The Primal Hunter

His danger sense and ability to survive were what had allowed Jake to get where he was today. The first truly strong foe he had fought was the Alpha Badger back in the first tutorial dungeon, and against that beast, he had been so outmatched it wasn’t even funny when it came to physical stats… but he had still won and survived.

Because while Jake was good at archery and magic and all that, it was his survival instinct that was his greatest weapon.

The Monarch cut and changed the weapon, summoned magical attacks one after another, yet Jake was always one step ahead – sometimes literally with One Step Mile. The game of cat and mouse was one where the mouse clearly had the upper hand as every move of the cat was predicted and countered near-perfectly.

Jake saw and felt the frustration of the Monarch but paid it no mind as he was in the zone, focused only on his sphere and danger sense. Every faint movement of blood energy, every twitch of a muscle, or slight tension in the vampire’s body lay bare before him as the two of them got further and further away from the Mistless Plains.

He felt Sylphie chase after him, followed by the others, with the Sword Saint dragging along Eron. She kept him updated so Jake could focus on the Monarch and not divert his gaze for even a moment. Finally, the Monarch made a too wide swing, and Jake pounced like a starved beast as his own scimitar flew up and left a cut on the Monarch’s arm.

Instantly, the Monarch refocused and tightened up his technique. Magic began burning brighter around him as blood clones appeared all around him, all of them summoning their own crystalline weapons of blood energy.

Jake swiftly used One Step Mile to get away as he left a Mark of the Avaricious Arcane Hunter on each of them to keep track. There were five clones in total, and three of them headed towards the approaching humans – and Casper – while the other two joined the Monarch in his assault.

Arcane bolts condensed around Jake as he took this slight reprieve to counterattack and sent all of them towards one of the clones as he prepared himself. The clone dodged two of the arcane bolts but was hit by two as they blew up, sending it tumbling back slightly, meaning only two figures appeared before Jake a moment later to strike him.

The Monarch teleported to his back while the clone attacked from the front. Jake chose to charge ahead towards the blood clone and engage that, avoiding the blow of the Monarch by a slight margin as he clashed with the far weaker clone.

Yet even the clone was able to block Jake and fight him rather well, giving the Monarch ample time to get close again and attack. Narrowing his eyes, Jake went back on the defensive for a while as the wings on his back began secreting poison mist. He knew this would have little to no effect on the Monarch, but the blood clone was another story.

He also noticed that his arcane mana burned strongly within the clone. As a magical construct, it was far more susceptible to his arcane mana, he reckoned. The poison also seeped into the clone quite happily, and while it didn’t affect its movements, it did put it on a timer.

Dodging back even further, he let the chase continue as he finally detected the destruction in the distance. Not towards the plains but far away from it. The cataclysmic power of the world breaking apart as space collapsed could be felt from over a thousand kilometers away, and it was clear that it was coming closer by the second.

Far enough now, Jake decided, not wanting to get any closer to the spatial collapse. Even at this far distance, his danger sense made him acutely aware that he didn’t want to enter the edges of Yalsten and experience that kind of destruction firsthand.

This meant Jake changed up his tactic and began fleeing downwards instead of flying through the air. Throughout his time, Jake had gotten quite good at aerial combat, primarily through practice against birds on the cloud island, but he still felt more comfortable on the ground. Sure, it could be argued that dodging in a fully three-dimensional space was easier than when you only had to the sides and upwards, but he still preferred the ground.

Flying down, the Monarch chased him as Jake dodged orbs of blood and beams during his descent. The clones were lagging slightly behind, not releasing any ranged attacks, making Jake believe they could only fight in melee. Or maybe ranged attacks were just a waste of their limited energy pools.