The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1031: Primal Hunter vs Celestial Child (8) Chapter 1031: Primal Hunter vs Celestial Child (8)

Explosions and cutting waves of crescent moonlight reshaped the landscape as Jake and Ell’Hakan battled across the planet’s surface, tearing everything up in their path. Most of it was sand, but there were also plenty of massive rocky plains for them to destroy as Jake constantly redirected Ell’Hakan’s blow away from himself and into the environment, with the nahoom not caring in the slightest as he continually released his rain of starlight shards.

Courtesy of the Void Sphere, none of their destruction was reflected in the real world, and neither did they encounter any other living beings as they continued fighting, the fight having taken on its own tempo. Ell’Hakan had slightly powered up once more despite his state seemingly worsening, making him able to constantly put pressure on Jake.

Not that Jake was losing out much as the battle stayed surprisingly equal for a while, with Jake constantly retreating and forcing Ell’Hakan to give chase to avoid Jake pulling out his bow, as while Ell’Hakan had a slight advantage in melee combat, it was the opposite when distance was established.

Jake did wonder a few times if attacking even mattered much, as despite doing a lot of damage, Ell’Hakan seemed to not care in the slightest. In fact, it seemed to almost make him stronger as despite losing another arm and taking multiple injuries, he simply healed everything immediately using his odd starlight energy. Or, well, considering he called himself the Celestial Child, perhaps calling it celestial energy would be more accurate.

However, Jake soon became confident that despite nothing seemingly changing, his attacks did have an effect. He began to notice that the poison still running through Ell’Hakan’s body began to move differently when it sought to attack his vital energy, almost as if it met obstructions or cut-off paths. Moreover, as Jake focused more on the poison in Ell’Hakan’s body using Sense of the Malefic Viper, he began to notice the small cracks.

Not on any armor or weapons, but on Ell’Hakan’s Soulshape, indicating his soul was breaking apart in real-time, and whenever Jake landed a blow, he only sped up the process. Seeing this, Jake even doubted it for a moment as he questioned how Ell’Hakan could remain so damn blasé about everything. If Jake could detect the massive amounts of soul damage going on, so could Ell’Hakan, right?

Because Jake sure as hell noticed how much his forearm hurt every time he moved it, the damage from being grabbed earlier taking annoyingly long to heal. While it wasn’t enough to negatively affect his combat prowess, it was bad enough to make Jake extremely cautious of ever allowing Ell’Hakan to catch him like that again.

To avoid being caught, Jake had also chosen a very specific direction to move in, as the two of them were rapidly moving toward where the largest population of the nahoom had once presided: the capital city.

He planned on using the area to his advantage, as the nahoom really liked building tall towers and large buildings that should help block many of Ell’Hakan’s attacks, while Jake felt confident that these obstacles would instead only lead to more of his arrows hitting as he got more opportunities for tricky curving arrows.

Soon enough, the city appeared as they went over a sand hill, Ell’Hakan shooting a beam of moonlight straight through the sand as it was kicked up everywhere during his pursuit. Jake dodged the beam as he shot an arrow that the nahoom decided to dodge, slowing him down slightly and giving Jake a chance to use a few instances of One Step before his opponent turned into a beam of light and pursued once more.

He appeared in front of Jake as he unleashed an explosion of starlight that Jake purposefully blocked with a barrier of arcane mana to launch himself toward the city. He was ready to be attacked again, but instead, the nahoom began talking while giving pursuit.

“Even now, it stands proud, a beacon of life and a testament to the power of the nahoom in the middle of the desert,” the Celestial Child spoke, turning his attention briefly toward the capital city Jake was nearly at.

“I do find it appropriate for this to be the site of the battle, and I shall bury you here once you’re dead, erecting a monument to serve as a warning and reminder to all who dare try and walk a similar path to yours.”

“Reminder to whom?” Jake yelled back in between using One Step. “How many did you kill of your own kin already? Are there even any alive to build the monument for you?”

