The Primal Hunter

It hadn’t even been a full day since the Prima Guardian arrived, but they were all gathered once more to discuss the future of the Prima Guardian event. The venue had changed, though, and it now took place within the Prima Vessel, more accurately, the control room with the large map also there, serving as a nice reference.

Arthur and several others joined the meeting as projections as they were far away from the frontline. However, the majority were present in person, as they had also taken part in the battle.

The meeting started out with Miranda congratulating everyone, but also taking a moment to go over the losses. Even if the event had gone exceptionally well so far, they had still lost a lot of people. Jake knew that Miranda and the rest of the World Council had set up different programs to help the families of the killed, but it naturally couldn’t replace those who had died. They had all known some casualties were inevitable, and the losses had been less than estimated, but the many deaths still put a dampener on the celebrations.

But they had to move forward. The event was far from over.

Maria and Casper had also both returned for this meeting, both looking a bit worse for wear and clearly still recovering. Maria definitely looked the worst of the two of them, her escape skill incredibly potent but also with quite the backlash afterward. Still, having them there was good for morale and just to see them again.

It was one thing they all took solace in: no one from the strike team had died. That meant the strongest people on Earth were all alive and kicking, the planet as a whole not really having lost much fighting power should things go south during this Prima Alliance event. There was still a sneaking fear some had that this event would devolve into a big conflict with many other planets, and honestly, Jake couldn’t rule that out entirely. Especially not considering some of the plans he had.

On a side note, the ring situation was also sorted out with everyone gathered.

Jake had also low-key hoped that William couldn’t wear the ring so Jake could get it. It had totally been a possibility that due to William only really fighting the Prima Guardian indirectly using his karmic magic, he wouldn’t meet the requirements to wear the ring. Also, was it really out of the question that the system had actually wanted to give Jake two rings due to how good he was?

Well… two things. Firstly, William did qualify to wear the ring. So that sucked. Secondly, Jake did convince the group to at least let him see if he could use one of the rings, but he hit a snag of compatibility. If he had the shitty ring that gave no stats bound to himself, Jake couldn’t bind one of the awesome many-stat-giving rings. Too similar items, especially jewelry, tended to not be useable together, as an example, Jake couldn’t wear two Altmar Signets if the two rings effectively did the exact same thing. Actually, the signet was a bad example, as pure stat sticks tended to be compatible… anyway.

This did suck, but it also indicated that once unsealed and upgraded, Jake’s special ring would be similar to the cool rings everyone else got. Sadly, Jake had to wait, and not keeping the new ring bound to him seemed like a dumb idea due to it talking about giving Jake certain privileges during the event. Exactly what these privileges were, Jake naturally still had no idea, but he didn’t want to risk it being something he would miss out on.

Anyhow, with the meeting beginning in earnest after going over how the Primas and Prima Guardian had been dealt with and the losses they had taken, it quickly became clear many people and factions already had their own agendas to deal with and places to be.

As was already touched upon, Caleb had to go help the Court of Shadows, and Carmen had to go assist Valhal. Vesperia had also voiced her intent to go assist a few planets where it looked like the humanoid side was gonna lose and the Endless Empire would take over.

Now, Jake did recognize that this was perhaps a bit fucked up. He was sure that in the eyes of many, the army of underground insects would be considered the bad guys, while the weak humanoid faction getting suppressed would be the underdog good guys.

However, wasn’t it also a bit messed up to just wipe out all the ectognamorphs just to make room for the humanoids? Also, this was a quest to kill the Prima Guardians. If things were allowed to run their natural course, these planets would be wiped out after the Guardian was released, if not before, with all the Primas roaming about.

Based on what Vesperia said, these were planets where the humanoids were reduced to nearly nothing, more often than not from internal strife or the majority having abandoned the planet already. Not even Ell’hakan cared about these planets, as they were now too weak to contribute anything.

What would likely happen if Vesperia or someone else didn’t stop by was that the ectognamorphs would just wait for the Prima Guardian to naturally die after it claimed the Planetary Core and then emerge to claim the entire planet as their own. They naturally couldn’t fight the Prima Guardian themselves as they had most certainly consumed many system-given unique items. As for if they decided to join the Prima Guardian… well, it would only speed up the annihilation of the humanoids.

