The armored bear stood at the edge of the clearing, its massive form radiating menace in the dappled forest light. It didn't charge immediately, and that somehow made it worse. Those crimson eyes studied them with unsettling intelligence, calculating, measuring, deciding which prey to kill first.
Raven's heart hammered against his ribs so hard he thought it might break through. His palms were slick with sweat against the leather-wrapped handle of his sword. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but the system's rules echoed in his mind: 'combat cannot be escaped once initiated'. They were locked in now, whether they wanted to be or not.
"Okay," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice steady. "Okay, let's think about this."
"Think about what?" Axel hissed, his knuckles white around his axe handle. "That thing is the size of a small car and covered in bone armor. We have garbage-tier weapons and zero combat experience!"
He wasn't wrong. Raven forced himself to analyze their situation with whatever tactical sense he could muster. The bear was Rank 1 (Mid), which meant it was solidly in the middle tier of first-rank creatures. Its HP showed 120 points, more than any of them had individually. The armor plating covered its most vulnerable areas: skull, spine, shoulders.
But there were gaps. He could see them now, his Sword Mastery highlighting weak points almost instinctively. The joints where armor plates met. The exposed flanks. The throat, if they could reach it. The legs, unarmored because the bear needed mobility.
"We need to stay spread out," Raven said, his mind racing. "If we cluster, one attack could hit multiple people. Ava, you're fastest, keep moving, try to flank it. Axel, you're the tankiest, if it charges someone, you need to intercept."
"And you?" Ava asked, her spear trembling slightly in her grip.
"I'll... I'll try to find openings." It sounded weak even to his own ears, but what else could he say? 'I'm secretly way stronger than both of you and have abilities that make me actually competent?'
Behind them, Finn whimpered. The sound seemed to make a decision for the bear.
It took one heavy step forward. Then another. Each footfall shook the ground slightly, a reminder of the sheer mass bearing down on them. Drool dripped from its jaws, pattering onto the crystalline grass.
"It's coming," Ava breathed.
"Spread out!" Raven commanded. "Now!"
They scattered just as the bear's patience ran out. The creature lunged forward with terrifying speed, closing the distance in three massive strides. Its target was clear: Raven, standing closest, sword raised in what probably looked like a challenge to the beast.
Raven's enhanced Agility, ten points where a normal person would have five, let him process the movement just fast enough to react. His Sword Mastery screamed instructions his body barely understood. Step left. Angle the blade. Don't try to block, deflect!
He tried. God, he tried.
But knowing what to do and executing it properly were two entirely different things. His feet moved, but his timing was off by a crucial half-second. His sword came up at an angle, but his arms weren't positioned right. Instead of a clean deflection, he managed an awkward half-dodge that was more panic than technique.
The bear's claws raked across his left shoulder as it passed.
Pain exploded through Raven's body, white-hot, all-consuming, beyond anything he'd ever experienced. It wasn't just the physical tearing of flesh; it was the 'wrongness' of it, his body screaming that it had been damaged in ways it was never meant to be. Blood flowed hot down his arm, soaking through his shirt in seconds.
He stumbled, nearly went down, caught himself against a tree trunk. His vision swam with red-tinged darkness.
---
[HP: 87/100]
[WARNING: BLEEDING STATUS APPLIED]
[HP DRAIN: -1 HP PER 10 SECONDS]
---
Thirteen points of damage from a glancing blow. If that had been a direct hit...
"RAVEN!" Ava's scream cut through his pain-fogged mind.
The bear had already pivoted, its crimson eyes now locked on her. She stood frozen, her spear held out like a warding charm, every line of her body radiating terror.
"Move!" Axel bellowed, charging in from the side.
Ava unfroze, but instead of retreating, she thrust forward with her spear. It was a desperate, clumsy attack, her form was all wrong, she was overextended, putting too much weight forward. The iron spearpoint struck the bear's armored shoulder and skittered off harmlessly, the cheap metal unable to penetrate the bone plating.
