3
Everything had just gone wrong for Jung, and he was starting wonder if he could even get out of this situation alive. The bear lord had turned out to be a much more formidable opponent than any of them had ever imagined, and when it had been chasing them down it only made them realize one terrible thing, the damn bear was much faster than any of them.
With any escape plan out of sight, the only thing left was to fight it, and Jung was if anything very confident in his combat abilities. As not only an ether hunter, but one of the strongest ether hunters among all the trainee warriors, he had good reason to be confident.
If only his opponent had been a regular undead beast then he would have been fine together with his group, in fact this wasn't the first undead beast they had tried to hunt before. But it was the first lord class undead beast they had met, and to everyone's terror they had come to realize the massive difference in power between undead beasts, especially the ones lord or higher.
Three of his men had been killed already, they were only five left now and everyone was scared and exhausted, longing for an ending to the nightmare in front of them.
Jung turned to the only other ether hunter in the group Mina, if they ever had a chance to get out of this alive, they would have to work together.
Mina wasn't Jung's least favorite ether hunter at all, on the contrary he liked spending time with her, he just didn't like hunting with other people in general and usually could get by easily by himself.
The only reason he had joined this group in the first place, was to fight a lord class undead beast, which he at the time begrudgingly had to admit he couldn't do alone.
"Mina we need to create an opening, let one of the regular warriors take a swing at the bear. When it strikes him down is when it's most vulnerable and we'll attack together, give the ugly bastard everything you have left or we're dead!"
Mina turned around and gave Jung a thump's up, then she waved her right hand towards the other warriors to signal for an attack. The warriors went for a final attack, expecting to have the two ether warriors at their backs, but when the bear lord started swinging its paws around in a frenzy, they realized what they had become.
"were, bait…" one of the warriors stated
"those damn hunters! Bunch a rats and snakes the lot of them!"
Little more was said before the bear lord reached them and a massacre was taking place.
Both Jung and Mina was bursting with power, the orange flames around mina had become a roaring sea of flames, engulfing her. Jung's control over his ether was much more refined and he had condensed it all into his hands which were now completely golden.
After all the fighting and struggling against the bear lord, only one weakness had shown itself, whenever it was eating something it would have to let its guard down and this was the only time to strike at its neck.
One thing Jung had remembered the older warriors telling him before was that the bear lord's neck was much easier to pierce than the rest of the body.
"attack! This is the only moment the bear is busy"
Jung had been starring at the massacre in front of him waiting for the right time to strike, it had to be perfect or the damn bear would just notice them early and the attack would be wasted.
Mina lunged forward and Jung was right behind, their speed was frightening and not something a regular trainee could hope to reach.
The ground exploded on impact as they set off the ground and jumped, the sudden noise had warned the bear lord and with half a corpse dangling from it's mouth it turned its head towards the sound.
It was quicker to respond than Jung realized and they were forced to strike at the top of the head instead of the neck. The bear lord barely got to see its assailants before it was faced with blinding light and two fists hitting its face with colossal force.
The ground shook heavily like an earthquake had passed by, even the nearby trees had been rooted from the ground. A painful ringing tone in his ears woke Jung up and he quickly got to his feet, he was very disoriented and had to lean up against a tree next to him which had been halfway rooted out of the ground.
When he looked around it all seemed a bit blurry, the trees danced around making him feel dizzy and something big was moving around in front of him, meanwhile at the back of his head was a question he just couldn't figure out, where was the bear?
"watch out!"
screamed a voice not far from Jung, it only confused Jung more than he already was, and he so busy looking for whoever was yelling at him that he didn't noticed the bear lord, before it came rushing into him from the front.
It was like a mountain had just punched Jung and he flew through the air and hit the ground with a huge crash. The pain and shock instantly up his confusion although he was hurting all over and his left arm wasn't responding.
Jung was prepared to jump if the bear lord came rushing towards him again, but it was not even noticing him anymore, and was instead looking ferociously at Mina who was still clad in flames and seemed far less hurt than Jung. The bear lord was staggering, and grave wounds covered its head, at least their all out attack had some effect thought Jung.
Then something caught his eye that confused him, first was the fact that the bear lord was literally swaying like it was drunk. Second was a couple of sticks poking out of the bear lords upper back, around the shoulder.
Mina was doing surprisingly well in fighting the bear lord, little by little did she chip away at the beast's stamina and it became clear just how bad the wounds had been as it started swaying more and more. Suddenly Mina fell to the ground while yelling in pain and clinging to her leg, Jung hurried over to help her, but the bear lord had already gotten a hold of Mina.
He noticed the same kind of stick that had been stuck in the bear lord was also sticking out of minas leg, and he figured out the mystery. Somewhere around sat an archer! And they had just sabotaged him and Mina.
On one hand he had the archer who he wanted to find and kill more than anything, but on the other was Mina and saving her was more important to him at that moment.
With complete fearlessness and adrenaline shooting through his body he suddenly released all the ether around him once again. This was very unusual for Jung to actually care for someone else, and he would normally just leave them to die.
But somewhere down the line Jung had started to appreciate Mina, and through this fight had he come to realize that he truly cared for her. With golden light bursting out of him he jumped right into the back of the bear lord and exploded with a massive light.