The Primal Hunter

Two beings appeared in the living room the six gods were sitting and relaxing in, the atmosphere instantly changing with their entrance. Unsurprising, considering both of them were Primordials that one rarely saw in a room together.

“What a joyous occasion. When was it we gathered like this?” the winged woman asked with a smile on her lips as she regarded all her fellow gods.

“Your rhetorical pleasantries are as nauseating as ever,” a ghostly pale elven man responded. “What are the chances of you deciding to visit Nevermore at the exact same moment I did?”

“Considerably high, considering I decided to arrive here today due to finding out you were going,” the winged god chuckled as she turned to the dragonkin in the room. “It is good to see you again, old friend. Thanks for allowing my entrance and bending your rules.”

Waving his hand, the Wyrmgod dismissed the Holy Mother. “I would be accused of choosing sides if I only allowed one of you in, which is why I waited to bring you both together.”

Inmortau, the Blightfather, sighed at this statement as he turned to the Viper and Valdemar. “Skipping the pleasantries, I wonder why the two of you are here together. Were you not supposed to be in an open conflict right now?”

“Is that how you’re gonna greet an old friend?” Vilastromoz smiled at the first Risen.

“Please, I know it has been a while, but don’t tell me you have lost your curt attitude.” the Blightfather said, shaking his head.

“Oh, I’ve totally turned into a softie,” the Viper shrugged. “And yeah, me and Valdemar are in a huge conflict for sure. I even think he wants to fight me or something.”

“A fight you will give me,” Valdemar huffed as he looked at one of the livestreams displayed in the room, not overly interested in the ongoing conversation.

“In due time, in due time,” the Viper waved him off as he returned his attention to the Blightfather. “Also, should you really be spreading miasma when you yourself live in a garden? Last time I checked, the Risen are still at war with the Holy Church with more ongoing battlefields than I bother to figure out the exact number of.”

“Bah, an endless conflict by design,” Inmortau said unbothered. “A way to cull the weak and nurture the strong while occasionally proving slightly entertaining when divine beings get involved.”

“What a crude way to put it,” the Holy Mother shook her head disapprovingly. “Conflict is sadly just a necessity for growth and a great way to motivate and give meaning to many. A necessary evil, if you may.”

Vilastromoz just chuckled at their conversation. The war between the Risen and the Holy Church truly was an endless war by design. As the two gods said, it was a way to make a constant training ground in the form of a battlefield. It was to the level where the battles were curated into grades and even tiers within some grades. Billions would join them, with sometimes only thousands leaving, but those who survived would be beings who had a chance to reach for true power.

It was very different from the war between the Endless Empire and the Automata Legion. That war was one where both sides genuinely wanted to wipe out the other and where the battlefields could easily have powerful beings sweep in and kill millions on a bad day. There was still some structure, but as there was no planning between the two genuinely warring factions, what structure there was occurred naturally and was just accepted mutually by both without communication.

“War is war. Stop trying to make it sound like more than it is,” Valdemar scoffed at the Blightfather and the Holy Mother. “Also, your little skirmish cannot be called a true war.”

“Call it what you may, it serves a purpose, and it is well-known she and I never clash directly and sometimes even enter negotiations and temporary truces. Your alliance with Yip of Yore, on the other hand, is one made with the express purpose of him slaying the Malefic Viper,” Inmortau said as he looked at the Viper and Valdemar carefully. “And I cannot figure out why you would do something like that… moreover, with Eversmile seemingly involved…”

“Clearly, Vilastromoz is planning something,” the Holy Mother said in a calm tone. “So let us just wait and see the result. Show some trust.”

“Last time we did that… no, never mind,” the Blightfather began but stopped himself. “I will assume you know what you are doing.”

“Who knows? I may just be a true gambling man,” the Viper smirked mischievously in return as he turned to the Holy Mother. “Now, I do wonder why you also chose to come here, Anora. Giving the children in your Pantheon a break?”

“Am I not allowed to reunite with old friends?” she smiled. “You have been back for a while, and we simply never had the chance to meet like this. Seeing as Valdemar was already here and Inmortau was making his way over, I decided to join them for a little reunion.”

“I guess that’s the best answer I’ll get,” the Viper just muttered as he turned his attention toward Jake’s livestream that he was the only one that could see. Besides Minaga and the Wyrmgod, of course.