The bear's retaliation was swift and brutal. One massive paw swung in a wide arc, backhanding Ava with enough force to lift her off her feet. She flew backward, hit the ground hard, and rolled several times before coming to a stop. Her spear tumbled away, landing several feet from her prone form.
The hit was solid, not critical, but enough to hurt.
"NO!" Finn's scream was pure terror. The little boy started to run toward where Ava had fallen, but the bear's attention had already shifted again, those intelligent eyes calculating its next move.
It looked at the unconscious Nona, lying defenseless. Then at Finn. Easy prey. One quick kill to secure its territory.
Axel threw himself between the bear and the children.
"Come on, you ugly bastard!" he roared, brandishing his axe with both hands. His voice was steady, but Raven could see the fear in his friend's eyes, the slight trembling in his arms. "You want someone? Come get me!"
The bear accepted the invitation.
It charged, and this time there was no room to dodge, no time to think. Axel did the only thing he could, he swung his axe with everything he had.
The weapon came around in a clumsy overhead arc that would have made any trained warrior wince. But what it lacked in technique, it made up for in raw strength and desperation. The axe blade caught the bear on the side of its armored skull with a meaty 'thunk' that echoed through the clearing.
The impact jarred Axel's arms so hard Raven saw him nearly lose his grip. But the hit landed solid, backed by an A-rank Mountain King's enhanced Strength attribute.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 112/120]
---
Eight points of damage. Not nothing, but nowhere near enough.
The bear barely seemed to register the blow. It had been annoyed, not injured. And now it was angry.
The creature's retaliatory strike was devastating in its efficiency. The massive paw came around almost faster than Raven's eyes could track, catching Axel square in the chest before he could recover from his own swing. The impact made a sound like a bass drum being struck, deep and hollow.
Axel's feet left the ground. His body flew backward like a ragdoll, crashed into a crystalline tree trunk with enough force to crack the bark, and slumped to the ground in a heap. His axe fell from nerveless fingers. Blood trickled from his mouth where he'd bitten through his tongue.
That was a critical hit, the kind that could take someone out of a fight entirely.
Five seconds. The fight had lasted five seconds, and they were already being destroyed.
Raven's mind went blank with panic. Ava was down. Axel was down. He was bleeding and weakening by the moment. The bear had barely been scratched. This wasn't a fight, it was a slaughter.
'We're going to die here.'
Then something inside him stirred. It came from somewhere deep, from the place where his Saint's Endurance resided, from whatever made him different, made him EX rank. A warmth spread through his chest, pushing back the panic, burning away the fear.
His Saint's Endurance, even at F-rank, whispered a simple truth: 'Saints don't abandon their people.'
The pain in his shoulder faded to a distant ache. His exhaustion retreated. The bleeding seemed to slow, his body's natural healing accelerated by whatever this ability was doing.
---
[SAINT'S ENDURANCE ACTIVATED]
[PAIN RESISTANCE INCREASED]
[HP DRAIN REDUCED: -1 HP PER 20 SECONDS]
[STAMINA CONSUMPTION REDUCED BY 25%]
---
Raven's grip tightened on his sword. His Sword Mastery, even at F-rank, began feeding him information, angles of attack, vulnerable points, timing windows. It wasn't skill or experience, but something more instinctive, a whispered understanding of how to make his blade lethal.
The bear had turned away from Axel, its attention now split between multiple targets. It swayed its massive head, trying to decide: finish the threats, or claim the easy prey?
Raven made the decision for it.
"HEY!" he shouted, his voice stronger than he felt. "Over here, you ugly son of a bitch!"
The bear's crimson eyes locked onto him. Challenge registered. Threat identified.
It charged.
This time, Raven didn't try to dodge. His Sword Mastery showed him something different, a technique he shouldn't know, couldn't possibly have learned, but somehow understood in his bones. He stepped forward instead of back, moving inside the bear's striking range, making himself a harder target.
It was insane. It went against every survival instinct. But his ability knew things his conscious mind didn't.
The bear's claws whistled over his head as he ducked. Its momentum carried it forward, exposing its flank for a crucial half-second. Raven's sword came around in an arc that felt more right than anything he'd ever done, the blade angled to cut rather than chop.
