The Primal Hunter Chapter 1234 - Dragon Hunter (3)

Jake wasn’t particularly well-versed in fighting healers. In his experience, they were usually members of a larger squad and far weaker than him individually, which allowed Jake to prioritize and eliminate them swiftly before finishing off their teammates.

Reflecting on his past, the only time Jake had truly engaged a healer in one-on-one combat was his encounter with Eron during the Treasure Hunt. However, since Eron was essentially a walking cheat code who couldn't be killed—forcing Jake to seal him instead—that experience wasn't exactly a reliable blueprint for this fight.

Furthermore, Jake didn't view Yrelstromoz as a dedicated specialist in the healing arts. She was a Lumenflight dragon who possessed some light-based restoration magic, but he didn't sense that it was her primary path. True Dragons of the Lumenflight rarely committed themselves to being pure healers, as that role thrived in group settings, and True Dragons were notoriously arrogant and self-reliant. Considering Yrelstromoz’s temperament, Jake couldn't imagine her selflessly mastering the art of mending others.

Instead, Jake suspected her restorative spells were mainly for self-preservation and likely lacked efficiency. More importantly, now that she had revealed her True Dragon form, Jake could feel the dormant Dragonsbane Poison finally beginning to take hold. It hadn't fully triggered yet due to low concentration, but once he stacked enough of it, any magic she used—including healing—would turn against her.

“It does make sense, I guess,” Yrelstromoz remarked. Jake could still feel the remnants of her healing magic closing the wounds she had sustained while in her humanoid shape. Wounds didn't translate perfectly between forms, and the damage she had taken previously seemed far less significant now that she had shifted into her massive true self.

“What other peak C-grade could force a True Dragon to abandon their Polymorph besides a Chosen recognized as one of the greatest prodigies in the history of the multiverse?” she added. Jake wasn't entirely sure if her words were meant to flatter him or bolster her own ego.

He saw no reason to correct her assumption regarding his level, even though he hadn't quite reached the peak of C-grade yet.

“Even so, you are still just a C-grade. No matter your strength, your grade is a ceiling. You might slaughter weak B-grades easily, but do you honestly think I couldn't do the same when I was your rank? I can only assume the Malefic One wants to teach you a lesson about the true power of Dragons, and I am not one to refuse such a request.”

Yrelstromoz’s pride had clearly amplified after her transformation, but Jake found it less grating now because she finally possessed the aura to justify it. It was still a level of hubris he intended to exploit, though he recognized the battle would no longer be one-sided.

“Then by all means, show me my mistakes… or become the prey that earns me the title of dragonslayer,” Jake retorted, his voice vibrating with Willpower as he countered her arrogance with his own.

With those words, the second phase of the conflict erupted. Suddenly, the sky was crowded with golden spheres of light. Jake leaped back, arcane energy surging through his frame as he readied his bow.

Over a hundred glowing beams converged on him simultaneously. Jake responded by manifesting his Wings of the Malefic Viper, using them to shield himself and maneuver through the air while he took a moment to charge a powerful shot.

Seeing her initial volley fail, Yrelstromoz escalated the pressure. The ivory horns on her head began to shimmer as her mana spiked, manifesting a magic circle in the clouds the size of a small town.

The circle pulsed, releasing a physical shockwave of light. Jake was forced to fire his Arcane Powershot early to deal with the incoming pressure. He raised both hands, conjuring an arcane shield above him to absorb the impact.

The shield shattered instantly, but it absorbed the brunt of the force. Even so, the sheer weight of the massive spell sent Jake plummeting toward the ground. Around him, the shockwave continued its descent, slamming into the earth and leveling the terrain of the crater.

The shockwave was only negated in two spots: where Jake stood and where his arrow was currently flying. The arrow, wreathed in destructive arcane energy and infused with the concepts of Penetrating Arrow and Unblemished Arrows, pierced through the shockwave and continued toward its target nearly undeterred.

Jake worried the attack might be intercepted or fail to leave a mark, but he had underestimated his own lethality. Yrelstromoz seemingly believed her massive spell would neutralize the projectile. When it didn't, her rushed barrier proved useless as the Arcane Powershot tore through it and slammed into her flank.

The surge of satisfaction Jake felt seeing the massive dragon tossed aside by the impact was immense. It only intensified when he sensed a potent dose of Dragonsbane Poison entering her system through the fresh wound.

However, as the dust settled, Jake saw that while the impact had been dramatic—sliding her several kilometers across the earth—the actual physical damage was minor. The arrow had pierced her scales, but her incredible innate magic resistance had neutralized the following arcane explosion.

Before Jake could fire again, the floating light orbs resumed their assault. He was bombarded by searing rays. Individually, they were manageable, but Jake realized that if multiple beams hit the same spot, the damage scaled exponentially. He sensed powerful concepts at work that defied simple logic.

This forced Jake to prioritize evasion over blocking. He had learned this lesson the hard way when one of his wings was shredded and he nearly lost an ear trying to tank a concentrated burst.

Keeping his momentum, Jake fired quick shots while weaving through the beams. He took comfort in the fact that Yrelstromoz was consuming mana at an incredible rate. Although he was using Arcane Awakening at full tilt—putting him on a clock—he felt the dragon had been doing the same since he forced her to trigger her life-saving ability at the start.

The previous Arcane Powershot had clearly rattled Yrelstromoz. She began pouring significant energy into intercepting his arrows, which gave Jake the opening to fire even more. To her frustration, Jake’s arrows were incredibly fast and he frequently curved them mid-flight. Given her thirty-meter-long dragon body, she wasn't exactly an easy target to miss.

