Chapter 961 - An Obvious Trap

It should be pretty clear by now that Jake didn’t like any of the people he had met on this planet so far. When he first appeared from the teleporter, he was met with unfriendly gazes from all the different scalekin and beastkin, replaced by fear after he showed off his power. The World Leader was pretty damn incompetent, his wife a backstabber, and based on the reactions of those around, half were on her side. Calling this entire “faction” led by the scalekin World Leader a shitshow was an understatement, and Jake seriously doubted how he had even gotten that title in the first place. Actually, it was probably because the guy was the strongest Jake had encountered so far…

On the other side of the conflict, there were the people who were part of Ell’Hakan’s alliance. Two World Leaders Jake naturally had no idea about but assumed sucked because of the Chosen they had decided to follow. They clearly had plans of their own, more likely than not at the directions of the orange bastard.

Jake had considered what kind of response Ell’Hakan would predict Jake to have and how he would use Jake’s actions against him. He also considered how Miranda would want him to handle the situation. There were many factors to consider, and ultimately, Jake ended up with a conclusion:

He genuinely didn’t give a fuck about any of this… but he wouldn’t play that orange fuck’s game.

So, his plan was simple. Have the World Leader release the Prima Guardian, kill the Prima Guardian, and leave. No need to complicate anything. If the people sent by Ell’Hakan then decided to create any serious trouble for him, it would be on them and not Jake’s fault.

Jake ended up heading out with the scalekin and winged beastkin shortly after, despite their continued nervousness. Well, Jake called it heading out, but in reality, it was the two of them traveling, with Jake following along with Unseen Hunter active. He purposefully made himself known to the scalekin so the guy could take him along when they used the teleporters, but otherwise didn’t interact with them or did anything to give himself away.

Once they were done teleporting as close as they could to the Prima Vessel, they would have to fly the rest of the way, a journey that should take about five or six hours. Jake could definitely do it faster, as it turned out the husband was indeed a bit of a slowpoke when it came to travel speed.

Being out in the open and just flying across the landscape, things truly got bad. The wife and husband chatted along the way, and Jake even felt the scalekin lose track of his position due to how heated things got. In fact, he was pretty sure they both forgot he was even following along about an hour into the flight as they began to get even angrier and fight more loudly, bringing up old shit like how the beastkin’s dad had never liked the scalekin in the first place.

Couldn’t really blame the dad there…

Jake then learned about three affairs from the scalekin’s side, one of them with the wife’s cousin… which she very healthily responded to by sleeping with the scalekin’s brother, nearly inciting a war between two factions as, shocker, he had also been married.

For the next four and a half hours, Jake was made to listen to two mentally deranged people and their fucked up relationship and utterly dysfunctional family dynamic, making it really no surprise why this entire planet was so truly and utterly screwed.

Yet, some-fucking-how, the two of them ended up making out sloppily in the air during the last ten minutes of the flight as it could be their “last moments together,” and they somehow ended up making up. He wasn’t sure how, as Jake had tuned them out as best he could… but good for them?

Jake had never been more grateful in his life that they were spotted by an enemy scout at the perimeter around the Prima Vessel. It finally made the two people with the worst marriage he had ever heard of back off from one another and look a bit more serious as they stopped flying.

In the distance, a small group of around twenty people appeared, flying in their direction. With a Pulse, Jake quickly scanned the area ahead and saw the Prima Vessel along with a few thousand people. The ground was also covered with a large formation of some kind, so they had definitely set up to give them a home turf advantage. Likely both for the scalekin World Leader and for when the Guardian would eventually be released.

“None of the World Leaders are in the group,” the scalekin muttered as he saw them approach. Jake had a lot of questions due to that comment, as the guy had never mentioned he had seen the World Leaders or bothered to share their appearances, but at this point, Jake really shouldn’t be surprised at the guy’s lack of foresight.

About a minute later, the group arrived, and their leader stepped forward. “You must be Lord of the Curved Tail Clan and elected World Leader, correct?”

“That is me,” the scalekin, who even had a shitty clan name, answered with a nod.

“I was told the Chosen of the Malefic One would also be arriving alongside you. I’m certain that he could remain hidden if he so desired, considering his vast power; however, I believe it would make things simpler if we could interact with his lordship directly,” the man said, the scalekin looking surprised at the comment while throwing a glance at his wife, who just shrugged.

Great, so there were even traitors with an open line of contact in the midst of that group in the tent. Who could possibly have seen that coming? Jake asked himself sarcastically.

He’d planned on hiding, but that would probably just slow things down. Besides, he’d never actually planned to sneak around in the first place. Instead, he decided to make a proper entrance, and he quickly snuck behind the group before revealing himself.

