The Martial Unity

The task turned out more difficult than Rui expected, the bear was quite erratic and chaotic, causing Rui to spend literally every alternate second redirecting the bear in the direction he wanted to. He needed to use a combination of fear and pain with the Stinger to redirect it each time.

It took half a day until they were finally close to the village.

('Finally!') Rui was ecstatic. He was actually quite exhausted, but he focused. The crucial part was soon to come. He had redirected the bear where he wanted, through great difficulty. Now he needed to send the bear rampaging straight into the part of the village where Vranil was closest.

As they reached closer, Rui glared at the bear, exposing his hostility. He wanted to inspire even greater terror to cause the bear to speed up.

"ROOOAAARR." The bear roared as it picked up the pace in terror. Rui kicked it in the ass with the Stinger once more before stopping and diving straight to the ground. He had already reached quite close to the village and he could not go much further without revealing his presence.

But what he had done was already enough.

In the distance, nearly half a minute later he heard the bear roaring once more. However, this time, he heard the humans screaming in alarm as well. He heard several gunshots firing over and over again, followed by painful screeches drowning out grunts from the bear.

And then there was silence.

Rui jumped up to the top of a tree swiftly. Hiding behind the trunk as he stood on a branch. He pulled out a monocular not wanting to miss anything further. Thankfully, dusk had already long come and the darkness gave him cover.

The bear had run into a group of gang members patrolling the village, and had immediately attacked them in a frenzy.

This was part of Rui's predictions as well as his plan. Having been forced to run for half a day had caused it to develop an extreme sense of hunger. It had avoided Rui because its survival instinct was even stronger, but ordinary humans could not threaten it, even with weapons. It had immediately lunged at them even as they futilely shot at it, and killed them all, before beginning to eat silently and greedily.

it had already drawn the attention of the second of the two

shouted from a distance pointing at a distance. "It's

as he felt the atmosphere grow

humans and the bear froze in

Rui evaluated, raising an

and beard, he looked like someone who had resided in the wilderness for the

to the bear with wide

still not bad, especially for his size." Rui

immediately turned around, running away. But it

SPLAT

bear and five long finger-deep gashes appeared on its

away despite the pain and the profuse blood loss. Yet Vranil held in place

widened

bear back with just a single

need to use his entire body to accomplish something like that. As far as sheer raw physical power went, Vranil was in the same league as Fae, probably even higher, being a

had realized escape was futile, its sense of survival forced it

him, another feat

SPLAT

bear's neck, spurting out blood like an open tap. It was already too

The bear perished, quickly.

There were supposed to be no Apprentice-grade animals in the near vicinity of the Hefermaine village, nor has this bear been spotted in the past eight months. Why did