The Primal Hunter Volume 5

Choice 2

A berserker-like effect. The more damage it took, the faster and stronger it got, but at the same time, its regeneration also sped up. This meant one had to not only outpace the regeneration that scaled with the hydra’s damage, but also keep up this high damage output while the hydra got stronger and faster. It was indeed true that the beast had few abilities, but those it had all seemed to synergize and turn baby Snappy into a true terror.

The beast and human soon fell into a status quo of exchanging blows. Jake focused on what he had come there for as he finally felt himself being pushed, the occasional stunning roar and absorption blast putting him on the back foot at times. He knew that a single slip-up would result in him losing a limb to the maw of the hydra, making it all the more exciting. Jake also bit onto the fact that even if the beast had increased regeneration as it got hurt, he was also gaining momentum himself.

Moreover, he had a few other tricks up his sleeve for when the time came.

For now, however, he would simply indulge himself in the dance of death with his opponent, as the ball that would begin the next phase was firmly in sim-Jake’s court.

Inside Jake’s Soulspace, sim-Jake stood in front of the massive curse beast with one hand on its head. He had his eyes closed, as he also felt the battle outside and experienced everything like he was Jake himself. Because he partly was.

The hydra was powerful but simplistic. The winner was clear, especially if Jake decided to go all-out and not limit himself as he currently did. That would ruin the entire purpose of this exercise, though. Sim-Jake felt the rush of adrenaline as it ran through Jake’s body outside. As he stood there, he carefully observed how Jake fought and what decisions he made.

Dodging was pure instinct, with few decisions involved in it, but countering had many. In most instances of a fight, there were several choices that could be made when responding to something. Dodge, block, counter. Even while dodging, he had a few decisions to make—the standards were to either sidestep, reposition, and disengage, or close the distance to set up something in the future.

Blocking was more limited and only done when dodging was not an option, or to potentially deflect and counter. However, by then, it might as well just be considered a full-on counter. Every counter had a myriad of methods behind them, too, though often only a few would be optimal. Adding in a bow had significantly expanded the scope of possibilities, though.

The more time passed with sim-Jake looking, the more sure he became of the Path he wanted to take. He wanted to fight. That had always been who he was. It was all he’d ever had. It was all he’d ever felt like he was good at. While he had lost all memories of who he truly was, the emotions remained… No, they had gotten stronger. Likely an aftereffect of attuning himself to a curse.

Sim-Jake had genuinely hated the world before the system. He knew that. After his parents died, he’d never really had any reason to not act out his inherent impulses, even if it was a world that had developed to not accept them. The world had not been made for the Primal Hunter. At least, not back then.

The regular Jake had also had some hate while growing up. Had the same instinct and impulses, such as those to hunt and dominate. It still sometimes came through, but for the most part, he suppressed himself. He had chosen to bury it… and bury it deep.

Jake’s Bloodline had awakened during the tutorial, but it was never the system that had put it to sleep. It was Jake himself who had managed to make his own Bloodline dormant. To try and soothe his family. To try and fit in and be a normal human. Naturally, he could never truly suppress who he was, and what little of the Bloodline remained only made Jake know how much he’d missed. How hollow the world was.

He had been a shell of himself. Sim-Jake’s best way of describing Jake before the system was… depressed. Jake was walking the line between staying alive, because surviving was so inherent to him, and not seeing the point of life when it was so boring and mundane. Every action he’d taken back then was so empty.

In some ways, sim-Jake understood why he’d never formed any good relations with others beyond his family. His family members were the only ones he’d ever felt a connection to.

If sim-Jake had indulged his Bloodline and tried to find a purpose in life, Jake had suppressed his desire to ever find meaning and just tried to ride out the mundanity of the pre-system world. In some ways, they had both just waited for the system. Waited for them to finally enter a world where they could thrive. Who could blame Jake for losing himself after finally letting go and awakening his Bloodline after decades?

The sheer euphoria Jake had felt back then echoed into sim-Jake even now. Decades of pent-up instinct and desire had come rushing through his body at once, with ample targets to take it out on. The person Jake had been shortly after awakening his Bloodline was the closest he had ever been to sim-Jake since the day their Paths split when they were children. When they had made different choices…

"It’s funny," sim-Jake said, smirking as he looked through the real Jake’s eyes while talking to the cursed beast. "A single choice can mean so much. That single choice meant that I became me, and he became him. One single choice where we reacted differently to our shared instinct…" Shaking his head, sim-Jake stared at the cursed beast. "I believe it is time. A final fight, if you may."

Sim-Jake let go of the beast as he sent a pulse into it. The beast opened its eyes wide and roared, making the entire Soulspace shake. He simply smiled as the beast attacked, and they fought. A brutal brawl where he didn’t even use any weapons. A final moment of pure indulgence.

The two of them clashed for several minutes before sim-Jake was sent sliding back. A massive maw came towards him as the cursed beast attempted to eat him. Sim-Jake simply smiled. This had always been the plan. To become one with the beast through the one thing it did: consumption.

The giant maw descended upon sim-Jake, consuming him. The energies of the beast began eroding him as he connected with the Records he had stored there. This was what most of their time had been spent on: assuring this would succeed. The two would become one, whether Eternal Hunger liked it or not. At any moment, he could still escape from within the beast. At any moment, he could suppress it. He could stop this entire process. But he didn’t. He let it consume him because that was what he had chosen to do.

He had chosen how he lived, and now he had his final Path.

Because in the end, sim-Jake was nothing but the outcome of a choice. Such was his Origin, and so he would remain.

Just another choice, a shadow of what could have been.

OceanofPDF.com