Jake had approached this fight with a lot of expectations and forethought. He had imagined many scenarios of how his first true fight against a B-grade would go, and in truth, he had created a lot of assumptions in his mind.

The only other B-grade Jake had fought was the metal monster within Minaga’s Endless Labyrinth. That monster had been incredibly powerful, fast, and even if Jake faced it now, he wasn’t sure he would stand a chance, as he seriously doubted he had seen all it had to offer.

He also knew that B-grades were a lot stronger than C-grades, the same way C-grades had been a lot stronger than D-grades. He still remembered his first time killing a C-grade and how difficult that had been. The Panther had pushed Jake to his limits, and it had gone down to the wire with him eking out a victory.

That’s why Jake had been so careful. He had wanted to feel out the Warlord in the beginning of the fight before the B-grade even got serious, which was why Jake had also held back... in fact, he had relied solely on the stat boost from Big Game Hunter, which, while significant, only tended to show its full potential in combination with his true boosting skills.

Yet, despite Jake holding back so much, the pressure exerted upon him just wasn’t there. Was he in a disadvantageous position? Yes, but it wasn’t as bad as Jake had expected it to be. Moreover, he had assumed the magic of a B-grade to be on a different qualitative level; however, when he looked at the summoned spirits, all Jake felt was disappointment.

With the Warlord and four Ancestor spirits closing in, Jake stopped holding back as much. Arcane Awakening sprang to life as Jake boosted all his stats by around 30%, and that was on top of the boosted base stats from Big Game Hunter.

This explosive release of power made the Warlord hesitate for a moment, which was a big enough opening for Jake to go on the counterattack. However, rather than go for the B-grade, he went straight for the Spearmaster Ancestor, having identified that summoned variant as the most dangerous because of its long-range capabilities.

Jake easily dodged the spear thrust as his hand glowed with destructive arcane energy. Striking for the spirit’s chest, Jake empowered his hand further the second he made contact.

A blast of arcane energy flooded into the spirit, and a few moments later, it began to lose its shape as the ghostly fog that made up its body started dispersing into the air. Before the full extent of what Jake had done could even be realized, he’d struck the Hammermaster with a similar attack as it also started dispersing.

The Warlord saw what happened and attacked Jake intending to make him stop, but his axe swings—while powerful—were not fast or complex enough in technique to catch Jake out.

Using his katars, Jake also engaged in melee combat for the first time as he did something daring. Rather than dodge a swing from the Warlord, Jake raised both katars to block the blow.

Perhaps thinking Jake had messed up, the Warlord refused to miss this chance as he roared and put even more power into the swing. A moment later, Jake felt the impact as his arms buckled and the reverberations coursed through his entire body as he was sent flying by the attack.

Jake flew through several vines and other greenery before he finally managed to stop himself as he slid across the lush ground, kicking up a small mound of dirt in the process. Pain coursed through his arms from blocking the blow, and from this one exchange, Jake became certain of a few things.

First of all, this Warlord did have pure power worthy of a B-grade. This blow had just been a normal hit and not a skill, yet Jake could feel the pain all the way to his bones. Blocking several of them in a row was definitely out of the question.

Second, Jake was confident this Warlord specialized in classic heavy warrior traits with some magic sprinkled in. The B-grade wasn’t that fast, but it was incredibly strong while also having a decently resilient body based on how little his arrow had penetrated earlier, indicating high Toughness. Seeing as it was a Simivita - an ape race with decent vitality - Jake also assumed the Warlord had a high stat there.

Third and finally, the Simivita Warlord wasn’t good at using his own power. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but Jake assumed it primarily came down to lack of experience. The B-grades in the Hunting Grounds rarely, if ever, fought, and when they did, it tended to be against far weaker opponents. Plus, the Warlord was strong enough to kill most peak C-grades with a single well-placed attack, meaning the B-grade likely never had to truly push itself to improve. Why fix what ain’t broken?

This lack of experience now came back to bite the ape in the ass. The two remaining Ancestor spirits had chased after Jake, giving him a great opportunity to quickly get rid of both. In less than two seconds, he’d placed a swift palm strike on each, making them disperse once more.

The reason Jake had so easily dismantled these spirit summons all came down to how poorly they were made. They were essentially just puppets created from spirit mana with Willpower infused into them, all done with the help of the System. Each of them had a lot of energy poured in, but it was all done so poorly, Jake quickly realized just how flawed they were.

