The Primal Hunter

A sudden burst of heat hit Jake as he stepped out of the gateway and appeared on the thirty-fifth floor. One thing was already different about this floor from any of those prior: there was no difficulty selection with Minaga. Instead, they had appeared already within the Demon Lord’s castle.

Before anything else, Jake released a Pulse of Perception to get a lay of the land. What he saw was probably the smallest floor they had encountered so far.

The entire floor was just one unrealistically giant castle. It consisted of three different sections of note: the massive central throne room, a large circular hallway surrounding it, and three towers that each had hallways extending from the large circular hallway. Jake also spotted a certain someone hidden in a room pretty much right next to where they appeared.

As Jake was still looking through the mental map from his Pulse, they got the usual welcome message to the floor.

Welcome to the Thirty-Fifth floor of Nevermore: Minaga’s Labyrinth (Demon Lord’s Castle)

Main objective: Reach the end of the Labyrinth.

Bonus objectives: Slay the three Tower Demons (0/3)

Current progress: Tower Demons (0/3). End reached (0/1)

Note: More hidden events, achievements, or objectives may be hidden on the floor.

Current Nevermore Points: 23123

Minaga had even bothered to name this floor and didn’t just call it part five. Using his mental map, it was easy to spot all three Tower Demons, as each was within their respective towers. Moreover, each Tower Demon seemed to be guarding something, and Jake couldn’t help but make the connection between the three Secret Scrolls and the three towers.

Speaking of the secret scrolls.

A small pedestal was right in front of them where they appeared. All three Secret Scrolls were stacked on top of each other, with a letter placed on top of them all.

“Ree?” Sylphie asked as she shuffled a bit on his shoulder, uncomfortable with the heavy fire affinity in the air.

“Yeah, sure,” Jake agreed. Sylphie released a small gust of wind that made the letter fly over to him, and they all looked at Jake as he cleared his voice and read it aloud.

“Dear heroes.

I hope you all have arrived at the Demon Lord’s castle safely, and I hope this letter reached you in time. Throughout the years of plotting to take down the Demon Lord, I managed to obtain the schematics of the Demon Lord’s castle and memorize them, and I wish to share my findings with you. For now, avoid the central throne room and, instead, head to the three outer towers. You must defeat the three Tower Demons atop each tower and gain access to each Sealstone up there. These Sealstones are attuned to the artifacts, and you need to read out the incarnation written on each corresponding Secret Scroll. Remember to read the correct phrase to sabotage the artifacts of the Demon Lord. If you read the other one, you may accidentally empower the Demon Lord, making beating Gubrothas nearly impossible.

May you succeed in your quest for righteousness.

- Second Mistress.”

Jake finished reading it, and just as he did, they heard shuffling footsteps and the sound of something impacting the tiled floors. Out of a small hidden room walked the old demon, now with a cane in hand, as he shuffled in their direction.

“Heroes! I could not help but hear you read the letter from the Second Mistress, and I came out as soon as I could. I am glad to see you arrived at the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas’ castle in one piece. You even managed to obtain all three Secret Scrolls! Truly impressive,” the old demon smiled at them.

Things were as expected, and Jake smiled at the old demon. “I found your message at your old residence. Say, how did you manage to find a secret entrance to the castle? Could you not have told us about it?”

“I wanted to, but there was limited time to make use of the opening, and the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas found the flaw in the defenses right after I managed to sneak inside. Also, it may have interfered with your quest to obtain the Secret Scrolls. In the end, we all made it here safely and are united in our goal of ending the menace that is the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas, so there truly is no need to discuss this. Instead, we should focus on the task at hand,” the old demon said.

“I think Jake is right… this demon is clearly not actually here to help us,” Dina said through the golden mark.

If even the sheltered Dina noticed how off the demon was, it was pretty damn obvious. However…

“Indeed we should. You heard the letter from the Second Mistress. What say you? How do you think we should approach this?” Jake asked the demon.

“Sabotaging the artifacts of the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas is naturally imperative to ensuring his defeat. Of course, if you are truly confident in your victory, then you can simply choose to face the evil Demon Lord Gubrothas without weakening him first. However, not using the scrolls would be incredibly risky,” the demon said, looking deep in thought.

“We want to do what will give us the highest chance of bringing the evil Demon Lord to justice,” Jake said, trying to sound as heroic as he could.

“In that case, may I be allowed to offer my assistance as best I can?” the old demon asked.

Here we go, Jake thought.

“Of course, but in what way?” Jake questioned.

