**

Namean Lion, a spirit who stood at the peak of power, physically. His skin was so tough that it's said that he was never injured. This kind of monster could take on armies, after all, it wasn't like any weapon or attack could injure it.

Such a monstrous creature charged at me.

I would be lying to myself if I said that fear wasn't crawling in my heart. But being afraid wasn't a bad thing, it would help me not become overconfident.

So, with a scared, but calm mind, I turned the water inside his body into ice. But once again, the monstrous beast only stumbled for a bit but didn't stop his leaps.

What a damn monster.

I drew all of the moisture from the plants around me, turning the luscious green mountain into a barren, dark land of death.

Water encircled me into a rotating ring, and it was a little hard, but with the increase in agility due to holding the spear with my teeth, Zoro style. I was able to move faster, and the area around me was turned into hard, slippery ice. Since I was atop a steep mountain, the Namean Lion would have to try and climb ice on a downward surface.

*Crack!*

As his feet landed on the ice, he broke through as his claws sang on the hardened water. But even with all of the power behind it, the lion started slipping, unable to get a good footing.

This was the advantage of having terrain superiority. Being in an icy land with water all around me, now the Namean Lion was in my zone.

The creature took a deep breath, and I immediately hit the Chi Points in my ears. The pain was horrendous and a ringing sound rang out. Blood came out of my ears, but I at least couldn't hear anything temporarily as the ice around the lion broke apart.

He had just roared, and that's what I had been on the lookout for. That dangerous roar would have probably paralyzed my body, or done something like that. Because its power was outrageous.

While I still took some damage from it, this was nothing as at the same time I also used my waterbending to attack his lungs, which were vulnerable during the roar.

Truly, I was still suspicious of how much damage the lion had taken. Were my attacks even doing anything? It felt like that beast was some invincible monster.

But those thoughts of mine were settled down once I saw the lion's legs trembling. I breathed an internal sigh of relief because due to my HP being so low, I planned on retreating. But it seemed like staying a little longer here would be more beneficial, still, the situation wasn't in my favor yet. So as soon as I see something dangerous, I will have to run.

Or else this place could turn into my graveyard.

Lifting my hand, the water around me rose, following my commands. Within a split second, it encircled the lion spirit and it kept rotating around him.

Namean opened his jaw as if to say something, but no sound came out. His lungs have been frozen over and over again, it's honestly baffling just how the hell was this thing still alive. It essentially hadn't been breathing the whole battle.

Now, it was just a waiting game. My bleeding effect has stopped, and I had over 18% of my HP left.

Suddenly my ears cleared up as the [Chi Blocking] I had done on them cleared out. The elephant-sized lion growled at me and took another step, and that was when I got an idea.

I took the spear back into my hand. Airebenders used their staffs to help with their bending, with a wave of my spear, water attached to the spear's tip, and moved about in a giant whip-like manner.

The water moved about easier than waterbending with one hand. So I picked up the lion once again and started drowning him. This was the difference between us, I knew how to fight against someone stronger than me. If he got close to me, this lion could kill me in one hit. Even do so with relative ease.

But, now that I had turned the terrain into my advantage, slowly but surely, this monster would fall.

"Eris!" I called out to the Evil Lady, bringing her out of her stupor. She must be worried about a lot of things. But I didn't care right now, this was the second time she has tried to get me killed. "Restrain the lion."

She nodded, her eyes turned calm, as always. It seemed like she finally got a hang of her emotions.

But by now, I could easily guess what she was thinking. It wasn't that hard to do so anymore.

Dark hair extended, and while it seemed like normally the Evil Lady might not be able to restrain the lion normally.

Now, the situation has changed. Her hair extended and seemed to grow like metallic wire as it wrapped around the lion. Like thick rope made of steel, the hair wrapped around the lion, clutching its libs tight.

***

-Evil Lady POV-

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!!

What the hell is up with this situation?! He lost half of his upper torso and arm, yet he is still alive! This is madness! Just tying up some bandages stopped his bleeding too. Have I gone crazy?! Am I under an illusion?!

How?!

This isn't normal. It's beyond logic and understanding. I had made the grave mistake of assuming that Sokka was human. But that wasn't the truth. No matter how I looked at it, he wasn't a human. Even calling him a spirit would be an understatement. Maybe he is one of the beings like Old Iron, Vaatu, Raava, and the Mother of Faces. Did he hide and disguise himself as a human? Why would he do so? Maybe for entertainment?

He was playing with me all along. He was no simple human, to begin with. No, I was the one who didn't notice sooner and acted arrogantly. Since, when he crushed me in a battle of minds, almost destroyed my conscience when I tried to read his mind.

Then he also had that contract that bound my soul, which seemed to be almost otherworldly. I had never seen such a thing before.

Now I could see it. Someone like Sokka, if that even was his name. He isn't someone I can mess with.

The tug in my hair broke me from my thoughts. It felt like my hair would be pulled out of its roots. Though the Namean lion might be weakened, as Sokka had dealt devastating damage to it. But the Spirit was still physically powerful, it felt like it would rip off my scalp.

