The Primal Hunter

“We have a winner! The undefeated Warrior has met his doom at the hands of the Doombringer in a battle truly worthy of a Grand Champion match! Only a single Grand Champion now remains, having defeated all others in his path, becoming the most powerful Grand Champion we have ever seen! Where is this limit!? Perhaps we will learn one day, but for now, go, our Grand Champion. Rest. You’ve earned it!”

Jake thought the announcer was a lot quieter than usual, making him frown a bit at the commentary. While still frowning, he saw a man approach from the entrance to the arena, and as he got closer, Jake saw it was the Battlemaster, who seemed to be in a brilliant mood.

“You fucking did it,” he said with a massive smile. “To take down that monster… you really do stand at the apex of mortals.”

“Thanks,” Jake muttered, looking around. Instinctively, he wanted to check out the stands to check in on some of the people he knew, which is when he noticed… he couldn’t see them. More accurately, he couldn’t feel them through his sphere at all. The sphere was still there, but everything it saw was murky. He could feel through the sphere the stands were there, but it was so hazy he couldn’t even tell where people sat, much less differentiate the spectators from one another.

Rubbing his temples, Jake looked at the Battlemaster. “So, what happens now? And please speak up when you answer. You’re way too quiet.”

The man looked at him and shook his head as he practically yelled. “That’s up to you if you feel any need to stay when you have already proven yourself the strongest.”

Right as he got said, Jake got a system message.

Congratulations! You have successfully defeated the Grand Champion and become the sole Grand Champion of the Colosseum of Mortals. 5,000,000 Colosseum Points gained. No more opponents stand in your way, as no worthy foe remains. As the sole Grand Champion, no greater honor can be earned in the Colosseum of Mortals.

Even if everything else seemed blurry and his head still hurt, at least the system messages were still as clear as ever, so he happily focused on them as he began going over the one in front of him. It just acknowledged his win, and, damn, that was a lot of Colosseum Points. Five million nearly doubled his points, though honestly, Jake didn’t care much about that part. Colosseum Points only mattered now insofar as to affect the final calculation of rewards. The rest of it was pretty much just a summary.

As soon as Jake was done reading and considering the first system message, a second one popped up.

Do you wish to exit the Colosseum of Mortals Challenge Dungeon?

If you remain, you can choose to participate in weekly Show Matches, earning you additional Colosseum Points.

Choosing to exit will give you all currently earned rewards.

Jake read the message, and for a few seconds, he considered staying around for a bit. Not for the Show Matches – those were just a damn waste of time, and honestly, Jake didn’t feel like he was in any kind of fighting condition – but to talk to some of the people in there. Specifically Artemis, Polly, and Owen. But… he had already said goodbye to them, having fully expected him to just be thrown out of the Challenge Dungeon that day. Beating Valdemar had been a long shot, after all, and he even guessed that it was possible that the dungeon would just toss him out no matter if he won or lost.

With that in mind, he truly saw no reason to remain as he threw the Battlemaster a final look and smiled before accepting the prompt. Another major reason he just wanted to get out of there was for the system to heal him. Sure, he had healed himself when he ended his power up, and physically, he was fine, but he knew his soul wasn’t in optimal condition. Hopefully, the system could fix that.

Jake’s vision went black right as he accepted leaving, and half a second later, he appeared in a familiar place. It was the same white void he was thrown to every time he had died and had to choose a time to go back to, but this time, there was no prompt for him to choose when to revive. No, instead, he was there for those sweet, sweet rewards. The first of which was something Jake had predicted would be a thing and was happy to have confirmed: a Grand Achievement.

Grand Achievement earned: Successfully completed the Colosseum of Champions while defeating the reigning Grand Champion. Colosseum Points converted: 113.821 Nevermore Points earned. Due to completing a Grand Achievement, you will receive a 25% multiplier of all Nevermore Points at the final calculation.

The number of Nevermore Points gained didn’t exactly seem impressive, and there appeared to be a 1-100 conversion from his Colosseum Points, but one had to remember that Jake only had 744,673 Nevermore Points currently that he had gained over thirty years. To get more than a hundred thousand within two years was honestly insanely good.