Years spent doing the Puzzle Box of the Seeker had made Jake quite proficient in analyzing and dismantling magical constructs, and these spirit summons were no different. Jake didn’t even have to fully destroy them. He just had to destroy what kept them together. They were like structures built with only a single supporting pillar, and if someone knew to give it a good kick, the entire thing would all come crumbling down, no matter how impressive the structure was. In this case, the structure wasn’t even that impressive, as Jake felt that the Warlord still had to actively give commands to his summons to make them attack.

“Do you think the will of the Ancestors is so easily destroyed? For every one you return to the great beyond, another two shall rise,” the Warlord said as he floated closer, seemingly still very confident in himself.

Perhaps he believed that Jake had taken some serious damage from blocking the attack earlier, and while the destruction of the Ancestor spirits did have some impact, what happened next made it clear the Warlord didn’t view it as that big of a loss.

The reason why he was called a Warlord in the first place also became readily apparent.

“Ancestors, heed my call! Join me in defending the clan! Join me as we go to war!” the Warlord yelled, his aura now spiking to its apex.

A dense wave of ghostly fog erupted from his body as it enveloped a far wider area compared to before. At the same time, it began condensing in dozens of places at once, creating more Ancestor spirits. These gave off a slightly weaker aura than the first ones, but through sheer numbers, Jake definitely found this situation more dangerous.

Especially with what happened next, as the fog also condensed around the Warlord. A large spectral clone of himself appeared above the ape's head before re-merging with him, resulting in yet another spike in strength as the B-grade roared.

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His roar was echoed by the mana Ancestor spirits, and for the first time since the beginning of this fight, Jake truly faced a Warlord who didn’t need to bring an army around... not when he could merely summon one.

Finding himself completely surrounded, Jake let out a sigh as he smiled. Let’s do this.

Arcane energy welled up from within his soul and permeated his body in an instant as his skin began to crack from the destructive energies. His stats grew to new heights as Jake fully activated Arcane Awakening, boosting all his stats by a massive 60%. When one also counted the additional stats gained from Big Game Hunter, Jake wasn’t that inferior in pure stats compared to a B-grade. Even if one counted the fact that a B-grade’s stats all had a higher efficiency.

Facing off against the relatively weaker, but far more numerous, Ancestor spirits, Jake would have a far harder time dismantling them individually. Not to say he didn’t try, as Jake’s first act after boosting himself was to destroy two of the summoned spirits, but only a few seconds later, the Warlord summoned two more, all while attacking himself.

It appeared that the Warlord didn’t care in the slightest about conserving resources, likely believing that he could bully Jake with a far superior mana pool. Of course, he couldn’t know that Jake had an absolutely monstrous reserve of mana because of his mask and Anomalous Soul, meaning the hunter was fully willing to respond in kind.

Jake and the Warlord clashed several times as they moved around the jungle, Jake trying to constantly keep a certain level of distance between himself and the Warlord, though occasionally he was forced into a brief melee scuffle where he had to pull out his katars.

During this chase, Jake kept Pride active as constant bolts and orbs of destructive arcane mana appeared, blasting back the Ancestor spirits and keeping them at bay, Jake consuming thousands upon thousands of mana every minute. It was all worth it, though, as whenever Jake got some distance, he landed arrows on the Simivita Warlord. Individually, these did little, but as the fight continued, the damage accumulated. Not to mention the poison that the Warlord was constantly fighting against.

As the fight progressed, Jake also began to feel several observers from afar who had noticed this scuffle going on. He assumed it was B-grades from surrounding islands who used different means to scout, and while it was a possibility one of them would try to strike down whoever ended up the winner, Jake didn’t feel a need to address them for now, though he did have a lingering feeling at least one of these observers could prove an issue down the line.

However, for now, he had a fight to finish. The constant exchanges followed, with Jake still not losing out and only taking minimal damage here and there, while the Warlord was faring far worse.

“Your level... is it a lie?” the Warlord asked after several minutes had passed, and the green fur of the B-grade was now matted with blood.

“No, it’s accurate,” Jake responded as he kicked an Ancestor spirit in the face, as his foot exploded, sending himself flying away from the summon.

“How?” the Warlord asked as he blocked an arrow with his axe, only for another to hit him in the leg.

“This is just my Path,” Jake answered, as the way this battle was going rapidly became clear to both of them. The Simivita Warlord was simply too slow to catch up to Jake, and the hunter was too good at dodging for the B-grade to take advantage of the few opportunities he got.

The Warlord’s last chance was to win the battle of endurance. Even if keeping up his ghostly fog domain took a lot of resources, Jake was also constantly spending a lot keeping his Pride active while conjuring arcane magic. Not to mention the mental toll it took for Jake to keep track of nearly forty Ancestor spirits that just kept getting re-summoned whenever Jake destroyed one.

