The Primal Hunter

”Lucky bunch! Found your way to the first room right off the bat without encountering any dead ends! Now to find the key… if there even is one here!” Minaga said with his usual glee as Jake and company walked out of what looked like a wall of fog and entered a massive chamber. As their host had explained, these large chambers did not have any of the usual mist, and it felt liberating to finally be free of the restrictive environment.

On second thought, merely calling the chamber they had entered massive was a bit fallacious. It was pretty darn humongous and seemed to be at least a good hundred kilometers deep with a width of about two kilometers. This narrowness was heavily used, as what appeared in the distance was a derelict-looking massive castle with plenty of defenses in front of it.

In front of the castle, a dozen rows of ramparts went from wall to wall, with every one of these walls filled with creatures. Taking a deep breath, Jake could practically smell the death energy emanating from the chamber, which made sense considering the enemies he saw on the ramparts.

Using Identity, the theme was pretty damn obvious.

[Skeleton Swordsman – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Spearman– lvl 240]

[Skeleton Marksman – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Mage – lvl 240]

[Skeleton Captain – lvl 245]

“Skeletons, huh,” Jake muttered. ”So original.”

He and the others waited for a few seconds, but nothing came. Jake looked at the ceiling of the chamber, wondering if their dear host had decided to leave, but he still felt them being observed. Maybe he didn’t talk while they were inside the chambers?

“I assume there is some kind of boss here,” the Sword Saint said.

“Let me check real quick,” Jake said as he jumped and summoned his wings. He flew all the way to the ceiling in little time and peered past the many ramparts towards the castle. There, standing on a large tower atop the castle, he saw a large skeleton in fine ivory armor surrounded by several Skeleton Captains.

[Skeleton Bonelord – lvl 250]

”Found it, level 250 at the central castle. Likely the one with the key. If not, it should be easy to find if we make it to the castle,” Jake said through the golden mark left by the King.

Now, why was Jake so sure the key was there in the room?

Finding the room itself had been pretty simple using his Pulse of Perception. Throughout the last fifteen months in Nevermore, Jake had to use far more Pulses than ever before, allowing him to slowly build up more and more resistance to the point where he could now do it pretty comfortably at regular intervals without getting a headache.

On the way, they avoided dozens of dead-end paths, traps, and hallways that would make you walk in circles for a few hours, if not days, while heading straight for this large one.

However, this wasn’t the only room he saw. In fact, Jake spotted four during their run, but this was the only one he had bothered entering, which leads back to the original question… why was he so sure the key was in this room and not any of the prior ones? The answer was easy:

Intuition.

Jake didn’t just have his sphere in his arsenal of cheats. He also had all his other totally balanced advantages. His intuition had told him this was the room to check out, so even if Minaga tried to muddy the water by hinting that maybe the key wasn’t there, Jake didn’t listen.

Looking at the boss in the distance, Jake pulled out his bow and took aim as he began charging an Arcane Powershot. He saw no reason not to rush through this room and move on quickly, and on the way there, he and the others had agreed to do things fast. Jake wanted to get a good opening shot on the boss, and if they had to face every enemy on the floor at once, so be it.

After he had sufficiently charged the attack, Jake let go of the string, releasing an explosion of arcane energy as his arrow of destruction surged forward. Jake had expected it to soar toward the boss and potentially even blow it off the tower, but things did not go as expected. The second the arrow appeared above the first of the many defensive ramparts leading further into the room, a barrier sprung up, making Jake’s arrow explode while only leaving the shimmering white wall of energy with a few cracks on it.

Below, on the rampart, Jake saw over fifty Skeleton Mages stand and channel with their staffs, led by a Captain also holding a staff. The barrier extended up from the ramparts but did not cover the gate leading below, making it quite apparent you were meant to through there and not use ranged attacks from afar. In essence, Minaga wanted to force them into a melee.

“Seems like we will have to go through each rampart individually,” the Sword Saint said, having seen Jake’s failed attack.

“Or continue to bombard the barrier until it breaks,” Jake offered.

“There are too many… it will be faster to just go through directly,” the old man said dismissively.

“I concur with the swordsman; trying to destroy each barrier individually is a waste of time,” the Fallen King agreed. “It isn’t like the alternative will be that more difficult.”

Jake surrendered to their will and put away his bow as he flew downwards to join his party that was already charging the first rampart. When they got close, the mages stopped channeling energy into the barrier to face them in combat as nearly a hundred melee-focused skeletons stood in defensive stances just past the gate.

The two groups clashed. One with hundreds of skeletons twenty to thirty levels above their opponents, and the other three humanoids, a bird, and a Unique Lifeform. The result was as expected.