“I’m here,” Jake spoke calmly, making the group turn around in fright from the jumpscare as he’d just appeared out of thin air from their perspectives. A few even looked ready to attack, but their leader held up a hand. The elven man, who clearly wasn’t a native of the planet, looked at Jake with apprehension before asking:

“I greet the Chosen of the Malefic One… and request to know his reason for being here?”

“To kill the Prima Guardian,” Jake answered instantly.

“That is-” the guard squad leader responded, but Jake cut him off.

“Let’s go to the Vessel,” he said to the scalekin World Leader, who for a moment wasn’t sure what to do, but Jake’s glance made him do the wise thing and quickly nod and follow.

“Excuse me, I-“

“I see no reason or cause to waste more words or time on you,” Jake threw the leader a quick look, making him shut off and back off. He did seem to send some sort of message, though, and with his Pulse, he saw the whole camp around the Vessel had already come alive. They were preparing, and part of this group leader’s job had been to delay Jake at least a little.

It was almost cute that they thought any period of preparation would allow them to actually put up a fight.

Jake took the lead as the three flew toward the Vessel, the greeting squad following them a reasonable distance behind. The scalekin looked nervous as hell, with his wife not that much better. Jake could readily admit that the two of them doing any kind of negotiations with Jake there would be hard, but honestly, wasn’t that their own fault for having the worst security measures imaginable?

Shit, how dumb was it to have everyone meet him together like that in the first place instead of taking him to a private and secured room? How moronic would one have to be to have their meeting where they discussed plans in front of everyone? The answer was that Miranda would have smacked Jake over the head if he proposed doing the same.

The closer they got to the Vessel, the more people there were, and Jake soon spotted the two people who were clearly in charge of this entire expedition of Ell’Hakan’s. It was an elven man and a beastkin woman, and both didn’t look like natives due to their clothing and the fact one was an elf. Plus, he saw both of them had purposefully made their rings visible on their hands, signifying they were both World Leaders who had also killed their Prima Guardians.

On a quick side note, Jake really hoped his ring was better than theirs, or at least would be, as if not, he was seriously wasting his time going through all this just to kill some more Prima Guardians.

The two World Leaders below quickly flew up to greet Jake and the scalekin. Correction, they flew up to greet Jake and entirely ignored the scalekin. Honestly? Fair enough.

“We greet the Harbinger of Primeval Origins,” the elven man said in a polite tone as he bowed deeply, the beastkin woman doing the same.

Jake noted three things right off the bat. The first one was what they called him. To use his title of Harbinger of Primeval Origins was already very odd as if they were purposefully avoiding saying he was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper… something he recalled Ell’Hakan had also done in the past, specifically during the “apology” from the Nevermore afterparty.

Secondly was how the two were clearly tensed up, seemingly ready to battle should Jake do anything aggressive, with the people below also more than prepared to jump into action.

Third, their levels and how utterly hopeless they would be if Jake did decide to start a fight.

[Elf- lvl 279]

[Beastkin – lvl 283]

They were decent enough for their levels, and Jake guessed they would be able to kill the Prima Guardian, especially with all the people they had to help and the formation below… but Jake wasn’t at the same level as these Prima Guardians. Especially not now that they were weaker than when the event first began.

“You seem quite aware of me,” Jake answered after a brief pause, his words holding double meaning. It was both that they seemed to know a lot about who he was, but also that they both were watching him very carefully right now. They hid it well, but he sensed their nervousness.

“It is only natural to be aware of such an outstanding individual, especially once we learned that we share a galaxy,” the elf continued. He was definitely the speaker of the two World Leaders, with the beastkin woman quite a bit stronger, there as the main fighting force. Jake could estimate she was a bit better than Olliandra from the first planet he ever visited. That is to say, impressive in the eyes of the majority but not anything to write home about for Jake.

“That makes sense,” Jake just muttered, his scanning gaze making the two of them more nervous. They were definitely expecting a fight to break out at any moment... which was exactly why Jake wasn’t going to just hand them one. “I would advise you to pull your people away from the Prima Vessel. We plan on freeing the Guardian, after which I will slay it.”

“This…” the elf said, looking a bit perplexed. The World Leader quickly gathered himself and rebuked Jake’s words. “We have already laid the groundwork for the fight, and our strategic preparations are all complete. Would it not be preferable for us to handle it and his lordship to not waste any time on such a trivial task?”

