Ascension of the Primalist [A Tamer Class, LitRPG]

Zakar adjusted the hood of his cloak in the narrow alley and leaned against the brick wall behind. A massive sea of citizens chatted and filtered through the bustling main street of Asethka just a few feet away, their voices bleeding into a constant hum.

He calmly raised an apple to his mouth, took a slow bite, and chewed without hurry. Engaging in a mundane task like eating always made a man waiting in the shadows appear less suspicious to passing guards.

Zakar glanced at the dull silver bracelet resting around his wrist beneath the sleeve of his shirt with open disdain. He hated wearing the damned thing. Feeling the artifact constantly suppressing his attributes was just so frustrating.

But he didn’t exactly have a choice.

'How much longer is this going to take?' Rai growled through their shared bond.

'I don't know,' he retorted flatly. The beast's impatience was starting to scrape at Zakar's skull.

Kaiser had personally asked them to remain nearby in case something happened, yet this still felt like a complete waste of time. The danger of moving alone on the eastern continent made sense, but those risks didn't apply inside a Rift City like Asethka.

The man could simply use a Draerian Escape Scroll and disappear as needed.

'Ten more minutes,' Rai hissed, paw digging into the forest floor of his Pocket-Realm. 'Ten more minutes, then I'm coming out to feast on a few of these passersby.'

Zakar scoffed as his gaze drifted across the bustling crowd. Truthfully, he wouldn't be entirely against Rai's suggestion if stepping out of the pocket-realm wouldn't kill the beast.

The commonfolk of Asethka had clearly grown too comfortable with their peaceful little routines. Too sheltered and detached from those they were supposed to fear.

A snippet of conversation from a man and a woman passing next to the alley caught Zakar's attention.

"No… there's no way he's a real Draerian," the woman argued while shaking her head. "Deserters get hunted down and executed."

Zakar's eyes widened, then he pushed himself off the wall and slipped into the moving crowd to trail the pair.

What are they talking about?

The man on the left looked barely older than twenty. He wore a faded, threadbare tunic and kept adjusting the leather satchel hanging across his chest, fingers brushing the bow and quiver strapped to his back from time to time. This wasn't someone who should have survived an encounter with a Draerian.

"Then how do you explain the golden eyes?" he asked, leaning closer to his companion. "I don't think that many people would lie about something like that."

Zakar narrowed his gaze beneath his hood and continued following them, careful to keep several bodies between himself and the duo.

The woman waved a dismissive hand, then sidestepped a rattling merchant cart. "They were probably just yellow, not gold," she replied. "Plenty of people from Greenwood and the northern border nations have eyes like that."

"If you say so." The young man shrugged. "But everything else fits perfectly. Soldiers who survived facing him are saying he's a literal fucking beast inside a human body."

Zakar moved closer and strained his ears.

"Yeah, I heard the same thing," the woman muttered. "I still can't believe Hector placed that massive bet on his very first battle."

“He probably came to the Den for a contract or two, and he somehow realized the guy was going to tear through everyone else without breaking a sweat,” the young man said before pausing for a moment. “But I asked Dannis and Tacy. Neither of them ever heard of anyone named Seth. And those two practically live in the Den, so that’s strange.”

Zakar’s breathing hitched. Seth.

The name echoed through his mind several times before fragments of old memories resurfaced. Wasn’t it the name of the dead brother of that woman? The same woman who had slaughtered so many of his kin?

Zakar’s expression remained neutral, but his gaze sharpened. What a strange coincidence.

After a few turns, the two people finally slowed to a halt in front of a sprawling, four-story structure. Wealthy merchants, mercenaries, and armored Wielders flowed steadily through the massive oak entrance beneath glowing runic lanterns.

The Primalist Den.

Zakar paused, hand drifting toward his Endless Pouch. He knew things could quickly spiral out of control in there. Yet, the hesitation vanished a heartbeat later, and he strode toward the building.

After all, getting banned from a Rift City like Asethka hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.

Zakar stepped through the swinging doors while pulling his hood low, face cast in shadow. He moved along the outer perimeter of the first floor and kept his steps light as he blended into the crowd.

The place was overflowing.

Hundreds of patrons packed the sprawling hall, their raucous laughter, drunken shouting, and heated arguments crashing together into a deafening chaos. Near the back, a large cluster of people fought for space around a board mounted against the wall.

Zakar scanned the room. He couldn’t remember seeing the Den this cluttered before.