The demon looked at them all suspiciously for no damn reason as he spoke. “Could you lend me the Secret Scrolls? I want to ensure their authenticity.”

“Oh, no problem,” Jake readily agreed but then seemed to back down as he turned to the party. “No complaints, right?”

“He has only helped us so far. No need to be suspicious,” the Sword Saint said with a smile.

“My apologies; you can never be too safe,” Jake said, bowing slightly to the old demon.

“No need to worry,” the demon said as Jake handed him all the scrolls. His eyes were full of greed as the demon showed acting talent on par with the average child actor as he received the scrolls and smiled creepily as he spoke once more.

“Now I just need to do a quick ritual to confirm they are real if that is alright with you all, right? I may need your slight assistance,” the old demon asked.

“Sure, sure,” Jake nodded as he watched the old demon draw a damn pentagram, nearly identical to the one the Demon Lord had made when he teleported away during their first encounter. His insight into magic circles also instantly let him know it was a teleportation circle of some kind, and Dina also looked to have a hard time holding herself back from commenting on how obvious what the demon was doing was.

Nevertheless, both Dina and Jake poured in a bit of mana as the old demon was not strong enough to do the ritual himself. Then, suddenly, to the surprise of absolutely everyone, the secret scrolls were all teleported away as the old demon began laughing maniacally.

“You fools! You fell for my deceit, and I have now managed to get the Secret Scrolls into the hands of the three Tower Demons! They shall now read the incantations to empower the artifacts, and unless you manage to kill them all and get back the Secret Scrolls to then read the other incantation and sabotage the artifacts of the Demon Lord, you are all doomed! Muhahahaha!”

Jake barely held himself back from facepalming as he tried to act shocked. He didn’t succeed.

“Oh nooo,” Jake muttered. “What will we do now?”

“You can do nothing but defeat the Tower Demons and reverse the process! Just because you can recover the scrolls and read the incantation to sabotage the artifacts and reverse any empowering doesn’t mean you will be able to accomplish it! Of course, you can also face the Demon Lord in his strongest state possible in an impossible battle that you would only ever be able to overcome if you true talents sitting at the peak of the multiverse! And it isn’t like you have any methods to escape the castle and return to where you came and then reenter the castle and choose to go for the Tower Demons the second time around should you choose to face the Demon Lord at full power!”

“We were truly bamboozled,” Jake kept muttering.

“Of course you were! The designs of the glorious Demon Lord are beyond your comprehension! Now that I have accomplished my goal, the Demon Lord will take over the entire multiverse, and unless you manage to somehow kill the Demon Lord in his empowered state or go and slay the three Tower Demons and recover the Secret Scro-“

“May I kill him already?”the Fallen King practically begged.

“Sure.”

“Go ahead.”

“Please do.”

“Ree.”

In the next instant, a blast of force blew off the head of the old demon as he fell over backward, dead. He had barely been C-grade and was honestly so weak it wasn’t even worth mentioning. They stared at the corpse for a while as Jake sighed.

“So…”

“We proceed as planned. Let us face this Demon Lord with all of his power and ignore these Tower Demons,” the Fallen King said. “Perhaps we can hunt them down for the bonus objective after slaying the Demon Lord for a higher overall reward.”

“Eh, I don’t think that will be necessary. Video game logic dictates they will join the Demon Lord fight anyway, so we should get the bonus objective done no matter what,” Jake shrugged.

“What do you mean?” the Sword Saint questioned.

Jake chuckled. “Come on. Three mini-bosses, each guarding a method to empower the final boss? What do you think will happen when you ignore them and allow them to fully empower the boss? Of course they will join in on the fight in a second phase of sorts.”

“Hm, do you believe it wise to make assumptions based on Earth’s video game industry?” the old man asked.

“One hundred percent,” Jake said, fully serious.

“Very well,” the Sword Saint nodded.

“Alright, final planning time. The general layout of the room is…”

Jake proceeded to explain what he had seen and what they could expect. They already had assumptions, but based on the size of the Demon Lord’s arena, they would adapt. Luckily for them, the throne room was utterly massive. It was a giant hall more than ten kilometers across, with four giant pillars around a hundred meters in diameter surrounding a large throne in the middle. Right above the throne, suspended by large meter-thick chains extending from the four pillars, hung a red crystal pulsing with energy. It was shaped like a heart – the anatomic kind – and Jake had a good idea that it was one of the artifacts mentioned, the Demon Lord’s Heart.

On the throne beneath it naturally sat the Demon Lord.

