The Primal Hunter 11, page 78
“Fuck that! Give us a proper explanation!” one of the others yelled.
None of the guns had been lowered yet, and their aggressiveness was over the top, in Jake’s opinion. It was more than just nervousness, suspicion, and agitation. They were genuinely angry, and as someone who had a budding Sin Curse of Wrath, how couldn’t Temlat recognize that?
“I was taken away by my teacher to train and get powerful,” Temlat shared, not going into details about exactly who Jake was. “I have come back now because there are things I have to do before I can evolve.”
Silence took over the room for a few seconds before the woman spoke up. “That’s it? That’s your fucking excuse?”
“What?” Temlat asked, confused. Jake was also a bit perplexed about what exactly had happened.
“You just waltz in here with some bullshit story about a teacher and expect us to believe you? Do you know what the fuck you’ve done?”
“No, I quite obviously don’t,” Temlat shot back, failing to suppress some of his anger.
“Oh, do you remember Isaia?” the woman said in a cold tone. “You know, the man who saved your pathetic life and brought you here?”
“Of course I remember,” Temlat said in a calm tone.
Jake quickly put two and two together that this Isaia was the leader.
“Then do you know what he did for you?” the woman spat out, not even giving Temlat time to answer. “When you didn’t return, he went to that owner of yours, acting like a buyer trying to get you back… How the hell don’t you know any of this!? A year! A fucking year, the announcement was up!”
Temlat looked increasingly confused as the woman and the other seven people in the room only got madder. Their anger, in turn, also affected him.
“What announcement!? Just tell me what is going on and stop acting like whatever the fuck happened is my fault!”
“They knew you worked for him!” another person yelled. “They captured him and… they said if you didn’t return, they would… would… A fucking year! It was there for a year, and you just hid away, not doing shit!”
“How could I do anything if I didn’t know!? What the hell happened? Just tell it to me—I am getting sick of this shit!”
Jake understood Temlat’s agitation and anger. Emotions were high, and in all honesty, they had probably both underestimated the impact of Temlat’s passive curse aura amplifying everyone’s anger. He had only ever really spent time around Jake, the attendants, and his enemies, meaning he had never been required to learn how to fully suppress it.
“What do you think happened?” the woman asked in a cold tone. “What do you think they did to him when you didn’t turn yourself in?”
Temlat clenched his fists hard enough for his nails to pierce his own skin. “Fuck! Why did he go to them!? What was he thinking!?”
“You have the gall to blame him?” the woman shot back. “But, hey, at least we agree! He shouldn’t have gone and tried to save your worthless life.” Her words were full of spite as she continued, “No, he should never have taken in a pathetic half-breed like you at all. You know he only did it because he felt bad for your pathetic whore of a mother, right? Isaia always had a soft spot for pitiful things.”
Jake considered speaking up but stayed silent, not interfering. He saw Temlat standing there and trembling for a few seconds before he suddenly calmed down and took a deep breath.
“I don’t even remember my own mother anymore,” Temlat said, the curse aura around him slightly moving. “Isaia very much took on a fatherly role… but even so, he always had the mission as his top priority. Have you all forgotten?”
“What fucking mission?” one of the others yelled. “They are hunting us! Just because some bitch didn’t want to let her pet go, nearly all of us have been killed already. There is no mission. It died the day you let Isaia die.”
Temlat’s coldness only increased as he nodded. “You are right that Isaia’s mission died… but his ideal lives on. He wanted the world to change, and for those in power to pay for what they’ve done. So I ask all of you, if you had the chance to fulfill that ideal, would you do it? Would you risk your lives for the cause?”
“Did your soul get fucked up or something?” the woman said in a mocking tone. “Without Isaia, we can’t do shit to anyone, even if—”
“Why did I even ask?” Temlat said in a casual tone. “It wasn’t a choice to begin with.”
A dark wave of energy was released from Temlat as he unleashed his curse. Only now did those in the room seem to realize the young half-elf had gotten a lot stronger than before. His skill allowing him to hide his level had concealed it.
“What happened to you?” the woman muttered, her eyes wide open.
“I found my Path… and I reaffirmed what I must do.”
Without any warning, Temlat took out a disc, and a ritual circle appeared all around him. It was the ritual Temlat had worked on for this entire duration as Jake’s student. Jake felt the concepts within it instantly but chose to remain silent.
Curse energy erupted from the floor, and what looked like black chains of flames engulfed every single person in the room besides Jake and Temlat. The flames instantly began to burn the freedom fighters as they all screamed in pain, the central woman screaming the loudest.
“You fucking lunatic!” she cursed. “What are you doing!? I’ll fucking kill you—I’ll—”
“Thank you,” Temlat said. “Your anger is very helpful.”
With a wave of his hand, the flames all intensified so none of them could speak. They all became fuel as Temlat turned and threw Jake a look. “Thank you, Teacher. From the beginning, all I wanted was revenge on those of this world who only deserve death… and you made that possible. Even if I don’t turn out as you had hoped.”
Temlat bowed deeply as Jake nodded. “Your Path is your own, not one for me to define. Do what you think you have to.”
