Chapter 9: Lucy versus the bear
[Special Event has begun: Defeat the Demon Bear King]
A message was sent to all the players around the area of the forest or any town nearby. The moment Zane saw the message, his heart dropped.
'Did the bear already awaken? It shouldn't have, right? It's not yet time,' he thought.
"Master, something is coming," Lucy said. A few seconds after she did, Zane could also hear the footsteps. There were footsteps of humans running, but also a heavy and powerful footstep behind them.
Zane already knew that the one behind was the bear, and whoever was in front was the person that woke the bear.
A few seconds passed, and finally, they saw three people running: the man they had met before, the female archer, and the third man.
The three of them were running for their lives, desperate, as the bear caught up with every step. Zane looked at the bear, it ran through trees like they were nothing.
It was on all fours, and yet stood at more than twelve feet tall. Its fur was black and shined like it was made of metal. The eyes of the bear glowed blood red.
A single tooth of the beast was the length of a dagger. The bear caught up to the second man, its massive paw lifted into the air and swung down.
Boom
The man was instantly turned into a paste of blood on the ground. His party didn't dare look back, the archer and the man with the greatsword ran as fast as they could.
But they couldn't go far, as suddenly, the bear lunged at them, its mouth wide open. It crushed the both of them at the same time instantly.
Zane watched this horrific sight, but his heart was not moved for the adventurers. If anything, he hated them right now for the fact that they woke up this creature.
Above the head of this monstrosity of a bear was its level, and it read clearly: level 50. In the whole of Riven City, there was no level fifty at the beginning, the highest being the guard of the count, a level 30 guard.
That was how dominant the bear was, so dominant that it forced a forest to its name. And here Zane was, about to face this monstrosity.
Run? It was useless. Even with his speed as a vampire, if the bear wanted to get him, it would instantly.
Zane swallowed hard as he watched the bear get back on its feet and its gaze lock on him. The bear let out a powerful roar that shook the forest.
"Uhm, Lucy, please tell me that you have a way for us to escape," Zane muttered.
The bear suddenly lunged at Zane, as if it knew what Zane was planning. At that moment, Zane knew he was about to have his ass handed to him, but a blur went past him, and when he looked, he saw that it was Lucy, she rushed toward the bear without hesitation.
The bear swung its paw at her, and she leaped into the air so high that the massive paw missed. Then she pointed her palm at it.
"Blood art, Blood Sword Rain," she called out as swords made out of blood began forming all around her, numbering up to fifty, and at the same time, they all shot at the bear.
The bear looked up and let out a terrifying roar. The air from the roar deflected all the swords, they went in different directions, stabbing into the trees, the ground, everywhere.
The bear swung its paw at her, but she used the back of the paw as a platform to flip and land a few meters away.
Immediately she touched the ground, she lunged forward again, moving so fast it looked like teleportation. The bear swung again, its claws digging into the ground and uprooting trees from the earth.
But she was not there, she was already up in the sky. She did the same blood art as before and formed several blades, but this time she merged them into one and created a massive sword of blood, almost ten feet long.
She lunged the spear at the bear. The bear knew that its roar would not have a good effect against the sword, so it raised its paws and slammed them into the ground, and a massive wall of earth shot out.
Boom, the sword hit the wall and completely obliterated it, but the bear was untouched. It rushed forward, wanting to attack her the moment she touched the ground, its paw raised as it swung full force at her.
But all it hit was an afterimage. She made her way above the bear and stood on its back.
"You believe your speed can come close to mine? Delusional," she said before she formed her two daggers and attacked its back. The daggers were short, but somehow they cut deep into the back of the bear.
Roarrrrrrrrr.
It let out a thunderous roar in pain and began thrashing around to remove her. She leaped off the back. The bear began making earth spikes shoot out of the ground, reaching ten feet tall all in an attempt to get her, but she dodged perfectly mid-air and used the spikes as platforms to jump off.
The bear was enraged. It chased after her, smashing through the spikes that it had created. Lucy kept retreating quickly, baiting the bear.
The bear had no suspicion whatsoever that she had something planned, and then suddenly she smiled and spoke, "Blood art, Blood String Net." As soon as she spoke, several extra-fine and thin wires of blood formed an interconnected webbing through all the places she had passed through.
The bear was caught in them. The blood wires cut deep into its body, it let out a roar of pain. Each struggle made the wires cut deeper and increased the pain.
Zane watched from the sidelines, both shocked and horrified at the battle that was happening before him.