Chapter 1130 - Vault (Patreon)

Jake had not expected to see anything that wasn’t a hunter with a Blessing somewhere literally called the Hunting Grounds. In so many ways, it made little sense at all, as from Jake’s perspective, these monsters were all set up as potential targets for young talents of the Pantheon of Life to hunt. Giving something like that was a massive gamble at best and a total waste at worst.

Not to say a Lesser Blessing was a tremendous investment from a god, but it was an investment nevertheless. Moreover, based on how Jake couldn’t see the name of the god that had blessed the creature, it had to be one capable and willing to hide their true identity, all while also knowing about Jake and being able to put together that he was the one at the Hunting Grounds.

Is it a member of the Pantheon of Life? Some outsider? Why would they bless a Chimera here in the first place? Is the Chimera being blessed related to me somehow?

So many questions, several of which he doubted he would get any answer to as the Chimera spoke again.

“I know who you are, even if the others don’t. Contrary to all these monsters, all this prey, I’m here willingly. I have been offered the opportunity to leave already and integrate into the multiverse, but I chose to stay,” the Chimera said, its words clearly shocking the Sovereign, who spoke up.

“You’ve been granted passage?” the B-grade asked, as if nothing else the Chimera had said mattered. “And yet you still stay? Why?”

“That is none of your concern,” the Chimera answered dismissively, its gaze still scouring the skies, looking for Jake, who remained hidden. “But to the Chosen of the Malefic One, I shall answer. None of you has any idea what the multiverse is truly like. Here, in this Hunting Ground, we are rulers. Supreme beings. At times, prey, yes, but on the outside, we are always prey. We are at the bottom of the food chain, nothing but fodder for the true B-grades.”

At this point, Jake had begun to realize something as he decided to stop hiding. He slowly revealed himself as he stared down at the Chimera before speaking, infusing his voice with Willpower.

“You are fodder, yes... unless you have backing,” Jake said.

“Precisely,” the Chimera said, its monstrous head doing its best impression of a smile. “I have been granted an opportunity. A way to thrive once I leave this Hunting Ground. And it’s all because of you.”

“You’re welcome?” Jake said with a shrug. He already had a very good idea what this opportunity was all about.

“Welcome? Yes... Yes, I will be welcomed with open arms and a feast beyond my imagination!” the Chimera said, its voice echoing throughout the island. “All I need to do is one thing...”

“Kill me?” Jake asked, having already guessed his outcome a while ago.

“You already knew... and yet you’ve shown yourself in front of me. You remain still and do not run,” the Chimera said, its pulsating bark-covered fleshy bits seemingly growing larger than before. “I may be nothing but fodder in the multiverse, but here, on this planet, I am the predator, and you, still only a mere C-grade, the prey! Now come, be the fodder that shall nurture my future!”

The Chimera discarded any further intentions to converse as its mid-section entirely unraveled, revealing eight thick tendrils of flesh and bark, and at the same time, it shot towards Jake up in the sky... or at least it tried to.

Before it could get far up, a taloned foot struck it, and despite being blocked by two tendrils, the B-grade was sent flying to the side. Cracks formed on the bark covering these freaky tendrils, showing just how strong the B-grade Rainbowfeather truly was.

“The Forest Fae is preparing to strike. Watch out,” Jake warned the Sovereign as he also pulled out his bow.

“Fae!” the Chimera screamed on cue, and just then, a pillar of white light erupted from the jungle below, aimed straight at the Sovereign. With Jake’s warning, the bird dodged to the side in time and created a platform to leap off as the B-grade charged toward the ground where the Forest Fae stood, surrounded by magic circles that had been hidden only moments prior.

These magic circles all activated at once, unleashing a torrent of energy upon the charging Sovereign, who responded by summoning his sound shield in an attempt to block the blow. Several of the spells were successfully stopped, but a few still made it through, damaging the Sovereign, but not slowing him down at all.

The Forest Fae was forced to teleport away as she turned into a flash of leaves right as the Sovereign touched down, his foot making the ground quake and break apart as all the magic circles were destroyed, and deep fissures were formed for several kilometers in all directions from the impact.

Despite coming down with such force, the Sovereign used the momentum to give chase as the Forest Fae and Sovereign headed away from Jake and the Chimera, the sound of their fighting continuing as they clashed repeatedly.

“So, had you planned on teaming up with her to take me down?” Jake asked in a judgmental tone, the Sovereign having given Jake to taunt the B-grade and make it talk a bit longer.