Thinking about it, it was a better situation for the humanoids if Vesperia went and killed the Prima Guardian. If she took over, the humanoids at least had a chance of surviving and maybe even leaving the planet to go elsewhere. While Vesperia did view humanoids as potential resources – to be read as food – she didn’t see their value as that big, and was okay with just letting them go as long as they didn’t make any problems.

Vesperia was also only really focused on eight planets total in their galaxy, only three of which had joined the Prima Guardian Alliance. From how Jake understood it, this wasn’t because the people on the remaining five had confidence in beating back the Primas themselves, but because their World Leader had either been incredibly incompetent, the planet was fucked over after the World Leader was elected, or the leader literally wanted them to die and had abandoned the planet long ago after agreeing to fight the Prima Guardian.

So, it definitely sounded like Vesperia was going to be busy, and she was also very interested in the project of making their own teleporter to get to planets that hadn’t joined the alliance. While the Endless Empire winning on most of these planets was pretty much a given, Vesperia still wanted to speed up matters and officially link up with the different Hives before it was time for her to head back to the heartlands of the Endless Empire.

When it came to the Risen, the situation was a bit more complicated. Primarily because they were also on Earth to establish a permanent presence once more. For that, there were quite a few details to discuss, such as what area the Risen would be given. Sure, they could just give them back their old territory, but seeing as they had now claimed the entire planet, there had to be somewhere better for them to settle down while ensuring they wouldn’t be bothered. Jake wasn’t that invested in where they would live as everyone would just get there through teleportation anyway, but he knew many cared.

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No one had any illusions that the Risen would be welcomed by everyone with open arms. They were still a very controversial faction, and despite Arthur trying quite a lot to improve their reputation, people just had a strong innate dislike of the undead. Perhaps it was entirely natural for life-based entities to dislike those rooted in death, but Jake still wanted to allow the Risen to live on his planet, even if a lot disagreed. It did sound like they were gonna be thrown onto their own island, though, but that didn’t seem to bother Casper or Priscilla particularly much.

Casper also mentioned that even if their primary objective was to establish a small base on Earth, they also wanted to provide assistance to other Risen in the galaxy. Not that there were a lot. In fact, there was only one planet ruled by Risen in the entire Milky Way. The rest had either been wiped out by the other natives, or there hadn’t been any in the first place.

There even being one was honestly a surprise. Most Risen in all universes tended to be gathered in the same areas. Even in the ninety-third universe, entire galaxies existed filled with undead and Risen. Ones where the living were heavily outnumbered, and death ruled supreme. Entire areas of a universe could be dominated by death and quite unwelcoming of the living.

Jacob, who had been uncharacteristically silent all while wandering the Prima Vessel – perhaps because he hadn’t really been part of the Guardian fight – also explained that all those from the Holy Church were expected to go assist the rest of their faction. In fact, even coming to Earth had been considered a special privilege, and Jacob had only sold them going by promising to try and establish an outpost on the planet. Something he knew wasn’t going to happen, but the higher-ups had humored him nevertheless.

His talking about helping the Holy Church did bring up one pretty big concern, though.

“Isn’t the Holy Church actively working with Ell’Hakan?” Jake questioned after the Augur began to explain their plans. “Won’t that mean you going to help the Holy Church from here means that you’re going directly to his side?”

“That… I cannot rule out,” Jacob said with a sigh. “The higher-ups are quite insistent on providing him with all the aid we can.”

“Why the hell are they even sucking up to him so hard?” Jake said, exasperated. “Do they really want his creepy-ass Bloodline that badly?”

“Yes,” Jacob just said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Yes, they do want his Bloodline that badly. It holds extreme value to them. I have already tried to voice my dissent toward working with the Chosen of Yip of Yore, but it was quickly made apparent I had no say in the matter. This is from very high up, and even if they value me as an Augur, the potential value Ell’Hakan can provide exceeds my existence manifold.”

Jake opened his mouth for a moment before closing it again, not saying what he was about to say. He wanted to trust Jacob. He really did. But Jake knew he couldn’t. While the Augur could keep some secrets, if the information was too important for the Holy Church to know, he would share it. No, some things were best kept in his heart or only spoken between himself and those he knew he could fully trust.