The cheap iron bit into the bear's unarmored side.
It wasn't a deep wound, the angle could have been better, his strength was compromised by injury, and the blade was dull. But it was the first real damage they'd inflicted, and the bear's roar of pain confirmed it.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 97/120]
---
Fifteen points. More than Axel's hit, even though his weapon was inferior. The difference was his Sword Mastery guiding his strike to vulnerable flesh.
The bear wheeled on him with shocking speed for something so massive. Raven backpedaled, nearly tripped over a root, caught himself at the last second. His shoulder screamed in protest. His vision kept trying to blur at the edges.
---
[HP: 85/100]
---
"Raven, duck!"
He dropped flat on instinct, and Ava's spear whistled over his head. She'd recovered faster than he'd expected, her own enhanced attributes bringing her back into the fight. The spear caught the bear in the shoulder, not the armored part, but the gap where the bone plating didn't quite cover.
The point sank in an inch, maybe two. Not deep, but enough to hurt.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 89/120]
---
The bear roared and spun toward this new threat. Ava pulled her spear free and scrambled backward, her face pale but determined. She'd learned from her first mistake, this time she wasn't overextending, wasn't leaving herself vulnerable.
"Keep it turning!" Raven shouted, understanding dawning. "Don't let it focus on one person!"
They were amateurs fighting a predator, but they had one advantage: they could coordinate. The bear was powerful and armored, but it was still just an animal, driven by instinct rather than tactics.
Axel groaned from where he'd fallen, pushed himself up on shaking arms. Blood dripped from his mouth, but his eyes were clear and angry. "I'm... I'm not done yet..."
He dragged himself upright using the tree trunk, retrieved his axe with trembling hands, and limped back toward the fight. His HP bar showed he was hovering just above half, but the stubborn idiot was coming back anyway.
The bear seemed confused now, turning its massive head to track multiple threats. It took a step toward Ava, hesitated, turned toward Raven, shifted again toward Axel's approaching form.
That moment of indecision was what they needed.
"Now!" Raven commanded. "Hit it together!"
They attacked from three sides simultaneously. It wasn't coordinated or practiced or pretty. Ava's spear thrust was still clumsy, her form imperfect. Axel's swing was slow and pained, lacking his earlier strength. Raven's slash came in too high, not quite where his Sword Mastery had been guiding him.
But all three weapons found flesh.
Ava's spear punched into the bear's left flank. Axel's axe caught it on the wounded right rear leg. Raven's sword opened a gash across its exposed throat, not deep enough to be lethal but deep enough to bleed.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 61/120]
---
The bear went berserk.
It thrashed wildly, no longer calculated, pure animal rage overwhelming whatever intelligence it possessed. One massive paw caught Ava in the side, sending her sprawling again. Another swipe nearly took Axel's head off, but he managed to duck under it by pure luck.
Raven danced backward, his Sword Mastery screaming warnings about the wildly swinging limbs. A claw tore through his shirt, missing his skin by inches. Another nearly gutted him before he twisted away.
But the bear's rage made it sloppy. Its attacks were powerful but telegraphed, lacking the precise brutality of its earlier strikes.
"The leg!" Raven shouted to Axel. "Hit the wounded leg again!"
Axel didn't argue. He circled around to the bear's injured side, raised his axe, and brought it down with a roar that mixed pain and fury in equal measure.
The blade sheared through fur and muscle, cutting deep into the already damaged limb. Something cracked, bone breaking under the impact. Blood sprayed in a dark arc across the crystalline grass.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 43/120]
[CRITICAL STATUS EFFECT APPLIED: CRIPPLED]
[MOVEMENT SPEED REDUCED BY 40%]
---
The bear's leg buckled. It stumbled, tried to compensate, failed. The massive creature crashed onto its side with a ground-shaking impact that sent up a cloud of dirt and broken vegetation.
