Chapter 1422 - The Hunter, the Swordsman, & the Monk (8) (Patreon)

Looking up at the monk, Jake gritted his teeth as he realized he’d underestimated his opponent significantly. Still, there was no choice but to fight, and while the Eastbound Monk had certainly grown far more powerful, he was still incredibly injured, which should give Jake a solid fighting chance.

Alas, things weren’t going to go that smoothly, as the situation was in a state of rapid change, and not to Jake’s favor.

Jake was solidly on the back foot as the monk continued to get faster and stronger, but making matters worse, the monk was getting stronger in other ways. At first, he was like a raging bull, just charging and trying to smash Jake with predictable movements, but over time, he started getting more diverse. His strikes became more elaborate, technique started to sneak its way in, and all the usual traits of a berserker faded away, with only the power from such a Path remaining.

Even so, Jake wasn’t the kind to give up, and if the monk was getting stronger, it was better to capitalize now rather than later. Despite the danger, Jake met the charge of the monk while holding nothing back.

Right before they clashed, a second version of Jake erupted from his back and flew into the sky while Jake unleashed a Rupturing Fang straight for the monk’s neck. In response, the monk raised a hand and blocked it, absorbing the blow and reversing it straight back into Jake, blowing a hole through his chest.

However, rather than send blood and guts flying, only pure curse energy was scattered as an Arcane Powershot blasted down. The monk naturally tried to dodge, but a Primal Gaze froze him right before an arcane explosion sent him flying towards the ground with a new hole in his body.

Taking advantage, Jake kept flying into the sky while shooting down arrows, intent on creating distance between himself and his foe. He was at a massive disadvantage in a melee bout, but things were very different in a ranged battle.

Arrows filled the sky as Jake forcibly activated Timeless Focus’ Rapid Fire function yet again, feeling the strain from having done so. His body was already in a pretty bad state, and his Arcane Awakening was not making things better, but it wasn’t as if deactivating it was an option.

Reacting to the attack, the monk mobilized the energy of bloodlust around him and did something Jake didn’t even know was possible. Pulled it into his body before expelling it in the form of a massive palm that destroyed all the arrows in flight before continuing up towards Jake, who had to dodge out of the way.

Below, the monk seemed momentarily weakened from such a move, making Jake quickly continue shooting again, only for the monk to smile and twist his hand as the massive palm of red energy exploded in the sky.

Jake felt the energy rush over him, and yet again a powerful sense of bloodlust flooded his mind, threatening to wrest away any rational thought. While Jake did manage to resist it, the potency was strong enough to still disturb his thoughts and make his mana momentarily go out of control, and his attack stop.

Not missing his chance, the monk stepped down and teleported up towards Jake before he could fully stabilize, and in mere moments, the hunter was forced back into a melee brawl he would very much like to avoid once again. He defended as best he could, but the monk managed to land several strafing blows, each containing more of that bloodlust energy that sought to corrupt any living thing it came into contact with. Any regular early-tier B-grade would have found itself turned into a mindless killing machine if exposed to even a smidgen of the energy. The monk’s current state was truly worthy of being called comparable to a living calamity.

Feeling this intense emotional energy and feeling a little desperate, Jake did something potentially underhanded. It was a function of Pride that Jake rarely used, but this time around, Jake believed it would be effective.

He’d seen the memories of the monk and the past that haunted him, something he chose to weaponize as he attacked with Pride, focusing on all those emotions the monk had felt in the early days of his Tutorial. He even sought to channel the anger and bloodlust, hoping it would make the monk at least a little more mindless. Again, while the passive berserker-like skills had made the monk far more powerful, if those same boosting skills also came with the usual drawback of turning him predictable, the fight would still be manageable.

Jake’s mental attack struck the monk, and momentarily, the man frowned, and his movement was delayed by a fraction of a second, allowing Jake to land a stab. Launching more mental attacks, Jake hoped to blast his opponent away, but unfortunately for him, all subsequent attempts did nothing more than provoke a response as the monk spoke.

“I’m inclined to thank you for making me experience those painful times more intensely. I deserve any shame, guilt, and all other negative emotions for what I did in the past. I changed my Path and became a new person, but that doesn’t change what happened, and the weight of the innocent lives I took is something I’ll bear forever,” the Eastbound Monk said, his words really contrasting with the berserk energy of bloodlust involved with every one of his movements.

