Its body was heavy, heavier than it had ever felt before. The nameless Demon Bear was in more pain than it knew was possible. After fleeing from the battle and escaping its pursuers, it came across a lone Spined Deer that, after seeing how wounded it was, tried to finish off the Demon Bear with a [CHARGE].

Even disorientated from [BLOOD LOSS] the Demon Bear wouldn’t be defeated by something like this. Timing its attack, which was admittedly rather difficult in its current state, the bear delivered a swift strike to the Spined Deer’s neck just before it could connect with its Skill, killing the smaller animal and giving the bear something to eat, helping it recover.

Quickly eating the deer and settling down to rest, the bear’s thoughts began to wander. Inevitably, it began to think of the creatures that had left it in this state.

Fear and confusion filled the bear’s mind. The players simply didn’t fit in with its understanding of the world. There were species that were strong, and others were weak. Strength could vary within a species, but that could be seen in its size or its age.

The players were different. Because their levels and skill had nothing to do with their appearances, their strength fluctuated too much and with too few indicators. It did recognize that they were using weapons, and a few particular weapons were far stronger than the others, but that created its own questions that the Demon Bear’s mind struggled to conceive, let alone understand.

Then there was the most confusing one of all, the one that let it escape.

When the bear had stood up, it had been for a number of reasons, some of which it was not consciously aware of. A part of it wanted to intimidate the players by rising to its full height, part of it was the instinct of knowing it was strongest when on its hind legs, but in the end, none of that mattered. The Demon Bear knew at a fundamental level that it was going to die, the only remaining unknown was how.

But then it survived.

For a moment the bear thought it had intimidated the player, but it didn’t run in fear.

It walked away in disgust.

The bear didn’t understand. It couldn’t understand. Although the Demon Bear, like many of its kin, had a sense of pride it had no concept of honor, and it certainly couldn’t comprehend Zed’s distaste for such ideals.

All it knew was that a player had spared it.

Had looked down on it.

Was disgusted with it.

…

Such impudence.

The Demon Bear could tolerate being killed by the players, it had underestimated them and attacked them practically in their den, there was no shame in that.

But for one of them to look down on it like that? To think itself superior when they needed to attack together while it fought alone?

Unacceptable.

The Demon Bear could feel something change within itself, but it was too preoccupied with its anger to care. It lay in the grass, quietly stewing in its rage as it waited for its HP to recover, already planning to stalk these woods until it found the disrespectful player, slaughtering any that it came across.

“...Monster…”

The strange sound caused the bear’s eyes to shoot open. Turning towards the source of the sound, it saw one of them, one of the players from the battle.

It wasn’t one of the ones that fought it directly, but the bear certainly remembered that dark green fur atop its head. The bear then noticed that more of the players were encircling it again.

…

‘Let them come!’

The Demon Bear was about to rise to its feet, to roar in challenge and fury, when an intense sensation of being watched quickly suppressed its rage. It didn’t know what was happening, but when the feeling passed there was a burning feeling in its chest, growing as if it was ready to burst.

