The Primal Hunter Chapter 1237 - Dragon Hunter (6)

Dragons were celebrated for many traits, but if one stood above the rest, it was their iconic signature move. This attack famously carried innate concepts, elevating its lethality to extreme heights. It was a universal ability among all draconic beings, ensuring that anyone challenging a dragon had to account for it or face certain doom.

This was, of course, the Dragon’s Breath. Despite its straightforward appearance, this skill had likely claimed the lives of more geniuses than any other technique in multiversal history.

Jake had witnessed a wyvern’s breath back on Earth and observed Villy’s version through the Path of the Heretic-Chosen. Yet, those experiences paled in comparison to being the direct target of such power.

As Yrelstromoz inhaled, the world seemed to lose its luster. The very concept of light was sucked into her gullet, and the surrounding area became devoid of mana. Her throat began to radiate a blinding brilliance, while her aura grew more suffocating than ever.

To make the situation even more dire, the breath was only one component of the assault.

Massive magic circles positioned above and below Jake ignited simultaneously, emitting relentless pillars of light. Because of their sheer scale, Jake found no path to escape as the magic converged. He quickly grasped the nature of Yrelstromoz’s trap.

“Fuck,” Jake spat as the lower beam slammed into him, an immense pressure forcing him skyward. A fraction of a second later, the upper beam struck with equal weight, attempting to crush him downward with a strange, physical luminosity.

Trapped between the two forces, his mobility was severely restricted. The constant "attack" prevented him from triggering One Step to flee. Jake instantly manifested his wings and braced himself, attempting to channel the escape mechanic of the Wings of the Malefic Viper. However, he realized mid-channel that he wouldn't be fast enough.

The moment his wings unfurled, Yrelstromoz released her Dragon’s Breath.

Her jaws parted, and a torrent of concentrated light erupted, illuminating the entire planet with the most intense glare Jake had ever encountered. The mere flash radiated such danger that he reflexively shut his eyes to prevent them from being incinerated; even so, his vision was washed out in white as the light pierced through his eyelids.

Simultaneously, his danger sense went into overdrive. Pinioned between the two magic circles, Jake was unable to evade the lightning-fast beam of pure light. He focused his mind on a single, seemingly impossible goal:

To block it.

Pride surged as Jake fought against the crushing pressure of the circles while manifesting multiple layers of barriers. He wrapped his wings around himself for protection, flooding his scales with as much energy as possible. He also diverted every drop of available mana to reinforce the barrier provided by Arcane Awakening.

As the Dragon’s Breath closed the distance, a duplicate of Jake manifested and charged toward the beam. Energy swirled around Eternal Hunger as his Shadow unleashed a Piercing Fang against the light. He considered trying to use the Shadow to swap places and dodge, but the suppressive force was too heavy and the beam’s diameter too massive.

While his Shadow lunged forward, Jake adjusted his physical posture as best he could. He tucked his limbs in like a defensive boxer, shielding his face with his forearms and minimizing his profile by tucking his legs. He even pointed his soles toward the incoming beam so his boots could act as additional shields.

Time for movement had run out, but his mind continued to race at high speeds, exhausting every option to survive the impending impact.

The Dragon’s Breath struck. The heat and sheer pressure reached Jake even before his Eternal Shadow collided with the beam, where it was instantly vaporized in a burst of curse energy.

One by one, his barriers were shredded, offering practically no resistance to the draconic might. With his danger sense still screaming, Jake activated Umbral Cloak at the final millisecond, cloaking himself in shadow energy just as the beam hit him.

Jake felt his wings ignite; the webbing was riddled with holes instantly as the light tore through. He was shoved backward, the light possessing a slight physical impact, though that was nothing compared to the sensation of prehistoric annihilation it carried.

His wings vanished in an instant. Next was the shadow energy, which struggled to hold back the tide of light washing over him. The two clashing concepts fought until the shadows were utterly overwhelmed, allowing rays of light to pierce the darkness and strike his final defenses.

The thin arcane barrier offered little protection before the light reached his skin. His armor fared no better, with the exception of his boots and mask. Jake felt a massive surge of energy flood his system as his scales absorbed what they could before shattering. The resulting desolation energy helped neutralize a fraction of the power before it could cook his insides.

It wasn't enough. Not even close.

