The Primal Hunter 13, page 4
“Well, this Lunewood Stalker wasn’t really its own thing, but more just one branch of a big ecosystem that’s all connected, so when you kill one—”
Below, Jake saw more movement than ever before as more than thirty Lunewood Stalkers shot out of the forest, charging straight at him.
“—they all know and move to defend their territory and reclaim the meteorite fragment.”
Chapter 3
Lunewood Forest
“Good luck, have fun!” Sandy said before disappearing, leaving Jake with the Meteorite Fragment floating in front of him.
He didn’t even bother putting it in his inventory or anything. Instead, he quickly nocked an arrow and turned his attention to the many charging Lunewood Stalkers.
Seeing no need to hold back, he activated Arcane Awakening at the stable 30%. Jake felt his body brimming with power as he released the first arrow rain down upon the many charging creatures, all of which were roughly the same level as the first Stalker. Another thing they had in common with the first Lunewood Stalker was that they didn’t even try to dodge; they simply tanked the blows as parts of their bodies were torn off. However, with around thirty of them, this reckless strategy was far more viable, explaining why the first one had acted as it did.
These creatures were indeed just parts of a whole. They were individual limbs of a greater lifeform and simply had no sense of self-preservation. For them to dodge would be the same as Jake making his arrows dodge the attacks of enemies… which he actually did pretty often by making them curve around, but that was beside the point and, at most, just a commentary on how the strategy of these Lunewood Stalkers could still be optimized.
The point is, individually, these Lunewood Stalkers weren’t valuable and were just defenders of the forest and life domain they came from. Attacking recklessly like this also tended to have a better chance of landing blows, as it would give the foe far less time to respond, even if the tradeoff was that you risked taking far more hits in return. The term “tended to” was used very deliberately in this case… as Jake just happened to be the exception to that rule. Few things ever had a good chance of landing blows, and fewer still when they were as predictable as these Stalkers.
Arcane explosions lit up the skies above the moon, and Jake began to retreat as he kept shooting arrow after arrow. A constant barrage of attacks flew at him, forcing him to dodge all the time as the Lunewood Stalkers closed in ever so slowly. If Jake hadn’t needed to dodge ranged attacks, he could have outrun them pretty easily, and if he abandoned attacking, he definitely still could, but retreat wasn’t on the table. Not knowing how far they would chase, it was potentially even faster to just kill them all.
So he upped his offense and mixed in arcane bolts with his attacks, and before any of the Stalkers even reached him, four were slain, their lifeless bodies falling toward the surface of the moon below… only for a giant space worm to swoop in and chomp them down before they could land, sending an encouraging message to Jake before disappearing again.
Right as the fifth one fell, the first Lunewood Stalker was also upon him. Jake dodged as the creature spun in mid-air, its tail whipping around and cutting through the… well, not air, but whatever existed within the thin exosphere of the moon.
After its initial attack missed, the Stalker tried to bite him with its thorn-filled mouth. Long vines erupted from all over its body, shooting forward to entangle Jake. Pulling out his katars, Jake easily shredded the vines, then closed in and landed a solid punch to the side of the Stalker’s head. He wanted to continue and attack the core directly, but two more Stalkers arrived right at that moment, making Jake use One Step to teleport away and pull out his bow again.
A barrage of exploding arrows created some more space as Jake blasted himself backward. A heavily injured Lunewood Stalker shot after him, and Jake’s eyes glowed for a moment as the creature flew past him, lifeless, its already feeble and weak soul having crumbled.
You have slain [Lunewood Stalker – lvl 309] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level
Turning around, he released an Arcane Powershot, blasting away another Stalker and taking off two of its legs. Then he used One Step again to dodge two tail swipes from even more of the annoying plant creatures. His sphere expanded slightly to keep an eye on all of them, every single Lunewood Stalker also hit with a Hunter’s Mark.