The half-elf nodded as the curse energy released from the sacrifices began to make its way toward him. His own aura intensified, and soon even Temlat’s body erupted in flames. The light smile on Temlat’s face disappeared entirely as all emotions were burned away.
Finally, he took out his dagger—the one he’d had when Jake first met him—and pressed it against his own chest.
Right before the final emotion that wasn’t pure hatred and anger disappeared, Temlat plunged the dagger into his own heart. A black burst of flames erupted from the stab wound, and in the very next second, Temlat popped out of existence, having gone to the evolution space.
Jake sighed and wondered what would return… and as he felt the aura of the room begin to change, he got a clue. He sensed something he hadn’t since he met the Dark Witch on floor forty-one.
The unmistakable scent of a plague.
Chapter 88
The Child Who Is Not Embraced By the Planet Will Spread His Plague
The curse energy within the underground room kept increasing with every passing second. The former freedom fighters stood catatonically as their bodies burned, and Jake felt that their souls had already mostly been extinguished. They were being reduced to nothing more than the hatred within their hearts.
Plague energy also slowly began to emerge, infecting the mostly dead people. Jake realized now it had come from the dagger Temlat had used to stab himself. The half-elf had changed it to somehow inhabit a nascent plague of some sort. It wasn’t a true plague yet, though. Temlat was far from being capable of making something like that, but it had the fundamental building blocks.
Building blocks Temlat had merged into himself right as he evolved.
Jake remained an observer as he waited for nearly a minute, the curse energy in the room continuing to rise. It was feeding into the evolution, as far as Jake could tell, affecting Temlat’s evolution just as he had wanted it to.
He didn’t know what would emerge once the evolution was complete. However, he didn’t have a good feeling it would be something… acceptable. Curses and plagues were both less-than-fondly looked upon in the multiverse, and a merging of the two could only end in disaster. Especially with what Temlat had done right as he evolved. He had purposefully damaged parts of his own soul, as far as Jake could tell.
Which meant he didn’t plan on emerging as anything even close to a normal person.
Soon, the energy reached a crescendo. Jake felt the Sin Curse within his own Soulspace rumble to life as curse energy tried to infect him, Eternal Hunger gladly eating it all up. Jake breathed in through his nose as Palate faintly activated, eliminating the traces of a plague that attempted to infect him.
Then, out of nothingness, a figure appeared. A cloaked being surrounded by darkness, its form not entirely corporeal. It looked vaguely like Temlat had with his hood up… but Jake barely felt the familiar aura of his student. Instead, he felt only a bubbling mass of anger, and with a deep breath, he analyzed the being in front of him.
[Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath – lvl 200]
The former freedom fighters all turned to black energy as they fed the Plague Remnant, the magic circle beneath him fading right after, having done its job. Jake considered what to do, genuinely unsure what his next actions should be.
He knew what Plague Spirits were. They were the premier example of beings that should be killed on sight if encountered. Mostly, they appeared when powerful death-affinity energy gathered in an area and were nothing more than mindless, elemental-like beings who lived only according to their instinct to spread their plague and consume all life.
Jake also knew of another creature called Curse Remnants. These were very similar to Plague Spirits, but instead of a plague, they spread their curse energy far and wide, cursing anything and everything. As with Plague Spirits, these were also simply mindless creatures with nothing more than an instinct to spread their namesake to the world.
Both were considered living calamities. Beings to destroy. However… Jake didn’t remember ever coming across anything called a Plague Remnant. Much less a Plague Remnant of Wrath, indicating Temlat had managed to finally evolve his curse of hatred into the Sin Curse of Wrath.
The easy explanation was that Temlat had truly managed to fuse the two into one. To create a cursed plague… which actually didn’t seem that weird. The two concepts mixed well, both being highly infectious magical ailments that could spread from one person to another without needing the original source to get involved.
One thing was clear: the being before him was a living calamity. Even if Jake didn’t recognize it, he knew it was dangerous. What’s more, the aura it gave off wasn’t meek by any standards. It was still only a C-grade, but Jake knew that it was a powerful variant.
Paths tended to be more powerful if they also included giving something up or having severe restrictions. Jake’s class was the easiest example, his Path making it so he couldn’t get any experience from anything lower level than himself. Temlat’s Path had taken far more from him than simply that.
The Plague Remnant in front of him began to slowly move, turning into a dark smoke that quickly sought to exit the underground chamber. As the Remnant left, Jake knew what would happen if he did so. He knew that everything around him would be infected and a chain reaction would start. A snowball of cataclysmic proportions.
However, as Jake looked at what Temlat had become and analyzed the plague energy trying to constantly affect him, Palate quickly gave him an understanding. If he killed Temlat here and now, everything would end. The world would be saved.
Jake seriously considered it for a second until the smoke stopped just before the exit of the chamber and took on the form of a hooded figure once more.
”Thank you, Teacher. Thank you for allowing me to finally spread true justice upon this filthy world and for granting me the power to do so. If you are still here… witness as I expunge my Wrath. Witness as a wrong is made right. Witness me.”
Sighing, Jake realized the young half-elf had lost his ability to perceive him after he evolved. He quickly made it so Temlat could see him and flashed his student a smile. ”Go get ’em.”