The light bypassed his scales and entered his body, burning him from the inside out. It disintegrated everything it touched. The skin beneath his scales was stripped away by the relentless torrent of light.

Jake fought back by flooding his anatomy with stable arcane mana, prioritizing the protection of his heart and brain. He continuously generated new scales as fast as possible to mitigate the damage. These scales exploded almost as soon as they appeared, but the resulting desolation energy helped combat the attack more than he had anticipated.

He didn't even attempt to cast magic outside his body. When the Dragon’s Breath first landed, Jake had lost all control over the immediate area; his Pride of the Malefic Viper was simply drowned out by the dragon's superior authority over magic.

All his focus went into internal defense. His skin was gone, and his muscles were incinerated, leaving nothing behind. In several spots, the light bored straight through his torso and exited out his back.

Jake didn't even process the agony as he dedicated every fiber of his soul to staying alive. Using his arms, katars, and mask, he managed to keep his head relatively intact, but the rest of his frame was not so fortunate.

The Dragon’s Breath felt as though it lasted an eternity, though only a few seconds passed. Gradually, the energy began to wane. The intensity faded until it finally ceased, vanishing along with the magic circles that had bound him.

As the light cleared, Jake’s form was revealed, still frozen in a defensive crouch. He remained motionless as the lingering mana drifted away into the air.

The Dragon’s Breath had ravaged him from head to toe. His legs had suffered the most since they were the least protected; they were mostly bare bone now, with only a few scraps of flesh clinging to the back where the bone had shielded it.

His torso was a wreck. The bones in his arms were exposed, and several holes in his abdomen allowed a clear view through his body.

Jake trembled with pain as he forced his skeletal limbs to move. The only significant flesh remaining on his lower half was on his feet, protected by his boots, though even they were a mangled, bloody mess.

Despite the horrific state of his body, a small smile touched the corner of his mouth beneath his mask. He had survived a Dragon’s Breath head-on. It hadn't been easy, and Yrelstromoz likely viewed the result as a victory given his injuries, but Jake had lived. His preparations had been so effective that Moment of the Primal Hunter hadn't even been forced to trigger—though he could have let it hit his face at any time if he had wanted to activate the skill.

Thanks to his guarding, his face was mostly spared, though he had lost his eyelids and hair, which felt bizarre. His central chest remained the most intact area, as he had successfully shielded his heart with a thick coating of stable arcane energy throughout the ordeal.

As a C-grade, his primary concerns were his heart and brain. While he could survive some damage to them, healing those organs was far more taxing. Beyond that, his goal was to avoid any injury that would permanently cripple his combat ability. Fortunately, his limbs were still attached; while the Dragon’s Breath was devastating, it hadn't been enough to turn his bones to ash, only the meat on them.

His survival seemed to catch Yrelstromoz off guard, as she didn't immediately follow up with another attack. This gave Jake the window to down a healing potion. His body began to visibly knit itself back together as Blood of the Malefic Viper accelerated the process, using the vital energy to sprout new flesh in real time.

Monitoring the dragon, he sensed something through his Sense of the Malefic Viper. While he was being rejuvenated by the potion, Yrelstromoz was struggling. His Dragonsbane was interfering with her recovery. Even if she suppressed the toxins with a massive influx of vital energy, the poison remained, making it difficult for her to close her wounds.

“Good,” Jake thought. There was a brief pause in the conflict as both combatants tried to patch their broken bodies just enough to continue. Jake knew he couldn't fully heal everything right away, especially since the damage was infused with the destructive concepts of a Dragon’s Breath.

Even now, those lingering concepts clung to his bones, requiring extra vital energy to purge them while his body tried to reconstruct itself.

Yrelstromoz was clearly in distress as well; though her vital energy pushed back against the Dragonsbane, the poison continued to hamper her self-healing.

Jake, likely aided by his Blood, was the first to recover enough to act. He drew his bow to seize the initiative. His limbs were still mostly bone with thin layers of new flesh, and he was a mess, but by sheer force of inner energy, he could still move with precision.

He let fly a volley of arrows, forcing Yrelstromoz to deploy a powerful barrier. Moving constantly, Jake began peppering the dragon with curving shots that were difficult to evade, slowly racking up damage to balance the scales after her breath attack.