It wasn’t that hard to keep track of them, though. They didn’t attack with any strategy, just charging for him in a straight line. There weren’t even any attempts to surround or cut off his paths of retreat, making the fight far easier than it had any right to be.
One by one, he killed the Lunewood Stalkers, not taking any injuries himself. They simply weren’t fast or strong enough to pose a real threat, and before long the final creature had its midsection exploded by an arrow and fell toward the moon, dead.
The entire fight hadn’t even taken that long, given how he’d methodically torn them apart. He also noticed that the further they got from the forest, the weaker they seemed to be, just making things even easier.
Dispelling his boosting skill, Jake sighed, hoping there would be better foes further inside the forest. While the levels of these Lunewood Stalkers were impressive, their power sure as hell was not. They were so weak that Jake doubted he even got any good experience from them. Disappointment was really the only emotion he felt toward them so far, and while they could offer the flavors of a horde battle if even more attacked him, Jake had always preferred powerful, singular foes.
Oh, well—at least Sandy had been eating well and made sure to snatch all of the corpses. The worm did spit them out again, though, only really caring about extracting those Lunewood Meteorite Fragments they all had. They effectively served as their cores, and during the fight, Jake had noticed that strikes on these cores did more damage than anywhere else, though he had been a bit afraid of accidentally breaking them.
“We should probably hide a bit,” Sandy said after the worm teleported back up to him.
“I don’t think we have to,” Jake said, as he didn’t detect anyone or anything coming for them. He had deliberately made sure to retreat away from what he had chosen to dub the Lunewood Forest to test out the detection range of whatever lived there, and it seemed like this was enough. The fact that increased distance from the forest also made the Stalkers weaker had just been a happy bonus.
“Hm, does seem like we’re outside of the domain where we can be detected,” Sandy said. “I would guess that the second we reenter the forest, all the Meteorite Fragments will instantly give us away, and another attack will arrive to try and reclaim them. I doubt hiding the fragments in my stomach will be enough either.”
Jake nodded in agreement. “An attack upon entry does seem probable.” Like Sandy, he didn’t have that much confidence in his stealth skill when it came to hiding the fragments. If the worm wasn’t confident, Jake sure as hell wasn’t either. He did have one thing he wanted to try, though. “Let’s go down and land on the moon. I have one… no, two things I want to try.”
Sandy agreed, and the two of them flew down with impressive speed. Jake did kind of like how he could travel a lot faster in space, even without subspace nonsense. He could simply fly a lot faster and even accelerate almost constantly to a far higher top speed. Even his One Step range was significantly increased.
Due to that, he soon reached the surface of the moon. Stopping just before he landed, Jake stood a few centimeters off the ground as Sandy looked at him, confused. Jake cleared his throat and raised a foot, doing something he had wanted to do ever since arriving on the moon.
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Jake said with a stupid grin on his face as he stepped down on the moon’s surface.
“I don’t get it,” Sandy commented, perplexed. “Also, wouldn’t it be a man and not just man? Your grammar is off.”
“Just let me have this moment,” Jake said, throwing a glance at Sandy.
“Fine… Actually, let me give it a try,” the giant space worm sulked before seemingly getting an idea as they also floated down to just a few meters off the surface.
“One small wiggle for worm!”
A big crash shook the local area as the giant worm crashed down.
“One giant wiggle for wormkind!”
Jake just stared at the worm as Sandy giggled. “I kind of get it now; that was fun.”
“Stealing my moment,” Jake muttered before deciding to just move on to the actual reason he had wanted to touch down on the surface.
With his two awesome mythical boots solidly on the ground, their ability to detect natural earthbound treasures was activated… and though it may have just been because the moon was primarily rock, he got a massive response. Closing his eyes to focus, Jake felt hundreds—no, thousands—of responses below the ground, and as he focused and infused even more power into his leathery old companions, he finally got enough reach to detect the center of the moon.
