Chapter 235: Two Headed Bear

The two-headed bear charged at him, swinging wildly and without much grace. It was pure power and brute force, but that was in its own way, a very dangerous weapon.

The beast didn’t have to worry about taking damage, it knew that Julius didn’t have many options to hurt it with. But it also knew that it was slower.

That was why it had deployed the strategy of getting ahold of Julius with its arms and then trying to tear him apart with its two sets of jaws.

Something interesting that Julius realized after some time was that the monster did have a reason for having two heads.

One head seemed like it was responsible for doing the actual fighting, while the other head was almost entirely devoted to keeping its skill and Concept running through its body.

It was like having two separate brains for fighting. It definitely worked too, because Julius was honestly a bit impressed by how well the monster was able to infuse its Concept into its body.

Julius could definitely learn a few things from this creature.

It was just too bad that he wasn’t really in a position to ask it for some pointers. He had a feeling that the answer he would get would be a sharp claw to the face.

He did need to start finishing this fight up though. He was already sensing several other monsters observing their fight from the trees. Even the little rabbit was sitting back and observing.

He maintained his calm and allowed the monster to overextend itself before going on the offensive.

Once he evaded both claws and made sure he wasn’t in range of either of its jaws, he smashed a leg loaded with fire mana into the bear.

As he did he made sure to do his best to infuse his Phoenix Concept into [Thermal Empowerment].

That was one thing he had been trying to improve as the fight went on. The uncommon skill didn’t make it easy, but he pushed through it.

He believed that if he wanted his new body skill option at rare to contain some aspects of his Phoenix Concept, he would need to make some headway into infusing the skill as he did with [Phoenix Renewal] and to some extent [Armaments of the Arcane].

It would be his best chance. Or that was what he was hoping for.

He got in another three nice strikes before he needed to back off and avoid the slashing claw.

However, he was ecstatic to see that for the first time something had happened. He had been partly successful in infusing his body skill with his Phoenix Concept and the result was quite exciting.

He was able to notice the fire mana actually break through the two-headed bear’s defenses and ‘contaminate’ its body. There wasn’t any outward damage, but Julius smiled when the monster roared in pain all of a sudden.

Something must have happened, he thought to himself.

Seeing that he was on to something, he eagerly rushed back in. His next fist was covered in fire and when he made contact he flooded as much fire mana that was infused with his Concept into the monster.

It was successful again.

The bear flinched away and roared once more in pain.

If Julius didn’t know better, he would guess that whatever he was doing to the bear was burning its aura or its soul. Because according to his aura senses, the monster’s aura no longer had the indicators of an earth beast, but now had some aspects that resembled a monster with an affinity to fire.

He looked at the bear with a hungry smile and he noticed the bear was now looking at him with signs of hesitation.

Not showing any mercy, he stalked toward the monster with both arms enflamed while the monster took a step back in fear.

***

He kept this up for as long as he could. He didn’t care that they were accumulating a large crowd of monsters. They weren’t interrupting the fight and seemed satisfied with just watching, not wanting to get in the middle of a fight with two powerful creatures.

Julius had a feeling that they were waiting until the two of each other tired the other out. Unfortunately for them, Julius still had plenty of energy.

And while Julius could have ended it at any time he was experiencing such rapid improvement in this [Thermal Empowerment], he didn’t want to.

He wished he could do this forever. If he could, he believed he would be able to rank up this skill in no time at all.

Unfortunately, the monster was just about on its last legs. The effects of the fire were showing.

Julius stared directly at the two heads, both arms and legs were softly dancing with red flames. His skill raging forth with intensity.

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The monster must have realized it was a lost cause because Julius felt it begin to compress something within its chest.

He immediately used [Flash Step] to gain some distance and was glad he did because the two-headed bear, now flush with so much power charged at him with terrifying speed. He only barely dodged it.

It felt similar to what the man who had almost killed him with his suicide attack had done. This bear was probably feeding the rest of its life energy or soul energy into whatever berserker skill it was using.

Julius had already learned his lesson from that experience. So he was about to create a barrier with [Armaments of the Arcane] in front of him, prepared to break his self-imposed restriction.

However, he stopped himself after a moment when he saw the monster stop from where it had flown past him. He could see the challenging glare in the monster’s eyes.

Julius shook his head in amusement. He couldn’t help but want to prove that he could defeat this monster without having to rely on his other powerful skills. He wanted to beat this thing with the tools he had been using the entire fight.

His pride was demanding that from him.

So what if the bear was stronger now? Did that automatically make it stronger than him?