The former young half-elf didn’t respond before turning back into his Remnant form. Jake was both happy and conflicted to know that Temlat’s psyche persisted, though it probably shouldn’t have surprised him too much.
It was similar to the Yalsten Shade of Eternal Resentment. Jake wouldn’t be surprised if that creature had also once been a Curse Remnant, but as it ran out of targets to infect, it died and was reborn into the shade it had been when Jake encountered it. Even that creature back then had retained some level of thought.
Curses were based on emotions, and in order to truly feel emotions, one needed a more complex mind. Perhaps not to the level of being fully sapient, but at least sentience was required. Of course, the psyche of such beings was very rarely just that of one person or in any way cohesive, which nearly always made Curse Remnants act illogical and on instinct, as the only thing all the different psyches could agree on was their one shared emotion.
Jake would guess that inside Temlat’s head, he heard the voices of the former freedom fighters he’d consumed, and with every death, the choir of voices would grow. The faint curse energy released upon their deaths would become one with Temlat, empowering him.
Following Temlat outside, a geyser of black smoke erupted out of the warehouse. As if a smoke bomb had been dropped, it rolled out with Temlat in the middle, slowly spreading out. It was barely noticeable due to the usual constant smog that hung in the lower parts of the megacity, and it took people a while to notice anything was even wrong… By the time they did, it was too late. The D-grades simply had no way to resist the influence of a C-grade Cursed Plague Remnant.
As Jake had noted many times, this megacity was ridiculously massive, with an insane population density. Hundreds of billions, if not trillions, lived on the planet, and due to how crammed in they were, there was no escaping the Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath.
Jake observed as the smoke entered the mines. The miners working there began to get agitated and angry, swinging widely when the annoying ore refused to break free from the damn rock. This earned them an angry foreman who screamed at them… only for the miners to all turn and charge him. The foreman killed dozens before he was overwhelmed and hacked to death by the workers.
On the lower floors of the megastructures, the mayhem began to spread. Any small inconvenience became a cause for conflict as fights broke out. This was also where the truly insidious aspects of a plague were shown.
Not everyone was affected the same, as some had stronger mentalities or were simply a lot less emotional by default. They fled, afraid as they got attacked by others, going to somewhere the conflict had not broken out yet… bringing with them the Cursed Plague of Wrath. Their very presence made them spreaders, as their attempts to garner help only resulted in anger from those asked.
However, as Jake observed, it quickly became clear the anger was not indiscriminate. The curse was not without cause. Students killed teachers, miners killed foremen, children killed parents or disciplinarians, and workers killed managers… Rather than simply mindless anger, it was wrath towards authority.
Jake remained a silent observer as he saw the cursed plague spread. He saw how every death—no, even just every infected person—fed Temlat, the source of everything. Minutes turned to hours as Jake kept looking on, choosing to take this as an experience to learn from and a solemn moment to reflect.
To observe a scene like this wasn’t something anyone could just do. Sure, Jake could probably find a recording if he wanted to, but this was vastly different than merely watching something unfold. It was closer to what he got while using Path of the Heretic-Chosen.
He felt everything. Took it in. Even if he knew this entire world was ”fake,” he never liked to think of them as such. To these people, they were as real as Jake himself, and they had full lives. Their lives just couldn’t impact the wider multiverse in any way.
This begged the question… what would Jake have done if Temlat had been a student Jake had taken outside of Nevermore? What if this exact same scenario played out? Jake wanted to tell himself he would have advised Temlat against researching plagues, but in all honesty, he probably wouldn’t have. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have insisted if there was the slightest pushback.
Jake’s teaching style was a lot closer to Villy’s than anyone else’s. It was a style that could barely make one acknowledged as a teacher, more a sparring partner or external advisor. Jake didn’t want to tell someone what to do or give them unsolicited advice. From the very beginning, he’d wanted Temlat to find his own Path. To decide what he wanted to do and not fit into a mold Jake created.
So perhaps that was Jake’s biggest fault… He hadn’t chosen his student properly. Temlat was talented and had a rare compatibility with curses, but he lacked ambition. His goal had always just been to get revenge, which was such a weak motivation. But… for Jake, who knew he only had a few years in the House of the Architect at max, this goal was good enough. In many ways, he had just taken advantage of Temlat’s short-term goal to get a better result for himself, which made Jake feel even more conflicted if he did choose to step in and interfere now that Temlat was finally capable of realizing his dream.
As Jake reflected on his entire approach, he kept watching Temlat. He watched even as the first megastructure began to tumble and the people charged toward the sky and the mansions up there. Only a few hours had passed at this point, and when Jake looked down and saw the ever-growing Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath still within the warehouse, he could only sigh.
[Cursed Plague Remnant of Wrath – lvl 212]
He leveled up at an unprecedented speed, and from the looks of it, things were barely slowing down. At least, not yet. Jake knew he was an empty cup that was slowly being filled with shitty, muddy water. The curse energy that made up the Plague Remnant was getting contaminated by all the beings that were consumed along the way, and it would take a long time for him to properly consolidate himself once he was done.