“No... no, I merely used her for information on you. To know what kind of being you are. What you can do,” the Chimera said as it slinked through the air, its body continuing to twist and warp as the tendrils soon were fully unwound.

Jake saw each of them was at least a hundred and fifty meters long and filled with black bark that gave off an ominous feeling. These tendrils all grew out of a relatively thin stomach area that its legs were only loosely connected to by bone-thin limbs.

Mix of an alligator, dog, and octopus? Jake wondered. It definitely wasn’t those three exact animals, but just similar variants found throughout the multiverse.

These tendrils on the Chimera moved like feelers as they extended up towards Jake. “With the two distractions gone, show me what it means to be a so-called Chosen of the Malefic One!”

With swift movements, the Chimera shot towards Jake, running through the air on all fours, and during its run, Jake saw flesh and bark intermixing and covering its thin legs, turning them bulkier and stronger as the creature sped up.

Jake responded by launching himself skywards while shooting arrows down, but all of them were blocked as the tendrils merely swept them away. As he was shooting, Jake also considered the last words the B-grade had said.

It had called him “a Chosen of the Malefic Viper.”

Not the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. Almost as if it didn’t truly know what a Chosen was. The first time around, it had said it right, but this change-up sowed a seed of doubt in Jake’s mind that this Chimera hadn’t just been told this was Jake’s title by whoever anonymous god had blessed it.

Certainly a mystery, but not one Jake had the time to solve in that moment as the tendrils rapidly closed in on him. Two stabbed towards him, their tips sharpening like spears, while two others swept in from its side after having grown longer and thinner to function better as whips.

Jake was quick and stopped dodging backwards as he instead dove into the stabbing tendrils, getting him out of the way from the two whips as a katar appeared in each hand. Testing the durability of the tendrils, Jake stabbed into one as he dodged by it. He easily stabbed into the fleshy bits through the small gaps in the bark that had inadvertently been created to make the tendrils flexible.

However, right as he stabbed in, Jake had to rapidly retract his katar as the bark began growing to trap the weapon, and small vines even began reaching toward Jake’s arm as if trying to wrap him up.

A quick blast of destructive arcane mana allowed Jake to successfully disengage, but in the process, he couldn’t fully dodge an attack from behind as he was lashed across the back, but luckily, Jake’s armor held firm as he avoided getting a large laceration.

Jake didn’t even have time to consider his next move as all eight tendrils came for him from all sides, some stabbing, some sweeping, and some cracking like whips as they flew through the air.

His eyes were open wide and darted around as Jake avoided three dozen blows in the span of less than a second, finding every microscopic opening available to him before he finally got an opportunity to use One Step, taking him further into the sky and away from the constant assault.

It’s fast... extremely fast, Jake had already realized, and it had also quickly become clear he needed to make a choice. Either he needed to fight at range using his bow or in an extremely close melee situation. To be anywhere from ten to two hundred and fifty meters from the B-grade was a death zone, preventing any proper defense.

Jake’s first choice had thus been to try to get out of that range and use his bow. He continued to teleport upwards several more times, shooting downwards in between every teleport as he had his arrows curve and twist in the air in an attempt to hit the body of the Chimera, but despite his best efforts, every attack was blocked by the vines.

Switching things up, Jake stopped trying to destroy the body and went straight for the vines instead. A barrage of explosive arcane arrows collided with two vines, blanketing the sky in arcane destruction... at least for a brief moment.

In the very next second, the explosions imploded as the two vines glowed with dark energy, absorbing and nullifying all of Jake’s mana in the process. Right as he prepared to follow up, one of the vines whipped toward Jake, unleashing a large black crescent wave of energy towards him, forcing Jake to abandon his attack and dodge out of the way.

For a second, Jake wondered if the Chimera had somehow absorbed and thrown back Jake’s own arcane energy, but he quickly saw that wasn’t the case. The mana the B-grade had summoned to counter Jake’s attack just had to go somewhere, and rather than let it fade away, the monster had simply thrown it towards him in a relatively haphazard attack.

The Chimera tried a few more ranged attacks as it chased Jake, but he easily avoided all of them. The problem was that his own attacks didn’t have much effect in return, the B-grade turning out to be quite durable. Another problem was that Jake had already activated his boosting skill at the stable 30% just to keep up a little while the Chimera hadn’t used any as far as Jake could tell.