However, Jake had the ultimate cheat as a simple blue bottle killed all hope the Warlord had. Consuming the mana potion, Jake’s rapidly drying out resource pool was instantly replenished, while the Warlord evidently did not have any Simivita Alchemists in his tribe to provide him with any potions.

Realizing the status quo would only end in death, the Warlord tried to change things up several times, but he really didn’t have the means or opportunity to do anything. He had to keep chasing Jake, or he would find himself constantly bombarded by arrows. Running wasn’t even an option, though Jake doubted the Simivita would do it even if he could, seeing how much these apes cared about honor.

The Warlord tried to shoot out crescent waves of spirit energy and maneuver his summons to surround Jake, but with Sphere of Perception, Jake was always one step ahead. As the minutes passed, they both knew an end was drawing near, especially when Jake got in a nasty Arcane Powershot that nearly blasted off the B-grade’s arm, which also demonstrated the deteriorating resilience of the ape. Before, Jake could at most have hoped for that shot to take off a chunk of flesh, but with the Warlord’s body weakened by poison and over a hundred arrow holes, his fur was too destroyed to offer proper protection anymore.

Despite his advantage, Jake didn’t let up his assault but kept his focus. As the Warlord had gotten more desperate, Jake had been forced to use Eternal Shadow yet another time, and he hoped to limit himself from having to do so again due to the increasing cooldown and cost of using the skill repeatedly. As for Gaze, he had tried to hold back on using that, though he had felt forced to a couple of times.

Another two minutes passed, and Jake struck the Warlord mid-air in the arm, sending the B-grade spinning out of control before crashing into the ground. Jake was ready for him to launch himself up for another swing, but this time, the B-grade stayed down.

Jake saw the ape slowly try to stand through his Sphere, but the B-grade fell to his knees, arms hanging limply to his side. The many summoned Ancestor spirits also stopped attacking and instead moved toward the Warlord. This odd movement also made Jake stop his attack as the dust cleared, revealing the form of the ape.

Blood covered his entire body and pooled beneath him as the ape breathed heavily. Lowering this bow, Jake observed the Warlord, who was only running on fumes now. His body was broken, his aura weak, and death grew near.

“My... predecessors spoke of legendary hunters who would appear with power far beyond what we believed possible. I always took it as mere stories. After evolving to B-grade, no C-grade ever entered my eyes. Even the arrogant hunters who came here intending to slay me were all killed or fled. However, today I realize I was the foolish one. The legends were true,” the Warlord spoke, his voice still sounding strong despite how weak the ape was.

Jake said nothing as the Warlord continued.

“Even as I die, know that the Simivita tribe will survive. Even if every one of my kin on this island die, know that we are everywhere. The Records of my ancestors echo throughout the world, and with my death, I shall join the choir.”

While the Warlord spoke, all the still-summoned Ancestor spirits surrounded their B-grade summoner in a circle as they kneeled. One by one, they began dispersing and turning into dense fog that floated toward Warlord.

“Tell me, hunter... I fought terribly, did I not? Throughout this battle, I realized all my shortcomings and how weak I truly was despite the power I hold.”

Jake decided to be honest as he answered. “You didn’t do well, no. You have never truly tested the limits of your power, but coasted through existence, relying on the natural advantages of being a B-grade. All you truly managed was to make me a little tired.”

“I see,” the Warlord said, his head falling down as he let out a deep sigh. All the fog from the surrounding summons entered his body at that moment, and Jake had an odd premonition as his eyes opened wide.

“In that case, allow my last moments to be dishonorable!” the Simivita Warlord yelled as his body exploded with spirit energy for one last time. Jake felt the B-grade burn his own soul and existence as he rose into the air, dense fog gathering all around him.

Just then, Jake felt something else. An observer had moved toward Jake, and as he looked straight up, he saw a faint multicolored flash. He didn’t have time to get a good look at it, though, as Jake found himself surrounded by an incredibly dense fog that transformed into ape limbs that reached out and tried to grasp Jake.

At the same time, the true body of the Warlord shot toward Jake as the B-grade’s flesh and bone melted away, revealing only a transparent soul that let out a ghastly light. This light washed over Jake as the burning soul temporarily restrained Jake along with the spectral limbs that surrounded him on all sides, like chains from beyond the grave.

Right as Jake was fully constrained, a deep sense of danger flooded his mind. His head whipped upwards toward the source of danger as a rainbow-colored creature entered his sight, rapidly descending toward him.

[Rainbowfeather Sovereign – lvl ???]