Bones went flying everywhere as a giant golden hammer was swung sideways into a crowd of skeletons, crescent waves of water cut bones apart and sent limbs flying, arcane explosions bombarded all the skeleton mages as arrows fell from the sky while roots shot up from the ground, making them unable to dodge.

On the second rampart in the distance, nearly a hundred Skeleton Marksmen released a rain of arrows, but the attacks were all met with a green whirlwind that scattered their attack. Without even bothering to make sure they finished off all the skeletons, their party moved forward while staying close to each other to avoid getting ganged up on.

The second rampart met a similar fate, followed by the third and the fourth. For the fifth, the entire wall was torn apart as the Fallen King released a golden beam of energy to blow away all the skeletons guarding it. Jake, not wanting to be outdone, went ham at the sixth one as a fully-charged Arcane Powershot one-shot the Captain of the skeletons while blowing up several more skeletons unlucky enough to stand too close. Joining in on the fun, the Sword Saint went in first on the seventh as he used his Rainblade and released a torrent of slashes, killing dozens of skeletons within a minute while also taking down the Captain. Sylphie and Dina didn’t get to take down a rampart solo as Jake, the King, and the Sword Saint all felt competitive while facing the remaining five, going all-out until they finally reached the castle.

With a roar, the Bonelord released its aura as all the remaining skeletons seemed to get some kind of buff. The Captains around the boss also seemed to get stronger as they all jumped off the tower and ran down the side of the castle walls towards Jake and company.

One of them was blasted into the wall by an arrow before it had even gotten a quarter of the way, with a second getting embedded by a substantial wave of force. The Bonelord seemed angry and jumped off the tower, too, as it pulled out a giant axe of bones and began flying at high speed, aiming directly at Dina, who was manipulating a forest of vines to rip apart skeleton soldiers chasing from behind.

It never even got close as the Sword Saint met it mid-air, and after a brief exchange of blows, the Bonelord was forced back with a few cuts on its otherwise pristine armor but was otherwise unharmed. What little injuries it had taken rapidly healed as it released a dense white aura of pure death energy. All around it, the death mana from the many slain skeletons began to gather and empower the Bonelord as it resumed its attack on the old swordsman.

The two of them had a pretty damn ferocious battle for several minutes as the Sword Saint failed to ever get any substantial advantage, even after he made slight use of his boosting skill. Jake ended up joining in as the constant army of skeletons storming out from within the castle started to die down, and Dina handled all those chasing after them from the earlier ramparts. Sylphie and the Fallen King would also soon be done with the Captains and join them.

With Jake and the Sword Saint both, they managed to push back the Bonelord despite it constantly healing and getting empowered for every skeleton that died around them. It was burning through energy at a ludicrous pace as Jake counted himself blowing off the Bonelord’s head at least ten times. It kept fighting with its axe and released death affinity attacks and ranged bone spurs, occasionally forcing the two of them on the defensive.

When Sylphie joined them, as the King had the remaining skeletons handled, they finally managed to get the decisive blow, and soon enough, the Bonelord stopped regenerating and died. The second it fell, the wisps of deathly fire burning within the eyes of all the skeletons were also snuffed out as they crumbled like marionettes with their strings cut.

As the body of the Bonelord crumbled to dust, a magical rune floated up from its body before flashing and disappearing. Jake faintly saw that a small tattoo of the same rune had appeared on the back of his hand. Needless to say, this was one of the keys.

“Let’s go,” Jake said as they rushed out of the room towards where the next key was. As they made it back to the hallway and into it, the disembodied voice of Minaga once more joined them.

“You know, that was pretty damn good! Made it look easy. There was even a key for you! Three more to go, and you can open the gate and continue. You got lucky once, but I shall still wish you luck in having a repeat!”

Rushing out of the second room with the second key in hand, a crumbling volcano, and hundreds of dead elementals of the lava and earth variety in their wake, their dear host spoke again.

“I must say, you are quite a lucky bunch! Straight from one room holding a key into the next! Almost makes me think you found a way to circumvent all my checks and balances and aren’t just getting extremely lucky, but that can’t be, right? Nah, definitely not, so watch out for traps and find the right path to the next key… if you can!”

“See, something unlikely happening two times is a coincidence, but three times? Now, that is a pattern. Then again, some people are really just that lucky, you know? Even I cannot get around some of the more intangible aspects of this world, and I guess it is entirely possible you merely have increased luck or perhaps some kind of reality-bending skill? Though my mist would stop that… hm… I guess there is also that… Nah, that is too much of an assumption!”

