The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1395 - Chosen of the Malefic Viper vs Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord (1)

Jake didn’t envy whoever had the job of cleaning up these antechambers once the fighting was done, and honestly, wasn’t it kind of dumb of the majordomo to have them all fight in such a well-furnished room? The material cost alone of such massive items must have been astronomical.

One thing was for sure: by the end of it all, the antechamber Jake currently found himself in would be utterly demolished, with the fight between himself and the Heartsoul Daolord’s disciple not helping matters.

Most of the opponents Jake fought tried to battle him in melee, but the other Chosen seemed fully content battling him at range as Jake’s arrows and her reality-bending magic clashed repeatedly.

Despite both of them already using their boosting skills and displaying power that would give even mid-tier B-grades pause, they were still only trying to evaluate one another and limit test, with Jake especially feeling like he had a lot to learn.

Like with Pride, she can impose her will upon the world within a limited area immediately around her.

Jake had quickly reached this conclusion after realizing she was conjuring her tools of attack only around her, never behind Jake or somewhere else that would make them harder to dodge.

He also thought her imagination was quite... lacking. For someone supposedly capable of creating anything and everything, she tended to only do incredibly simplistic things. She condensed bullets from the random materials they destroyed around the room, summoned swords or other weapons to hurl at Jake, and, when she defended herself, she did so primarily by conjuring various shields.

However, he remembered seeing her replay earlier moments in time during the thing with the Virtual Mind Devourer, making him certain she was capable of far more. Occasionally, she also did something slightly more complicated, like when she made the broken piles from a chair Jake was dodging towards turn into the head of some beast that tried to chomp down on him.

Due to that, Jake reached another conclusion that really should have been obvious in retrospect.

Simplicity means speed and lower resource cost.

Didn’t that make sense? It barely took any mental strength to imagine summoning a simple-looking sword or changing something one could already look at, while more complex feats would come with an associated cost. It wasn’t as if her doing fancy things would have a better chance of working either; at least she didn’t attempt them and stuck to the basics while trying to properly measure all that Jake was capable of.

As for Jake, he also kept things simple, filling the room with Arrow Storms, Arcane Powershots, and regular curving arrows that he hoped would successfully take the other Chosen by surprise, but so far, he hadn’t really managed to strike her.

Some arrows had left minor cuts as they passed her, the Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord not finding it worth the resource investment to block them if all she risked was a minor cut. Jake did realize something very annoying after a few arrows had struck her. The poison seemed to have a very limited effect, making him question whether she could somehow imagine herself as highly resistant or something. Either way, it wouldn’t change the way he was fighting.

The temporary stalemate of their battle continued a little longer as Jake spent most of his time dodging various flying weapons or condensed materials while shooting arrows in return. It was a bit funny that much of the broken furniture had now been turned into hyper-condensed projectiles, which should help make the cleanup of the room a little easier.

At some point, Jake believed he’d seen enough, though, and he no longer found it beneficial for him to stall and measure his opponent’s abilities. He had partly been fine with such a status quo due to his own injuries and because he had very little information on how a Heartsoul Cultivator fought, but now he believed it benefited her more.

Whatever Caleb had done towards the end had left potent lingering black electricity on her body, and she had taken this time to dispel it while fighting Jake. Not wanting his brother’s final act to be in vain, Jake upped the tempo.

Stepping down, he teleported forward, closing the distance while releasing another Arcane Arrow Storm. His opponent reacted as expected, summoning a bowl-shaped shield that would help protect her entire front side. Seeing it, Jake immediately shot two more arrows, one towards the sky, one downward, before unleashing another Arrow Storm right as the first one hit.

The other Chosen retreated while defending against the first Arrow Storm, conjuring a tide of swords that flew towards Jake, who had already blasted himself backward with an arcane explosion as he channeled an Arcane Powershot.

When the second Arrow Storm arrived, the Heartsoul Cultivator also expertly dealt with that, but right then, an arrow suddenly fell from straight above her with incredible speed. Having not seen it coming, the other Chosen barely had time to react, distorting space itself right before it struck her in the shoulder... only for another arrow to immediately hit her from below, penetrating into her foot.

The Arcane Powershot that struck her shield a blink of an eye later also didn’t help as it blasted her own means of defense into her body, sending her flying backward, only to realize far more arrows were coming.