Not to mention the massive 25% multiplier, which was at the same level as what beating Minaga had given them. Jake would argue that defeating Valdemar had been way fucking harder, but he wasn’t going to say no to the extra multiplier. With it and the others, he was now up to a 60% bonus to the final calculation. Moreover, he still had four Challenge Dungeons left that could potentially give him similar rewards.

Jake only now truly understood what people meant when they said that the true winners of the Leaderboards would be found in the Challenge Dungeons. If one did well in all of them, they could get a more than doubling of Nevermore Points at the final calculation, putting them well ahead even of the groups who cleared far more floors.

Besides the Grand Achievement, Jake had also gotten something he honestly hadn’t expected to see but was more than happy to get:

A title.

Reward gained: Colosseum of Mortals: True Grand Champion title.

Without hesitation, Jake opened up his status menu and checked the effects of the title.

Colosseum of Mortals: True Grand Champion – You have proven yourself the one true Grand Champion of the Colosseum of Mortals, defeating beings that stand at the apex of the multiverse and exited the Colosseum of Mortals with more than 10,000,000 Colosseum Points. Even a Primordial was slain on your path, making you truly worthy of the title. Only one Nevermore Challenge Dungeon title can be held at a time. +200 to all stats.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Reading it over, Jake was seriously happy he hadn’t spent more of his Colosseum Points within the Challenge Dungeon, as he might have missed out on this title if he had done so. He also finally noticed that he hadn’t gotten a refund on any of the equipment he had bought, which made him even happier he hadn’t decided to splurge.

Jake then saw the final part of the description that said only one title can be held, so he made the obvious educated guess that should he gain a better title than this one from any of the four other Challenge Dungeons, this one would simply be replaced. He seriously doubted he would be able to do that, though. At most, he would gain equal titles as he didn’t think there were ones of a higher tier than this, which would probably mean he would just keep the first one he got.

As for the title itself, Jake was a bit surprised at what it gave. It was just pure stats. There was no percentage increase, but just +200 to all stats. Mind you, Jake wasn’t really complaining. In fact, this was probably better for him than if he gained more percentage titles.

Jake already had a lot of percentage titles, along with the percentage boost from his Bloodline, so to gain one that just gave pure stats was honestly huge. It did kind of suck it was to all stats and not just focused on the ones he used the most, but Jake at least did use all of them at times. Still, he would have preferred to just get them in Agility, Strength, and Perception mostly. Or, well, he wouldn’t have complained if he had just gained +1800 Perception outright, but you can’t always have what you want.

Even with just this title and the achievement, Jake would say It had been a very productive Challenge Dungeon, and honestly, he would have been happy with what he had already gotten, but there was one final message, and after seeing what he had gotten, Jake honestly wasn’t sure how he felt.

Reward gained: [Emblem of the Grand Champion (Mythical)]

A Mythical item… that had to be great, right? Well, it was a bit more complicated than that.

[Emblem of the Grand Champion (Mythical)] – An emblem infused with the powers and concepts of the Colosseum of Mortals, given only to those deemed worthy. This Emblem can create a replica of the Colosseum of Mortals arena within a virtual space for individuals to duel one another. Allows the user to choose two targets who must consent to take part in a duel within the virtual space. Those entering will leave their true bodies defenseless during the duel period. All levels and stats of those entering will be normalized. Most skills and abilities will also be restricted. Dying within the virtual space will have no negative consequences. As the owner, you can always observe the inside of the Emblem of the Grand Champion. Cooldown period: 1 hour.

Requirements: Soulbound

Now, who could ever be disappointed at getting a mythical item? It turns out Jake could. Though it was more the opportunity cost of getting this rather than a weapon or something. Jake didn’t have a single piece of equipment that was mythical, and the only thing he owned with the rarity was the Soulflame Cradle from Minaga, so to see his second item also be some auxiliary item like this was a bit of a downer.

After overcoming his initial disappointment, Jake finally looked at the Emblem in earnest, and at least it seemed to have earned its rarity. It was an item that allowed two people to duel safely while even normalizing their stats. The restrictions on skills were also something Jake wasn’t even sure how worked… but seeing as the description mentioned that the true bodies of the ones who entered the arena would be defenseless made it pretty obvious people only actually entered with their souls.

That one couldn’t die was also pretty huge and allowed people to experiment within and fight without feeling any fear of death. So, while Jake wasn’t overly keen on gaining this kind of item as a reward, he understood why it was good from a more objective standpoint.