There was a massive response as he felt the core of the celestial object. Giving Planetary Cores rarities wouldn’t really make much sense, but it was unquestionable they contained an absolutely ridiculous amount of power. What’s more, they had the ability to produce mana, making them incredibly valuable and near-endless power sources. Jake couldn’t discern whether anything was siphoning power off the core, but he could feel it and confirm it definitely had enough juice to give birth to a B-grade.
The second largest response came from the direction of the Lunewood Forest, and it wasn’t hard to guess this was the Wood Meteorite that Sandy had talked about. The fragments of the meteorites within each Lunewood Stalker were about the size of a basketball, and based on the response, he felt that the true meteorite was far, far larger. He wouldn’t necessarily say that the size of the fragments had to proportionally correlate with power, though, as if that was true, the meteorite would likely have contained more power than the Planetary Core.
“You look like you’ve noticed something,” Sandy said.
“I more so just confirmed what we already theorized,” Jake answered as he opened his eyes. “I think you are right on the money with that Wood Meteorite thing, and I want to go confirm for myself, but before that… do you want those Meteorite Fragments? As in, do you need them?”
“No, not really,” Sandy confessed. “They are too polluted with lunar and other celestial energies. It’s a horrible mix that doesn’t go well with anything else, which is what tends to happen with these things. The life energy will evolve with time as the Wood Meteor flies through space, undergoing a constant evolution as what may as well be an entirely new form of life affinity is born once all is said and done. Not quite an arcane affinity, as it isn’t a cohesive fusion of concepts, but just an amalgamation that could theoretically be split apart by someone successfully talented or powerful enough.”
Jake nodded, once more impressed with Sandy’s insights. “In that case, can I have them? And would it be fine if I end up effectively destroying them?”
“You can, but you do know that the moment one of them breaks, every single living being associated with the Lunewood Meteorite on this moon will know?”
“That’s actually a very good point,” Jake said, frowning as he reconsidered.
“If you want to absorb the fragments or use the energies for something, I would suggest maybe seeing if it’s possible to merge them or perhaps to return them to the Lunewood Meteorite? That way, you can absorb or use everything at once.”
“Fair enough.” Jake nodded along as he considered the plan he had begun to form in his mind.
Sandy was correct that the life energy could indeed only be described as polluted. He had nothing to use it for alchemically, and the imbalance and relative weakness of the Lunewood Stalkers compared to their level likely also had roots in the broken life affinity. In fact, the affinity contained way more raw power, hence the levels, than it had any right to. There was just no cohesion, leading to an ultimately shitty result.
“Say, what do people usually do when they notice a Wood Meteorite has crashed somewhere?” Jake asked.
“You like to ask a lot of questions where the answer depends on a lot of things,” Sandy said, “If the meteorite crashed in your backyard, better to get rid of it right away, as the corrupted life energy will try to keep spreading as much as it can. If it’s crashed somewhere far away from anything else, some people like to study it, then get rid of the Wood Meteorite before it can affect too large an area or become too dangerous. A third group keeps them around and cultivates them, as they are really good at spawning monsters, and if you regulate the environment properly, you even have pretty good control of the level of monsters there and turn them into training grounds. Some environments created by Wood Meteors even end up spawning unique and actually useful herbs within, so people keep those around. But in the vast majority of cases, the end result is that it’s best to destroy the Wood Meteorite and get rid of the domain.”
“So if I, say, want to eat the entire Wood Meteorite and kill the entire forest, there would be nothing wrong with it?” Jake asked.
“I would respect such wise eating habits,” Sandy said in a joking tone. “I’m not sure if you can fit that Wood Meteorite in your mouth, though. I think it’s pretty big.”
Jake nodded. “True, true.” Even if he used Palate, he wasn’t sure he was able—or wanted—to eat it. But that wasn’t the only option. “I won’t be the one eating it, though. This bad boy will.”
Jake pulled out Eternal Hunger and tossed it up before catching it again. “Life energy is still life energy, and I’m sure this little one will enjoy it fully.”