In terms of resources, Jake wasn't sure who held the advantage. He was alive, but his health was below a third. Too many more hits would start degrading his performance. Fortunately, the intensity of the fight was so high that despite using his boosting skills early on, he hadn't hit the wall of overuse yet.

His stamina was holding up, but his mana was low, down to about a quarter. Generating so many scales during the Dragon’s Breath and reinforcing his body with stable arcane energy had been incredibly expensive.

As for Yrelstromoz, while her exact numbers were hidden, he could feel her flagging. Her health had been partially restored by a potion or some draconic equivalent, but it remained low. Her mana aura, however, was still terrifyingly vast. True Dragons were monstrous in that regard, and he feared she had plenty left.

Jake’s plan was never to outlast her mana pool. Even if she had an infinite supply, his Dragonsbane ensured her health would fail long before her mana did.

As he circled and fired, Jake tried to use Touch of the Malefic Viper to boost the poison again, but her magic resistance held firm. He was forced to rely on repeated hits to stack the toxin's potency.

Yrelstromoz countered effectively, but Jake was slowly gaining the lead. To regain momentum, the dragon filled the sky with glowing orbs of light again, though fewer than before.

Jake navigated the resulting "bullet hell" bombardment. She had clearly weakened, as he found the orbs relatively easy to dodge. They still hampered his offense, and with fewer projectiles to manage, Yrelstromoz could focus more on her defense.

The battle hit a lull as they traded lower-intensity attacks, both waiting for the other to make a mistake. Jake spotted several openings born from her lack of experience and landed a few solid arrows, shifting the momentum further in his favor.

Sensing her disadvantage, Yrelstromoz roared, and the environment itself rose up. She bent the earth and wind to stifle Jake’s movements, but he anticipated the maneuvers, dodging the hazards while continuing his archery assault.

In a desperate move, Yrelstromoz roared again, summoning a magic circle in the heavens that detonated into a shockwave of physical light, slamming Jake toward the ground. Simultaneously, all the remaining light beams in the sky rushed back toward her, being consumed to fuel her next move.

Jake retreated as the atmosphere shifted again. The light dimmed, the mana stirred, and he saw the True Dragon taking another deep breath.

Before he could even complete the thought, the world was bathed in light for a second time. This breath felt weaker than the first, but it was still lethal. Jake weighed his choices and acted instantly. The surrounding orbs had formed a straight-line tunnel around him, preventing One Step, and the breadth of the attack made dodging unlikely.

Instead of running, he stopped and drew his bow. Just before charging his shot, he used a burst of arcane energy to propel himself upward through the beams of light at a speed that wouldn't clear the breath's path in time.

As he pulled the string, time slowed. He had barely begun to charge his Arcane Powershot when the second Dragon’s Breath arrived. This time, with no defenses raised, Moment of the Primal Hunter triggered.

The world froze. Jake stood motionless in the stillness, performing rapid mental math to ensure he would clear the beam once time resumed.

With his trajectory confirmed, he continued to channel his energy, allowing the world to creep forward. He flew upward through several beams, ignoring the pain and damage as his Arcane Powershot reached full charge.

Time snapped back to full speed. Jake had just barely cleared the main path of the Dragon’s Breath. He felt the energy scouring his lower body as the beam roared past just beneath him. Yrelstromoz cut the breath short the moment she realized she’d missed, but the opening had already been created.

Jake released the Arcane Powershot. Having just exhausted herself with the breath, Yrelstromoz couldn't defend in time. The arrow struck her chest directly, blasting a new hole through her and sending her reeling. Jake immediately followed up with another arrow, standing perfectly still to maximize the opportunity while she was staggered.

After the second shot, Jake initiated a skill he hadn't had the chance to fully utilize yet. Timeless Focus took hold, and Jake entered a state of rapid-fire execution, raining a non-stop barrage of arrows down on the recovering dragon.

Nearly thirty arrows buried themselves in her before she could muster a magical response. Before she could act, Jake hit her with Primal Gaze, extending his window of opportunity. He continued the rapid-fire assault until more than fifty arrows were protruding from her body.

Ignoring a throbbing headache from the mental strain, Jake kept firing. When the effect of Primal Gaze finally wore off, Yrelstromoz managed to force him to move, breaking his Timeless Focus.

With a massive eruption of mana, the True Dragon let out a deafening roar. Her wings flared wide as the earth beneath her surged upward, and she unleashed—