His legs as they bend seemed to exert enormous power, due to the sheer strength upon leaving the ground cracking small rocks and caving in the earth. It resembled as if two massive anvils had fallen on these places, and it produced a similar sound.
René managed to fly up high enough to see down onto the variant, his usual calmness and professionalism underlined by the serious look he had.
He was near another tall tree that wasn't yet destroyed, using a wide branch as a board to repel himself back downwards.
As he had to perform acrobatic moves in mid air in a small time frame, it happened nearly too fast for Mikael, but he imagined to hear René's muscles screeching under the strain.
Then he lost him, only the broken branch flying upwards indicating what took place.
The monsters fatal weakness with charges was shown, as it followed René jumping upwards, but couldn't lift its head higher than around 20° from the horizontal view it has.
It lifted its front paws in a weird jumping motion, what didn't quite worked as it was just running.
And not that it mattered.
Like a lightning strike René came down, his elbow facing the back, locked in position with his other arm.
Coupled with the momentum and strengthened by his magic, the outcome for the monster wasn't pretty.
That it tried to jump helped that monster, and René met with the back instead with the head, the altered path changing his.
The result was the bear got pushed back towards the ground, its strong limbs not able to support the impact.
His elbow as more like an axe this moment, carving through the spine and taking with it a chuck of its side, revealing the rotten organs and bones.
There was no cry of pain, neither of them did so, but while the creature met the ground hard, a third of its body squashed, René's landing could have been softer.
Albeit lessened by his strike, he still hit the earth with too much energy. He had attempted to lessen it by rolling over his shoulder, but the massive body he'd hit made that unlikely.
When landing, he exhaled all his air, crouching awkwardly, holding his arm and chest.
Mikael saw with horror how he clenched his teeth, supporting himself with one arm trying to stand up, while next to him the monster lifted his massive paw.
René saw that to, only able to turn away as its last strike came.
Mikael was too far away to run over and assist, so were the others. They had almost taken out all Undead, Sophia, Leon and Alf working together to take on the two remaining. Herald had no arrows left, just now climbing down his tree, and Mark was injured by a big Borno, which threw him away against a boulder as he shielded Meri.
But Mikael was too entangled in René's fight, also sure he'd be more of a hindrance right now, as they fought in a narrow environment between trees, and another person surely would disrupt their harmony.
So he clearly witnessed how Tusk, even immobilized and heavily injured, stroke down, destroying the mail René wore and opening a deep wound on his back.
Even now, despite the pain he felt and the blood lost, he had used the impact and his legs to get farther away from his enemy. Sliding on the ground and rolling two times, his journey finished as he landed between some big roots.
The aura the monster emitted lessened at a rapid rate, it limps at the front trying to lift itself up, only to be held in place by its rear that didn't seem to respond. It roared and growled, the red eyes darting around in hatred, upon landing on Mikael snapping with its jaws.
Its weak aura flared up once again, before Tusks head sunk down, breathing lowly.
Mikael looked back, seeing another monster on the ground, dead again and the other impaled by Leon, who simultaneously began to cough, but the enemy was dead, only held standing by Leon and Sophia, her sword also puncturing the neck, severing its spine.
Assured of their situation, he yelled back:" I'll see how Mr. René is doing, he got heavily injured! But the monster seems to be on its last breath!" Ignoring their gazes of exhaustion and question, he ran towards René, through a small valley before passing Tusk from a safe distance.
The creature could only growl and follow him with its eyes. It had tried to lift himself up, giving Mikael on hell of a scare, but before it could use its left front limb to heave the body up, it collapsed, due to the weight and loss of strength. But the Aura flared up once more, weak, but all the hate, pain and anger directed solely towards Mikael.
This flood of information together with his bodies knee-jerk reaction made him jump to tree side, hiding behind a tree and sweating profusely.
When calming down a bit he arrived at René's side. The appearance of him was worse from the near than he had observed.
The claw mark covered half of his back reaching his side, deep enough to reveal two ribs. Dark blue and red bruises were all over him as Mikael could see from his torn clothes, the mail only scrap at this point.
