The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1125: Emeraldclaw Prideleader

Well... it turns out the B-grade lioness hadn’t been entirely wrong when she postured and claimed Jake wouldn’t even be able to hit her. He had chosen her as his next target, and after finding her island, he found it the entire center of the place, mostly deserted with nothing there but a large mound of rocks with the lioness sitting on top of it, seemingly waiting for Jake’s arrival.

Brief scouting confirmed all the C-grades were towards the outer edges of the island, making the intent of this B-grade clear. She openly challenged Jake to fight her, full of confidence despite what had happened to all the others.

Jake had gladly accepted this invitation and prepared his usual opening salvo. He knew this B-grade was stronger than the ones he had killed prior, so he did have some expectations of his first shot, not ending things instantly. Then again, she was clearly an Agility-focused beast, so her durability likely wasn’t that good.

Either way, with everything ready, Jake unleashed his Eternal Hunger arrow. As always, the B-grade failed to see through Jake’s stealth before it was too late, and it was only when the arrow was imminently about to strike that her danger sense warned her of the incoming attack.

As expected, she instantly tried to move to the side, but Jake was ready. Focusing his will, the arrow began to veer a bit toward where she dodged, adapting on the fly as Jake also used Primal Gaze on the lioness, making her freeze up.

The arrow closed in, but just when it looked like the B-grade’s life would end with a single arrow like so many others, the lioness showed she did indeed have reason for her confidence. Despite being affected by Primal Gaze, energy welled up from within her as green lightning coursed through her body and enveloped her entire form.

With speed equivalent or even surpassing the Sovereign, the lioness tried dodging to the side, but in the end, Jake’s Eternal Hunger Protean Arrow, in combination with Primal Gaze, wasn’t easily escaped.

Despite not getting struck in a lethal place, the lioness was still forced to sacrifice an arm as she swiped out toward the arrow in the very final moment before it struck, making it miss her chest and head in trade for shearing off her entire arm at the shoulder.

The arm was sent flying into the air, where it was rapidly destroyed by destructive arcane energies mixed with curse energy, and Jake was already prepared to follow up as a barrage of arrows rained down upon the island.

However, the lioness was quick and dodged them all despite her missing arm, seemingly able to easily read the trajectory of every shot, even if they curved and came from odd angles. The lightning still lingered on her fur, but the sudden burst of speed and ability to free herself from Primal Gaze’s effect had definitely been from a skill similar to Jake’s own Moment of the Primal Hunter.

Despite missing the arm, the lioness shot into the air, briefly locking eyes with Jake.

“Finally, you’ve come!” she yelled, a maniacal grin on her face as the green lightning enveloping her body intensified.

She didn’t even seem bothered about the missing arm as her other hand had morphed into a clawed hand, bathed in lightning. During her ascent, Jake didn’t let up as he bombarded her with arrows, and while she blocked, dodged, or swept away most of them, she ended up with two more stable arrows sticking out of her body before she was upon him.

Seeing her get this close, Jake quickly recalled Eternal Hunger from below and summoned the large arrow back in his hand right before she was upon him, having crossed the more than ten kilometers between them in mere seconds.

Wielding Eternal Hunger like a spear, Jake pierced forward and clashed with the claws of the lioness. An explosion of arcane energy and green lightning rocked the sky and separated the two for a brief moment, just long enough for Jake to change his grip on the spear as he unceremoniously broke off its tip.

When he did so, the entire shaft portion of the spear began turning into dark smoke as the spear tip was broken off in such a fashion that Jake could hold it like a katar – albeit not very well. He also took out his other katar as he began slowly morphing Eternal Hunger back into its proper shape to fight with it better.

He had just done this when the lioness shot towards him, and he noticed her arm was already healing, the green lightning seemingly of the life affinity. Which, in retrospect, made sense considering the lioness’ race’s name.

[Fulminated Emeraldclaw Prideleader – lvl ???]

Emeralds were often gemstones infused with powerful life affinity magic, and after several clashes with the claws of the lioness, the name Emeraldclaw was indeed an apt description.

“So you have more than just one trick, huh?” the lioness asked as she pushed Jake back with her rapid assault. It was clear she had held nothing back either, but had jumped straight to using her boosting skill at full power right from the beginning.

Jake blocked repeatedly as he didn’t even bother answering. Instead, he read the attack pattern of the lioness, who was clearly just buying time for her second arm to fully regenerate. About half a minute went by as the two of them clashed across the open skies above the island, quickly making their way downwards to the jungle below.

At this point, the arm of the lioness had nearly fully regenerated, and with a final burst of lightning, the entire arm flashed green as Jake now faced two clawed hands enveloped in green lightning that sent almost poison-like harmful life energy into his body with every clash, even if Jake wasn’t hit directly.

