The Primal Hunter Chapter 1258 - A Ghastly Domain

Domain Skills proved to be... peculiar. They held immense power on one side, frequently serving as hallmark abilities, yet they appeared quite frequently thanks to various Legacies scattered across the multiverse. That said, much like ordinary skills that differed greatly, Domain Skills could diverge in almost every aspect except their core purpose, which set them apart as Domain Skills.

Casper wasn't the sole individual Jake knew who possessed a full Domain Skill. Actually, he was acquainted with a whole city and organization brimming with such abilities.

The Shadow Realm, accessible to any skilled high-grade assassin from the Court of Shadows, qualified as a Domain Skill in technical terms. It satisfied the essential criteria by enabling the user to draw someone else into a separate space that favored the skill's wielder.

Certain skills might resemble Domain Skills but fell short of the true classification. For instance, Jake’s Pride of the Malefic Viper and the Sword Saint’s strange rain-summoning power altered the surroundings and twisted their nearby environments to their benefit, yet they failed to transport foes elsewhere. Rather, they merely modified sections of the current world.

The most notable distinction between a full Domain Skill and a mere territory-creating one lay in accessibility: others could simply step in and out of a territory's zone. In contrast, complete Domain Skills required forced entry, featuring a distinct border.

Forced entry into domains wasn't usually challenging. Entering often demanded only a touch of resolve. Escaping, however, posed the real difficulty. Naturally, exceptions existed everywhere, with the Shadow Realm again proving unique in its mechanics.

The Shadow Realm operated separately from the Court of Shadows members, but it still counted as a Domain Skill since it generated a domain into which they could drag themselves and others. It scraped by on qualifications. One key benefit was the lack of any detectable boundary, making it hard for outsiders to spot or access.

A sufficiently powerful person could tail an assassin and their target into the Shadow Realm, but relative to other Domain Skills, that feat demanded extraordinary effort. In essence, the Shadow Realm's main role was to confine someone in an inescapable space, offering the user few extra edges.

Domain Skills like Casper's varied in numerous respects. Primarily, the domain didn't truly exist as a fixed entity. It manifested temporarily, relying completely on his personal strength and presence. Consequently, this Domain Skill remained utterly distinctive, and although similar versions might exist elsewhere, no two domains matched precisely.

This held true even for Legacy Domain Skills from multiverse factions. Valhal gained renown for employing Domain Skills that shaped battlefields favorably, and Jake had witnessed Carmen deploy a weaker form of what promised to evolve into a full Domain Skill someday. Though these domains might look nearly alike at first glance, they tied directly to and shaped themselves around the user, avoiding any link to a lasting location.

As Jake pondered these matters, a particular query surfaced in his thoughts... if Event Horizon marked the initial stage of a future complete Domain Skill, what type was it? Did the space Jake perceived during its use actually persist somewhere, or did he simply summon it into being? It seemed real to him, but based on everything Jake had studied, Domain Skill users always experienced their worlds as authentic, because in their perception, they genuinely were.

Shaking off the distraction, Jake redirected his focus to the present while absorbing Casper’s domain. The shockwave swept across him, pulling both Jake and the B-grade golem inside as they lay within its influence.

Through his sphere and heightened senses, Jake surveyed the unfamiliar realm he now occupied. His feet sank a bit into the damp black earth below, and overhead, turquoise clouds brimming with blight energy dominated the sky, devoid of any stars or suns.

Surrounding him stood innumerable plain wooden grave markers, positioned every few meters and extending to the limits of his vision, which didn't stretch very far. A thick fog, echoing the overhead clouds but tinged darker, permeated the air, as each marker seeped forth energy.

Curse energy... at a potency far exceeding what Jake had ever witnessed from Casper previously.

Yet the graveyard's heart drew his gaze most intensely. A towering wooden stake rose like a pinnacle, piercing the sky and blight clouds above. Examining it closely, Jake shivered as he noted the stake covered entirely in engravings of faces, each displaying degrees of agony.

The scene grew more eerie when dark fluid began oozing from the eyes of those faces, trickling down the stake and drenching the soil, thus explaining the ground's wetness.

At last, Jake located his summoner within this domain. Casper knelt on the earth, hunched forward with numerous curse stakes embedded in his back, each throbbing with energy as they unleashed thick curse essence into the surroundings.

Jake prepared to speak when his scales stirred. Curse and blight energies began assailing his form passively, the domain rejecting him outright. This highlighted another quirk of domains and their not-always-beneficial nature... few could reliably distinguish allies from enemies, often lashing out at any intruder.