'He must be hurting all over. Battling that monster in close combat was more than reckless.' he locked back to the creature, its flank slightly moving as it breathed with its remaining lung.
'Neither was the head destroyed, nor the spine neatly cut apart. But I don't think getting near this thing is a good idea.'
Turning his attention back to René, Mikael was unsure how to proceed.
His eyes were half closed, a shadow seeming to shroud his face. The exhaustion was apparent, his cheeks looking fallen in and the skin turning from his previous healthy red to more of an gray.
"Arrrg, that wasn't part of the plan. This shit will leave a scar." René said, making himself a jot more comfortable in his little nook.
"Is this thing still breathing? If so we need to act fast, or worse might happen. Should it get resupplied with mana, it could regenerate." he warned between moans of pain.
"First we need to patch you up. In your state moving is a problem, forget killing that monster."
"I didn't say I'd kill it. That is in your honor. You most likely inflicted the critical wound that killed it, so it should direct all the ill will towards you. With this the aura should tell you if anything serious happens. An attack of some sorts. Can you before that maybe get my stuff? This will hurt in a minute or so."
Before Mikael could react, a backpack was already laid next to him.
"Go finish off that beast, I stay here and see what I can do."
Alf said, his smile now that the worst was over reappearing.
"I just want this whole ordeal to end and return to my little angel, this mission already left its original description far to much."
He took out a small vial labeled healing, giving it to René before beginning treatment on the smaller, more accessible wounds.
Mikael turned around, walking carefully towards the rear of that huge bear-boar mixture. Standing in front of the furry ball of doom, shudders went down his back.
He felt the aura fading of this massive creature, but still centered around him.
He held a big distance to the front as he went around, looking into the relatively small eyes in proportion to the head.
One of its tusks had broken of, making it only seem more evil.
There wasn't a shred of a will to live left.
"How do I even kill it safely? Not even René was safe from its insane counter."
He mumbled, weighting his hammer in hand, the usual heavy head now seeming too small and fragile to finish this job.
"Maybe Herald can lend me one of his explosive balls. Throwing that against its head should safely do the deed."
Not far away Herald was scavenging the corpses, his mood the worst it had ever been.
"Mr. Herald, could I use one of your balls to get rid of Tusk Stalker? Honestly, I don't want to get too close to that monster."
Wordlessly and if Mikael had asked to be offered his firstborn, Herald tossed his pouch over, scaring Mikael as he caught it.
"Woah, that could have gone off!"
"No it wouldn't. The pouch is a alchemical item and disables accidental igniting." he said short bounded.
'Better leave him alone, or he will shoot me if I go on his nerves.'
He opened the pouch, a lone ball rolling inside, somehow explaining his mood.
'Wonder how much these cost per ball. Incredible useful, even not when fighting in a group.'
Back before the beast, he looked down onto the weak looking but still ferious monster, the ball in his clutch, ready to be thrown.
"Go back a couple more steps!" came a warning from behind, Herald having glimpsed over in time to see his distance to the target.
Taking his advice seriously, he now stood a bit higher, the variant in his whole magnificence displayed.
'Better not drag this out.'
He aimed, threw the ball the size of an lemon in a arc and only slightly missed his target, the paw being the point of impact.
In a blink a dark red, nearly black flame erupted, engulfing the surrounding in a flash of light followed by an incredible amount of heat.
The spot where he stood before wasn't compleatly unscathed. Dry twigs and leaves were lit, scorching the earth black, and the smell of burnt wood and charcoal drifted into his nostrils.
Underestimating the sheer force despite witnessing it before, Mikael threw a worried look towards René and Alf, but both of them seemed to be far enough away, only shielding themselves by holding their arms up.
"I'd thought more smashing its head in or sending an arrow through the eye, but that works, too!" René called, amusement in his voice as the fireball had engulfed the front of the monster.
Relieved, Mikael looked back at the monster, waiting for the fire to die down.