Chapter 15: Now Came The Hardest Part.
The bear charged again and again, snarling in pain and rage, its remaining eye locked onto John with murderous focus.
Each strike was faster than the last—slashes, bites, wing smashes, horn thrusts, but John moved like a shadow, dipping, ducking, flipping over broken rocks and skidding beneath sweeping claws.
His Level 5 Breathing Technique had long since kicked in fully.
His lungs worked like bellows, cycling spiritual energy through his body with machine-like precision.
His stamina didn’t falter.
Even as sweat poured down his back and his muscles screamed with exertion, his breathing remained calm and measured.
What he lacked in power, he made up for in endurance.
He couldn’t overpower the bear head-on, but he could outlast it.
The cave echoed with the sounds of violence, bone on stone, claws raking the ground, fists slamming into thick hide.
John kept up the assault, aiming at the joints, the base of the wings, the unarmored belly when he could.
Bruises bloomed across his arms, and his knuckles were raw and bleeding, but his focus never wavered.
Twice the bear nearly caught him, once with its horn in a sudden charge that grazed his ribs, and again when a wing clipped his shoulder and sent him tumbling.