Clones… Jake knew a bit about them. Making a clone was something many, if not most, would learn to do eventually. In most cases, making a clone was to more or less cut off part of yourself to act autonomously. It could also be to just create a copy that shared all senses and that you still had to somewhat control, but these were often classified as puppets instead.

This varied further from illusion or mirages, which were entirely fake and often only existed for brief periods, while many clones could persist permanently. Illusions and mirages did not need to be intangible either but could often interact with the world around them to some extent. Naturally, they were usually far weaker than the main body, but they could help.

What the Phantomshade Panther did was a high-level cloning technique. Each clone could exist independently, and from the looks of it, the Panther used them for hunting on their own, indicating shared experience. It was pretty much just one beast split in five for improved hunting speed and to consume five times as many natural resources. A brilliant optimization, even if each copy was weaker.

Splitting in five did not necessarily mean splitting power five-way either. Each could easily retain half or more of the primary body’s power from before the split. Considering how much stronger they had gotten after he killed the first and second one, Jake reckoned each had around seventy percent of the true body’s strength… maybe closer to sixty. High-level clones did also mean they were far harder to form, and it likely took a long time to make just one for the Panther.

Either way, considering just killing one clone was a pain when there were five, it only got worse with three. It was limited how much synergy four or five beasts fighting together could reach even if they were the same creature simply due to the limitations of the jungle and to avoid hitting each other. It wasn’t like one was a support Panther and the other a ranged attacker. In fact, their pure magic kind of sucked.

But… reduced to two fighting purely in melee, they no longer had to care as much. With the two of them now even more powerful in addition to this, Jake soon found himself pressured more than before. Their level of recklessness had also increased as they chose to sacrifice their own bodies to try and injure Jake.

Jake was continuously pushed back by two aggressive felines swiping and biting at him as space warped all around. He held Eternal Hunger and Bloodfeast Dagger tight, but his arms were hurting from blocking, and he got no indications of the Panthers stopping their assault or saw a path to escape.

He tried several times to disengage, but every time he did so, space around him contracted, and when he used One Step Mile, he teleported a far smaller distance than he wanted with the two cats still hot on his trail.

Worse yet was that even if he handled these two, there was still the one flying in the air above the jungle. A completely uninjured copy, and with the energy transfer from the clones, Jake understood why it did this. Wounds did not heal when a clone died, so if he had managed to damage all of them heavily and then killed them one by one, he would win far more easily. By saving one clone, the Panther would always have a spare to absorb everything and return to full power.

As for if it had a sixth one hidden somewhere, Jake was certain it didn’t. He had spent enough time interacting with them to feel the subtle connection between them. It was faint, but it was clearly there, and he only sensed the three remaining ones. There also had to be some limitations to using clones and the energy transfers. If not, why would the Panther have even shown up with all its bodies and not kept one far away? Even with his senses, he could not rule out the connection was only there due to their proximity… but his intuition told him he was right.

This won’t work, Jake still gritted his teeth as he was pushed back by a Panther. He dodged its next attack and managed to stab it before he was hit on his shoulder by the second one as he was knocked away. A nasty gash was left there, but Jake had accepted that to get a chance.

He and the beasts had exchanged many blows, and while he was winning the battle, he was losing the war.

When he landed, he instantly jumped as he resummoned his wings and flew upwards. The Panthers chased, and Jake barely dodged one as the other teleported right next to him. He chose to take the hit as he kicked it hard.

That backfired as the beast rapidly reacted and bit down on his foot the moment he kicked… and that is where the poor cat fucked up. Some things were not meant to be chewed. The saying that something was like chewing leather when it was too tough did not come out of nowhere, and when the Panther bit down, it encountered an impossible opponent.

Jake’s old leather boots.

With incredible pressure, the Panther bit down, and Jake felt incredible pain as the bones in his foot broke, but at the same time, he heard something else break. One of the long fangs of the Panther had snapped in half when it failed to penetrate the leather, making it yelp in pain.

Without even a moment’s hesitation, Jake swept up the broken fang with a string of mana and caught it in his hand. He kept flying upwards as the beast refused to let go, so he tossed the fang he had already made into a weapon with Fang of Man. He hit one of the Panther’s eyes, finally making it let go as he managed to get some height. The second Panther was already hot on his heels when he made it out of the jungle to the open air above, where he headed straight for the uninjured Panther.

This was clearly an example where injuring or killing all opponents at once would be the most effective. Classical boss mechanics. The two other Panthers were already heavily injured and were infected by quite a lot of poison. Taking them down was not too difficult. The problem was the final one. If he killed those two, he would be left with one fully powered and uninjured Panther while he could be in a worse position.

So he wanted to at least get an edge now before he would have to face it. Maybe he could even goad the Panther into engaging him with the two remaining ones. Jake flew towards it with great speed and saw it just stood still in the air far above him, staring down.

Two Panthers flanked him as they teleported, but Jake himself began running vertically upwards, every step hurting like shit on the injured foot. He even managed to inject the two cats with even more poison and get some distance by activating both their Marks, making them flash with arcane energy as they roared in pain.

About halfway up, the Panthers suddenly stopped. Jake took two more steps as his danger sense suddenly spiked. Spiked intensely. Not realizing why, Jake took out his bow and drew an arrow as Steady Aim activated, slowing down his perception of time significantly. He did not do so necessarily with the intention of shooting an arrow… he just needed the time.