After their strategizing, the group all got ready. Standing in front of the large gate, Dina summoned her staff and spoke an incantation as they were all surrounded by a green aura. Sylphie also followed suit, and a green gust of wind blew through them, making Jake feel slightly lighter as Sylphie told them the wind was now on their side.

“Let’s go,” Jake smiled as he raised his foot and kicked the giant gate leading into the throne room. It slammed open as the Demon Lord in the distance sat bored on his throne, resting his head on his knuckle.

“At last, you arrive,” the Demon Lord spoke, not bothering to get up. The arm they had severed was naturally fully regrown, and the Demon Lord was clearly in peak condition. Rather than only wearing a loincloth, he now had a full set of black plate armor covering his entire body, with pulsing lava-like lines running through it. The only exposed red skin was his hands and head, as rather than a helm, he wore a crown that looked to be made of black metallic thorns.

“For too long, I was sealed. Trapped with only my own thoughts within a space of nothingness. It put many things into perspective, and I realized that I had been too lenient on those beneath me. Why had they never come to free me? Why had the pathetic woman who dared call herself my Prime Consort merely sat back and waited? Well, I guess I cannot complain too much. She did manage to breathe new life into some old keepsakes,”the Demon Lord said, as momentarily the heart-shaped crystal, sword leaning against the throne, armor, and crown flashed with energy, indicating their empowered state.

The Fallen King had already begun floating to the right as Jake began moving to the left, the Sword Saint walking forward with Dina behind him as Sylphie prepared to take to the air.

“It took you fools to free me…” the Demon Lord sighed as he stood up from his throne. “I guess I should thank you. So let me give due compensation. Not just for freeing me, but to pay you five back for our last encounter.”

He reached out and grasped his sword, not even looking at what Jake and the others were doing as he did his monologue.

“Rejoice. My gift to you all is that you will be remembered. Remembered as the heroes who valiantly dared meet me in combat. Now, let it be known!”

The entire throne room seemed to shake as the Demon Lord’s Heart – the giant crystal – began to glow intensely and release a red sheen that nearly set the air ablaze.

“You face Demon Lord Gubrothas. Prove your worth.”

He had barely managed to say this as two explosions sounded out. From one direction, a blast of pink-purple energy soared through the air, surrounding a fully charged Arcane Powershot with an Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. From the other, a golden beam was released by the Fallen King, tearing up the ground as it passed.

The Demon Lord seemed surprised but still reacted far faster than in their last fight. He chose to block the golden beam with his sword, as he raised a hand and summoned a flaming sigil to try and stop Jake’s Powershot. Neither attempt to block succeeded.

Two large explosions erupted as the attacks arrived at the same time, bathing the Demon Lord in the destructive energies of Jake’s arcane affinity and the powerful force magic of the Fallen King. With a roar, the Demon King released a massive shockwave of fire from his body, revealing a body now filled with marks and burns, with the hand he used to block Jake’s blow thoroughly torn up, bone showing. He looked to be about to talk again as the real attack arrived.

There was no sound as a green line cut through the throne room. The Demon Lord stood with both hands out to his side and had been far from prepared to respond as a green wing cut halfway through his neck, the head only staying on because he managed to slightly lean as it arrived…

Only for an old man to teleport right up to him and swing his blade for the uncut side of the Demon Lord’s neck. The demon’s eyes opened wide as the Rainblade prepared to decapitate him, his own attempt to dodge Sylphie making him lean into the Sword Saint’s strike. At the very last moment, he roared as another blast of flame was released, but a dense green barrier covered the Sword Saint’s body as Dina stood with her staff raised right behind him.

The demon’s attempt had failed as the attack landed, and the large head of the Demon Lord was sent flying in a spray of rain and blood.

It flew a few meters into the air as the Sword Saint was forced to block as the Demon Lord’s headless body swung his weapon. The blast of fire hit the old man, but Dina’s barrier still managed to block it, only forcing him to retreat back ten meters.

A red tentacle of pure red energy shot up from the severed neck of the Demon Lord and dragged it back in place, the Demon Lord’s Heart thrumming with energy above as it seemed to dim slightly.

The Demon Lord’s unfocused eyes refocused as his head was back on, and the rest of his body also rapidly healed.

“Crystal above is feeding him energy,” Jake established.

“You…” the Demon Lord said in an angry tone.

Jake, readying another arrow, smiled. On the one hand, it would have been funny to instantly kill the big boss with their opening strike, but on the other…

He did want to see what the big evil Demon Lord Gubrothas could do.

At the very least, they had taught the fucker to stop monologing like an idiot and pay attention to his opponents charging up attacks.