That was when I noticed Sokka getting into position, and Namean opened its mouth, preparing another one of his deadly roars. But Sokka, seeming to have already predicted this threw his spear, which was powered by his waterbending as a stream of water seemed to propel it into Namean's mouth.

*Slick!*

While the lion's skin was impenetrable, Sokka had weakened it enough to kill. The lion slumped on the ground and I couldn't help but feel a trace of fear grasp onto my heart as Sokka's cold eyes landed on mine.

He walked towards me, one-armed, but there wasn't even a trace of pain on his face. Neither did his body move strangely or limped due to the lost appendages. As expected, just how long did a spirit need to live to consider such things as pain, unimportant.

Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out a big baked fish, by now this wasn't even the strangest thing he had done. The fish was too big for something to fit in his pocket. Did he have some kind of spatial manipulation ability like me?

He took big bites out of the fish, his eyes still kept staring into mine, in a creepily calm manner.

Crushing even its bones with his teeth as he kept looking at me. Such a strange scenario, a one-armed man, eating fish, while walking toward you. It sounded like a joke with a punchline. But this was reality, and I wasn't laughing.

He stopped in front of me, we were close and I could smell the aroma of the cooked fish. The small heat it radiated made it seem like it was just freshly cooked.

"Can you guess what I am thinking right now?" Asked Sokka, munching down on his food, the fish's bones being crushed by his teeth.

Answering him right now might get me killed. So instead I kept my mouth shut. This guy was dangerous and I didn't want to try and play around with him in any way… wish I had realized this sooner though.

"I am wondering if I should kill you or not," he said casually as if talking about the weather. "I have half a mind to do so. But luckily for you, my mood is fantastic."

What? He is in a good mood? But… he almost died?

Sokka turned around, and went towards the lion, only now did I notice something… his arm had regenerated?!

"Think of something you can give me, it could be an item too. But better think fast, because I might just decide to kill you." Sokka said, casually walking away.

Shit. What can I even offer a guy like that? Many thoughts came to mind, and I didn't plan to hold back on my offers. Because my life depended on it. Since he seemed to be so strong, someone like me probably doesn't even qualify in his eyes.

***

As Sokka walked towards the Namean Lion, he turned on the notifications that he had muted during the battle. Such things would only distract him in a fight, but now he had a chance to check it.

[You predicted the Namean Lion's roar. Intelligence increased by 1]

[Due to outplaying your enemy, Wisdom increased by 1]

[You learned an original way to use waterbending, Wisdom increased by 1]

He skipped many notifications and just got the summary if there were many of them. Especially amongst the level-up notifications.

The first thing that had changed was his stats.

========

Name: Sokka

Title: [Legendary Beast Slayer]

Class: [The Gamer]

Level: 30 -> 43

HP: 2850 -> 3500

MP: 900 -> 1225

STR: 27

AGI: 45

VIT: 25

INT: 32 -> 33

WIS: 26 -> 28

LUCK: 186

Point: 0 -> 65

==========

He then checked the skills, the ones that had changed.

[Waterbending - Lvl 10 –> 16]

[Spear Mastery - Lvl 41 –> 45]

Sokka smiled, the improvements weren't small and I had many new things to contemplate. Especially the new option he had gotten after Level 40.

***

-Sokka POV-

I decided to look into the [Gamer Interface] later, and instead, walked back to the Evil Lady. By now my arm had healed, sadly my clothes hadn't… [Gamer's Body] was a weird Skill. After all, Game Characters don't lose their clothes just because they got hit by an attack or injured. Still, it seemed like it could only fix clothes up to a small degree.

Also as expected, as soon as my HP filled up. My arm regenerated. What a monstrous ability, it made me seem inhuman.

"This is all I can offer you, please spare me," the Evil Lady bowed down, her head touching the ground as she showed me a book. It didn't have any title on it, so I used [Observe].

□[Book of 1000 Spirits (Epic)]

[It has knowledge of a vast number of spirits. Their strengths, weaknesses, powers, etc are all recorded in it.]

[Author: Eris]

She also offered me many other items and trinkets that were useful, which I just shoved all of them in my inventory after making sure that they weren't cursed.

"Those were some good items," I complimented her. Then, picking up my spear, with an elegant sweep, I cut off her head. The contract didn't let her resist in any way when I attacked her.

With a swipe of my hand, the water rose and froze her body and head. Then I cut both of them into thousands of little pieces. Making sure that she wouldn't resurrect or something like that. Because I still haven't gotten a notification of her death.

[You have killed Eris (Lvl 560)]

So she was at a higher level than the Namean Lion. That's a little surprising since she was much weaker than him in fighting capabilities.

"Sorry, Eris, but I can't seem to be able to afford you," I said and clicked my boots, and teleported away.

Try to kill me once that's on you, and I might let you live for a while, because of the benefits. Betray me after that, and I will kill you, no matter what.

[Level 43 -> 58]

Still, I got quite a lot from her. The new items are also very nice. Though, no matter what she gave me, I wasn't going to spare her in the end.