the hunter stepped down and teleported away, spinning around in mid-air to release three arrows in quick succession that Ell’Hakan quickly blocked, or at least he tried to, as one of them once more left a cut.

Ell’Hakan again seemed unbothered as he attacked but focused a bit more on defense this time around while also switching to using ranged attacks of his own. Beams of burning sunlight shot toward Jake at incredible speeds – unsurprisingly, considering it was effectively a form of light magic – seeking to scorch him.

While the sunlight wasn’t too damaging, its speed made it a dangerous attack nonetheless, and truthfully, Jake wouldn’t have been able to dodge them without his danger sense that pretty much gave him precognition when it came to avoiding taking damage.

A barrage of burning balls of fire was also summoned from all around Ell’Hakan as the former Chosen showed that he was as much a mage as a melee fighter. He was essentially a spellspear, except he used a trident instead, but honestly, same shit, more stabby bits, and spelltrident just sounded dumb.

These balls chased after Jake with far lower speed than the sunlight, but were highly controlled and aimed to surround or cut him off as Ell’Hakan tried to not allow Jake to create too much distance between the two of them.

Even so, Jake was fine with the status quo of this early stage, where they were both feeling out the other. He continued dodging, avoiding damage wherever possible while taking the occasional minor sunlight beam or remnants of explosions, but never without getting a good trade in return.

As the seconds turned to minutes, Jake began to notice something, though... that perhaps he wasn’t the only one okay with how things were currently going. His first clue was something he honestly hadn’t considered, but now that he actively felt for it, he detected the change.

heat came primarily from the magma and whatnot in the walls surrounding them, not anything Ell’Hakan had done. Now, that was changing. While the temperature had only increased a little, the biggest change was the nature of the surrounding mana. It had begun to take on the mana

significantly, and as time passed, Jake began to really feel it. Before the environmental heat was just there,

effectively nullifying the environmental damage as he dove through an explosion Ell’Hakan tried to block him off with, also using said explosion as cover to shoot a tricky arrow that the nahoom once more failed

decided to respond in kind. Wings sprung from his back, and instantly, he set ablaze the blood within as dark green mist began seeping out of

heat was intense, it wasn’t able to destroy the mist properly. In fact, all burning it would do was

to deal with the poison mist, responded by creating what looked like a faint barrier to cover his body that seemed to cancel out whatever poison mist got too near. Based on how he still tried

began wielding his trident more like a staff than a true melee weapon. He wrapped deep yellow and red flames around it as he shot out torrents of flames

to not fall behind. Things were heating up both figuratively and literally as both went more

has been stolen; if

So far, neither of them had even touched using a boosting skill, nor had they

Eternal Hunger transformed into an arrow, he didn’t have a second proper melee weapon available but would have to rely on the Void Katar. Sure, he did have a backup in case of

it as things were. The mere fact that Ell’Hakan could afford to hold back as much as Jake was proof that between the two

purely ranged battle, as his stable arrows occasionally found their mark, leaving wounds on Ell’Hakan’s body. Meanwhile, he took far less damage himself. The one

notice something

still able to

worked. In retrospect, that shouldn’t be surprising as the planet needed the Pylon to regulate itself and function properly, and until the Divine Bargain concluded, Jake wouldn’t be the owner of the Pylon... so until then, it still belonged

him to. In fact, it was one of the reasons why he had been so sure that Ell’Hakan would come running if he went after the Pylon.

the territory surrounding itself while also giving the other passive buffs Pylons tended to give. This made Jake

battle elsewhere before we both get

Also, while it was true the core chamber was large, it was still small compared

this ranged battle was no longer in his interest, and after Jake had just loosed another arrow, the nahoom didn’t respond

totally ready as his eyes opened wide. He failed to step down in time as Ell’Hakan transformed into a beam of burning light that practically teleported to appear

being hit directly. Ell’Hakan attacked again, using the butt of the trident to stop Jake from using One Step while using his other hand to land a palm on Jake’s chest, sending him flying

and Jake purposefully launching himself back right before getting struck, the blow hadn’t done much besides confirming the status quo was rapidly changing to no longer be in Jake’s favor. This was further cemented when Ell’Hakan didn’t give

movement speed? Jake questioned as he welcomed Ell’Hakan’s attack. He quickly

wings as he tried to land a stab with his katar. His blow expectedly missed, Ell’Hakan countering with a vertical attack just as Jake expected. He was ready, as before it could get proper swinging speed, Jake lunged forward with his empty hand and grasped the handle