Anyway, that was the end of the rewards for the Colosseum of Mortals, and overall, Jake had to say it was a pretty good haul. He had also experienced growth in many areas of combat, and Jake was excited to see what would happen once he got his real level back.

As a last thing, Jake checked his Nevermore Points, which had grown nicely from the Grand Achievement.

Nevermore Points: 858,494

As he prepared to leave the void, Jake thought about what Challenge Dungeon to do next… or if he could even do one properly in his current state. Even in the void, he still felt incredibly wrong and like his senses didn’t work right, but hopefully, it would all be fixed once he was out of the Challenge Dungeon proper… right?

After Minagas’s outburst, the room with the two Primordials and the Unique Lifeform remained silent as they all simply stared at the battle happening within the arena. The entire final arc of the battle only took a few seconds, but it left an impression on all of them as they saw a scene none of them had expected.

They saw Valdemar die, his heart destroyed, and his body broken to a level where he couldn’t sustain himself any longer. A Primordial slain, even if he was only a level 0 image.

So many things had happened during these few seconds, leaving them all with more than a few questions.

“What the hell happened? What did he do there?” Minaga asked as he looked at the Wyrmgod.

The Primordial looked on for a while as he frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Huh?” Minaga exclaimed, confused. “What do you mean you don’t know? It’s your damn dungeon, you know everything that’s going on.”

“When the Chosen of the Malefic used… what he used, I lost authority of the domain in and surrounding the arena,” the Wyrmgod responded after a brief pause. “I could only see what you saw. The system cut me off.”

“You lost authority?” Minaga questioned even more now. “You mean that…”

“Yes,” the Wyrmgod nodded. “Transcendent Authority was established temporarily.”

Minaga nodded slowly in understanding. “So, in summary, he some-fucking-how used his Bloodline to take control of a massive domain with enough authority to push you out? Did he do it to hide something, maybe? How whatever he did truly works?”

“I believe it was more a side effect of what he did than the actual purpose,” the Primordial shook his head.

Vilastromoz remained silent as he heard them talk. Partly because he wanted to hear what the Wyrmgod figured out and partly because he didn’t really know what to add. Eventually, the two other gods in the room turned toward him for answers, but the Viper just shook his head.

“The secrets of my Chosen are not mine to share.”

“Oh, come on!” Minaga complained. “Just a few hints? Pretty please?”

The Viper shook his head again, shutting down the notion. He had purposefully chosen to skirt around the subject and avoid answering… as he didn’t have any answers. The other two gods believed he understood, but in reality, he, too, was stumped.

Vilastromoz had believed he had a pretty good grasp of Jake’s Bloodline, but what had happened in that arena wasn’t something he could have ever expected. Even now, he wasn’t entirely certain how Jake had done what he did, even if he could partly understand what he had done.

By far, the most impressive from an outside perspective was how he had blocked the initial strike that was meant to finish him. Jake had absorbed the blow by creating a hole of sorts… a single point in space where space ceased to be, not allowing Valdemar’s strike to have medium to travel through.

If it had been the true Valdemar, he could have simply powered through, but no mortal, not even someone like him, could overpower a complete erasure of space. He needed space for his fighting aura to move through.

However, in the same vein as how not even Valdemar could forcefully attack through nothingness… no level 0 should ever be able to create a point of nothingness either. In fact, it was something the Viper had seen few beings ever do, period. What’s more, it was hard to say Jake had even done it. He caused it, yes, but he didn’t “create” the point of nothingness through sheer power as one usually had to. It was more like space, time, and reality itself just decided to cease to exist in that very spot for a few moments.

The second most impressive feat was that final absorption that had fully healed his body in seconds. Even now, the Viper wasn’t entirely sure how that had worked… the same as how he wasn’t sure how he had effectively used the energy he had gained, somehow turning the sand into pure energy. To turn matter into energy wasn’t super difficult and quite normal in alchemy, but to then directly absorb and use it? It was borderline unheard of. Plus, it took more energy to convert matter into energy in the first place, never making it worth it, even if you had the ridiculous control to pull it off.

Jake had pulled off many things that were impossible. These were things only Bloodlines or Transcendent skills could do. Which did make the Viper worry… because no matter what, these had a cost. So the ultimate question now was, what price did Jake have to pay to pull off something impossible?