The Primal Hunter

Chapter 803: Nevermore (Not Really): A Sandy World

Chapter 803: Nevermore (Not Really): A Sandy World

A hooded young man walked through the busy streets, sticking with all the civilians who made sure to stay out of the way of the patrolling soldiers who occupied the middle of the road. They all invited respect, yet fear from everyone. It was not necessarily due to their own power but what they represented. Who they represented.

The orange skin of these people made them easily discernable from humans, even if there were many similarities. Many had tattoos that marked their caste and origin, too, many of which were prominently displayed. It was a society where one was born into their station in life with little hope of ever changing. The newest leader of the planet had enacted some change, allowing people to ascend by joining the army, but it was an arduous process that had only truly picked up speed after the system arrived.

Integration. That is what the common term was across the multiverse, but here, it was called the Celestial Prophecy. An event that was foreseen by their glorious and unquestionable leader. A being born under the Twin Maidens and the Golden Patriarch. The names of the two moons and sun that shone brightly in the sky. Due to the nature of his birth, he was of the highest caste, selected by the heavens themselves, and given a title the moment his provenance was discovered.

The Celestial Child. EllHakan, the son of the twin moons and the sun itself. A living god in the eyes of many.Aall newest chapters on

Born of the universe as a blessing to the Nahoom, their savior and leader by birthright. Legends flourished, how he was born on the day of the twin eclipse, having simply appeared atop the highest mountain on the planet. Another legend said he fell from the heavens, bringing with him rain and the best year of harvest in recorded history. There were too many legends to count, but they all had one thing in common.

They were all absolute bullshit.

Yet the natives believed every single one of them. How could they not? The Celestial Child had only brought miracle after miracle, and the entire planet had never been as united and happy as now. Well at least they thought they were happy. But to his eyes, he saw something else.

Everything was wrong. The threads hung in the air, invisible yet frayed. Broken, incomplete, tangled, miscolored nothing was as it should be. Their emotions toward one another were not as they should be. The karmic connections were not formed genuinely.

William continued to walk through the city, staying as inconspicuous as possible. His body was covered from head to toe, and despite his appearance so suspect, no one looked twice as if he blended into the environment.

If anyone with detection skills were around, they could surely find the karma mage, but there wasnt anyone of note around. Most of the powerful people on the planet had left for Nevermore already, leaving only the bare minimum. None of which were a threat to William and his purpose for visiting.

He had already been on the planet for a few months now, and he planned on staying a little longer. Looking at the karmic threads that spanned the planet, he had noticed a few that were very out of place - ones he had to research more than others to try and find the truth he had been searching for.

The rest of the day passed as William left the city and walked to the outskirt slums. Large orange mountains surrounded the city, having served as a natural barrier for millennia from both invaders and the environment. Flying to the top of one of these mountains, he sat down and stared out at the vast nothingness beyond the mountains.

An endless desert of sand continued as far as he could see, with the occasional movement of monsters being the only disturbance to the tranquil world. Compared to Earth, the Nahoom homeworld was simply far less dangerous, having apparently never spawned any creatures stronger than low-tier C-grade. It was also far smaller, being only about a third the size of current Earth, with most of its dangerous monsters could be found inside of the planet. EllHakan had managed to conquer the world truly, having convinced every other nation to join him after the system arrived, with most having given in even before the initiation.

Before the system, things had been pretty bad, though. The environment was very dry, and the average temperature was quite a bit higher than on Earth. This meant something as basic as water was hard to come by, and large underground wells had to be dug for the people to survive. The entire planet was pretty much just a massive desert with only the occasional oasis here and there. It didnt have any true oceans, but just a few large rivers and lakes, with most of the ecosystem sustained due to many of the massive mountains spread across the planet getting covered in ice every year. Ah, and the poles also had ice, which was honestly a pretty common occurrence for habitable plants.

Turning away from the dunes and looking out over the city, William sighed as he saw the countless warped threads of karma once more. It was karmic power forged through false premises, lies, and delusion. All this falsehood was surrounded by golden buildings and grandeur as the massive capital city of the Nahoom homeworld stretched out before him. A city matching the largest Earth had ever seen, if not surpassing it, with tens of millions living there.