“You’re pretty good at dodging... but you missed your chance to exploit that opening attack of yours,” the lioness smiled as she looked at her healed hand before looking at Jake again with her cat-like eyes. “Regularly, when I encounter creatures like you, I would usually consider offering a chance to surrender and become part of my pride... perhaps even my mate... but the rewards I shall reap from killing you are just way too tempting.”

Jake remained quiet as the lioness flashed a toothy grin before she shot towards Jake again, her eyes burning with the desire to rip him apart. Eternal Hunger had also finished morphing into its usual shape by now, and as she closed in, Jake let out a deep breath as he leaned forward to meet the B-grade’s assault.

Katars met claws as Jake kept moving down while blocking and dodging, with the two of them soon on the ground. The lioness tried to use this to her advantage, as Jake could no longer dodge downwards as she raised an arm, forming a massive claw of lightning.

With a quick One Step, Jake teleported away right before she brought down her attack, which even summoned a green lightning strike from a cloudless sky, making the ground erupt with soil and stone from the impact.

A shockwave washed over Jake as he was already in a defensive stance, his feet now solidly on the ground. As expected, the lioness shot out of the still-falling debris a blink of an eye later with bestial aggression.

She clawed, kicked, and released blasts of lightning in rapid succession, pushing Jake further and further back as she attempted to overwhelm him with sheer speed. Compared to the Sovereign, her overall movement seemed slightly faster, but the Sovereign had higher explosive speed because of his jumps. Attack speed-wise, the rapid swipes from the lioness surpassed any foe Jake had faced so far, as he couldn’t miss a single beat, or he would be in serious trouble. Not too much trouble, though, as when it came to actual power behind the blows, the Sovereign was far superior.

Stolen story; please report.

The Rainbowfeather was also superior in other areas, such as experience and cunning.

After the two had clashed more than a hundred times in just a few seconds, Jake finally spoke up. “You’re fast. If you ran, it would be hard to catch you, and you could team up with the other B-grades.”

Jake didn’t actually want her to run, but after fighting this long, he was beginning to have a theory. This lioness had not been part of the group that originally spied on Jake, so she likely didn’t know that much about him or the details of his fight with the Sovereign. That meant her information likely came from the Forest Fae... and Jake was doubting if she had been a reliable source of information. This doubt was further reinforced with her next sentence.

“Run? Me? Like you ran from the Rainbowfeather Sovereign?” she scoffed, briefly stopping her attacks as she moved back. “I already know what happened. You killed the Simivita Warlord primarily with that powerful opening attack of yours, before then proceeding to fight the Rainbowfeather Sovereign and getting your ass handed to you, forcing you to flee with your tail between your legs.”

Okay, Jake had kind of expected that he would need to prod and probe until the lioness revealed what she believed to be the truth, but here she was just spilling everything without a second thought. Not that Jake complained, as it made things a lot easier.

“Seems like the Forest Fae lied to you,” Jake shrugged. “Which does make me wonder why. Perhaps she wants to get rid of her competition among B-grades. Maybe she even views you as a threat.”

“Nice try,” the lioness said, shaking her head as she slightly lowered her posture, ready to pounce. “But I’m not gonna let myself be affected by the words of a desperate hunter who knows he’s met his match and is trying to save his own hide. Rather than me escaping, you should consider fleeing yourself... except you already used your treasure, so I guess you’re stuck here with me.”

Jake opened and closed his mouth a few times, genuinely confused about what the hell she was on about. After a moment, he just sighed and shook his head, deciding not to waste his time on this conversation any more. He had already confirmed his theory, and with that confirmation, he was quite certain no help would arrive, which meant he could take his time with this fight.

After having all his hunts end with nothing more than Jake bombarding his opponent from a dozen kilometers up in the sky... Jake welcomed it as the lioness pounced at him again.

While Jake loved archery, a good melee was also healthy once in a while, and this lioness was a perfect opponent. She was faster than Jake, but not too fast, and her raw power was manageable, allowing Jake to engage her in a proper bout as he stopped merely blocking and dodging, but also went on the offensive.

Right as a claw descended upon Jake, he narrowly dodged it and stabbed the lioness in the side of her exposed arm with a quick jab. She quickly retracted her arm and jumped back as she spun and kicked Jake, but he easily ducked under it before stomping, releasing a wave of destructive arcane energy.

With the same stomp, Jake also shot forward as he unleashed his own swift barrage of stabs and cuts, forcing the lioness on the defensive as Jake saw her eyes open wide in surprise at his actions. Her attempts to avoid taking any damage were fruitless, as Jake cut her and left minor puncture wounds over twenty times in less than half a minute, turning her look of surprise into one of confusion and slight fright.

