The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1026: Jake Thayne vs Ell'Hakan (3) As the sun rose over the red planet, two figures clashed in mid-air, explosions filling the sky.

Jake once more took the initiative despite Ell’Hakan being the one who’d just unleashed a powerful domain skill upon the world. His scales still allowed him to ignore the passive effects of the sunlight, but he knew that as it intensified and the sun rose further, it would become a problem.

Ell’Hakan also gladly took on a more defensive and passive role as he’d returned to being more of a mage than a warrior. His body was enveloped by sun-affinity fire as he was constantly nurtured by the domain while also using it to empower his attacks. Moreover, due to the inherent life energy in the sun affinity, his wounds were even healing faster under the sunlight.

However, even so, he was on the back foot as Jake made full use of the wide open space in the skies to unleash attacks from all directions. He shot arrows into the air with a package of Willpower, making them slowly turn around and come back to strike Ell’Hakan dozens of seconds later as they took extremely wide curves on their flight path.

This resulted in Ell’Hakan getting attacked from all sides as he tried to lock down Jake, who was gladly teleported around liberally while loosing arrow after arrow. Every single arrow was also soaked in poison, Jake not holding anything back as he had plenty where that came from.

Ell’Hakan did end up taking quite a few wounds, but as his magic got more and more powerful, Jake also began to feel pressured. The nahoom finally made a major move as he stabbed toward Jake with his trident despite being several kilometers away, and rather than a beam of sunlight, three massive torrents of flames were released from each of the trident’s prongs.

These waves of flames transformed after being released, taking forms reminiscent of hydra heads as they chased after Jake, each of them utterly gigantic in size. Jake tried to dodge away and simply keep shooting Ell’Hakan, but one of the heads moved to block his arrows, and to Jake’s surprise, the arrow was actually embedded in the hydra as if it was made of something solid.

As this happened, Ell’Hakan was once more stuck from behind by one of Jake’s many arrows he’d trick-shot earlier, but it only made the Usurper grunt as he kept pressuring Jake, who was having a harder time than he’d expected with the flames.

Several times, he was nearly caught in one of their massive maws, and the further away Jake fled from Ell’Hakan, the larger these hydra heads came as Jake realized the sun was constantly feeding them power and energy.

Jake gritted his teeth as another one got too close for comfort until suddenly, the second one, which was still a good distance away, opened its mouth and unleashed a breath of flames. Reacting quickly, Jake summoned a barrier of stable arcane mana, successfully blocking the flames that turned out weaker than expected. Then again, perhaps one shouldn’t expect too much from fire spewed from something already made of fire.

What the flames had done was allow the first head to close in as the more than fifty-meter-wide maw descended upon Jake to consume him. Jake stared up with narrow eyes as he was still within his barrier, and rather than move, he simply stood still and let himself be consumed.

Right as the maw snapped shut, the entire hydra head exploded from the inside out in a mixture of arcane energy and fire, with Jake standing unharmed as he’d used the arcane barrier to destroy the hydra head, and he couldn’t help but snicker at his plan having worked.

All that time with the Puzzle Cube had really come in handy as Jake almost subconsciously analyzed the fire construct of mana, found the weak point, and exploited it before Ell’Hakan had time to adapt. Not that Jake would give him any such time if he could avoid it as he released a barrage of arcane bolts toward another of the hydra heads, each of them exploding on contact and disrupting the mana that kept the construct whole.

Left with only a single head, Ell’Hakan reabsorbed the flames into himself once more as he returned to simpler attacks like fireballs, sunlight beams, and the occasional random explosion in mid-air as the nahoom condensed the heat.

By now, Jake had fully activated the stable variant of his boosting skill, giving him a nice 30% increase in all stats. Ell’Hakan had also used his at the same time as that “sunrise” skill, but based on Jake’s estimates, his own boosting skill was better. That, or Ell’Hakan’s skill just had other effects Jake had yet to learn about, and honestly, one of those effects he suspected was to better attune him to absorb the sunlight because his wounds were healing way faster than they should... no...

More than actually healing him, the sunlight is stimulating his existing vital energy to heal him faster, Jake noted, the poison coursing through Ell’Hakan’s veins giving him quite good insight into the nahoom’s body.

to Ell’Hakan right now really was a waste of time

my head! Jake yelled internally as he tried to squash any unnatural emotions of doubt. Ell’Hakan had clearly done some heavy-handed manipulation, which Jake

cursed again as he just stopped bloody thinking and kept attacking as he didn’t even trust his own emotions. It was unsettling, to say the least, that Jake couldn’t trust anything but the most obvious of analysis, but he really couldn’t do

his bullshit and making him think things were going fine. The sun had now risen more than halfway, and soon enough, it would be right above them. As it rose, it only grew stronger and stronger, the sunlight getting close to overcoming Jake’s Scales’ passive resistance. All along, Ell’Hakan had just wanted to

powerful arrows weren’t something Ell’Hakan could easily handle,

into a beam of sunlight, he went straight for Jake, who responded by shooting arrows his way. One of them split in mid-air before exploding, creating a cover of destructive arcane mana as Jake

and stabbed toward Jake’s chest with full momentum. Jake met the charge as

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for Jake to quickly pull out his bow and shoot another arrow, Ell’Hakan failing to fully block it before he charged again, this time more carefully as Jake blocked blow after blow while failing to land an attack of his own for the

was far better at fighting than he would have expected, Jake was simply faster and stronger physically.

one thing to

still level 295, just shy of being considered a high-tier C-grade. At the same time, Ell’Hakan had just barely passed that

[Nahoom – lvl 303]

titles that he still appeared superior in stats despite the level difference. Also, while Jake’s Big Game Hunter and many other skills being stronger against higher-leveled enemies was a thing for sure, that didn’t mean it was better

been considered rather one-sided. With the level-disparity... well, time would tell. For now, Jake had the advantage with his superior physical stats and better boosting skill, but Ell’Hakan still had time

time to rest. The nahoom didn’t have many good responses besides fighting back, as any time he created just a bit of

made a concession. Jake had been the first to activate his boosting skill in the stable variant, but now Ell’Hakan was the one to go further as he pushed his own boosting skill further, forcing Jake

had expected to see Ell’Hakan continue to use the same one that relied on the sun affinity, but instead, Ell’Hakan activated what seemed like an entirely new boosting skill. His aura also subtly changed

close, he felt as if the distance was longer than it actually was. His katar slowed down for a fraction of a second just before it hit Ell’Hakan, giving the nahoom time to twist his body to

the offensive variant, boosting the relevant stats by 50%. He did lose his boost to his resilience stats, which put an even bigger strain on his scales, but for now, they still held up, primarily due to their high innate resistance to the

the higher Agility helping Jake as he reached forward to use Touch, and once more, he felt his aim be weird. However, just then, it was as if his Touch made contact with

with Ell’Hakan’s skill. It not only boosted his stats but created what was effectively a barrier of probability around him to defend him from lethal

struck Ell’Hakan... yet once more, just before each struck, they slightly veered away from where Jake had aimed them, hitting him, yes, but avoiding areas they

skill’s rarity had to be, but it couldn’t be low. Based on how Ell’Hakan

this time as he moved his trident to block them all. Yet again, something odd happened, as

dozen arrow holes and close to a hundred cuts marking his body, the nahoom still smiled confidently as he didn’t