The Primal Hunter

What even are Records?

Tension hung thick in the air above Primordial-4 as the standoff continued, neither side making any moves as they waited for the battle between the Malefic Viper and Yip of Yore to conclude.

One side was obviously more confident than the other as if they were just waiting for Yip to clean things up and claim his rightful title of Primordial Slayer. Yip of Yore had made all the preparations possible, made himself into a being specialized in killing the Malefic Viper, and grown faster than any other god in recorded history.

If he couldn’t kill the Malefic Viper, who could? The result was inevitable to the gods supporting Yip, making them adopt a gloating demeanor in front of the gods from the Order of the Malefic Viper.

Valhal kept the same stance as before, with the only thing change being Eversmile who’d appeared beside Valdemar, something that didn’t strike anyone as weird as they were obviously both gods supporting Yip’s conquest.

As they stood there, Valdemar looked down at Eversmile with a raised eyebrow, the area around them already isolated. “What’s in this for you?”

Eversmile looked up at the War God with his eternal smile. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You’re not the type to do anything out of the kindness of your heart, so why get involved in all this?” Valdemar asked, not showing his usual simple demeanor. “Even you siding with Yip wouldn’t make any sense unless he offered you something really good.”

“He did offer me something really good,” Eversmile said casually.

“And what did Vilas offer you?”

“Nothing,” Eversmile sighed. “At least nothing tangible. It’s more accurate to say that after this, we are considered even regarding certain matters.”

Valdemar frowned a bit at what he said before his eyes lit up in realization. “This was all to pay him back for what happened with that kid?”

“Oh? I’m surprised you know about that,” Eversmile said in genuine surprise.

“Had to watch some clips of Jake’s Tutorial... I guess you can say that was part of my deal,” Valdemar said with a laugh before turning a bit more serious again. “I still don’t get it... you owed him a favor, sure, but not all favors are the same. This seems like you did quite a bit more for him than he did for you. Especially seeing as how your experiment fell through. Pretty sure that boy of yours is now a heretic.”

Now it was Eversmile’s turn to chuckle. “Who says the experiment is over?”

Valdemar looked at him for a few seconds before sighing. “I still don’t get you... oh, and also, I heard you sold being on Yip’s side by saying you want Vilas dead? How did you pull that one off?”

“There is nothing to pull off when speaking the truth.”

“You actually want Yip to kill Vilas?” Valdemar asked, his emotions hard to read.

“Of course I do,” the karmic mage said without a moment’s hesitation as he kept waiting for the battle between the two gods to fully conclude and for the result to be announced to everyone... even if said result was entirely predictable.

As for wanting the Viper dead, he really was speaking the truth. Eversmile was a researcher. He researched karma and the best way for new karma to be formed was through new situations. Nothing was better than entirely original scenarios with several actors taking part. Especially high-level actors with genuine power.

So why wouldn’t he want Yip of Yore to kill the Malefic Viper? Because nothing was better than when the outcome wasn’t the expected one but something no one had seen coming. Well, more accurately, a result no one with full information could see coming.

So that’s why he wanted to see the Viper fall... because he’d always loved it when the impossible happened.

The Malefic Viper stood on the ruined Great Planet within the Void Sphere dimension as he admired his creation. Admittedly, it wasn’t impressive from a visual perspective, seeing as it was just an odd mass made of skin, scales, and flesh that was pulsing as if it had a heartbeat, but how it looked wasn’t important in the slightest.

What mattered was what it could do.

It had taken a while to shave off all the useless parts, such as Yip’s entire own Path. Yip’s Path was impressive in the eyes of many, and it had allowed him to get where he was today, but that didn’t mean consuming such Records would help the Viper in any way. Quite the opposite.

All it would do was dilute his own Path with the Records of a lesser being. His own Path was already superior to Yip’s, so why would he bother absorbing any part of it? No, the only thing he needed was the contemporary Records and aspects of Yip’s Path related to momentum, growth, and “newness.” The Records that would help him to make up for all the time he’d missed and all the Records he hadn’t gained from actively taking part in current events for so many eras.

As he looked at his creation, he couldn’t help but sigh at just how much Yip had miscalculated everything, with his biggest miscalculation being that the Viper wouldn’t have been able to grow a lot during his many eras of isolation.

Perhaps it wasn’t an entirely ridiculous assumption, and under normal circumstances, it would be right, but the Viper had been far from lazy despite his isolation. He’d been progressing all the time, absorbed the Records of the multiverse whenever a new universe was integrated, and pushed himself further and further. Plus, he had several extra little things to allow him to keep going...