“I did not kill my kin. They simply gave their lives to protect this planet. They know that should I fail to slay you, it will mean the end of this world, your very existence a threat to the universe,” the Celestial Child responded calmly. “You also underestimate the nahoom. We are a hardy race, and even if you had succeeded in your plot of destroying the planet, we would have survived through our kin spread throughout the galaxy. Kin that shall return and help rebuild once you have fallen.”

The confidence of the nahoom was almost impressive, and Jake would have had at least an iota of respect if he didn’t know it stemmed from Ell’Hakan mind-fucking himself into oblivion. He truly was utterly delusional, believing everything he said with genuine conviction as if it were the absolute truth.

dangerous it was. Ell’Hakan was effectively closer to an elemental or spirit now with his current body, only hanging on due to the constant influx of faith energy and an insane display of Bloodline-fueled Willpower that could

rather than chasing after Jake directly, he instead flew up into the air. Initially, Jake thought he was doing this to keep better track of Jake, but instead of looking downward

at them, Jake just shrugged mentally as he shot

well,” Ell’Hakan said as he turned toward Jake. “You are powerful. More powerful than I had expected you to be, even considering I do not believe I underestimated you. Considering the failing state of my vessel, dragging things out needlessly seems ill-advised...

it looked like he held a moon in each hand. The light

“Sunrise.”

as it rose up behind him, joining the twin

massive maelstrom of faith energy swirled around the newly formed sun, feeding it some of all the energy Ell’Hakan couldn’t absorb. This

the sun start by actually being a sunrise, it appeared already mostly risen immediately, the heat it gave off also representing this. Jake’s scales were immediately put under extreme pressure as the heat of the sun began to burn Jake, and despite the sun still not being at its highest point yet, things were already worse than when he’d fought

Read it on Royal Road to ensure the

despite the rising sun, the moons hadn’t gotten any weaker. In fact, it appeared to

gone. Even the element of death had disappeared, with both of them entirely replaced with the concept of stillness, said concept having been amplified as

felt himself get slower as the moonlight sought to immobilize him. The Celestial Child had effectively activated a double domain, and right now, the only saving

body now reflecting his rapidly deteriorating soul as white cracks had appeared throughout, revealing glittering starlight inside the fissures in his body. Jake saw these

searing into his flesh as it penetrated the already weakened scales. His opponent instantly followed up, and because Jake couldn’t move as he wanted due to the moonlight, he failed to

he was simply too slow now to get away fast enough. Jake was pushed back repeatedly as he tried to minimize injuries, the only harm he did to Ell’Hakan stemming from the few times some of Jake’s toxic blood

to mention the fact

Jake thought desperately as he kept being pressured, only getting a minor break after being blasted through a large stone tower, which temporarily gave him cover as it crumbled

of the Malefic Viper. However, the skill simply wasn’t strong enough

he did try to use his arcane affinity to stabilize the space, the combined powers of the sun and moonlight were just too difficult to battle at the same time. Especially while

real way to fight back was to try and adapt on the fly to the domain. His scales were admittedly doing a wonderful job, and without them, Jake would have been completely and utterly fucked. The scales did also help analyse all the energy they absorbed, giving Jake some level of insight into the kind of magic he was dealing with, but proper analysis and discovery of a way

once more, Jake was sent spinning toward the ground as he smashed

the back half a second later by a beam of starlight blasting him down a long street and through

Jake caused an explosion of arcane energy, launching him upwards with his back blistering and burning from a combination of the beam of starlight and

domain... Jake cursed as he was forced to dodge another

that wasn’t a real domain skill. It was more of an aura skill than anything else. Domain skills altered the world, while all Jake could

why wasn’t that

himself why it wouldn’t be enough? Pride of the Malefic Viper made it easier to control the

quite far. If he wanted to, he could even make it extend at least dozens of kilometers in every direction, though it likely wouldn’t work to infuse that entire area with mana using Pride. Doing so would also be extremely wasteful, as it all