Jake noted that his standard arrows could just barely crack her scales if she didn't actively defend. He didn't even bother with the destructive variant, and after a Splitting Arrow was easily deflected by her hide, he realized he needed to focus on quality over quantity.

While these individual arrows didn't do massive damage, each one delivered more Dragonsbane Poison. Yrelstromoz didn't seem to notice the accumulation; because the wounds were so small, she chose to simply heal through them rather than block every shot.

Jake worried she might find it suspicious that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper wasn't using poison, so he occasionally fired arrows coated in standard toxins. This proved to be a smart move, as she would immediately cleanse the obvious poison, allowing the Dragonsbane to remain hidden beneath her magical radar.

Jake’s plan was to keep stacking poison and building Hunting Momentum, but Yrelstromoz had no intention of letting him dictate the pace.

Realizing that taking constant hits without landing a counter was a losing strategy, the dragon shifted from a defensive posture to a hyper-aggressive one.

Just as Jake teleported and prepared another shot, the dragon vanished, transforming into a streak of light. Using his Hunter’s Mark and sphere, he tracked her easily as she charged straight for him.

Beating his wings, Jake retreated while filling the air with a poisonous mist. Just before she reached him, he loosed his arrow and swapped to his katars.

Yrelstromoz regained her physical form and was immediately struck by a point-blank arrow that sank deeper than the previous ones. She didn't even flinch, swinging a massive claw down at him.

Jake tried to pull back, but the claw suddenly accelerated, catching him off guard. Thanks to his danger sense, he narrowly avoided a direct hit, but he was left off-balance for her next move.

Forced into a defensive position, Jake was struck in the side by the dragon's claw. He threw a wing up at the last second, but it was shredded instantly. The talons slammed into his katars, sending Jake hurtling away in a painful explosion of light.

Yrelstromoz gave him no room to breathe. She spun mid-air, her tail—now composed of pure light—sweeping toward him. He managed to fire a burst of arcane magic to propel himself downward, narrowly avoiding the tail, only for a magic circle to manifest directly beneath him.

A pillar of physical light slammed into Jake, sending him into an uncontrolled spin. Yrelstromoz closed the distance instantly, bringing another claw down, but the seemingly disoriented Jake used his momentum to drive a katar into her descending palm.

The impact would have shattered his bones if not for his Fangs of Man upgrade, which made his forearms incredibly durable. He endured the recoil as a shockwave of light and arcane energy forced the two combatants apart.

Yrelstromoz paused to mend her punctured claw, giving Jake the chance to draw his bow again. He desperately wanted to return to a long-range engagement.

Even though the Lumenflight were magic-centric dragons, they were still dragons. Every True Dragon was a top-tier physical threat due to their overwhelming mana. While the Wildflight took this to the extreme, all dragons had bodies saturated with high-level energy, granting them a permanent passive boost to all physical attributes.

The one he was fighting was no exception, a fact Jake had already verified with his Sense of the Malefic Viper. Her flesh was so dense that even when his arrows bypassed her scales, they struggled to penetrate deeply.

Jake wasn't insecure about his melee skills; he simply knew that a ranged fight favored him, even if Yrelstromoz also preferred magic. Her reliance on spells meant she would exhaust her mana faster, which played into his hands.

He nocked an arrow just as Yrelstromoz finished healing. Seeing his aim, she turned back into a beam of light to dodge. Jake waited patiently, charging his Arcane Powershot and only releasing it the moment she materialized, catching her completely off guard.

The bolt hit her square in the chest, the impact staggering her and allowing Jake to land three more arrows before she could recover.

Spreading her wings, they began to glow with golden radiance and expand. They grew from dozens of meters to hundreds, then thousands, until they blotted out Jake’s entire field of vision.

Jake kept firing, but a constant flow of magic around her deflected his shots. His danger sense was screaming, so he didn't dare commit to a larger move.

It was the right call. A moment later, Yrelstromoz folded her massive wings inward. A colossal wave of light washed over Jake, hitting him with immense physical force. He knew this was just the beginning. As he was blown backward, guarding with his katars, the wings pulsed again and exploded into tens of thousands of small light beams. They swirled and curved in the air before locking onto a single target:

Jake.

He immediately recognized they shared the same concept as the previous orbs. Individually weak, but lethal in mass quantities.

With no time to maneuver, Jake triggered Pride of the Malefic Viper, seizing control of the space around him. Hundreds of arcane spheres manifested and detonated instantly, flooding the area with volatile mana.

Jake darted out of the smoke, drawing the attention of the light beams. He dodged hundreds, but the sheer volume was too much. Eventually, the beams found their mark… only for his body to dissolve into black curse energy.

Yrelstromoz was visibly stunned, unable to grasp what had happened. With their target gone, the beams shot harmlessly into the sky and dissipated before she could find him. she emitted a pulse of light to scan the area, but it was too late.

From within the lingering cloud of arcane mana, an Arcane Powershot screamed toward her. Yrelstromoz was shocked; not only had she failed to detect him hiding in the explosion, but the power of the strike was immense. Jake’s brief concealment had allowed his Stealth Attack to trigger once more.

The dragon was thrown back, a massive new wound opening on her body. Jake had been forced to use Eternal Shadow—a high-cooldown trump card—but as she began to heal, he felt the shift.

A grin spread across his face. Yrelstromoz’s eyes widened as her restoration magic failed to function correctly. Through his Sense of the Malefic Viper, Jake felt the truth. The mana within the dragon had been thoroughly compromised. The toxins had reached critical mass. In other words…

The Dragonsbane Poison had finally awakened.