Realizing Jake had gotten serious, she didn’t even try to make more quippy comments but also upped her own level as the lightning aura enveloping her body intensified as she sped up slightly. Besides this, her entire forearms also began to change into a green color before turning partly crystalline. That name Emeraldclaw really wasn’t for nothing, and both her offensive and defensive prowess had just gone up a level.

Jake’s only response to this was a sense of relief as her slight power-up meant she could better fight back. As she pounced on him again, Jake was ready as he blocked and tried to counter, but an emerald forearm blocked his blow, deflecting Eternal Hunger completely and even releasing a burst of green lightning that made Jake retreat slightly.

The lioness gave chase, but Jake had expected her to as he abruptly stopped his retreat and instead shot forward, taking the B-grade by surprise as he managed to cut her in the shoulder before she could muster a proper response. She attempted to counter, but Jake had already narrowly dodged out of her attack range, ready to move in and strike again.

Still confident in herself, the lioness kept up her attack as Jake continued to meet her head-on. The surrounding jungle was rapidly torn apart as they regularly switched offensive and defensive roles; the lioness even used a few more skills to gain an advantage, including a green lightning vault that made her temporarily intangible.

Jake also pulled out more skills, including a use of Eternal Shadow that netted him a fist-sized hole in his opponent’s stomach, which was also the moment that marked the turning point of a fight that had quickly been going downhill for the lioness.

The gap in experience between Jake and the lioness had only become more and more stark the longer their battle went on. Jake had slowly adapted and learned how the B-grade fought, her habits, her flaws, everything that he could use to exploit her attack patterns to land hits himself.

Contrarily, the lioness had adapted little. Jake guessed she had gotten to her station primarily because of her far superior speed and innate power, allowing her to rip apart most opponents quickly before the fight even got going.

Their fight had taken roughly twenty minutes, resulting in the continent-sized island having vast swaths of it destroyed or at least marked by their battle, especially in the later parts when the lioness began losing her cool and stopped focusing as much, resulting in her energies rampaging, the balance between intensity and scale broken.

This was another sign of someone who lacked experience. Usually, it was smartest to limit scope in order to increase the intensity of an attack. With the same arrow, Jake could choose to blow up a town or just a small house, but the town-wide explosion would be so weak that it wouldn’t hurt someone close to his own power level at all. Meanwhile, if he made the explosion smaller and more intense, he could deal significant damage.

What he saw from the lioness in her last moments was a lack of focus caused by her desperation, resulting in her attacks looking far more impressive while, in reality, being far weaker. She unleashed skill after skill, summoning mountain-sized claws to try to somehow hit Jake, even going as far as to conjure bolts of green lightning to rain down upon the jungle, destroying the terrain, but doing little more.

In front of attacks like these, Jake didn’t even have to dodge, as he could just charge straight through the summoned claw and stab the B-grade in the stomach. After that stab, the lioness stumbled back, the lightning aura surrounding her body flickering as she stumbled and fell backwards to the ground.

With the lightning fading, her bloodied and rotting body was clear to all. She had turned out to have far superior Vitality than Jake had expected, but in the end, it didn’t matter if she couldn’t land any proper hits on Jake.

“Fuck...” she muttered. “That Fae bitch lied, didn’t she? You’re... definitely stronger than that damn bird.”

“She definitely deceived you,” Jake said in an indifferent tone. As for the part about the Sovereign, Jake wasn’t sure. His increase in power from all these levels wasn’t insignificant, and he had fought the Sovereign while already tired the first time around. If they had a rematch here and now, he was definitely confident.

“Should have never trusted her... oh well,” the lioness said, shaking her head as she looked up at Jake. “At least do me a favor and also kill her, alright?”𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

“Already planned on it,” Jake nodded.

“Great...” the lioness also nodded, her breathing ragged as she seemed to stare into space for a while before muttering to herself. “A pretty good death, all things considered...”

With those words, her head fell limply down as a notification appeared.

*You have slain [Fulminated Emeraldclaw Prideleader – lvl 354] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 318 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points

Looking at the level the lioness had been, Jake was now more sure than ever that the Fae had viewed the lioness as a threat. She had been lower level than most of the other B-grades Jake had killed, yet she had been the strongest so far by a fair margin.

Jake had just been a terrible matchup for her. He was fast enough to dodge her claws, strong enough to parry, and far more skilled than her in every aspect of combat. With proper training, which would definitely have included a few skill upgrades, she could have been a legitimate threat.

However, as things were, her Path had ended this day, and Jake no longer planned on dwelling on things, as the only thing he would do for her was to at least honor her wish of taking out the Forest Fae...

After putting on his best lumberjack act and doing a bit of logging, that is.