Jake had quickly followed up with a quick use of Rapid Fire from his Timeless Focus skill, allowing him to shoot far more arrows than usual. The other chosen defended as best she could, but Jake simply kept shooting. Slowly, she was unable to fully keep up with the curving and exploding arrows, and only when she reached the back wall of the antechamber did she find reprieve.

“Bend.”

The wall behind her started distorting before a large part of it bent down to create a barrier between herself and Jake, effectively sealing her within the wall. Jake’s arrows struck this wall, failing to do any damage, making him frown, as he hadn’t expected her to be capable of manipulating the walls or ceiling.

While the furniture was quite easily destructible, the walls and ceiling had so far proven utterly indestructible. Only the floor was somewhat destructible, but only by a little, as beneath the large floor tiles was another layer of system-powered floor that no one could do anything to.

Yet the Chosen of the Heartsoul had made a part of the wall bend out, which didn’t even make any sense. Due to his Sphere of Perception, Jake knew that the walls, ceiling, and floor were essentially fake, in that they didn’t have any true thickness. They were just thin barriers of indestructible material with an endless void behind them.

Despite this, the Chosen had caused part of the wall to peel off and bend, with the peeled-off section far thicker than the wall itself. It truly made no sense, but Jake could only accept that the system had adapted to her power and to keep the illusion of the wall having any kind of thickness.

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Still, manipulating something that durable had to take a lot of energy, and from within her own little cavern of wall, the other Chosen did appear to be breathing heavily as she took a moment to recover.

Only a moment, though, as she soon lifted her hand and made the bent wall in front of her explode, sending fragments of it flying towards Jake, who’d tried to charge up another Arcane Powershot in preparation for when she exited her little turtle shell.

Forced to loose the arrow earlier than expected, the Arcane Powershot nevertheless roared forwards, but the Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord had saved parts of the wall to use as a shield and successfully blocked it while Jake was forced back by the exploding wall. The fragments were all sharp and extremely durable, making him reluctant to even attempt blocking them as he avoided every single one.

He also believed his theory of her finding these fragments difficult to control to be confirmed when she didn’t try to actively use them to continue attacking, probably because it would require too much energy. However, that’s also probably why she did what she did next.

“Wind.”

With that one word, a powerful wind picked up throughout the chamber, not to attack Jake, but to wrap around and swoop up all the fragments she’d sent flying. The wind carried them as they started spinning, caught in a massive tornado that sought to envelop Jake.

Impressed and slightly taken aback, Jake was forced to unleash several large arcane explosions to try to dispel the powerful wind, but to his annoyance, it barely made an impact. Even if he disturbed the tornado, it simply picked up new energy out of nowhere, acting fully as a natural phenomenon. A rule of nature that one couldn’t simply destroy.

In the end, Jake was forced to rely on Pride once more as he expanded it, attempting to take control of part of the tornado in an effort to dispel it. Just as he did, the tornado suddenly started slowing down all by itself, before it instantly imploded, sending all the fragments and roaring winds straight for Jake.

Usually, Jake would have wrapped himself in his wings and a powerful arcane barrier, but he wasn’t confident that would be enough to block the sharp wall fragments, and even if he were, his wings weren’t in any kind of condition to be used as shields after his fight with Azal and Xiurong.

Seeing no other choice, Jake was forced to simply minimize the damage. He shot a quick arrow in one direction before diving straight after his own projectile, which proceeded to explode right in front of him. It created a small opening in the wall of projectiles closing in on him, and Jake flew through it, finally escaping the torrential wind and the overly dangerous fragments. Though not entirely unscathed.

Several more cuts and small puncture holes filled his body, scratching away further at his vital energy. Coupled with the blow he took from Xiurong and the damage done by Azal, he was starting to look a little haggard by now, though he remained spirited.

My turn.

Teleporting away before the other Chosen had a chance to follow up, Jake shot several arrows, forcing her back on the defensive. She blocked and deflected several of them, but Jake’s tempo was far faster than hers, and he didn’t give her time to rest as several arrows flew for her every second, curving, exploding, and arriving in unpredictable patterns.

She tried her best, but Jake had a significant speed advantage, allowing him to keep pushing her. The few counterattacks she did attempt, Jake handled by either teleporting away or summoning bolts of arcane mana with the help of Pride, meaning he never had to relent in his assault.

“Water.”

