The Demon Bear let out a deafening roar, charging forward as Loran raised his Magic Shield and prepared a Mana Spike. With only ten feet between them, Loran sent the spell flying and moved behind a tree, hoping to slow the bear as much as physically possible.

The bear swiped at the spike as it continued running, barely flinching as Loran made the spell dodge and left a long cut along the bear’s back. The Mana Spike shrank, having lost a lot of energy from attacking the bear, but continued to chase after the beast.

The spike lagged behind the Demon Bear until it reached the tree Loran was standing behind. Loran jumped back, hoping the tree would at least buy him a few seconds, but he gasped as the bear continued forward, splintering the tree with a shoulder check and barely slowing down.

Gritting his teeth, Loran dashed forward the moment his feet touched the ground. He shoved the shield in the bear’s face as it opened its mouth to bite him. The bear swung its claws at him and he quickly ducked under the strike, creating a Mana Spike as he came to the bear’s side.

Grabbing the spell with his good hand, Loran stabbed the beast just below the shoulder, hoping to drive the spike into something vital.

The Demon Bear roared as the spell sank nearly a foot into its body, quickly retaliating with a backhanded strike. Loran summoned another shield to block the attack but the bear’s heavy limb overpowered his defenses and struck him regardless.

Loran was knocked to the ground from the force of the blow, landing heavily and having the wind knocked out of him. The Demon Bear turned to continue the attack but stopped as Loran’s first shield began pressing against its face again. It could barely muster the force to turn the bear’s head to the side uncomfortably, but that still gave Loran a few more seconds to catch his breath. Glancing at his HUD, he saw that he took around 15 damage from the attack.

‘So much for being able to block 225 damage,’ Loran thought, recalling the description of the Magic Shield spell. The spell certainly saved him, but taking damage at all seemed a little inconsistent. ‘I guess that’s more in reference to how durable the thing is rather than how much force it can withstand.’

*CRACK*

A sharp pain interrupted Loran’s thoughts, and he looked up to see the Demon Bear as it finished smashing his shield to pieces against the ground. With his lungs still aching, Loran quickly launched another Mana Spike at the bear while it was still looking at the dissipating shield fragments.

Unfortunately, the Demon Bear was nowhere near as distracted as Loran had hoped, and it easily caught and crushed the Mana Spike in its jaws.

‘Shit, I don’t have too many more of those.’

His MP was currently down to 54, leaving him with only three more Mana Spikes, and that was assuming he didn’t need to use any more Magic Shields to defend himself. Worse still, checking the Demon Bear with [ANALYSE] revealed that its HP was 613.4. Fortunately, the bear had lost enough blood to have received the [BLOOD LOSS] debuff, so it wasn’t able to move with the same ferocity as it did before. Even now it was just staring at Loran warily, too proud to run but clearly recognizing that Loran was the first thing to threaten its life since it was a cub.

Unfortunately, none of this changed the fact that Loran was almost out of ways to kill it.

‘Even with the extra damage from the bleeding debuffs I might not be able to finish it off.’

Loran’s eyes flickered to the Bladed Glove on his left hand, the weapon almost completely forgotten ever since he started experimenting with magic.

‘It should be enough to get through the armor, but just barely.’

Loran could only see two options before him.

Retreat, or use the last of his mana to weaken the bear before finishing it off with melee weapons.

‘...My character’s built more as a battle mage anyway.’

Having made his choice, Loran cast Mana Spike again, and he could sense the beginnings of a headache forming as his MP dipped below 25% capacity.

The Demon Bear growled as it dashed forward, significantly slowed by blood loss and its injured leg. The beast ignored Loran’s spell, only shifting slightly to ensure it was hit in the shoulder instead of something vital.

With the enormous beast bearing down on him, Loran dashed forward while forming another Mana Spike to use as a weapon.

Perhaps remembering what happened before, the bear stayed low, not allowing Loran the opportunity to slide under its arms as it swung at him.