“Oh no, it’s all good. I was asked by the rightful World Leader for assistance, and who am I to reject offering a hand when I’m capable, and we all benefit from the death of the Prima Guardians?” Jake spoke, his smirk hidden beneath his mask. “Now hurry. The more time we waste, the longer the Primas remain at full power, leading to unnecessary deaths.”

Jake could see the cogs turn inside the head of the elf, as Jake clearly wasn’t acting as he had expected. Now, Jake didn’t think they knew he would be coming to this planet in the first place, but they had known he would arrive at the Vessel once they did hear he was on the planet. Releasing a few pulses also confirmed what he had expected was going on there.

At that moment, Jake felt pretty smart for not falling into a very obvious trap.

He could always feel people observing him, though it could get a bit tougher when there were a lot of people at once to pinpoint singular observers. However, with a bit of time, he had spotted them, though. People who held odd-looking crystal balls standing all around the place, with a few hidden in the distance.

In the multiverse, there were many ways to record events and equally as many to confirm the authenticity of such recordings. One of the premier methods was the use of such crystal balls as the ones he saw people holding. They were created from recording crystals, and Jake made the educated guess these were the kind with backups. Some really high-end recording crystals could clone their records perfectly to a matching crystal somewhere else, though it often couldn’t be that far away. It had to be on the same planet, at least.

The thing is, leaving the planet wasn’t hard. While the scalekin World Leader had locked down people teleporting to the planet, he couldn’t restrict them from teleporting away using the circles this group clearly had access to.

This also led Jake to the second reason why he had been extremely suspicious of everything that was happening with this group. What they were doing didn’t make any sense whatsoever, and the reactions of the two World Leaders confirmed it. They expected a fight to happen. For Jake to move to kill them.

All despite knowing they didn’t stand a chance. Ell’Hakan certainly also knew this. So, if they knew they couldn’t win, time wasn’t on their side, and they had easy access to teleporters to take them all off the planet – or the rings of the World Leaders if they worked like Jake’s – why the hell hadn’t they just left?

The answer was simple enough. They were here to potentially sacrifice themselves and have Jake kill them in a fight. Why Ell’Hakan wanted such a recording despite his recent attempts to act as if he wanted to buddy-buddy with Jake, he didn’t know, but he clearly did.

Jake was pretty confident in his theory, and while he still didn’t really care how Ell’Hakan wanted to paint him, he didn’t see any reason to play into the other Chosen’s hand either when he had the choice not to. Besides… the two World Leaders and their entire armies were below his level, so it wasn’t like killing them would even give him any experience.

“You are putting me in a very difficult position, my Lord,” the elf said, looking very troubled. “We were tasked by the Celestial Child himself to defeat this Prima Guardian. To simply have another do it would be very dishonorable, especially when we have come here doing the bidding of the Chosen of such a prominent god.”

The tone of the elf had shifted a bit, and while he certainly remained polite, it was clear he tried to bait a reaction of some kind out of Jake. The elf’s words insinuated that the god they were carrying out the bidding of was superior to Jake’s, and thus, he should back off. Any Chosen would naturally find such a notion incredibly insulting… but Jake wasn’t just a Chosen.

“I’m sure the two of them will be satisfied as long as the Guardian is slain and lives are saved,” Jake kept smiling. “Once more, please pull back. Clan Leader, please head to the Prima Vessel and release the Guardian. Slight warning: once released, it may chase you, so be ready and hurry out as fast as possible. I’ll handle things from there.”

Jake gave a look to the scalekin that left no room for arguments, and for the first time, the World Leader seemed to not be a dum-dum as he nodded and answered before the elf could intervene again. “Thank you for your warning. We cannot even begin to express our gratitude for your assistance.”

With that, he flew toward the Vessel. The elf looked like he wanted to say something, and the beastkin looked ready to block the scalekin’s path, but none of them ultimately did anything. Instead, they seemed to consider their options for a moment before the elf nodded and sighed.

“Very well, we’ll pull back.”

His surrender surprised Jake as he was fully expecting them to keep pressing, but instead, they all did indeed begin to retreat right as the scalekin entered the Vessel. Jake looked after the retreating figures and noticed that all the people recording were still going strong, and the elf and beastkin didn’t look that upset… no, they looked downright relieved.

Weren’t they afraid that their dear Celestial Child would be disappointed in them, or did they have some extra backup objective? Wait a second… Jake was just about to fight a Prima Guardian alone, with a few thousand live observers affiliated with Ell’Hakan and people recording…

Should definitely have seen that coming. They want to record my battle with the Guardian to gather intel on me… maybe they even want the recording for something else, too?

Jake wasn’t sure… but what he was sure of was that the recording he was going to give them wouldn’t be the most useful one.