The Primal Hunter

People tended to believe what they wanted to believe... at least until that belief got them punched in the face, leading to heavy personal consequences. At that point, they could either blame the other party for reacting the way they did, or they could realize that perhaps their belief hadn’t been the best.

This was a scenario quite a few individuals throughout the Milky Way Galaxy were going through in the hours past the death of Yip of Yore. Many of the allies of Ell’Hakan were all scrambling, especially one of the two major groups that supported him.

Ell’Hakan primarily had two factions helping him out. The first one was the Holy Church, which naturally remained stable even with the happenings in the first universe, but the other one was facing quite a set of difficulties.

This group consisted of those not supporting Ell’Hakan as much as they supported Yip of Yore, and thus only his Chosen by extension. They were made up primarily of people blessed by gods who’d allied with Yip of Yore, and the thing about those gods was that they were all now... well... dead.

Having your god die turned out to be quite a recipe for disaster, especially for the planets who held their entire leadership structure together through religion. When the believers saw the priests fall on the ground, bleeding from every orifice as they screamed in pain, or the World Leader have a mental breakdown as he faced the backlash from losing his high-level Blessing, the general populace quickly realized something was wrong.

The Malefic Viper’s display of power, which wiped out a four-figure number of gods, ended up having an absolutely massive effect on the Milky Way as nearly all these gods had blessed the natives there, and where there was chaos, there were those quick to take advantage.

Despite being allies on the surface, the Holy Church was quick to make its move and fill the vacuum of faith created by the many deaths. They had already integrated themselves on these planets, especially over the last few months of the truce, which made many suspect they had expected Yip of Yore to be the one to fall from the very beginning.

An unprovable theory, sure, but not one the Holy Church outright denied either.

On many of these planets who were scrambling, a representative from the Church was in front of the World Leader within minutes. The clergy of the Church came to help the priests who had fallen in the streets, helping them despite their differing faith, and overall, they proved themselves a symbol of stability that many World Leaders didn’t even need an hour to forge an alliance with – said alliance pretty much turning them into vassals of the Church.

Those who knew more about how the faction of the Holy Mother operated knew it was only a question of time before they would become full members, as that was how things tended to just go.

Within these first few hours, the Holy Church did much, but they didn’t make moves everywhere.

Despite everything happening, some stuck by Ell’Hakan’s side despite not being associated with the Church. Some of these were World Leaders who simply had joined hands with Ell’Hakan before they got blessed with any gods, or were individuals without any Blessings at all. These were faithful to Ell’Hakan and almost viewed him as if he were their god, and no matter what happened, they would keep supporting him.

There were also some gods who supported Yip who hadn’t followed him to Primordial-4, and these tended to not be quick to turn to another faction... mainly because they didn’t really have to time to consider if they should yet.

But they would have to move fast, for there was one other faction that instantly made their move once Yip of Yore fell.

Miranda realized about an hour before Yip of Yore died that he was definitely going to die, at least she began preparations with that assumption. She couldn’t prepare much herself, being busy locking down the planet to prevent outside communication, but she could relay some information to get Lillian started with things.

She also learned then that her Patrons had known more than they initially let on... at least, she thought so at first. They hadn’t truly known the full plot of everything, far from it, and when Miranda heard their reasoning, she seriously questioned if her Patrons were as competent as they claimed to be.

Because their only argument for why the Viper was going to win with absolute certainty was that he’d “promised he would.” She wished she could have asked anything, but she was told all this through a medium with a recorded message sent to it before the barrier even went up.

Alas, Miranda was a good witch and got things started immediately. The way she ended up learning that Yip was dead wasn’t through her Patrons either – as they couldn’t really communicate with her – but surprisingly enough from Neil, of all people.

The space mage had helped use his magic to subtly watch some recently caught spies associated with Yip of Yore who still thought Earth wasn’t onto them. He’d watched them inside their home, both nervous but expectant... until suddenly, one of them began screaming, with the other one crying.

Similar scenes played out elsewhere, and Neil quickly sent a message to Miranda, as he was one of the people who had an Identify skill that allowed him to see if people had Blessings, and he confirmed that the spies had lost theirs.

Combined with all the other reports, Miranda was certain of what’d happened and instantly let down the barrier sealing in Earth and sent out a message instead, informing them that Yip of Yore was dead... and now it was time to take advantage of that fact.