“How holier-than-thou of you,” Jake responded sharply while barely managing to avoid getting hit, partly due to the monk not being as aggressive as he could be. Likely because he wanted to talk.

“It is presumptuous of me, I know, but what other choice do I have? End my own life in remorse? That would not help anyone,” the monk said, forcing Jake back further. “No, instead, I seek to make the world a better place and save as many lives as I can... though I would like to clarify one thing.”

The monk exploded with bloodlust energy that enveloped his body and took physical form as it flooded over Jake and blasted him down toward the ground in the form of a massive palm. Jake barely managed to push himself away from the palm before being smacked into the ground below as the monk continued.

“I do not seek to live a life of pacifism out of any ideology valuing life. I merely hope that unnecessary bloodshed can be avoided, while knowing sometimes it’s needed. Hence, I choose very carefully when I must end a life. Only then do I believe that I can avoid once more becoming what I once was,” the monk said as the energy surrounding him intensified further. “That’s also why I hoped not to do this. I hate this state. I hate this Path. But more than anything...”

A bloodlust more intense than anything Jake had felt before enveloped the monk as he grinned. “I hate how much I enjoy it.”

Jake’s danger sense exploded as the other man was in front of him in an instant. The bloodlust washed over his body and muddled his mind for a moment as he wanted to just mindlessly attack his opponent, but Jake’s instincts fortunately won out and made him dodge instead. The problem was that while he dodged a few hits, the monk’s seemingly ever-increasing power made him too much for Jake to handle.

He was blasted back with four cuts on his shoulder from the monk who’d stopped making fists and palms, but instead had his hands formed like claws as the intense red energy lingered on them. Jake barely had time to notice this before the monk was on him again, ripping and tearing at his body, more reminiscent of a beast than a human at most times, though whenever Jake thought he had an opportunity to counterattack, he quickly learned that wasn’t an option as it only ever resulted in his injuries worsening.

Despite the toll of doing so, Jake forced himself to use Eternal Shadow one more time while also unleashing an explosion of dark mana to try to create some distance. His shadow fled while Jake bought time, but before it could even make it a dozen meters away, and despite its attempts to dodge, a hand of pure red energy flew out from the mass of black smoke and crushed the shadow while the monk himself entirely ignored the dark mana and continued charging at Jake.

Pride attacks proved utterly useless; Primal Gaze made blood drip down Jake’s cheeks as it did little more than buy him a moment of reprieve, and no matter what he tried to pull out or strategy Jake tried to deploy, the situation only worsened with every passing moment.

Even now, the monk kept growing stronger from his berserker skill. To Jake, it felt as if the monk was on the brink of death, which he technically was. While Jake was beaten, the monk still outwardly looked to be in a worse state, and the poison still ravaged his body, but it failed to put him down. The constant healing kept the monk in a state that seemed to hover between life and death, ultimately resulting in his berserker skill being active at absolutely full throttle.

It was a downright cheat that Jake had no counter to, as the stat disparity between the two was simply too large. Something like Big Game Hunter also didn’t play any role of significance, as the level difference wasn’t worth mentioning, while all the monk’s skills were working far above usual efficiency.

Jake’s only remaining hope was that the monk would run out of energy. He had to run out at some point, but as the exchanges grew more brutal and Jake’s body deteriorated, that seemed less and less likely. He still tried, but the result seemed inevitable at that point.

Pushed back too many times and too weak to properly put up his defenses, Jake was forced back, and when he failed to properly block, a hand in the shape of a claw penetrated into his already mangled shoulder as the monk wrapped his fingers around Jake’s collarbone.

With his other hand, he swung for Jake’s head; the claw enveloped in the most intense bloodlust energy yet, and Jake could only watch it approach with listless eyes. As it did, time slowed down from Moment of the Primal Hunter activating, making it clear that this attack would prove fatal.

Finally, Jake had a moment of reprieve as time entirely stopped, only set to move once more when he decided to. Jake looked at the hand, tired in both body and mind, with his mental energy exhausted from having to deal with the constant bloodlust energy. He looked listlessly at the monk’s hand and stared at his opponent. He looked at the eyes of the monk, and when he did, he faintly felt as if he saw something within them.