With everything slowed down, he perceived it. Space was contracted and was cut off all around him. A cylinder-shaped path had been formed between the Panther up in the air and the two chasing him, no more than five meters across. When within it, Jake didn’t even notice it. Not even his Sphere picked it up as space didn’t even distort more than what usually happened with continued teleportation.

He also realized that power was building up both behind and in front of him. Jake was, at this point, forced to release his arrow as his senses returned to normal. There was no more time. He understood what was about to happen at that very last moment, and his eyes opened wide as he roared.

Space magic colliding never led to good results. The backlash on the caster was also absolutely immense… which would matter if the casters suffering the backlash in this situation weren’t clones. From below, small black tunnels of dark magic and space formed before each Panther. Ahead of him, the uninjured one prepared itself.

It all happened at once.

Something cracked.

The sky was torn as if a plane of glass had been cut down the middle. A black bullet-like form was the cause of the crack, and as reality shook, a second crack formed that shattered the horizon, caused by a second bullet. A cross-shaped rift in space tore the entire airspace above the jungle asunder for dozens of kilometers in all directions - a single winged human figure caught in the middle.

The remaining two Panthers were dead. Two clones were sacrificed to create a technique that could prove lethal or at least heavily damage many mid-tier C-grades. The remaining Panther stared down at the cracked space before it - the rift perfectly torn in a straight line. The only remnants of the human having ever been there, a single arrow fired just before the collapse. One that flew harmlessly by the Panther.

However, as seconds passed, the beast clearly noticed something was wrong. There was no notification or sign of the human’s death. The beast realized this a moment too late.

A tear in space was cut open as Jake suddenly appeared right in front of the Panther, space reforming right behind him. He stabbed forward and left a nasty cut on the beast’s face as it recoiled and retreated, disbelief in its eyes. On the other hand, Jake just stared at it as blood bled from his eyes, and his entire body was filled with cracks, blood seeping out of them, with scattered broken scales spread throughout his skin. One of his arms was gone as several holes marred his chest, some of them even cutting straight through him so you could look through his body. His wings had naturally also been torn off.

As he stood there, he quickly used the ability of his necklace to summon a healing potion into his mouth and consumed it for extra effect. He also activated the Second Wind enchantment from his pants. His body was flooded with vital energy as he began healing, his mind still racing from what had just happened.

Scrolling back a few seconds, Jake had found himself in deep shit.

Space around him had suddenly become incredibly rigid. Then, without any warning, a Panther teleported up right next to him. It didn’t even attack, but its entire body was burning with black flames as space distorted around it. The beast blew up the very next moment as Jake lost an arm, and everything around him began shattering and falling apart.

Then a second Panther appeared and did the same to his other side. He was caught between two collapsing spaces within a rigid space tunnel that also collapsed. Everything imploded and shattered down upon him as he felt like he was about to be torn apart… and then time had slowed down.

Moment of the Primal Hunter.

Reality seemed to freeze. Jake felt like he was in the most extreme maze of mirrors imaginable. Like his own remaining arm was several meters long. Like his body was not truly solid but merely made up of many small fragments with holes in between. Nothing made sense… but it didn’t need to.

Jake just needed to survive. He did not need to understand, just trust his judgment and not hesitate.

So, he stepped down. Space seemed to warp once more as Jake forced the skill by pouring in all his energy. Stable arcane mana enveloped his body to keep himself whole as scales also appeared. Pride helped stabilize what space he could… enough for him to see it.

No matter the situation, reality was still there. If it was not, it would be the Void... something no C-grade could bring forth. And as long as there was reality, there was some space to travel through. His step landed as Jake’s body unraveled. Holes in space - small vacuums - were unavoidable. It felt like he was riddled with bullets as holes formed all over, and yet none were lethal. His body swayed, moved, and dodged through a reality his mind could barely comprehend, but with everything slowed down and his survival instincts at the highest they had perhaps ever been, he managed to minimize the damage.

His Sphere of Perception fed information about the path, his danger sense made him angle and dodge the most dangerous vacuums, and his intuition made him aware this was the only way. The only path forward was not “out” of the spatial tunnel but through it – straight towards the Panther.

This path would normally be near-impossible to find… but Jake had a guide. A single arrow that had been fired. One soaked with poison that had made it out of the most tumultuous space and was ahead of the tunnel collapsing. It became his guiding light as he found his way out, and the moment before time resumed to normal, he pulled out Eternal Hunger – a weapon that not even the collapse of space could harm. He cut through the final barrier of space and entered stable space once more, right in front of the Panther.

This brings us back to the present. Jake stood in front of the beast with only one arm, and the blade pointed forward. His bloodshot eyes still bled, and he was a mess, but his gaze was firm. The Panther stared back in disbelief and took a few moments to collect itself, allowing Jake to take advantage of his potion and Second Wind.

The Panther got out of its stupor and, for the first time, looked at him with new eyes. Rather than the indifference and hint of disdain, he now only saw respect. Jake returned the gaze in kind.

He had believed the Panther a C-grade on the weaker side. An assessment that was clearly off. The C-grade frog he had met in the Mangrove River was nothing compared to the beast before him. He was confident beating it back then, even in an unfavorable environment.

Mutual respect was given. They both knew they faced another predator and that neither of them had any intentions to back down or retreat.

And showing respect, the Panther did not give its opponent any more time to regenerate as it attacked, Jake finally facing the beast at full power.