9. Enjoyment

Jake trades ranged and magic blows with the golden Prima, noting its reckless damage-taking and familiar weight and force tricks. He suspects it cannot reenter the silver reset form, yet the forehead mark still matters. As poison erodes the Prima, it vanishes and reappears, prompting Jake to fire preemptively—only to realize time is being skewed.

The Prima returns in a transformed gray, older body: taller, scarred, the forehead symbol marred, and four tails severed, leaving one. This veteran form moves with time-magic assisted speed and superior melee. Jake discovers its fur-hardened defense, concedes stat disadvantages, and tries to pivot to ranged attacks, but the Prima rewinds fractions of moments to evade and counters with weight-empowered blows.

They duel closely; the Prima uses its tail as an anchor to retract and disarms Jake, wielding his scimitar via tail. Jake teleports to gain distance, but force waves detonate his arrows midair. Sensing a finishing gambit brewing within the Prima, Jake drinks a powerful healing potion as his cooldown returns, rapidly restoring his battered body.

The Prima then activates its prepared technique: the scarred forehead mark ignites, splits gold and silver, and migrates to its hands. A delayed shockwave and an overhead punch land simultaneously—gold hand unleashing force, silver hand delivering crushing melee—breaking through Jake’s defenses and injuring his arms.

Despite the hit, Jake counterattacks by splashing blood infused with Blood of the Malefic Viper onto the Prima, provoking its rage and poisoning it further. With the foe on a timed power-up and transformation limit, prudence would suggest stalling, yet Jake instead blinks in with a fast Arcane Powershot and a punch, choosing enjoyment over safety as the clash escalates.