At least when it came to alchemy.

The only thing he hadn’t done was proper fighting. He hadn’t killed anything for perhaps the longest period of time of any being in the entire multiverse. He hadn’t done any system events either.

All he had been doing was progressing his own Path. Progressing his alchemy. That meant right now, he was more likely than not the weakest of all the Primordials... though not by a wide margin. With the treasure he’d just created, he would make up for most of his own shortcomings. In some ways, he could even be compared to a mortal with both a profession and a class, where his class had fallen significantly behind his profession due to neglect.

When that happened, it tended to be quite easy to get a lot of class levels fast, something that was also true for the Viper’s situation. The Records would complement his own, merge with them, and create something greater than what he started with.

As for what exactly he’d created...

The Records and energy of the Dragon Molt – ones that represented the Viper’s past – had now been replaced with Yip’s Records entirely, meaning that the Viper would essentially be reabsorbing his own Records only, at least in the eyes of the system. One couldn’t easily absorb the Records of other beings, after all, especially not as a god, which was why he needed to do a bit of alchemy to get it to work.

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Smiling to himself, the Viper still waited a bit longer as everything settled down entirely within the item he’d dubbed the Dragon Molt’s Embrace. He was waiting for the system to do its thing, the aura of the item to change, and its pulsating heartbeat to stop, and after another few minutes, it finally happened.

The final remnants of life left the large mass of scales, flesh, and skin... and with its death, Yip also finally found his end.

You have slain [Yip of Yore…]

Perhaps it could be viewed as a bit macabre that Yip was alive and conscious throughout the entire process, but keeping him alive resulted in a better end product. The Viper licked his lips and just looked at the mass but stopped himself as he smiled and shook his head.

“I guess he deserves a little treat for the assist,” the god said as he reached forward and from the mass, pulled a small ball of scales. Summoning a small wooden box for preservation, he put it in there to keep it nice and fresh for his dear Chosen later.

With it stored away, it was time to finally dig in. The Viper opened his mouth as space distorted, and the mass of flesh flew toward the Viper, shrinking as it entered his maw and into his internal stomach for slow consumption.

The moment he had it in there, the Viper’s eyes opened wide as he gritted his teeth from the rush of energy flooding his body, his aura fluctuating for a moment before calming down, settling as a few levels came in from just that. Taking a deep breath, he looked at his hand and opened and closed his fist a few times.

“Turned out even better than first expected...”

This was likely the best treasure the Malefic Viper had ever consumed, especially taking into considering all the additional items he used as part of the transmutation process. The sheer amount of energy within that mass had been enough to kill a few hundred Godkings at least, and absorbing it all would take a while, several years at least, but once it was all digested...

Well, he had promised Valdemar a good spar as part of getting him to lend a hand.

Just as the Viper had consumed the mass of flesh, the Void Sphere dimension also began to slowly break apart. With one of the two gods trapped within dead, it would crumble within minutes, something the Viper had naturally planned for.

He didn’t want anyone to see what he’d done during this entire battle, nor the aftermath. Truthfully, there had been a few moments during the “fight” where the Viper had gotten a bit concerned, as Void Spheres had a limited duration, and Yip of Yore had quite frankly proven a lot slower at killing his Dragon Molt than first expected.

At least it had been well worth it to fatten him up adequately through all his and Jake’s scheming, but then again, the best ingredients always needed good nurturing and cultivating to become their most useful versions.

Finally, as for all the parts of Yip’s Records the Viper had cut off because they weren’t needed... well, those were gone along with the Truesoul back to the system, though the Viper had a good idea where a least some of them would end up. Not that Vilastromoz could do much about that besides trusting in his Chosen the same way his Chosen had trusted him.

For now, he still had one more important thing to do before he could focus on other matters:

Properly reintroduce himself to the multiverse.

Space and reality shuddered as the Void Sphere dimension collapsed. The two within would appear in roughly the same place they had entered, and based on how it had only taken a bit over a day for the sphere to end its duration, everyone knew that a victor had been decided.

The many gods associated with Yip were still looking confident, while the ones with the Order were nervous. The Lord Protector also hadn’t stopped defending the Order’s headquarters at any point, with many of those present even expecting to see the Boundless Hydra attempt to put up a final stand against Yip.

However, the gloating expressions of the thousands of gods – including over a dozen Godkings or Godqueens – associated with Yip of Yore fell once the dimension sufficiently broke down, and an unexpected aura began to seep through.