Earth didn’t really have an official standing army, unlike many other planets in the universe. This was mainly because they’d never worked on establishing one, instead focusing on powerful individuals to handle battles instead.

This isn’t to say they didn’t have the powers of an army, though. There were a lot of powerful people on Earth, many of them more than willing to take part in the upcoming conquest as they moved to attack the former allies of Yip of Yore alongside the current allies of Ell’Hakan.

Miranda didn’t even need to offer any compensation, the loot on the planets themselves would be more than enough reward for these greedy parties of fighters. At least it would be far more rewarding than fighting random monsters.

Plus, getting into the good graces of Earth seemed smart if one wanted a continued good existence in the Milky Way Galaxy. At least, that’s what many of those who were on Earth’s side assumed, especially those who knew of the power the planet held. ṙαΝ𝘖𝔟Ёȿ

The major factions also still wouldn’t get involved, and Miranda didn’t want them to either... which was why the target wasn’t any of the planets they had claimed or were working on claiming. Attacking the Church directly could lead to many annoying outcomes, and she judged it far better to use soft power against them if push came to shove.

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Instead, they focused on the planets identified to, without a doubt, be in support of Ell’Hakan. With the Sword Saint leading the offensive with the biggest non-multiversal faction of Earth behind him – the Noboru Clan – he was the first to be teleported to an enemy planet with the goal of taking control of an alliance teleportation circle and forcing the people there to open up the planet.

They just needed one person, and it would be enough. They were aware it would be hard to convince some of the true fanatics, but that’s where William came in. Karmic magic could fuck with people quite badly, and while it wasn’t something Miranda was a fan of, she recognized William’s skill at manipulating people and making them think he was trustworthy. Trustworthy enough to accept “reinforcements” from another planet.

However, should even that fail, they had one more secret weapon... one Miranda only recently learned about, and perhaps the greatest method of invasion available to them:

Sandy.

The squad of vampires from the Noboru Clan prepped their weapons as the voice of their method of transportation echoed in their minds, and the minds of the hundred other squads who were also present.

“Should be there in two after I get done charging up!”

the Cosmic Genesis Worm said, the vampires looking surprised.

“And here I thought I had enough time for lunch,” one of the vampires tried to crack a bad joke, only getting him a few glares, though they could only be in agreement that it was faster than expected.

One of the challenges with invading other planets, even with the system-assisted teleporters made for the system event, was that one needed permission. If one couldn’t get permission, the only alternative was the teleporter created by the scientist of Haven, but that one came with a massive cost, and it was impossible to send too many people.

That’s why the initial plan had only been to send a few elites at most to the planets where they couldn’t get someone to open up a teleporter, which would soon be all of them, as the second news of the invasions spread, most World Leaders would definitely retract all permissions to minimize the damage.

However, the Cosmic Worm popped up and changed the status quo in an instant. As everyone else had been progressing and doing their own things, so had Sandy. The worm had eaten a lot of things and helped the scientist with his research into the teleportation circles in the galaxy, and while it seemed as if Sandy was just passively taking part, the worm was also learning.

To Sandy, space was like a large desert filled with sand for them to dig through. Entering subspace was equivalent to diving inside the sand and traveling through it, but as space itself was like sand, wasn’t Sandy always inside the sand?

Sandy had pondered this and realized something... Sandy never really dove into the sand when entering subspace. Sandy just dove deeper into the sand they were already in. As one got deeper, the sand would become more condensed and harder to travel through, but at the same time, Sandy would be able to travel faster the deeper they were.

With this realization, Sandy also began to consider something else... a method of moving that was only rarely used but was a necessity for hunting:

Jumping.

Most food wasn’t inside the sand but on top of it, and naturally, any worm worth their salt would know when to do a proper jumping-chomp.

The thing is... if Sandy saw sand as the representation of space, what did it mean to jump outside of space? What did it mean to temporarily dislodge oneself from the concept itself only to reenter it once more?

To Sandy, it materialized as teleportation. Teleportation with limitations, yes... but teleportation at a far higher level than someone like Neil could perform, even with much preparation.