‘Up it is then.’ He jumped just as the Demon Bear’s paw was about to strike him. Loran grit his teeth as he partially took the blow on his leg, but the rest of his body rolled over the beast’s arm.

The bear quickly tried to bite at him, but Loran forced it to rear back as he lashed out with the Mana Spike, catching the beast on the nose. The volatile mana easily tore through the soft flesh of the bear’s snout, splashing its face with blood and exposing bone.

As the Demon Bear reared back in pain, Loran threw the Mana Spike, having it curve through the air to stab the beast in the side while he ran the opposite way.

Disorientated from the injury to its face, the bear turned to the side it was stabbed from and lashed out. Now directly behind the beast, Loran jumped onto its back, grabbing its fur tightly with his good hand.

‘One vital hit,’ Loran thought desperately. ‘If I can just stab it in the neck!’

The Demon Bear began violently shaking as it tried to get Loran of its back, and Loran could feel his grip starting to slip. Quickly thinking through his options, Loran created a mana construct behind him, too long to be a shield, and too wide to be called a rope.

Looping the spell under his arms, the mana reached around the bear’s neck and connected with itself, creating a ring-shaped harness that held Loran in place. With barely any mana remaining, Loran began stabbing the bear in the neck with his Bladed Glove.

The bear’s shaking became even more frantic as the iron spike plunged into its neck over and over again. The blade was too short and thin to cause any significant bleeding, and Loran couldn’t reach the bear’s throat without exposing his arm to its jaws, so he worked his way through the tough muscles and hoped the damage would be enough.

The Demon Bear slammed its body through a nearby tree, smashing it against Loran and breaking it down. His head bounced off the bear’s back, and he felt blood starting to run down the back of his neck, but he continued stabbing.

Loran felt the world tilt as the bear reared back onto its hind legs. Then the beast began to fall backwards, and Loran’s face paled as he knew what was coming. He dispersed the spell and tried to jump away, but it was too late.

The bear’s enormous body fell to the ground with a mighty thud, pinning Loran beneath it. Loran’s ribs screamed almost as loudly as he did, as the impact of the Demon Bear’s massive body threatened to crush him.

The heavy body began to thrash about, grinding Loran into the dirt. Pinned helplessly, he could only watch as his HP, already well below half, was slowly stripped away under the bear’s assault.

Then, just as Loran watched his HP fall into the single digits, the beast let out a blood-curdling roar that practically shook him down to his bones. When the roaring stopped the thrashing calmed into a slight twitching, and less than a minute later, the Demon Bear stilled completely.

A notification from his menu confirmed that the beast was dead.

~~~~~

Loran was lying still under the Demon Bear’s corpse, desperately trying to catch his breath while trapped by the crushing weight.

‘Maybe I can roll it off?’ he thought hopefully.

Between his bad position and his injuries, moving the bear’s body was incredibly difficult, but after a few minutes, the corpse began to budge, giving Loran more room to work with. After several minutes, he had rolled the beast onto its belly and was now pinned only by his legs up to his thighs.

‘I can work with that.’

With his body mostly freed, Loran took stock of the situation, starting with his menu.

[NAME]: Loran

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 30

[EXP]: 87740/4500

[STATUS]

{HP}: 9.3/150

{SP}: 129/400

{MP}: 28/200

‘Okay, I think that’s officially the closest I’ve been to dying so far.’

He probably should have felt more frightened at the idea of being stuck in the woods while this injured, but after such an intense battle his mind was too exhausted to feel anything.

“Besides, I have healing magic now,” he mumbled. “I can just…ack!”

As Loran tried to heal himself, his head throbbed and he lost his hold on the mana.

“Ow ow ow. What the hell…” His voice trailed off as his eyes wandered down to the bottom of his menu.

[CONCUSSION]

Remaining Duration: 4 Days, 23 Hours, 56 Minutes, 7 Seconds

“...Fuck.”