“I, for one, am flattered you wanted to come all this way to see me,” Minaga said in a cheerful tone as he gave the Holy Mother a thumbs up. “When was the last time we met?”

“Less than a thousand years ago, when you infiltrated a dunge-”

“Ah, happy memories,” Minaga cut her off. “In my defense, the design of that dungeon was super interesting, and I did it purely for research purposes, which should give me a pass, right?”

“I believe you promised to offer compensation when caught?” the winged god said with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh? No, that wasn’t me then, or if it was me, it was another me that isn’t the me right here,” Minaga said with a confident nod. “But no worries, if I ever see that me, I’ll be sure to give myself a stern talking to about sticking to promises!”

The Viper held back a smile as the Holy Mother just kept her usual calm demeanor. Despite ruling the biggest and potentially most powerful faction in the entire multiverse, she knew the futility of trying to deal with Minaga. There was simply nothing to gain from needlessly antagonizing him, while you had too much to lose by making him an enemy.

Usually, gods tried to not antagonize one another too much, as it tended to be futile. In most cases, even if a fight broke out, neither party would even get anything out of it. Also, it wasn’t like any of them there were at any risk, even if everyone else turned against them.

In fact, pretty much none of the gods present had shown up in their real bodies, not even the Wyrmgod. His true body was somewhere deep within Nevermore, hidden away with his power used to control the massive World Wonder. Alright, one could argue Minaga was truly there, as his body was technically real, but the rest were avatars. Of course, they were primary avatars, with most of each god’s focus on it.

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Even Valdemar was in an “avatar” of sorts, though it wasn’t a real one. Unsurprisingly, the simple god never properly managed to master the art of making avatars but usually just showed up everywhere with his real body. It was only after he met Gudrun that he began to use these quasi-avatars, which were pretty much just homunculi, that he infused his power into and could control for a limited time. This limited time still tended to be around a century as long as the quasi-avatar didn’t fight, but compared to the real thing, it was far worse.

The reason why Gudrun had insisted that even the potentially strongest god in the multiverse had to use an avatar when going to a place like Nevermore was due to pure safety. In fact, gods, in general, rarely left their divine realms. Some extremely powerful gods did go around places with their real bodies unbothered, but they never used them to enter godly territories, much less the divine realms of other gods.

Because even someone like Valdemar would find himself on the losing end if he decided to fight someone like the Wyrmgod while within his domain. The territorial advantage was simply too significant to be overcome, which was why Gudrun had been so insistent on him using this quasi-avatar. Even if all of the gods had been there in their real bodies and worked together, they still wouldn’t stand a chance against the Wyrmgod, though they potentially could have escaped. Well, everyone could have besides the one god there that truly felt out of place - something the Blightfather absolutely had to point out.

“Since we are talking about how great this reunion is… why is she here?” Inmortau asked as he clearly looked at Artemis, who was sitting beside Nature’s Attendant, clearly nervous. Again, couldn’t blame her. With three Primordials, she always felt pressured, and now that there were five, it was impressive she was even staying.

“Someone who was allowed to be here, same as you,” Nature’s Attendant answered in a soft tone. “Besides, I question why you even need to ask. Why are you here anyway? Because we came here to observe the happenings inside of Nevermore, not to participate in some impromptu reunion, so our presence should be of no interest or bother.”

“Now you just raise my curiosity. Let me guess, you here for the Chosen of the Malefic Viper?” the Blightfather asked with a raised eyebrow, the look on their faces serving as confirmation. “I will admit he is a curiosity. Both the Endless Empire and Automata Legion are pretty up in arms about his appearance, and I do see why. Origin manipulation to such a degree is not something we’ve seen before outside of certain unique system-granted items.”

“If you understand, then let us simply enjoy our shared curiosity, shall we not?” Nature’s Attendant asked, the Blightfather conceding.

The Viper was just observing the interaction as he smiled a bit to himself. It was kind of comforting to see that despite so much time passing, nothing much had changed. His fellow Primordials were still the same as they were so many eras ago.

Inmortau was very much still an ass, but the Malefic Viper also understood he had to be that way. He had to be the strong and uncompromising leader, for if he compromised, the entire Risen race would likely have been wiped out by now, and his faction crumbled a long time ago.

