The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1028: Jake Thayne vs Ell'Hakan (5) As the sun set, a lot of things happened at once. Jake found himself trapped as the pillar of pure sun energy descended upon him, with seemingly no time to get away... so he made a gamble. Right before the sunbeam hit, his body split in two as a shadowy version of Jake shot out of the area the sunbeam was in, unaffected by the remnant energy left by the fire chains.

It was an often forgotten feature as Jake didn’t use it often, but the Origin of Eternal Shadow still had roots in Shadow Vault, retaining the ability to vault out of danger as per the description:

“Upon activation of Eternal Shadow of the Primal Hunter, this skill allows both the Eternal Shadow and the Primal Hunter to embrace the shadows momentarily, vaulting in any chosen direction.”

This allowed the Eternal Shadow to escape just as Jake was hit by the Sundown beam... and he was hit hard. Jake’s scales nearly immediately exploded as they were overcharged with energy, and the skin below burnt away in an instant, with Jake feeling as if his entire body was beginning to disintegrate.

As his form was wholly consumed by the beam, and not even a second from when he knew Moment of the Primal Hunter would forcibly activate – even if he tried to stop it from doing so as he was currently - Ell’Hakan’s gaze was finally no longer on him due to the immense brightness.

Jake acted instantly and activated Eternal Shadow again as he switched places with his other half, the clone instantly getting destroyed as Jake appeared outside where the beam hit. Despite replacing his reality with the one of Eternal Shadow’s, remnant sun energy still lingered in Jake’s soul as he felt hot throughout, but he couldn’t give it much thought as he focused on rapidly ascending upwards as he initiated his stealth skill.

This was something Jake had theorized long ago and now finally put into practice, though not exactly as he had imagined. Jake’s stealth skill was extremely powerful, but it relied on this opponent not knowing where Jake was when he activated it. Needless to say, that made it pretty challenging to use in the middle of combat... but what if he had a way to make his opponents lose track of him? Perhaps even make his opponent assume he was “someone” else?

That’s what Jake had considered... replacing himself with his clone to then gain distance and enter stealth before his opponent noticed the real him. It was still hard to pull off, but Ell’Hakan had given Jake the perfect opportunity.

Even as Jake rapidly used One Step to get height, thus exiting the emotion-detection range of Ell’Hakan, the nahoom still hadn’t noticed Jake as the sunbeam lasted a lot longer than Jake had thought it would. Also, even if Jake had dodged it and was now getting height, he was still affected by the immense heat it gave off, but the sunlight was impressively focused in the beam, meaning Ell’Hakan had a lot more control than Jake would expect, considering the sheer scale and power of the attack.

If he’d taken the beam head-on, Jake genuinely couldn’t ensure his own survival, even if he tried to use barriers and whatnot. Only with Moment or Eternal Shadow did Jake have a good method of escape, and Jake could only admire the fact that Ell’Hakan could unleash such a skill.

He had clearly earned the title as one of the most powerful people of their generation... but Jake was determined to prove himself the strongest once and for all.

As the Sundown beam slowly faded away, Jake’s stealth skill finally activated, and he disappeared entirely. Yet he kept going up for a little while longer until he felt like it was good enough. Once there, he turned his attention toward the nahoom below who was looking into the massive hole created by the beam.

Jake felt it then... this was his chance. Without a moment’s hesitation, Jake pulled out his special Eternal Hunger arrow and nocked it before taking aim at the Usurper below. Arcane Powershot started charging as Jake kept breathing heavily despite the pain, the heat having caused quite a lot of internal damage.

Ell’Hakan was unaware. He simply kept watching out for Jake, who he likely assumed to be down in the burning hole. Jake honestly didn’t know why but assumed that, but perhaps some of the curse energy still lingered down there for a while longer, giving off Jake’s aura.

The nahoom even consumed a potion, recovering slightly for the next round of the fight. One could say a lot of things about Ell’Hakan, but he certainly hadn’t underestimated Jake. Even after such an attack, he moved forward with the conclusion Jake was still going to continue being a massive threat he had to stay prepared for.

However, no preparation could prepare him for Jake doing something Ell’Hakan didn’t even know Jake was capable of.

Soon enough, Jake felt the strain on his body as the Arcane Powershot couldn’t be charged more. Even so, he pushed it just a little further as his shoulders began burning from the destructive arcane energy, and the bow he’d upgraded way back just before Nevermore looked like it couldn’t handle much more.

It was time.

Go.

