Chapter 432: Do You Think You Can Keep Up?

Julius quickly found himself getting swarmed by four bears at the same time. It was safe to say that these massive beasts took up his entire attention. He had already made a tiny mistake that was swiftly punished by getting his entire arm ripped off in a single swing.

These four bears were on top of the two bears he had already killed, thanks to some liberal uses of [Void Strike]. However, even when he used his void skills, the bears were still very sturdy. Their sheer size made things a little more difficult. They didn’t go down easily, and he had to be extra careful about each of their blows.

Although the bears were faster than something of their size should be, he was faster than they were. This gave him an immense advantage. One that he utilized to the best of his ability.

He was forced to backstep as a beam of ice magic lanced towards his head and then ducked underneath the swipe from another bear. It was only when he felt the bear, who had shot the beam of ice magic at him, preparing another one, that he made his move.

He had already tested the bears’ various abilities. One area that he found weak was the bears’ mana detection. They had good instincts, power, and endurance, but they lacked perception. He used this against them, which is why he had placed a spike out in the distance.

It didn’t require a lot of mana to create, not even with the small film of [Void Strike] around it, but it required patience. He needed to wait until the bear was vulnerable, such as stopping in place to shoot a beam of ice.

As the ice magic was being charged, Julius quickly detonated the kinetic energy payload inside the spike. Then, in a streak of blue light, Julius watched as the spike tore straight through the bear’s open mouth. Blood poured out of its mouth like a waterfall, and it let out a sharp yelp of pain.

This gave Julius the perfect opportunity to send another attack at the bear. This time, he blasted a pure bolt of mana with only [Void Strike] aiding it. It was more of a test than anything else, but he wanted to see how effective it was.

To his disappointment, it didn’t go that well. The mana, despite being highly compressed and powerful, didn’t seem to channel [Void Strike] that well. The attack barely scuffed the bear’s pelt.

Demonstrating just how strong the natural defenses of the bear were, and a reminder that without [Void Strike] to aid his effort, taking down as many bears as he had in a short time would have been impossible.

Julius shook his head in amusement and understood that he needed to take care of the injured bear before it recovered. Thus, he dashed toward it, sliding underneath one of its brethren and slamming the bottom of his heel into the bear’s already injured mouth.

He popped up to his feet, and before the other bears could surround him, he shoved his hand in the mangled mouth of the Frost Bear. Of course, his hand was covered with aura-woven mana; he didn’t want to accidentally lose a hand. But before the bear realized what he was doing, he used a very large amount of kinetic energy to rip the upper half of the bear’s face right off, using the already broken jaw as leverage.

He quickly jumped off and let the heavy body of the beast thud into the ground before taking a look around him. Almost half of the bears focused their attention on him, while the other half dozen attacked the others. Three of them were attacking Jakob’s team, and the rest of them were attacking the villagers.

The villagers were having a tougher time, but they were smart and made sure to keep their distance. Whenever a bear got close, they didn’t bother fighting it and instead ran away. They weren’t the most elite fighters, but they listened to Emil’s words of advice and stayed alive, being as big a pain in the ass as they could be.

There were only a few people amongst the villagers whom Julius noticed were quite good. The woman with the battleaxe was one of them, as well as another woman and several men. The other woman was a barrier mage and a big reason why there hadn’t been many bad injuries from their side.

Her barriers were extremely hard and very tricky to deal with. If you broke one, the shards of the barrier would dig into the skin of the enemies nearby. It was also a good thing that, on top of these bandits not being very good fighters themselves, they were also cowards at heart. So they were hesitant to push further when they got hurt.

He did see a bandit sneak up on a villager and quickly sent a spike toward the bandit. The enemy didn’t even realize anything until the spike had pierced his chest with a wet squelch. Julius didn’t even need to use [Void Strike]. That was how poor the man’s defenses were.

As he was doing this, he had to turn around and parry the strike of a bear who had gotten too close to him. He used this force to dash forward and slam his fist into the knee of another bear. He heard something crack beneath his knuckles, and the bear roared out in pain.

Julius was forced to use a [Void Step] to avoid getting crushed by the foot of the bear, but teleported above the bear in the back. None of the three could sense Julius’s location and looked all around to see where he had gone. When they finally realized, it was already too late.

Julius used his leg like an axe, splitting a tree, and smashed down onto the bear’s head. [Void Strike] was wrapped around his leg in a thin layer, and he really concentrated on feeling how the skill worked.

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He had to use [Absolute Spatial Perception] to the max so that he could examine the intricacies of the skill. He had learned that deciphering the inner workings of a skill allowed him to make more improvements and raise the level with more ease.

It probably wasn’t the best time to be analysing it, but he was very curious and couldn’t help but try.

What he noticed right away was how the skill utilized the functions of his various Concepts. He could see the influence his Concept of Force had on it. Resonating Burst thrived at delivering attacks through hard and sturdy materials, penetrating deep into his enemy’s flesh, and [Void Strike] had similar effects.

It also had the sharpness of Pure Severance, as it was able to cut through anything in its path, including the tissue beneath the surface, thanks to his Force Concept. His Space Concept was obviously included as well.