As an undead faction, the Risen had spent a long time before reaching a point where they weren’t outright hated by the entire multiverse. However, even now, the most common approach was to just tolerate their existence. “Neutral” was the most gentle term most would use when asked about their relationship with the Risen, which did leave much to be desired. It also meant that for the longest time, if a faction could take advantage of the Risen, they would gladly do so, as they knew the chance of backlash was low. What would the Risen do? Attack them? That sounded like a great way to make the Risen look like the evil faction many already suspected them of being.

Inmortau’s solution to this was to be a faction with a soft but strong approach to politics. They preferred soft politics where they made friends and proved themselves valuable allies, but should the other party try and take too much advantage, they would show they were not to be pushed around. Using his status as a Primordial, the Blightfather could squash most unfounded rumors easily and often even justify when he mobilized his armies to wipe out those who went too far.

Of course, some factions remained adamant the Risen was an evil faction, the Holy Church included. The reality was that concepts such as good and evil didn’t particularly matter to Primordials, as such things were simply too feeble. Sentiment changed with time, and what was considered evil in one place and time could be considered a necessity in another.

This meant that the thing that mattered the most to gods were their own Path, their own personal rules, and the relationships they forged with their peers. And the relationship between the twelve Primordials could honestly only be described as one big dysfunctional family that spent more time arguing than actually getting along. However, when needed, they would still come together. They did so in the past, and ancient accords still persisted even to that day, forcing such a balance to be sustained.

Back on Earth, Miranda kept herself busy as the work never stopped, though it had gotten better. At least things had gotten into a pretty good routine by now, and most things had calmed down. The influx of slaves had stopped, and toward the end of the influx, it had gotten a lot easier to deal with. Many of the prior groups of freed slaves took the jobs of integrating new ones, easing the transition significantly.

The construction projects were also all going according to schedule. Hank, who had now fully transitioned to just being an overseer of sorts, had even evolved to C-grade despite having been stuck at peak D-grade for a bit.

What’s more, the gift the Golden Road Emporium had given Jake during his Chosen ceremony had truly come through. Having projections of high-grade experts teach Earthlings was a brilliant way to get lacking know-how and experience that was otherwise impossible to obtain for a newly integrated universe. From the conversations Miranda had with these experts, they were also surprised at the rate at which the Earthlings and even the new slaves who had arrived there learned and improved.

All in all, things were going great, which was something she hadn’t expected to say. This even left her more time to focus on her class, as she, for too long, had only focused on her profession. While she did still practice her class a bit while sleeping due to her Verdant Dream skill, it wasn’t like she slept much anymore, and the time she spent in the Verdant Dream didn’t really give her any levels; she just practiced to more easily go out hunting later. So, in conclusion, It was definitely great that things had finally calmed down and were running smoothly.

However, there was one thing that saddened her a bit. Many of the people from Haven who were originally their backbone were beginning to meet their limits. As an example, Neil’s party, the formerly strongest five-person group in Haven, was no longer working together due to the disparity of their members. Eleanor, the archer, Levi, the magic swordsman, and Christen, their tank, had all gotten stuck in D-grade and seemed to have hit a wall. They also had simply lost their motivation to keep going and had settled down for calmer lives, most of them just focusing on their professions now.

It was a fate many shared. When the hectic barrage of constant action and more than one system event every single year stopped, many stopped with these things. When the world didn’t push them forward, and the external pressure was gone, they simply didn’t have the internal motivation to keep going. For many, the only reason they had even progressed and gotten powerful was to stay alive and protect those they cared about, and when the immediate danger was over, they finally had time to stop and reevaluate their lives, ultimately deciding they had done enough.

But luckily, there were many to step up and take their places, too, and some of the old talents did still grow. Especially now that the Nevermore Tokens had gotten more abundant than ever, and thousands had already traveled to the World Wonder to participate. Most didn’t participate on the Leaderboards or even met the requirements to do so, being too high level, but to spend a few decades there was still a massive gain and a great way to get some more levels. Even high-level C-grade beasts had gone.

Miranda herself honestly hadn’t planned on really going, but she began to feel like she had to. As a witch, Nevermore wasn’t particularly suited for her, but the Verdant Witches recently began to teach her great methods for dungeon diving, the implications of their actions obvious.

And considering things were calming down on Earth, she soon didn’t have any excuse to not go… besides, it wasn’t like she couldn’t just leave and go back there again as she didn’t qualify for the Leaderboards, right?

Yeah, it wasn’t like she actually wanted to go and test out some of her new and improved skills in a proper environment. Not at all.