Luckily for Jake, he possessed a defense. Instead of repelling the harmful energies outright, he drew Eternal Hunger and allowed it to feed. The legendary weapon promptly absorbed the nearby curse energy, forming a protective bubble around Jake.

Not distant from him, the Aginian Crisis Protocol Golem positioned itself, apparently requiring time to adjust fully. Before it could recover, the surroundings turned hostile toward the construct.

Cursed spectral mist swirled around the boss, and from the soil, phantoms rose. Resembling wrathful spirits, they assaulted the B-grade at once, their strikes surprisingly physical as they raked the metallic foe. These apparitions bore forms akin to Lyra’s, but their facelessness amplified the horror.

Jake ceased passive observation then, seizing the moment to trigger Unseen Hunter and blend into the spectral fog, readying a solid strike while letting Casper demonstrate his domain's capabilities.

After gaining separation, Jake retrieved the Protean Arrow. Regrettably, he couldn't pair it with Eternal Hunger since he required the latter for domain protection, but he would adapt.

Setting it to the string, Jake initiated Arcane Powershot channeling and shifted his focus to the clash between Casper and the B-grade golem.

The dungeon boss responded swiftly to the onslaught, its frame erupting in lightning power that obliterated the attacking ghosts and scattered the invading ambient forces seeking to dismantle it. In this supercharged mode, its might surpassed its prior state, and it swiftly targeted Casper.

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Rushing at the Risen, Casper showed no response. He had no need to.

Double the previous number of ghosts burst from the earth, striking together and halting the golem's advance by offering their forms as shields. Even before they fully vanished, fresh ghosts materialized to sustain the barrage as the ambient energies surged back fiercer, their force amplified.

Lashing its blade frantically, the golem felled additional ghosts while replacements spawned endlessly, yet it advanced toward Casper with firm strides. In short order, it closed in and leaped, bringing its sword crashing down.

Worry flickered in Jake at the sight, but it vanished immediately. Casper made no attempt to defend as the blade struck his head, shattering it completely along with much of his frame. Yet instead of blood and tissue spraying, the golem merely dispersed more turquoise vapor.

Casper’s form started reassembling, revealing clearly that his body lacked solidity. The thunder-infused edge ought to have wounded him gravely, but the Risen appeared wholly unscathed.

At least initially, though Jake's extraordinary Perception allowed him to detect that the energy Casper drew to restore himself came from the air, subtly diminishing the domain's strength. Additionally, it hinted that each golem strike on Casper caused nearby wooden grave-markers to fracture, converting into potent curse energy to replenish the environment.

Phantoms persisted in harrying the golem, shredding it and piercing its innate lightning shield through sheer volume of assaults. The golem's exterior began showing rust-like corrosion, the harm particularly pronounced near where Jake had applied Touch of the Malefic Viper.

Simultaneously, the golem pressed its assault on Casper, dissipating his ghostly essence repeatedly as the Risen winced with each blow. He appeared to endure tremendous suffering, teeth clenched, yet he remained rooted, unmoving regardless of the chaos.

Doubt crept into Jake, but the Risen's resolve spurred him to keep building his Arcane Powershot. Time stretched endlessly, yet Jake sensed his form nearing exhaustion. He poured every bit of hunting impetus and remaining reserves into the arrow before loosing it.

Precision posed no issue, as Jake trusted the projectile would hit true, for even amid Casper’s domain activation, the golden light ring encircling the B-grade endured, designating it within Jake’s Event Horizon.

The golem made no move to counter, blinded to external threats by the swarm of Lyra-resembling ghosts tearing at it from every direction. Rather, the ghosts parted slightly for the arrow as it sped through their midst, embedding into the golem's rear.

Jake and Casper had battled the golem's barrier throughout much of the encounter, and its overcharge had intensified it further. Ghosts occasionally breached it, but inconsistently. Designed for isolated heavy blows, the barrier had thresholds, and Jake had just exposed one, likely aided by the Penetrating Arrow trait.

The arrow pierced the barrier cleanly, unleashing a thunderous discharge that annihilated nearby ghosts before burrowing into the golem's metallic core. With sections rusting and eroding, plus the impact opposite Jake's prior handprints, the golem's vaunted durability crumbled.