A river of flowing water surrounded her the second she spoke, moving to block all the arrows flying towards her. Unfortunately for her, rather than stop when they struck the water, the arrows only lost a little speed, far less than she’d probably expected. Between Primal Spirit of Man and Unblemished Arrows, the water simply didn’t affect his arrows that much, resulting in the Chosen barely lessening the pressure on herself despite just committing another Word of Power.

Rather than continue futilely trying to use the river to defend, the Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord smartly repurposed it to attack. The river’s flow changed as it started flooding towards Jake, growing in scope as it did so, seemingly intent on washing him away.

Dodging it would be difficult, and if he did, it would certainly force him to stop attacking, so Jake tried to gamble and, rather than avoid the river, dove straight into it while trusting in Pride, Scales, passive Arcane Awakening barrier, and his natural bodily defenses to be enough. Plus, he expected it to take her by surprise, and he’d only need to be within the river for a second or two before he’d get out on the other side, and manipulating such a large body of water to do a one-eighty seemed like it wouldn’t be worth it.

Touching the water, Jake felt its antagonistic energies try to invade his body and slow him down, but he believed he could quickly push through it.

Alas, sometimes one made a bad gamble, and this was one of those cases. Right as Jake entered the body of water, the Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord spoke once again, having accurately predicted that Jake would try to simply dive through the water.

“Lightning.”

Hundreds of bolts of lightning descended from a clear sky simultaneously. Under usual circumstances, Jake would have been more than confident in dodging them, but unfortunately for him, these didn’t even need to hit him. Just the water he’d so foolishly entered.

Instantly, the entire river was filled with electricity, and no matter how good Jake was at avoiding danger, he had no feasible way to dodge this one. All he could do was flood his body with stable arcane energy to try to reinforce it right as he was fried by the powerful electricity.

Despite his best efforts, the lightning energy coursed through his body, rupturing blood vessels and making his skin break open and bleed, turning the water immediately surrounding him red. It wasn’t as simple as the lightning merely filling the water either, as it actively attacked him.

Just like with every other thing the Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord had summoned using her will, the lightning energy was also under her control, and she purposefully funneled every shred of it into Jake’s body within a few seconds, with his only response being to endure it.

Gritting his teeth, Jake managed to fight back as best as he could, successfully protecting most of his remaining inner organs, primarily focusing on his heart and brain, while allowing the lightning to ravage his muscles, especially on his limbs. It kept going for several seconds, but finally it started slowing down, and Jake was just about to explode with arcane energy and propel himself out of the water when another word echoed throughout the antechamber.

“Freeze.”

Instantly, the very second the lightning energy was about to run out, the entire body of water froze with Jake trapped inside it. For roughly one-twentieth of a second, the chill actually felt quite comfortable after getting fried by the electricity, but the deep cold quickly turned incredibly painful as the frost energy invaded his body.

The level of cold was absolutely extreme, surpassing even the ice created by Tramon, and it also proved to be incredibly durable as Jake’s first attempt to break himself free was utterly ineffective. All he managed to do was form cracks in the ice around his body, but given the massive size of the iceberg he was caught within, it didn’t even have an impact.

Fortunately, Pride remained active, and through that, Jake forcefully infused the surrounding ice with extreme levels of destructive arcane mana in mere moments. His energy made the ice rapidly start to break down, something his opponent quickly noticed as she spoke one more word, having really gone all-out with this combo.

“Smash.”

An overwhelming force, well, smashed down into the massive iceberg Jake was stuck inside, launching the entire thing down towards the ground as the shockwave reverberated through Jake’s body through the dense ice. When it struck the floor, the smashing force didn’t stop; like a fast-moving giant hydraulic press, it kept going as the ice cracked all over before finally exploding, sending fragments of the iceberg flying everywhere, and what looked like the impact of a comet now filled nearly the entire center of the massive antechamber.

Breathing heavily, the Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord didn’t want to wait as she summoned spears around her to follow up, but right before she could shoot them out, two glowing eyes pierced through the frosty mist of the crater and temporarily stunned her before an arrow flew up and struck her right in the heart, blasting her backward while leaving a trail of blood.

Down in the crater, bow in hand, Jake stood with his ravaged body, a smile on his face as Arcane Awakening still roared, removing all the remnants of ice covering his body as he had to admit...

He was genuinely having a good time.