"Keep hitting it!" Ava screamed, and there was something fierce and wild in her voice. Fear had transformed into fury. She drove her spear down into the bear's exposed underbelly, putting her full weight behind the thrust.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 35/120]
---
Raven moved in, his Sword Mastery guiding him to the gaps in the armor. He struck at the neck, the same wound he'd opened earlier. His sword bit deeper this time, arterial blood fountaining up to coat his hands.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 20/120]
---
The bear thrashed, tried to rise, managed to get its front legs under it. For a terrifying moment, Raven thought it might still overpower them through sheer toughness. Those crimson eyes locked onto him, filled with pain and rage and a promise of death.
Then Axel's axe came down on its spine.
The sound was wet and final. The bear's rear legs spasmed, then went limp. Its health bar plummeted.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 8/120]
[CRITICAL STATUS EFFECT: SEVERELY CRIPPLED]
---
The three friends stood over their fallen enemy, weapons raised, breathing hard. The bear was still alive but paralyzed, its health slowly ticking down as it bled out from multiple wounds.
It made a sound, not a roar, but something closer to a whimper. Almost pitiful.
Raven looked at his friends. Ava's face was smeared with dirt and blood, her eyes wide and shocked at what they'd done. Axel swayed on his feet, looking ready to collapse at any moment.
They'd won. But someone had to finish it.
Raven stepped forward, raised his bent and battered sword, and drove the blade down through the bear's eye socket, into its brain.
---
[ARMORED BEAR HP: 0/120]
[ARMORED BEAR DEFEATED]
---
The notification appeared in blazing gold letters, accompanied by a sound like distant trumpets:
---
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 150 XP (SHARED AMONG PARTY)]
[AVARICE GAINS 50 XP]
[BLOSSOM (AVA) GAINS 50 XP]
[KINGSLAYER (AXEL) GAINS 50 XP]
[LEVEL UP!]
[CONGRATULATIONS! AVARICE HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]
[CONGRATULATIONS! BLOSSOM (AVA) HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]
[CONGRATULATIONS! KINGSLAYER (AXEL) HAS REACHED LEVEL 2]
[REWARDS DISTRIBUTED]
[ITEM DROP: ARMORED BEAR PELT (GRADE 2)]
[ITEM DROP: BEAR FANG x3 (GRADE 1)]
[ITEM DROP: MINOR HEALING POTION x2 (GRADE 1)]
[ARMORED BEAR MONSTER CORE GRADE 1]
---
For a long moment, nobody moved. They just stood there, weapons still raised, bodies trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion and relief so intense it was almost painful.
Then Axel started laughing.
It began as a small, almost hysterical giggle, but quickly built into full-throated laughter that bent him double despite his injured ribs. "We... we actually... holy shit, we killed it!"
Ava was laughing too, tears streaming down her face, whether from laughter or relief or pain was impossible to tell. "That was insane! That was absolutely insane!"
Raven wanted to laugh with them, wanted to share in the euphoria of survival. But the moment his adrenaline began to fade, the pain came crashing back like a tidal wave. His legs gave out, and he sat down hard on the crystalline grass, his ruined sword falling from nerveless fingers.
---
[HP: 74/100]
[WARNING: BLEEDING STATUS STILL ACTIVE]
[WARNING: EXHAUSTION STATUS APPLIED]
[SAINT'S ENDURANCE EFFECT ENDING]
---
The warmth from his Saint's Endurance faded, and suddenly every injury screamed for attention. His shoulder was shredded. His body ached from a dozen minor impacts he hadn't even noticed during the fight. His hands were torn and blistered from gripping his sword too hard.
"Raven!" Ava was at his side instantly, her own injuries forgotten. "The healing potions, we need to..."
"You first," Raven managed through gritted teeth. "And Axel. I'm... I'm okay."
"You're not okay, you idiot," Ava snapped, but there was warmth in her voice, affection mixed with exasperation. "You took hits for both of us. Your shoulder looks like ground meat."
"Mountain Kings are tough," Axel said, limping over to join them. His own health bar showed he was barely above half. "But yeah, mate, you look like hell. Also, that thing you did? Stepping into its charge? Stupidest and bravest thing I've ever seen."