Chunks of metal hurled outward as Jake ripped away its left flank and half its torso, detaching an arm and flinging the golem aside. It tumbled over the terrain, smashing through multiple cursed grave-markers and heaving up a heap of soil before halting.

Its structure lay partially wrecked, innards exposed via the leftward gash, and though it gripped its sword, the B-grade wobbled, possibly from the sudden asymmetry. Moreover, its barrier stuttered on and off, emitting sporadic electric bursts.

Jake hastened to ready another bow draw to end the B-grade, but the contraption acted first. Lightning surged from its frame anew, propelling it directly at Casper once more, determined to drag him down in defeat.

At first, Jake nearly laughed at the sight, but realization dawned that this posed a genuine threat. As it advanced, Jake glimpsed its partially bared core, fractured and venting potent lightning essence.

Jake attempted a mental message to the prone Casper... but astonishingly, it failed. Perplexed, Jake puzzled over the anomaly, then understood why the "Casper" before him had felt off from the start.

His gaze shifted to the central stake in the domain, now fracturing everywhere. Curse and blight energies poured from the fissures, and at that instant, the kneeling Casper stirred.

Casper straightened and faced the oncoming golem. Reaching back with one hand, he extracted a wooden stake amid a grimace of agony. The golem arrived, slashing repeatedly and dispersing his form, but the Risen proceeded unperturbed with steady motions.

Gripping the stake two-handed, Casper aimed its point at his own torso. Eyes shut, he drove it into his chest, causing his spectral image to vanish.

Simultaneously, the enormous cursed stake detonated, unleashing a flood of curse energy. Every ounce of power in the domain converged swiftly, merging with the dark fumes from the shattered stake. In seconds, it coalesced.

A gigantic spectral blend of Casper and Lyra materialized, diving straight at the B-grade dungeon boss. The golem froze as its core blazed with intense radiance, deliberately pushing its core to catastrophic overload while that irritating feminine voice announced again.

“Self-destruct sequence initialized.”

Jake responded instantly, raising barriers and folding his wings protectively around himself, just as the specter engulfed the B-grade’s frame and it burst apart. A blast rippled over Jake, blending lightning with tainted blight. He was hurled backward, and with him, the surrounding reality unraveled.

Casper’s domain collapsed in tandem with the golem’s implosion, as the phantom and boss annihilated each other. The domain's interior merged with external reality, the soil reverting to tiled flooring, and the Grand Labyrinth's vast walls looming afar.

And then... silence reigned. Jake stood once more in the dungeon, the next noise being system notifications chiming.

Even after verifying the defeat, Jake stayed vigilant. His sphere revealed the golem's strewn metal shards, but also Casper, slumped kneeling on the floor with hands limp at his sides. Furthermore, a wooden stake pierced his chest, prompting Jake to hurry forward.

“Hey...” Jake uttered, laced with worry.

Casper's eyes drifted to Jake, managing only a blink, which conveyed plenty. In his condition, the Risen couldn't stir.

“Should I take out the stake?” Jake inquired.

Casper’s expression signaled refusal, so Jake nodded. “Alright... I’ll just stand guard then.”

In roughly an hour, he could administer a spirit potion to Casper, but little else aided him now. Yet as Jake thought of resting to recuperate, an awareness struck him.

Then Jake recalled... the goal wasn't merely slaying a boss but revealing the Grand Labyrinth's hidden intent. Suddenly, he sensed another presence faintly, and the mechanical female voice from the Crisis Protocol Golem activation echoed again, this time much clearer. Jake braced for combat, suspecting Minaga might unleash another stage.

The whole Labyrinth quaked, and above, a holographic head materialized, gazing down at them and intoning.

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consecrator adipiscing elit...”

All threat vanished instantly as Jake slapped his forehead and chuckled softly. Grin lingering, he observed the head fade, supplanted by the countenance of the well-known Unique Lifeform who designed the dungeon.

“Right... right, I should actually put something here to complete the dungeon in case those two actually get here and beat the boss, well, both bosses...” Minaga muttered, then brightened with insight. “Wait! That means I can do a full-on lore-dump and they can’t even escape! Oh, man, in case you two ever hear this, let me tell you, the story of this place is actually really great and partly based on a true story, so even if you don’t have a choice either way, you really wanna hear this! You see, this Labyrinth was made to... no, no, I’ll save that for last. Let’s first cover the early historic periods of the Aginian empire so you can truly appreciate how we got here!”

Jake’s amusement waned rapidly, sensing Casper would have ample recovery time before the dungeon concluded.