Jake let go of the string as the Eternal Hunger arrow exploded downwards, hidden by his stealth skill. Ell’Hakan was none the wiser as he still stood there expecting Jake to be below and not above. ɽ𝘢𐌽∅𝐁Ëṣ

Only when it was too late did Ell’Hakan react. The nahoom moved his head to the side at the very last moment, avoiding getting struck on top of his head as he tried to tilt his body. Right as he began moving, Jake used Primal Gaze, but it didn’t even look like Ell’Hakan noticed as Eternal Hunger’s curse energy flooded the area right before it hit him.

through Ell’Hakan, immense amounts of curse energy invaded the nahoom’s body, not

and passing through Ell’Hakan, all the runes and magic covering the mythical weapon gone as it flew out of the Usurper around his thigh area. In its wake, it left all

it was free of Ell’Hakan, the entire mythical weapon instantly disappeared rather than crash into the ground, reappearing far up in the sky above, held in Jake’s hand. His shoulders

began to fall down toward the ground, and as he’d moved to avoid Jake shooting him from within the hole,

bow looked quite a bit worse for wear, so he decided to give it a break as he floated down. While descending, Jake also took the Eternal Hunger spear and held it in front of him as he grasped the arrow’s tip and body. With a good twist and yank, he broke off the speartip and a small part of the handle, holding it as the weapon began to slowly morph into a katar as he allowed the rest of the former arrow’s body to disperse and reenter

toward where someone was looking but found nothing. Frowning, Jake tried to identify the source of what observed him,

utterly destroyed body on the ground. The arrow had removed more than a third of Ell’Hakan’s entire body mass in one go and, due to its travel path, even blown one of his arms and

rot from the Heartrot poison infecting every part of him that remained. Looking down at him, Jake sighed as

not meant

knew this could only have one conclusion. With the sun gone and under the light of the twin

Ell’Hakan’s mind as he didn’t even register himself falling and landing hard on the rocky ground below. He was only vaguely aware that he had been hit with an extremely powerful

one, gaining lucidity with every passing second as he desperately struggled. Despite all his efforts, getting rid of the hunger was simply too difficult as it tied into too many other emotions, and the pain was needed as a reminder of what

body was utterly wrecked, and he could barely move. Curse and poison were coursing

before getting hit were one of the only things keeping him even halfway stable, but he knew that at

and a slight hint of killing intent made it evident what he was there to

this. Ell’Hakan had done all the preparations he could, never once slacked off or allowed himself to be satisfied. In fact, he’d used his Bloodline on himself all the time. It was

fear, apprehension... all of them were things that made one slow down or stop progressing. Ell’Hakan had carefully controlled all these. No matter how hard he had to work on something he never allowed himself to get bored or discouraged, but instead actively amplified all the positive emotions he felt while doing it to keep himself motivated and engaged. He had done this for so many years, even before the system. He’d trained with his spear back then till his hands were bloody

I can’t.

everything he could. He felt the faith of every native of his planet

coalesced as a notification appeared before his

Upgraded: [Legend of the Celestial Child (Legendary)] --> [Myth of the Celestial

reached an even higher level. This energy fed his body, but... it simply wasn’t enough. It was like pouring oil on an already extinguished candle, and all it ended up doing was prolonging how

he couldn’t even move a finger on his remaining arm. The hunter was observing him as he lay there, and as Ell’Hakan read his emotions for what may be the final time, he was surprised to find a hint of regret

felt an emotion he had expected even less... and the one he

Pity.

Malefic Viper, making all the poison in his body go on a rampage, quickly quelling whatever

his own psyche. He remembered growing up on the streets after his

in an uncontrollable flood as his life flashed before his eyes. His escape from the streets had not been a lucky one, but quite the opposite. He’d been captured by the guards after trying to steal water and was punished with enslavement and to join the slave army

his own emotions, which allowed him to do better on the battlefield than most, and along with his naturally gifted physique and talent for battle, he excelled. Even so, he was close to death so many times as he grew up in the army from someone

own emotions he could affect. He started out small, making the army cook give him an extra meal here and there, had the blacksmith ensure Ell’Hakan’s

the military from within. He spread half-truths and lies that were to his advantage, easily convincing others of anything he wanted to as he kept pushing the limits. Emotions and

in the first place. He was praised by all and brought to the capital of the kingdom, who at the time ruled the city they even called the capital now. There, he was met with

was a remnant from a very long time ago when his planet had been united as one. During this time, the planet was flourishing with plenty of life and greenery everywhere,

all crumbled. It was called a punishment from the sun and stars, but later, Ell’Hakan learned it was the result of a massive supervolcano erupting, causing changes to

it had been done by someone who was viewed as a living god. A