“If this shit keeps up, I’m marching straight into the Rift to put that bastard down myself!” a heavily armored man roared before slamming his tankard against the table hard enough to splash ale everywhere. “How the fuck do entire squads fail to stop a single man?”

Mocking laughter erupted from the surrounding tables.

“You’re the only idiot who bet against the Maddened Beast!” someone else barked back while pointing toward the board near the rear of the hall.

A frown crossed Zakar’s features beneath his hood.

“Maddened Beast, my ass!” the disgruntled gambler retorted. He spat onto the floorboards. “He’s just crushing troops from some backwater nation. There’s nothing impressive about that.”

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“He’s slaughtering almost half a hundred soldiers every single day! At this rate, he'll break every contribution record since the NEVAK first began overseeing the eastern continent's wars!”

Zakar’s eyes widened.

The following surge of shouting and arguments that rippled through the hall gave him the chance to slip through the dense knot of people gathered near the back wall.

Upon reaching its outer edge, he examined the slate board mounted there.

The thing displayed the active betting for the war Kaiser’s target was currently overseeing: Kastal Kingdom against the Bridan Empire.

The grid was a complete mess: dozens upon dozens of betting tokens cluttered the board, stacked unevenly across overlapping battles. But it was the 'Top Contributions' section near the very center that made Zakar stop cold.

The combatant sitting at the very top of the list had fifteen numbers written beside his name. One after another, they had been crossed out as new results arrived, leaving only a single number still untouched—now circled in glowing red ink.

1. Seth – 67 245 points (Kingdom of Kastal)

2. Celess of Solaria - 14675 points (Bridan Empire)

3. Jaz of Ryswell – 13450 points (Bridan Empire)

4. Kaelen - 6850 points (Bridan Empire)

5. Elysha of Spyre - 5450 points (Bridan Empire)

“Sixty-seven thousand, two hundred and forty-five…” Zakar muttered under his breath.

The number felt absurd.

His eyes snapped toward the secondary board, searching for the official starting date of the conflict.

A series of glowing runes gave him the answer: the war had begun on the third of the previous month.

That's impossible, Zakar thought, reading once more the number. There's no way he amassed that many contributions in under two months.

A loud voice cut through the roar of the surrounding crowd. Near the center of the betting huddle, a richly dressed merchant raised a scroll high above his head while gamblers turned toward him.

“Shut it!" he called out. "My man just got my hands on a fresh report from a survivor of the Bridan Empire!”

The noise around him gradually died down as the merchant dramatically unfolded the parchment to read it aloud:

“ 'This is no ordinary Primalist, I'm telling you. He fought like a demonic beast that just crawled straight out of hell. I couldn’t see a shred of humanity inside his golden eyes when he butchered my squad... It felt as if our very existence was nothing more than a nuisance to him.' ”

The place exploded into another round of laughter and cheers.

“The Maddened Beast!” someone bellowed across the hall, raising a mug high into the air as if to celebrate another successful wager.

“Holy shit! He's making them piss themselves!” another called.

Waves of shouting erupted even louder. Meanwhile, Zakar clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palm.

'Do you think he’s related to him?' Rai’s voice scraped through their mental bond.

'I don’t know,' Zakar replied.

His gaze slowly moved through the raucous crowd until it found the administrator of the Primalist Den. Hector.

Disdain rose inside Zakar at the sight of the coward. The administrator had always gone out of his way to interfere whenever Zakar tried to teach someone a lesson. Yet the man lacked even the pride to stand on his own two feet once things turned heated, always hiding behind Shenlong's reach.

Around the administrator, people continued shouting drunken comments about the person called Seth.

Hector forced smiles in response.

Zakar easily spotted how hollow the reactions were—the man’s eyes carried a deep, lingering disappointment. That expression was far too recognizable; Zakar's father had worn the same so many times.

It was the look of someone watching a person they cared about walk farther and farther down a path they didn't approve.

He knows him.

Zakar reached into his Endless Pouch, his fingers wrapping around a small necklace adorned with a crystal-clear jewel. Then he moved.

Shoulders brushing against drunken men and shouting gamblers, he wove smoothly through the packed crowd as he carved a path toward the administrator’s desk.

Hector barely looked up at first, focused on sorting and stamping a stack of official betting parchments.

“What can I do fo—” The words died at the same time the administrator’s expression turned to ice. “You aren’t welcome here, Draerian.”

"Are the eyes of that Seth really gold?" Zakar demanded, completely ignoring the hostility.