“So, by now, I think we all know this isn’t how things are supposed to work, and you clearly found a way to not only be aware of the layout of the labyrinth but also correctly determine which rooms hold keys, which is honestly impressive. See, if you, my dear guests, could do one of these things, that would be one thing, but both? Really? Isn’t that a bit too much? This is why designing a perfect dungeon is impossible and why we can’t have nice things. Damn Bloodlines and Transcendents ruining everything.”

Jake and company were making their way back towards the gate that required the four keys at a brisk pace as they listened to Minaga complain about their group. It had to be noted that he only complained. There was no interference or even direct questions posed to any of them. It was more like he was just voicing his own thoughts while forcing Jake and company to listen.

“Two Bloodlines and one Transcendent… oh yeah, and a Unique Lifeform. I guess I can’t rule out some Unique skill that I wasn’t able to account for either, but I definitely think it is one of the other three suspects. Now, the swordsman doesn’t strike me as the kind to have a skill allowing him to find stuff easier, much less have a Transcendent skill related to it, so I will temporarily rule him out, which narrows it down to one of two Bloodlines.”

Jake would lie if the thought that Minaga wouldn’t figure out what his Bloodline was didn’t cross his mind. Even if Minaga didn’t figure it out, the Wyrmgod clearly would. Considering they would spend fifty years there… shit; the Wyrmgod probably already had a good idea.

The thing is, Jake didn’t want to fuck himself over by getting fewer points than he should have. Additionally, it would feel wrong to fuck over his party members if Jake decided to effectively nerf himself and keep his true capabilities hidden.

“Dina is the granddaughter of Nature’s Attendant, so she is a candidate. Assuming she is also capable of communicating with plants the same way he is, I can’t really see it being her, though. Of course, it is entirely possible her Bloodline mutated, and she can now communicate with something else I hadn’t accounted for, but with her skillset and the serious lack of anything to even converse with, I am inclined to rule her out. Which leaves us with Jake.”

Jake kept quiet as he was inclined to hear what the guy thought his Bloodline was about.

“Based on everything publicly displayed so far, it appears to be related to presences. I also have my own pet theory that your Origin-manipulation is at least partly rooted in your Bloodline, so that strengthens the presence-related Bloodline theory. This initially made me guess that maybe your Bloodline allows you to also detect presences far more easily, and by using that, you would be able to locate rooms that contained presences… the thing is, how would that help you navigate the hallways? Pick the rooms with keys out from those without? Well, of course, it wouldn’t, so that leaves a few possibilities. It either isn’t your Bloodline, your Bloodline is quite a bit different than anyone had estimated, or it really isn’t you but one of your other party members.”

“What do you think the answer is?” Jake asked.

“That it is you and that the current information of what your Bloodline is capable of is severely limited, making it far more powerful than anyone truly knows. Well, anyone besides the Malefic Viper. To make someone at a low grade their Chosen, they have to have something very special about them, and I am willing to bet your Bloodline is just that special.”

Jake was silent for a moment as he wondered aloud. “Which begs the question… what will be your response?”

“Now…oh… oh wait! You think that I think you are cheating and unhappy with that? True, true; I am a bit miffed, but to say I am unhappy? Far from it! You break my labyrinth all you want and use any advantage you can possibly get! Go ham; that is what you are in Nevermore for, isn’t it? To truly let loose. Don’t worry about me sharing details about your Bloodline either. I am a strict believer in confidentiality! Only me and the Wyrmgod are aware of anything happening here, and none of us are sharing.”

“I guess that is a little comforting,” Jake said, not entirely sure if he believed him.

“Besides, Jake… do you really think this is the first time I have encountered anything like this? Even if you can perfectly navigate the labyrinth, that doesn’t mean this will be a cakewalk. I made this place to challenge everyone and to do that, I had to consider a lot of things. Many potential guests have vast skill sets, including Transcendents and Bloodlines. Can I make a perfect labyrinth? No, but I can try. The devil is in the details, and trust me, I am very detail-orientated. So keep having fun, and keep breaking stuff. I’ll be watching with glee. Okay, I might complain a bit, but don’t take it to heart!”

Jake shook his head, and he and his party finally appeared before the gate leading forward. Lifting his hand, the tattoos on his hand began glowing as they all flew off it straight towards the gate. The four runes all began glowing before merging together… and the second they did, the entire door turned red.

All of the runes began warping as they formed four words.

Demon Seal Don’t Open.

The door slammed open, and all the mist in the hallway was pushed away as a torrent of flames spewed out, forcing Jake and the others to jump back. Behind the door was a swirling portal, and as Jake was still trying to figure out what was going on, two large claws grabbed the sides of the now-open door.

“I did tell you… the devil is in the details.”

An aura rushed out of the portal as a five-meter-tall creature pulled itself out of the gate, and Jake barely had time to use Identify as it attacked.

[Demon Lord – lvl 270]