As he looked out over the city, he couldnt help but wonder how a place could even become like this. So whole, yet broken. There were so many things that were just wrong, and William wanted to get to the bottom of it. However, right as he thought this, he began to feel his body failing.

I guess it could only hold for that long, he thought as his arm began to crumble, and the very next second, his body fell apart into metal dust that was scattered by the wind.

Opening his eyes, William found himself back inside the cave, hidden away from the capital. His vessel had lasted quite a while this time around, William getting better at using the skill he had taken from his former dear Patron.

Being a Heretic had some benefits, the greatest of which was that William no longer found himself under the control of Eversmile. The bad part was that he couldnt get any teachings either, even if he could still get skills and the Primordials Records. Sadly, even if he had technically broken free now, damage had still been done.

Taking out the Nevermore token from his spatial storage, he rubbed it a bit as he considered going but ultimately decided to delay. He had no reason to rush it. His trip to Nevermore would be less fruitful than most others due to Eversmile convincing him he had to go in D-grade. He would still go, though, if not just to escape from the Nahoom planet.

Sandy found themselves surrounded by a cube-like barrier the very next moment, getting entirely trapped. A second later, a second layer appeared, then a third and a fourth popped into existence. Each of them sealed off space in different ways to stop Sandy from wriggling through.

This kind of training Sandy could understand. The flow of cosmic dust was disrupted by the sealed space, but it wasnt perfect. The god purposefully left the kind of vulnerabilities C-grades and early B-grades would also fail to fully address, allowing Sandy to find more loopholes to wiggle through. Sometimes, Sandy could also just eat their way through a barrier altogether, but that tended to be pretty hard and a waste of energy compared to just finding a weakness and exploiting that.

The training continued for a few more days as Sandy made good progress as usual. It was not surprising, considering Sandy was a super genius. After that, it was time to do stomach training again, where the cosmic worm worked on their internal world. Both with the intent of expanding it and designing it to be more useful, but also just to learn more about how it all worked. Sandy also had to check in on all the people Sandy had eaten recently. There were lots of bad people in there who had tried to say Sandy couldnt take food that clearly belonged to Sandy by virtue of existing. They would be let out again once they had learned their lesson. Definitely.

Speaking of stomachs

Starvation is a form of torture; did you know that? Sandy asked as they had just finished another training session.

I believe you have mentioned it a number of times, yes, with me always answering that as a C-grade, you cannot starve, not truly. Alas, your Path is related to consumption, so go ahead. We shall meet up again in a months time, the god answered.

Yay! Sandy wriggled in excitement. The worm considered for a moment before deciding to head back to the Order branch located not that far away to get some food there before hunting down stashes of good stuff in the wild.

Deciding it was the fastest way, Sandy opened a wormhole back to the Order of the Malefic Viper branch as the worm just followed the tasty food. Wriggling through the dense cosmic dust within the wormhole, Sandy soon felt like food was close and dug their way out, appearing in the sky just outside of the branch.

However, before Sandy even had time to wriggle inside the large compound, their teacher popped up again, despite them just having agreed to meet up again in a month.

What did you just do? the god asked.

I went to get food? Sandy asked, confused. How could a god be that forgetful?

Yes, through a wormhole. I planned on teleporting you with me, but you went by yourself and successfully appeared right outside of the branch so how did you do it? How did you designate where you would appear outside of the condensed hyperspace of the wormhole? the god asked. Sandy felt like the question was more there to make Sandy understand something than the god actually wanting to know. Which was a bit silly when the answer was so obvious.

I just told you I went to where the food was, Sandy wriggled in disbelief.

But how did you know where the food was?

Pfft, any good worm worth their tail can find food!

So, did you smell the food somehow while within hyperspace? Some other form of detection? I want you to try and recall exactly what you felt when you knew when to exit the wormhole.

Sandy tried to do just that and remember what they felt with the answer being so obvious.

I felt hungry.

You always feel hungry.

Exactly! Great talk, food time!

With that, Sandy quickly escaped the clutches of the evil god that tried to stop them from eating tasty food. Sandy would definitely be putting in a complaint with the many-headed hydra for having a god teach them who didnt even have the common courtesy to offer snacks during work hours.