The Primal Hunter 10 recap

Jake Thayne leads Dina, Sylphie, Miyamoto, and the Fallen King through Nevermore, rapidly clearing the early floors before entering Minaga's ten-floor labyrinth. They permanently destroy Gubrothas, endure a long city-floor toll, and defeat the true-ending boss on floor 40 without losing a member. The defeated Minaga is revealed as a real clone of the god called the All-God Legion. On floor 41, the party discovers a karmic plague that has stripped a world's natives of agency. They overthrow its ruling factions, restore the Dark Witch, transfer the plague into a false core, and destroy it while saving her. Jake develops Protean Arrow, chooses Arcane Supremacy, and helps the group clear through floor 46, though another team takes the leaderboard lead. Outside the run, Miranda struggles with mass resettlement on Earth, Vesperia settles into the Endless Empire under Minaga's attention, and Duskleaf's former disciple evolves into Dawnleaf.

Previously: Jake Thayne became the Malefic Viper's Chosen and built Haven into a growing center of power on Earth. His close circle includes Sylphie, Miranda, Caleb, and the figures now joining him for Nevermore: the Sword Saint, the Fallen King, and Dina. Jake's unusual perception, archery, alchemy, poison, and arcane abilities have made him both exceptionally capable and politically significant. Sylphie provides speed and wind senses, while the Fallen King brings force, soul magic, and communication abilities. The Vespernat Hive Queen Vesperia regards Jake as her sire, linking him to the Endless Empire, while Miranda manages his territory during his absence and faces the continuing work of integrating displaced people. Duskleaf has taken an interest in Jake's former disciple and supports her advancement. Jake and his companions now enter Nevermore as C-grades, seeking growth, records, and the rewards of the multiverse's most famous dungeon while Earth continues changing behind them.

Jake's five-person party clears Nevermore's first thirty floors at exceptional speed. Each member proves valuable in different environments: Dina commands plants and defeats an optional sky monarch alone, Sylphie dominates the ocean and wind-aligned challenges, the Fallen King supplies communication and force magic, and the Sword Saint continually adapts his swordsmanship. Jake's perception and tracking repeatedly expose hidden routes and objectives. The party leaves some marginal bonuses behind to preserve its pace, reaches successive city layers, and arrives at floor 31 only a few hundred points below the existing record. They expect the next section to provide their first serious resistance. Other elite entrants are gathering. Casper joins a Risen party as its dungeon engineer, Carmen enters with a Valhall-aligned group after an extraordinary arena record, and further faction teams prepare their own runs. On Earth, Miranda reaches C-grade and begins confronting the housing, governance, and political demands of receiving vast displaced populations.

Floor 31 begins Minaga's Labyrinth, a connected challenge spanning floors 31 through 40. Jake's party chooses Archmage difficulty, then uses his perception to cut through deceptive fog and bypass much of the intended maze. Their direct route releases a sealed Demon Lord. They defeat it in the first encounter, but it escapes and remains part of the continuing scenario. On floor 32, the party avoids a curse, rescues an imprisoned Old Royal Mage, stops every demonic ritual, and rejects both a specialized anti-demon item and outside aid. The mage identifies the escaped enemy as Gubrothas, an ancient Demon Lord sealed five centuries earlier. Floor 33 replaces the maze with guarded prisoner rooms. Dina protects captives and destroys sacrifice formations before each attack, allowing the group to free enough prisoners for the bonus objective without deaths. Elsewhere, a rival Chosen attempts to read Minaga's emotions and finds the host's mind too vast and composite to assess safely.

The party finishes the prisoner floor and infiltrates a cult-controlled city on floor 34. They ally with the Second Mistress, who opposes Gubrothas, while Jake gains private access to the Prime Consort by presenting carefully selected truths about his bloodline. The Prime Consort reveals that three scrolls control the Demon Lord's heart, armor, and crown, then attempts to drug Jake for a fatal ritual. Jake reverses the poisoning contest and delivers her to the Second Mistress. The Fallen King kills the guard captain for another scroll, and the party secures all three. Minaga later confirms that the Second Mistress is the surviving princess of the kingdom Gubrothas destroyed. The group earns emergency escape talismans, retains the scrolls, and decides to deliberately empower Gubrothas before confronting him.

The battle with Gubrothas escalates through his empowered artifacts and summoned tower demons. Jake corrupts the floating heart, forcing the Demon Lord to destroy it and release its stored fire. Dina holds the collapsing battlefield together, Sylphie controls heat and the flying sword, the Fallen King breaks summoned formations, and Miyamoto helps suppress the fire domain. After the party clears the supporting enemies, Jake repeatedly weakens one point of the armor with poison and corruption. The group restrains Gubrothas, Jake breaches the armor, and Miyamoto bisects him. Gubrothas moves his body, soul, and artifacts into his sword to escape, but the party stops its teleportation. Jake sends Eternal Shadow through Eternal Hunger and destroys him permanently. The achievement places the party in the Nevermore point lead. Minaga's city floor then blocks further progress with a personal coin toll that cannot be paid by teammates, beginning a lengthy earning campaign for every member.

While Jake's party spends more than a year crafting, fighting, and working for Minaga Coins, competing teams advance. Carmen completes a dangerous Valhall ritual and becomes a living Rune Maiden. A void-touched independent party enters the record race, Vesperia reaches the Endless Empire and claims lineage treasures, and Caleb loses a prospective recruit during his party's Demon Lord encounter. Jake meets Carmen, Casper, Caleb, Jacob, and Aaron on the city floor. Aaron explains that he seeks to overcome mortality by healing the effects of time and gives Jake research for the Malefic Viper's judgment. On Earth, Miranda frees a former knight commander's transferred people and asks them to shape their own settlement. Jake eventually reaches his toll and works on the Puzzle Box of the Seeker while waiting for Sylphie and the Fallen King. Once all five can pay, the party enters floor 36 and begins the final section of Minaga's labyrinth on Archmage difficulty.