It opened its mouth…

…and everything began to tremble with [FEAR].

~~~~~

“The blood trail ends here,” Bates said. “We lost track of it just ahead.”

“It was still going forward?” Soze asked, kneeling at the end of the trail.

“Right until we lost sight of it.”

Soze kept slowly walking past the blood, occasionally kneeling down to take note of the bear’s tracks.

Tracking animals wasn’t a skill most players were familiar with. While some games would have realistic animal behaviors, the hyper-aggressiveness of New Eden Online’s wildlife made such skills significantly less useful. Most players would wander the woods until they stumbled across something, or until the predatory animals who did know how to track their prey closed in on them.

Soze was not one such player. Having learned to hunt as both a hobby in reality and in hyper-realistic survival simulations, his ability to track was slightly rusty from his time in NEO, but it wasn’t something he would easily forget.

Because the floor of the woods was almost completely covered in lush grass, finding something as simple as actual paw prints was difficult since he had to sift through the grass just to see the ground.

Soze was finding the Demon Bear to be slightly easier to track, but only slightly. Because of its bulky body and wide paws, the bear would slightly flatten the grass as it walked, but that was mainly in the short grass around the bases of the trees. The taller grass made it harder to notice the bent or broken blades as the grass around them either hid them or held them up.

After about thirty minutes of slow walking, they passed the point where Bates’ team had lost track of the bear, and only Soze seemed to have any idea where they were. While the others were looking back and forth, searching and listening for the smallest sign of trouble, Soze’s eyes were firmly focused on some invisible point in the distance, only breaking away to look at the ground and make slight adjustments to their path.

After almost an hour of walking, the hunters were getting impatient.

“Aren’t we going a little slow?” one of Bates’ teammates asked.

“It’ll be fine,” Soze told them while feeling an imprint in the ground. “Even if it has a head start on us we’ll be able to catch up eventually.”

“What if it just took off? If it wants to rest won’t it try to go somewhere familiar?”

“Yeah. what if it’s already heading west?”

“Well, currently it's moving south, so I think we’re good,” Bates said while shaking his head.

“It can’t be much farther either,” Soze said, double-checking the tracks. The patches of broken grass were closer together than they were before. “It’s slowing down.” Soze pulled out his bow, and the others quickly did the same. “Fan out.”

The hunters paused for a moment, but Bates nodded and they began to move. The woods became silent as the twelve players quietly spread out, as even the birds had been scared away when the Demon Bear passed through.

Soze slowly moved forward, keeping the players to his left and right within a visible distance. His bow was drawn with arrows ready, but he wasn’t sure how effective they would be. During the fighting earlier, he had fired as many arrows at the bear as he could, but its armor would negate most, if not all of the damage.

The only chance they had was with the bonus from [DAMAGE BURST] but even that was difficult. Although the Skill was powerful and the damage bonus stacked for every arrow fired within its time limit, it would reset if you missed the target. You couldn’t just fire randomly.

‘Before, I tried to fire as fast as I could, but my accuracy suffered and I nearly shot Yang. Now, we only have a single, less sturdy Tank, so standing still and focusing fire will be even more dangerous.’

With any luck, the Demon Bear would try to run again once they started attacking. As long as they could deal more damage to it in that short moment than it could recover in the time it takes them to track it down, then they could chip away at its HP until it died.

If it actually chose to stand and fight, Soze wasn’t sure what they could do accept fill it with as many arrows as possible and hope they dealt enough damage to kill it. Soze did have a new weapon in his inventory that could get through the bear's hide, but it was a close-range weapon. Even if the bear was injured he wasn't confident enough to try fighting it personally.

As they approached, Soze was soon able to make out the sleeping form of the Demon Bear, the top of its back exposed amidst the tall grass. The half-eaten carcass of a Spined Deer was a few feet away from the bear, and some of the beast’s smaller wounds appeared to have healed.

Giving a signal to the other players, Soze moved closer as they began to encircle the beast.

When Soze was about 30 feet away, he stopped and narrowed his eyes.

Something felt…wrong.

He couldn’t put it into words, but a feeling of apprehension filled him nonetheless. It was a feeling he was deeply familiar with, something he had experienced many times when he spent time out in the wilds of the real world.

It was instinct. A primal sense for danger that most humans didn’t need anymore, but one which had been instilled in him from one too many near-death experiences in the wild.

He used [ANALYSE] on the Demon Bear.

[NAME]: ???

[SPECIES]: Demon Bear

[LEVEL]: 40

[STATUS]

{HP}: 352/2200

{SP}: 2200/2200

{MP}: 50/50

[ARMOR]: 55

[END]: 110

[STR]: 94

[AGI]: 80

[DEX]: 63

[PER]: 72

[INT]: 5

[SPT]: 5

[SKILLS]

[TOUGH HIDE] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase Armor by 50% of END.

[DESCRIPTION]

A Demon Bear that is close to earning a name. Description to be updated.

Soze nearly felt his heart leap from his chest.

Even the base abilities of the Demon Bear were enough to tear through three of their best players, and its sole Skill made it almost untouchable for the rest of them.

If such a creature were to be given a name, and probably a Unique Skill to go with it…

“...it would be a monster…” Soze muttered, speaking without really intending to.

Suddenly the Demon Bear’s eyes shot open and turned to look at him, and in its eyes, Soze sensed a raw fury that hadn’t been there during the previous battle.

The bear started to get up before stumbling.

At the same time, the menu in front of Soze flickered and changed.

When the flickering stopped, Soze paled.

[NAME]: The Monster

[SPECIES]: Demon Bear

[LEVEL]: 40

[STATUS]

{HP}: 352/2200

{SP}: 2200/2200

{MP}: 50/50

[ARMOR]: 55

[END]: 110

[STR]: 94

[AGI]: 80

[DEX]: 63

[PER]: 72

[INT]: 5

[SPT]: 5

[SKILLS]

[BURNING RAGE] Lv.1

(Active Cost: 100 SP) The Unique Skill of The Monster. Letting out a mighty roar, any weaker creatures who hear it are paralyzed with [FEAR]. This Skill becomes more potent based on the amount of HP lost.

[TOUGH HIDE] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase Armor by 50% of END.

[DESCRIPTION]

A Demon Bear that has earned a name through its unbridled fury. Throughout its life, The Monster was a peerless existence in the woods it called home. After being severely wounded by the players and then looked down on, it became filled with indignant rage. When facing a player, it will not rest until they have been slaughtered.