 A faint outline of the Wheel of Samsara.

Yeah... that thing.

Jake still had no idea where that wheel had come from or how it was connected to the First Sage, but it was clearly a Transcendent Artifact, as the monk had said. Admittedly, he didn’t know much about Transcendent Artifacts, but the more he thought about it, using such a thing couldn’t come cheap.

All Transcendent Skills came with a high cost, with the price getting higher the more powerful it was. To effectively change one’s Path and skills while seemingly still retaining many other skills was both incredibly complex and powerful, so wouldn’t the monk have to pay a massive price to accomplish it?

He had effectively used a Transcendent Skill... gone beyond the power he should be able to display. The monk had gone all-out, holding nothing back to win this fight, and as Jake stood there, time frozen with only his thoughts running, he made his decision.

Instinctively, he knew this was all a virtual world. His life wasn’t truly in danger, but that didn’t mean he was interested in dying, and while his survival instincts were suppressed by the lack of true danger, that didn’t mean Jake couldn’t pull on them.

Closing his eyes, Jake sought deep within as he breathed in; the action slowly starting to make time resume. A hot feeling started welling up within Jake’s chest as he brought forth something that hadn’t been awakened since Nevermore and the last time Jake had an attack descend towards him that would result in certain death.

His heart started beating faster and louder until, finally, Jake opened his eyes as it reverberated, seemingly, throughout the entire simulated world.

Thump!

An extreme sense of calm flooded Jake’s body, and all the remnants of bloodlust were entirely gone as if none of that had ever mattered. He also knew that unlike last time, this wasn’t quite a full activation. He was holding back, as even if Jake forced his Bloodline to fully awaken, he couldn’t wake up certain parts that simply weren’t stimulated enough by a virtual world. Still, it would have to do.

 With his eyes open, he saw the clawed hand of the monk mere centimeters away from penetrating his skull right as time fully resumed.

He observed it for a brief moment before tilting his head to the side and dodging out of the way as the other man flew past him, a look of confusion on his face. Jake didn’t even turn to look at him as he instead gazed towards the sky.

I see.

Raising his hand, Jake reached toward the countless white lines that filled the world, all now fully visible to him. Seeing them like this again also made him realize something else. Why hadn’t he sought to properly investigate them before? This wasn’t his first time seeing them, yet this was the first time he actively sought to explore their meaning.

“Meant to be forgotten,” Jake muttered, knowing that while they weren’t quite Forbidden Knowledge, he had somehow forgotten they existed and how to see them every time they disappeared. When he then saw them again, he remembered the last time, but the thought of actively seeking them out simply couldn’t occur.

“How peculiar,” Jake continued to mutter as the monk had stopped behind him and was staring.

“What did you do?” the monk asked in utter confusion.

Jake tilted his head and smiled while turning around, remembering how the monk still hadn’t been willing to tell him about the wheel. “I don’t think I’ll tell. We’re in a rush, after all.”

The monk continued to look perplexed, but Jake’s words also rang true. Just as Jake was on a timer, so was the monk, and while he clearly didn’t fully comprehend the situation, he still took decisive action.

Exploding with bloodlust energy, the monk sought to continue his assault while Jake looked on, finding his movements slower than before. He dodged all the blows of the monk, not seeing the need to counter as he simply looked on curiously while taking in the bloodlust. It sought to stimulate him, and while it couldn’t, that didn’t mean Jake couldn’t let it.

Rather than resist, Jake stood still as a clawed hand penetrated his stomach, and he allowed the bloodlust to flood into his body, out of curiosity more than anything. Once more, the monk was utterly confused as Jake just grinned and grasped the monk’s forearm.

“You said you enjoyed this sensation?” Jake asked as bloodlust flooded his mind, his instincts stimulating him to hunt the prey in front of him. “I totally get it.”

The monk quickly retreated, but not without getting his entire right arm shredded by Jake’s nails as the monk stumbled back, barely capable of reacting as Jake allowed his conscious mind to slowly fade away and his instincts fully take over, showing the monk how a true beast in human form was meant to fight.