One of the healing potions materialized in Ava's hand, loot from the bear. She uncorked it and pressed it to Raven's lips before he could protest. "Drink. That's an order."
The cherry-flavored disappointment was just as terrible as before, but the effect was immediate. Warmth spread through his body, and he watched in fascination as the torn flesh of his shoulder began to knit together. Not completely, the wounds were too severe for a Grade 1 potion, but enough to stop the bleeding and restore him to functionality.
---
[HP: 91/100]
[BLEEDING STATUS REMOVED]
[EXHAUSTION STATUS REDUCED TO MINOR FATIGUE]
---
Axel drank the second potion, and color began returning to his face as his wounds closed. The three of them sat there in the clearing, battered and bloody but alive, as the bear's corpse dissolved into motes of light that drifted away on the breeze.
"Is it over?" a small voice asked.
They'd almost forgotten about Finn. The little boy emerged from behind the tree where he'd been hiding, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. "You... you killed it. You actually killed the monster."
"Yeah," Raven said, his voice hoarse. "We did."
Finn ran to his sister, who was still unconscious but breathing steadily. He knelt beside her, took her hand, and looked back at them with an expression of pure gratitude. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"Don't thank us yet, kiddo," Axel said, struggling to his feet with a wince. "We still need to figure out how to get you both somewhere safe."
Raven pulled up his status screen, curious about what the level-up had actually done:
---
ID: Avarice
Name: Raven Hayes
Jobclass: Sword Saint (EX)
Level: 2 (1%)
Title: N/A
Attributes:
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Stamina: 10
Charm: 10
Unallocated Attribute Points: 3
Class Abilities:
- Sword Mastery (F Rank)
- Saint's Endurance (F Rank)
Skills:
- Inventory
[NEW: FREE ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE]
[NOTE: EX CLASS RECEIVES 3 POINTS PER LEVEL]
[NOTE: ATTRIBUTES CAN BE ALLOCATED FREELY]
[NOTE: ARMORED BEAR MONSTER CORE OBTAINED GRADE 1]
---
Three points. He suspected other classes got fewer, probably one or two per level. Another advantage of his EX rank that he'd have to hide.
"Anyone else get attribute points?" Ava asked, confirming his suspicion when she added, "I got two points to allocate."
"Same here," Axel said. "Two points. I'm thinking Strength and Stamina."
Raven nodded as if he'd gotten the same, saying nothing about his third point. He'd allocate them later, when he had privacy.
For now, they had more immediate concerns.
"We need to move," Raven said, forcing himself to stand. "That fight was loud. Who knows what else we might have attracted."
"Back to the safe zone?" Ava suggested.
"We can bring them with us too," Raven confirmed. "But we need to move carefully. We're not in shape for another fight."
Despite his injuries, Axel lifted Nona with surprising ease, his Mountain King strength making her weight almost negligible. Finn clung to Ava's hand as they began retracing their steps.
The forest seemed darker now, more menacing. Every shadow could hide danger. Every sound could herald another attack.
But they'd survived their first real battle. They'd faced something that could have easily killed them, and they'd won.
Raven looked down at his bent, blood-stained sword and thought about how close they'd come to dying. About how his Sword Mastery, even at F-rank, had made the difference between landing effective strikes and flailing uselessly. About how his Saint's Endurance had pushed back pain and exhaustion when they'd needed it most.
About how his friends still didn't know the truth about what made him different.
The safe zone's gentle pressure greeted them like a warm embrace. They collapsed inside the invisible boundary, finally allowing themselves to truly relax.
---
[SAFE ZONE ENTERED]
[ALL PARTY MEMBERS IN SAFE ZONE]
[HP REGENERATION RATE INCREASED BY 500%]
[STAMINA REGENERATION RATE INCREASED BY 500%]
---
"We did it," Ava whispered, as if saying it too loud might undo their survival. "We actually did it."
"First of many," Axel said, but his usual confidence was tempered by new understanding.
They all knew the truth now, understood it in their bones:
This was just the beginning.
And the next fight would be even harder.