Ajax P.O.V

For the first time since going hunting on my own I packed up all my gear. I had my shield, sword, spear, axe, hammer, bow and knives with me. I knew this would be a tough fight. Yes I have been weakening the bear for a few trips now but he has also continued consuming large amounts of mana rich water, this may have healed it somewhat.

The plan was to finish this based on me getting a good opening shot. I knew he was being very protective of his only remaining eye, I had tried twice to shoot it with a shadow arrow and both times it managed to react in time meaning blinding it from range was not something that would work. No, I was going with a heavily infused lightning arrow for one of his front paw joints to try to slow it down and limit its attack options to one paw and teeth.

The trip through the forest was not as uneventful as I initially expected. Spencer and his lackeys actually tried to follow me when I left and I had to waste half an hour losing them before I could start using my mana to cover the distance.

Finding the bear near the pond was as easy as it was all the previous times. After all when you are the biggest baddest thing around you don’t need much stealth. Luckily it wasn’t at the pond this time, but it was decently close, I would have to make it chase me away from it just in case it decided to make a run for it when he got hurt.

My first big decision came down to where I wanted to place the first arrow. Left or right wasn’t that big a decision as I wanted to remove the paw that coordinated with his working eye, the question was did I aim for the wrist or the elbow.

There were arguments for each. If I targeted the elbow It would impact its close combat abilities as he wouldn’t even be able to swing the paw properly. The wrist however would cause movement issues as it would instinctively rely on the front leg only to have it give out from under him, something that wouldn’t happen with an elbow shot.

In the end I decided to go for the wrist. Yes the elbow would be a better advantage but I had to keep safety in mind. The worst outcome wasn’t that the bear survived, it was me dieing. An injured wrist would most likely play a bigger role by having it stumble a moment after I bolted from melee combat.

I infused a good three hundred points of mana into the arrow. A ridiculous amount but I wanted as much current running through the bear as possible. My follow up arrows would be infused with magma hoping to burn away some of the fur protecting its neck and other joints.

As I released the first arrow and watched it reach its target I saw the bear try to move its paw at the last second but luckily the arrow was moving fast enough that it still hit. The resulting shock threw the bear through a loop as I put a magma arrow into its neck only to have it slide off after scorching the impact zone.

It had already started with reinforcing its weak spots so after another shot at its chest to clear the way for a heart shot I focused on the joints of his remaining front paw. I focused more on ice arrows to try and limit the movement by freezing the area as I led it away from the pond.

I could also see my previous hunts pay dividends as with the increased weight of an injured front paw his left back leg started to stumble from my previous visits. In the state it was in I could most likely keep this up for an hour and retreat with an issue but this wouldn’t be enough to kill it and I was running out of time. I had a little over a thousand mana after my opening volley and I knew this battle wouldn’t be a long lasting one.

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The place I stopped was right behind a snare trap. Hopefully it would buy me enough time to land a strong spear opening attack. As the bear approached I took out my spear and wielded it with two hands while infusing the tip with metal mana and feeding syphon mana with a decent amount to raise my physical stats even higher.

As the bear reached the trap I realized a few miscalculations I made when planning this whole thing out. First and foremost was the bear's reaction to stepping in the trap, instead of continuing forward or dropping its head it raised itself on its back legs. Meaning the spear I was trying to drive through its throat barely managed to catch it in the shoulder. Not only that but it was also the bad shoulder as that paw was already out of action.

“RAHHHHHHHH” it raged at the feeling of the tip penetrating a few inches into its skin.

A quick swipe was all it took to shatter the shaft and ruin my spear. I quickly pulled out the sword and shield but had little success. The sword was usually a good weapon but against the thick fur and strong skin I could barely make decent cuts even when I connected so I quickly discarded it for the axe.

The axe had much better success. Infusions of metal and ice let me slow the bear down some more but it wouldn’t be enough to get through the heavily mana infused skull or chest. A good swipe landed on its neck however and I finally started to see my victory approaching. The cut was deep and blood started flooding out.

That's when it happened. I knew monsters could have skills, stealth and tracking the most common followed by resistances to the environment. What I didn’t expect was for the bear to have the enrage skill.

You see there were two skill types that killed adventurers most often. The number one was revenge skills, they triggered after death as a final fuck you. Quite obvious why they would be the number one killers despite the low chance of encountering one.

The second was enrage skills, unlike revenge skills they weren’t in the epic category, only rare. Not only that despite being ranked second in the number of kills they were considered much worse. Revenge skills got a good number of their kills on adventurers much stronger than their target who just got careless after they thought the fight was over. Enrage skills however only came out at low health and weren’t enough to bridge massive gulfs in power.

This meant that in a relatively even match like this one, enrage was the worst kind of skill the bear could have. Not only did its strength and speed rise but it also started ignoring the pain that ran through its back leg. The bear swatted at me with the messed up front paw, the only indication that it had taken an arrow in the wrist and a spear in the shoulder was the lack of claw action and it being much more telegraphed.

My first parry was all it took for the axe to get knocked out of my hand leaving me with knives that were never going to penetrate the skin and the hammer. Not only that but I was starting to run low on mana, I was down to the last four hundred. A few quick strikes and half my mana determined that Ice, metal and magma were not going to have what it takes to end this quickly enough, though they did cause pain and damaged its healthy paw enough to slow it down.

The big fight ended with a quick surprise blow. After I ducked under a swipe I had a clear way for a strike at its chest but didn;t have the form or the time to take a full swing. I infused a good amount of void mana and swung dead center, right where the magma arrow had cleared the fur.

The impact didn’t leave a mark on the exposed skin but caused the bear to backpedal. Not only that but a moment after the blow connected it launched forward again only to shower me with blood from a coughing fit. A few seconds later it lay dead.

I didn’t understand, all my void mana experiments let my arrows do me damage beneath armor but it always ended the same way. The arrow would bounce harmlessly off the fist layer only to have a small hole poked out past it, never did it have this kind of an effect before.

As I carefully processed the bear, after all despite my worn out state this was a level fifty bear, no way I was letting it just rot I found my biggest surprise yet. An inch under the skin where my hammer connected I could see a change, the muscles ripped from one another and I couldn’t find the heart, it seemed like it got crushed.

Void was clearly not something to be used with piercing or slashing damage, no void was for armor piercing crushing damage. If you could bypass heavily reinforced sections like this and have momentum carry through fully even a quick swing to the brain would be enough to kill someone as long as they only used mana to reinforce the surface.

The whole time I processed the bear I could feel the triumphant skirm I couldn’t get rid of despite my best efforts. It lasted all the way through my trip to the river to refill the water skins and wash some of the blood off me.

Despite not taking any direct hits my shield arm was numb and I could feel my right hand joints throb from parrying. I managed to get away without any substantial injuries but I was dead on my feet. Stamina was going strong at five hundred but mana was down under the hundred mark. This meant my trip back to camp would be a long one.

Somehow though I couldn’t bring myself to care all that much. I had finally done it, I killed the bear. Despite my recent success my mind had already moved on to the fish. This one while weaker was not one I could engage multiple times before hand to weaken it and I was almost giddy hoping my next free day would come soon so I could challenge it.