These limitations mainly materialized in three ways, the first of which being very logical to Sandy. Any good worm knew that when jumping, one had to know where one was jumping to. If not, the worm could end up a dead worm due to hitting something dangerous like a sharp, spiky rock or something else like that. In the same vein, Sandy needed to know where to jump by having either been there before or by being inside the worm’s area of detection.

The second restriction was naturally distance. Sandy was good at jumping, but there was still a limit... a limit that turned out to be a far smaller problem than first assumed, as with little practice, Sandy learned to jump many solar systems at once, allowing the worm to effectively travel through the galaxy.

Could they teleport from one end to the other? No... but Sandy could jump between different planets that were supporting Ell’Hakan. All it took was the worm getting sent there by Arnold at least once before, and with months of preperation and a lot of investment, they had done just that.

The final cost for this kind of ability was the resource cost and cooldown, which once more turned out to be quite manageable. Sandy had to channel a good jump for a while based on distance, with the worm comparing it to building momentum before doing a big jump. However, at worst, it never took more than ten minutes for Sandy to charge any teleport, even at their max distance

All of this ultimately resulted in a Cosmic Space Worm capable of teleporting across the Milky Way Galaxy with relative ease, and in concert with Sandy’s ever-growing internal stomach, the worm was now effectively an armored personnel carrier capable of bringing an entire army to any unsuspecting planet Sandy had ever been to before.

Something that was about to happen as the vampire squad soon felt the worm perform a jump. For a brief moment, everything seemed to stand still for a moment as space froze, but it was gone as fast as it had come.

“Disembark all passengers! I repeat, disembark all passengers!” the worm said only a few seconds later.

Before any of said passengers even had a chance to respond to the worm, they were all spat out as they appeared in mid-air, floating far up in the sky but within the confines of the planet’s atmosphere.

“You guys have fun!” Sandy said before quickly turning around and flying a bit away while preparing to do another jump.

The leader of the vampire squad quickly gathered himself as he had to appear representable. All the others around him turned his way, seeing as he was the de-facto leader of this entire strike team that consisted of around five hundred vampires from the Noboru Clan.

“Remember, the goal is to secure the capital... with the World Leader immobilized, the rest of their resistance will quickly fall. Oh yeah, and needless to say, avoid needless civilian deaths. No need to harm the reputation of our kin more than necessary,” the squad leader said, his gaze piercing the clouds as he saw what had been identified as the capital city below.

“Move out,” he finished, pulling out his bow as he and all the other vampires descended upon the capital, all of them solidly in the mid-tier C-grade at least.

It was a scene similar to many others playing out all across the galaxy, as all of Earth’s elites went on the offensive, making use of their more powerful yet less numerous members. The planets with the most fighters from Ell’Hakan’s faction would be targeted by the true elites, as Miranda held nothing back.

Yet there was one planet they hadn’t even considered attacking. One that no one on Earth dared to approach carelessly, not even the Sword Saint. It was an entire world that would struggle to their last breath in case of an attack. A planet full of absolute fanatics who were entirely unaffected by the death of Yip, as he was never their god... Ell’Hakan was.

For he was the Celestial Child. Born to the sun and twin moons. He was never simply the Chosen of some random god... no, he was the Chosen of the multiverse itself.

Attacking such a planet would be akin to fighting an entire world... to fight everyone from the weakest F-grade to their strongest C-grades... something no one would be willing to do, right?

... right?

Within the darkness of space, a figure sat with his legs crossed as he stared down at the red planet. He was able to see the surface despite still being outside of the atmosphere, and from what he saw and felt, it was clear.

He’s not here...

The plan had been to strike him at the ritual site, but it seemed as if Ell’Hakan had smartly decided to go elsewhere for the suspected Usurper ritual.

Jake wasn’t that disappointed, though. As he sat there and looked down at the planet, he made a decision based on what he’d heard from William about the state of the planet... based on his memories of the last time Ell’Hakan visited his planet.

While Ell’Hakan’s invasion had wanted to limit the damage done as it was all part of a larger plot, Jake didn’t have any such concerns as he took out his bow. His plan was still to kill Ell'Hakan first and foremost, but the problem is, he had no idea where the former Chosen was, and neither was he able to track him. Even William had been unable to locate Ell’Hakan, So, with that in mind...

If he’s not here yet... I’ll just have to make him come to me.