Hector’s grip tightened on the papers in his hand. “That’s none of your business,” he replied coldly.

Zakar’s lips curled up into a sneer.

Before he could respond further, aether surged beneath his tunic. Tiny arcs of blue lightning crackled across the fabric around the Pocket-Realm resting against his chest.

‘I’m going to rip his throat out,’ Rai snarled through their mental bond.

'You'll die if you come out,' Zakar answered to the sabertooth.

“You and that beast of yours should be very careful,” Hector said calmly. The man's gaze lowered briefly to the heavy silver bracelet wrapped around Zakar’s left wrist. “You might normally be able to kill me in only a few seconds,” the administrator continued, “but in here, things are different.”

Zakar almost grimaced, but stopped himself. Instead, he let his gaze sweep across the packed establishment before eventually looking back at Hector.

“Is that person truly worth the mess that would occur if the two of us were to fight?”

Hector glanced down again, yet this time, his eyes landed on Zakar’s other hand, where the Truth-Revealing necklace was clenched tightly between his fingers.

“His eyes weren’t gold from up close,” the administrator replied flatly.

Zakar looked at the pendant.

The central crystal remained perfectly clear. No reaction.

Huh.

“Happy?” Hector spat before gesturing toward the doors behind Zakar. “Now get out of my den before I throw you out myself.”

The final word had barely left his mouth that the crystal of the necklace reacted in Zakar’s fingers—the gemstone turned pitch-black.

Zakar let out a scoff. “Seems like you don’t think yourself capable of doing that.”

Without waiting for Hector to respond, Zakar turned on his heel and walked away.

He slipped back through the oblivious mass of adventurers before shoving open the heavy doors and stepping back into the bright, crowded streets of Asethka.

Zakar's pace quickened as he made his way around the bustling thoroughfare, heading to Kaiser’s location.

‘Prey that try to act like predators are the worst kind,’ Rai muttered through their bond. ‘I can’t believe you let that pathetic little man live. You’re getting soft, Zakar.’

Zakar clenched his jaw hard enough for pain to flare through his face.

But instead of answering the taunt, he lowered his gaze again to the Truth-Revealing necklace in his palm.

Hector’s answer had definitely felt like a lie. So why hadn’t the jewel reacted?

‘If you don’t trust that trinket, we can always verify the color of that person's eyes ourselves when we are there.’ Rai's bloodlust vibrated with every word. ‘Then, we kill him for our own pleasure.’

A faint smile tugged at Zakar’s lips as he tucked back the necklace in his Endless Pouch.

The moment he neared the stone building where Kaiser was meeting an accomplice, Zakar noticed someone stepping out.

The young man had dark, unkempt hair and a jagged ‘X’ scar stretching across his left cheek. His frame looked thin enough for a powerful gust of wind to snap it in half, yet something about him was off.

It was in the way he moved. The way his eyes never lingered.

Zakar recognized the presence of someone willing to butcher every single person around him without a second thought. The young man turned sharply and disappeared into the flow of pedestrians.

A few moments later, Kaiser stepped out of the building. Zakar closed in, and saw once more his partner’s eyes.

The blue irises stared back at him.

A sharp revulsion rose in Zakar’s throat at the sight. For a fleeting moment, he genuinely wanted to draw his spear and pierce the bastard’s neck right in the middle of the street.

Does he have no pride at all?

“Was that boy your accomplice?” he asked, swallowing his anger as he fell into step beside Kaiser. “He looked frail.”

“Yeah,” Kaiser answered. “No need to worry, strength isn’t where his usefulness lies.” A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “As long as he can get close enough for him to unleash my gift, everything will be easier for us.”

The two men continued walking down the crowded avenue together, blending into the steady flow.

“What did he demand in return?” Zakar asked, hand resting against the belt beneath his cloak.

“He wanted help dealing with two targets,” Kaiser replied dismissively. “The brat must really hate them. He even asked for a death-binding contract, just to make sure I get the job done even if he ended up getting killed.”

“Platinums?”

“Yeah.” Kaiser smirked. “Nothing I can’t handle alone, so no need to even think about it.”

The corner of Zakar's mouth twisted into a bitter snarl.

Every single time Kaiser had said those exact words, Zakar somehow ended up being the one forced to clean up the aftermath of the man's mess.

‘Another excellent reason to kill him and steal the Seed,’ Rai hissed.

Zakar's expression didn't shift and his eyes remained on the cluster of people ahead. 'We will see.'

We will see.

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