Far in the distance, Jake continued to see the occasional sign of the Sovereign and Forest Fae battling, which made Jake feel as if he was on a bit of a timer. Not because he believed the Rainbowfeather bird would lose, but because Jake didn’t want the B-grade to return victorious while Jake had barely made any progress.

Jake, having tried to attack in a few different ways, finally decided to just go with the most straightforward one he knew. One that always seemed to get the job done. While keeping his distance, Jake kept shooting singular stable arcane arrows covered in poison toward the Chimera, making them bend and even slow down and speed up at times, turning them unpredictable. He missed a few, but most arrows struck the small gap between the bark and penetrated into the flesh, where they unleashed their toxic payload.

Slow and steady wins the race, Jake told himself as he waited for the Chimera to finally do something new as it chased him across the sky. By now, they had already moved far away from where they had originally met and were taking quite a tour around the island.

Realizing this wasn’t an advantageous status quo, the Chimera finally changed things up. Dark mana began seeping out of the B-grade, surrounding its body with a faint fog Jake couldn’t see through, even with his extremely high Perception. This fog also began to surround all the tendrils, and just as Jake considered what the point of this even was, the entire monster disappeared.

Jake’s eyes opened wide as his danger sense screamed at him right before the large B-grade appeared right behind him, its eight tendrils instantly lashing out. Going on full defense, Jake took out both katars and summoned several barriers of arcane mana to buy him a bit of time as he dodged out of the way from the initial assault of strikes.

Despite his best efforts, Jake still took a few scratches here and there, but he managed to close the distance. Rather than try to run away again, Jake estimated it would be smarter to draw closer and make it more awkward for the Chimera to attack using its long tendrils, and from the looks of it, Jake’s plan had been a good one, as the rate of attacks reduced.

Soon, he was face to face with the large monster, as its head, the same size as his entire body, stared down at him. The alligator-like head snapped down, trying to eat Jake in a single chomp, but Jake dodged out of the way and tried to stab the monster in the eye. Most creatures tended to defend their eyes, but to Jake’s surprise, his katar easily found purchase as he split the eyeball of the B-grade in two... only for the entire eye socket to start morphing as it grew teeth of wood and tried to bite off Jake’s hand.

Jake had to let go of his weapon and retreat, and luckily he had attacked with Eternal Hunger, that despite the B-grade trying to steal his weapon away, Jake easily recalled it as he backed a bit away.

The Chimera didn’t let up, though, as it tried to bite him again while manipulating its tendrils to strike him from behind. Jake kept making it hard for the B-grade to hit him as he moved so that any attempt to strike him with tendrils would result in the Chimera hitting itself instead, meaning Jake only had to deal with the head trying to eat him over and over again.

He managed to land a few solid hits before the Chimera once more changed the status quo. With a loud roar, a blast of black smoke was released, enveloping Jake and everything else. Inside this dark cloud, Jake could barely see his own hand, but what was more important was the constant drain he felt on his body, forcing him to activate Scales to fight it off.

With Scales active, Jake could mostly shake off the energy-draining effect as he kept striking with his katars in rapid succession, the Chimera’s attempt to force Jake away unsuccessful. It was a good strategy by the Chimera. Make a cloud in extremely close melee that drains resources and blinds opponents, forcing them out of it and into the optimal range of the tendrils again. Sadly for the B-grade, Jake was quite suited to face this kind of attack, as the blindness had no effect, and the energy drain was dealt with effortlessly through Scales.

What’s more, the Chimera definitely wasn’t used to fighting like this. Its attempts to bite and use its feet and body to attack were clumsy at best, giving Jake plenty of opportunities as he kept stabbing and cutting away at the far larger monster. He even got the chance to strike its stomach region where the tendrils originated from, and there, he found quite the tender flesh that he gladly ravaged.

It also kept trying to strike with its tendrils, and while they were annoying to avoid, the large size of the Chimera worked against it as Jake simply moved around its body, going above and below it, using the monster’s own body as cover against the tendrils.

Jake continued striking for a few more seconds before the monster made its next move. Having realized the black cloud wasn’t getting the job done, the Chimera chose to retreat as its body was once more enveloped in energy as the B-grade practically teleported backwards... no... it didn’t teleport.

Before, when the Chimera had moved, Jake had already felt the familiar energy, and now that he felt it again, he was certain. The Chimera indeed hadn’t teleported.

It had Shadow Vaulted.

Which could only mean one thing...

The Court of Shadows?