Before the dimension could even fully break down by itself, a shockwave shattered what remained as reality cracked like a broken mirror, the Malefic Viper confidently walking out between the falling shards.

No other sound but the clattering of space repairing itself was heard as all simply stared at the Viper in shock. Not only because he’d won but because of how he looked. Not a single sign of injury could be seen on his body; his soul and presence were both absolutely stable, and he exuded a casual demeanor not reminiscent of someone having just fought for their life against an equal opponent. His aura also felt... different. Hard to read.

It took a moment, but very quickly, the first god tried to enter the void, but the Viper raised a hand and snapped.

“It would be rude to leave so suddenly after coming for a visit,” he spoke, his snap sending out a subtle wave of energy that solidified space on that entire section of the Great Planet, making it impossible to escape through the void or other forms of teleportation.

Some looked to Valdemar and Eversmile who continued to just stand there casually, Eversmile having his usual unreadable expression with Valdemar grinning, a look of expectation in his eyes.

Eversmile noticed the staring people before just shaking his head... he was just there to observe and record what was happening, after all. Not to interfere. Valdemar also wasn’t going to make a move as he’d also done his part, right? He’d made sure that Yip got the one-on-one fight he wanted without any outside interference.

“Now, why do I feel such disappointment from so many of you just because I showed up?” the Malefic Viper smiled, walking forward a bit as he looked at Yip’s gods before looking down at those behind the barrier within the Order. “At least there are some who look glad to see me.”

The Boundless Hydra didn’t hesitate as he transformed his entire body and shrank, becoming humanoid once more as he looked at the Viper with what looked like tears in his eyes as he bowed. “I greet the Malefic One.”

As he did this, all the ones behind the barrier followed suit as they all bowed their heads and repeated the phrase. The Viper smiled, looking down at them with a nod before turning his attention back to all the gods in the sky. He scanned through them as he sighed.

“I see a few familiar faces among you... truly disappointing,” the Viper said, focusing on the gods who had once been part of his own faction only a few months ago. It was the ones who’d defected and joined Yip of Yore when things were looking bad, and it wasn’t just a few either.

The Viper wasn’t surprised, though. He’d taken this entire scenario as a good opportunity to do a bit of spring cleaning among the Hidden Ones or other gods associated with the Order. A loyalty test, if one will. One that dozens of gods failed as they now stood on the wrong side of history.

“I would scold you, but you are no longer worthy of my recognition at all,” the Viper said, disowning them all. As he spoke, the gods who formerly supported Yip had time to gather, and Vilastromoz didn’t doubt that they spoke plenty using telepathy, especially after he sealed off space.

As expected, soon enough, the strongest individual walked forward. A powerful Godking who ruled a large faction of his own and a figure recognized throughout the multiverse. He respectfully bowed and spoke.

“Malefic One, we do not wish to propagate this conflict any further... a victor has been decided, and with Yip of Yore’s defeat, we also recognize our defeat. Representing everyone, we swear that proper compensation shall-“

“You killed my people,” the Viper interrupted him as he tilted his head. “Pretty sure there’s only one right way to compensate for that.”

The Godking frowned. “Malefic One, continuing this conflict will benefit you nothing. If forced into a corner, our defeat is inevitable, yes, but the fallout from the fight would-“

“I think you’re misunderstanding something,” the Viper said in a cold tone. “There won’t be any fighting.”

With those words, the Malefic Viper unleashed his presence – his Pride – upon the many gods. They were prepared for him to attack, ready to retaliate, ready to band together and try to escape or at least make the Viper pay dearly for his choice... but none of it mattered.

They didn’t have time to react at all.

The aura of a god surpassing themselves by several realms washed over them in an instant, as soundlessly, they fell. Thousands of divine beings, those who stood at the top of the multiverse, tumbled out of the sky, falling lifelessly toward the ground below with their souls extinguished.

Even the Godkings and Godqueens had time to do nothing but open their eyes in fear before death claimed them. It was a sight that even made those on the side of the Viper have their blood run cold as they felt absolute relief they’d made the right choice.

This sight of the Viper standing there with a prideful gaze as he looked at all the falling gods was a display of power that communicated just how foolish everything Yip had done was and how the Viper could have ended everything at any time he decided. It showed that he was still a being of absolute power that no one could look down on...

And all was recorded and would be spread by Eversmile, who’d been hired by Yip to spread the legend of all that had happened on Primordial-4 when the hero and the villain had their final battle... probably not expecting this to be the kind of story where the bad guy wins.