Jake's party clears floors 36 through 39 by choosing the hardest rooms while exploiting shortcuts, hidden routes, and unusual solutions. Floor 40 presents Minaga himself as the true-ending boss. The encounter removes defeated members rather than killing them, and the best bonus requires all five to remain. Minaga uses layered elemental, spatial, physical, and constellation magic, then separates the party into individual trials. He gives Miyamoto a punishing lesson in the conceptual use of a blade while clones challenge the others. In the final phases, Jake survives alone until his companions escape their spatial prisons. The reunited party breaks Minaga's defenses, restrains him, and enables Jake to implant an ancient poison made with the Malefic Viper's venom. Minaga's cosmic form collapses and he detonates, but Dina's defense preserves everyone. The party clears floor 40 with no member defeated and gains a twenty-five percent final-score multiplier. A stronger Minaga then appears and reveals that he is a god.

Minaga explains that the boss the party killed was an independent, fully real clone. His clones share knowledge but possess separate souls and records, making his true existence exceptionally difficult to end. He rewards the Fallen King with the defeated clone's soul core, Dina with an ancestral branch, Miyamoto with a sword-training formation, Sylphie with a mythical dream nest, and Jake with a cradle that can cultivate one soul flame. The Malefic Viper later identifies Minaga as the All-God Legion and worries about his growing interest in Jake. Casper's party also completes the floor-40 true ending, although it suffers defeats and earns a smaller multiplier. After recovering, Jake's group reaches the next city layer with 54,373 points, establishing the record through floor 40. They learn that floors 41 onward are larger and more valuable, then enter a planetary scenario where three factions compete and the stated task is to determine the world's fate.

On floor 41, the party discovers that the native population carries a karmic plague that compels obedience, prevents lies, and makes established rulers defend the existing order. Jake rejects the offered exit and divides the party to dismantle the Enlightened Republic, Beast Folk Alliance, and Risen Kingdom. He kills the republic's Lord Protector while the others destroy the remaining leadership and living seals. Evidence leads them beneath the world to the Dark Witch and the plague-saturated planetary core. The Fallen King purges her corruption, revealing that rival factions betrayed her earlier attempt to cleanse the world. She helps construct a mimic core that draws the plague out of the real one, but destroying it should kill every infected person, including her. Jake uses the Malefic Viper's abilities, his own defensive time-slowing effect, and the party's help to redirect the destruction. The karmic plague is eliminated while the Dark Witch survives, badly injured but sane. A gateway appears and floor 41 is complete.

The party leaves the recovering Dark Witch with records that may help her escape and receives major rewards, including another final-score multiplier for saving her during the cure. Floor 42 teaches the protections surrounding bloodline holders. Jake's party shields a young heir from imperial abduction, exposes a coup, and sees a god enforce the prohibition against coercive recruitment and reproduction. Jake then reaches his C-grade skill choices. For his profession, he selects Arcane Curse Manifestation, allowing him to stabilize curse fragments for alchemy and rituals. On Earth, Miranda continues managing crowded settlements, newly freed populations, and the arrival of reusable Nevermore access. Jake's class selection offers stronger arrow techniques or a deeper commitment to his unique affinity. He chooses Arcane Supremacy, which reforges his body and soul around arcane energy. His arcane barriers, attacks, and freeform magic improve, while direct use of other combat energies becomes harder unless mixed with arcane power.

Jake's party completes floors 43 and 44 through careful identification rather than indiscriminate destruction, then reaches a divine-authority scenario on floor 45. Jake invokes his status as the Malefic Viper's Chosen, prompting two gods to waive the intended route and lower the barrier to the exit. The unusually fast and peaceful clear yields 17,000 points, but the group learns that another team now leads by several thousand. Minaga visits Vesperia in the Endless Empire and extends his scrutiny from Jake to the sole Vespernat true royal. On floor 46, the party splits to kill four beast kings. Jake and Sylphie finish their targets first, and Miyamoto negotiates a peaceful departure when the frightened local kingdom turns against them. The five continue deeper into Nevermore intact. Outside the dungeon, Carmen hides her existing friendship with Jake behind a false Valhall assignment. Duskleaf's former enslaved disciple completes a perfect C-grade evolution, becomes the high elf Dawnleaf, and formally accepts the obligations of serving as his principal disciple.

The book closes with the Nevermore run still in progress. Jake, Dina, Sylphie, Miyamoto, and the Fallen King have cleared floor 46 intact after establishing the record through floor 40, killing an independent Minaga clone, and earning a final-score multiplier. Their cure of floor 41 removes the karmic plague and saves the Dark Witch, although she remains badly injured and must seek her own way out. Jake advances his arcane path through Protean Arrow and Arcane Supremacy, but his party has fallen several thousand points behind the current leader. Elsewhere, Vesperia remains with the Endless Empire under Minaga's scrutiny, Miranda manages Haven's strained resettlement, and Carmen conceals her friendly link to Jake from her party. Dawnleaf completes a perfect C-grade evolution and formally becomes Duskleaf's principal disciple. Minaga's interest in Jake, Vesperia, and Miyamoto remains unexplained, while the Malefic Viper and the Order Lord Protector anticipate a wider convergence of dangerous powers.