That’s right—Jake’s idea was to get rid of this entire Lunewood Forest by absorbing it with Eternal Hunger. He even had a ritual in mind to do it and reckoned it would be a good way to get a few profession levels. Plus, based on what Sandy said, these kinds of Wood Meteorites could be problematic if left alone, so wasn’t he doing a good thing?
While he couldn’t confirm it, he wouldn’t be surprised if this Lunewood Forest was expanding and, with time, would cover the entire surface of the moon. So, better to nip it in the bud before it could get that far.
“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad idea to get rid of the meteorite… though do still consider the presence of a B-grade,” Sandy pointed out. “Pretty low chances the two of them aren’t connected in some way.”
“True,” Jake said, nodding. “I will have to scout out the forest properly to find out.”
“In that case, I’ll hold onto these fragments in the meantime and go explore a bit myself. I don’t really care about anything in that forest; it all smells yucky anyway,” Sandy added in a disgusted tone.
“Fair enough.” Jake nodded again as he and Sandy prepared to split up. “You know where to find me, right? I’ll also throw a Mark on you in case things go south.”
“Eh, if all else fails, I can just ask the Big Boss Hydra, or you can ask Big Boss Snake for help,” Sandy said in a casual tone.
Jake grinned. “Not sure it’s considered normal to consider your Patron a walkie-talkie.”
“I’m not,” Sandy said defensively. “A walkie-talkie would be far more effective.”
Shaking his head, Jake smiled. “In either case, see you around. I’m gonna go on a picnic inside the creepy polluted life forest filled with weird monsters that wanna kill me.”
“And I’m gonna go try and eat stuff inside the moon.”
Indeed, just another normal day in the life of a giant space worm and a human on an adventure.
Chapter 4
Vipers & Hunters
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
No forest was meant to be like this, in Jake’s opinion. There was no wind to rustle the leaves, no movements whatsoever anywhere to cause even the slightest song. No sign of any small wildlife hiding in the bushes or on top of the trees, or the occasional sound of a bird chirping. It was just silence and stillness, as if the forest was frozen over.
Jake walked through the blue forest, taking in the environment and feeling just how corrupted the mana all around him was. No D-grade would be able to exist within the forest, and even weaker C-grades would find themselves negatively affected as the energy seeped into their bodies, corrupting them. Perhaps one would even turn into some kind of Lunewood creature if one spent too long here. He would almost compare it to an area hit by nuclear fallout, and he could only begin to imagine the devastation a Wood Meteor could cause if it ever struck down on Earth and remained unattended.
Then again, Jake wasn’t even sure a Wood Meteor would be able to enter Earth due to the powerful atmosphere. It definitely wouldn’t if they also added some additional barriers to empower the planet’s natural defenses, something he would need to talk to Miranda about doing when she was back from Nevermore. The thought that random objects from space like Wood Meteors not only existed, but could fuck up a planet, was definitely a newly unlocked fear for Jake.
Anyway, back to Jake. Even without defending himself from the environment, he managed to remain unaffected as he made his way deeper and deeper into the forest under the cover of Unseen Hunter. He kept a lookout for any odd herbs or natural treasures born in the environment of the Lunewood Forest, but nothing really caught his eye, and what he did spot wasn’t anything he had any interest in using. The entire place really was a shithole, and Jake got the feeling that this particular Wood Meteorite was uniquely horrible.
At the very least, the brief time he had spent inside the forest only further strengthened his desire to get rid of the Wood Meteorite for good. Also, wouldn’t the moon just look too weird if it was filled with a blue forest? Yeah, it definitely would, so best to get rid of it before the forest could spread too far.
Getting deeper than ever, he spotted many more Lunewood Stalkers, all just doing… nothing. They looked like beasts but didn’t at all act like them. They were lying down but not even doing the beast version of meditation, nor did they move to hunt anything. It felt more like their movements were robotic and pre-programmed for set patrol patterns. Entirely unnatural. A lot of them also just stood still like statues, with the only visible movement being their pulsating vines filled with life energy.