There was no reason to tell Jacob that there was no fucking way he was going to let Ell’Hakan live long enough to make a bunch of brain-washing babies for the Holy Church. Nor, that should he make some… Jake was going to make sure they were unmade. Sure, one could argue about the immorality of sins of the father and whatnot, but Jake, quite frankly, didn’t give a shit about any of these things. Ell’Hakan and his entire lineage would be wiped out. Of that there was no question.

For now, it was best to not say any of these things, though. In fact, it was better to communicate the opposite outwardly to make Ell’Hakan and the Church believe there was a world where Jake wasn’t going to hunt down the other Chosen to the ends of existence. Thus, Jake just sighed as if relenting. “I am not a fan of you or the Holy Church working with him, but I’m not your boss. Just watch out and keep a cool head, alright?”

“I appreciate the understanding,” Jacob nodded. All around the room, those who knew Jake’s feelings kept a pretty straight face despite knowing Jake was far more than “not just a fan.”

The meeting proceeded, and people began to split up into groups based on where they needed to go or wanted to do. Jake had expected Eron to have some plans, but there was apparently not anywhere he had to be. In fact, he didn’t seem interested in going anywhere whatsoever.

Maria ended up talking to Caleb and would head off with him to help the Court of Shadows. Being a mercenary through and through, she would happily go assist wherever she was paid to be.

Sylphie and the Fallen King surprised Jake a bit by joining up with Vesperia. He was pretty happy to see the three of them go together, though, as he doubted there were many forces in the multiverse who could handle all three.

Arnold would remain on Earth to work on the teleportation circle with assistance from Miranda and others. William even volunteered to stay behind and help with this teleporter, too, when Arnold pointed out that a karma mage could prove useful when more accurately pinpointing the location of each planet. Arnold sounded confident, so Jake had hope that soon they would have access to far more Prima Guardians than just those in the alliance… along with the planets that were part of the alliance but had blocked off teleportation access.

The primary reason for this discussion about where people would go was to ensure they didn’t get in the way of one another while traveling the galaxy. Most of the factions on Earth already had somewhere they needed to go, which really only left two people without any particular plans: Jake and the Sword Saint.

Neither of them belonged to any faction who had to go help elsewhere in the galaxy, nor with a need to assist any of the others. Sure, Jake could have stuck to Vesperia and the others… but he wanted to go have some alone time.

He’d just gotten Lone Hunter, after all. It was only proper to put it to a good test. The Sword Saint also sounded like he wanted to head off alone for a bit to practice his swordsmanship. Totally understandable.

With most things planned out, Miranda addressed the group of those who would leave with a final small speech.

“Before everyone heads off to make the galaxy a safer place, I think we should all agree on a few things,” Miranda said, addressing the room. “This is something I know quite a few have already discussed before the event began, but we believe that keeping the fact we all come from Earth a secret would be counterproductive. Flaunt your origins. Let everyone know you come from Earth and spread the word of our presence. However, do try to avoid ascribing any specific values to the planet. Just leave it there as a fact Earth is where you come from.”

Jake did remember Miranda talking about this prior, and he kept quiet as she continued.

“There have been certain individuals who have sought to villainize Earth and those from here. Trying to actively argue against this may only reinforce this belief, while should we all just act normal and be helpful, we will naturally spawn doubt about the lies of Earth. Of course, should people cause problems, feel free to clap back, but don’t make it about protecting Earth’s honor, only your own. We are a planet of individuals, not one massive, cohesive faction, even if we may sometimes be united toward the same goal.”

Everyone slowly nodded along, as Jake hadn’t really ever considered standing up for “Earth’s honor” or whatever.

“Well then,” Miranda smiled. “I guess I can only wish you all a happy hunt. Let’s see if we can make the Milky Way galaxy not just have the best planet in the universe but also the fastest time in clearing this event.”

With that, they all headed off toward the large teleporter, and Jake felt excited to go on a bit of solo hunting. He was also excited to see what other kinds of worlds the Milky Way had to show for itself as he had an entire galaxy to explore. Oh yeah, and potentially saving a few civilizations along the way was also pretty cool.

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