'GO!'
With the immense boost of strength from the wolf's aura ability, Matthew didn't even have the chance to run on the tree branch. The moment his legs kicked against the tree using all of his strength, his body was already hurled fast towards the bear's direction even at a faster speed compared to before.
Matthew was a bit caught off guard by the immense strength boost that he got that the direction that he flew in has slightly deviated from the bear. But now that his body is already flying in the air, he couldn't do much except to improvise his attack and make minor adjustments to his body position.
With the bear positioned slightly on his right, Matthew couldn't do the same claw thrust into the bear's body. But that position means that it's a perfect opportunity for Matthew to do a slashing attack with his right claw.
Matthew didn't think of using a slashing attack earlier because he thought that if the bear was even able to deal against the thrusting attacks easily, then a slashing attack would probably only cut the bear's skin and leave the muscles undamaged.
But now that he is already halfway towards the bear, he still has to do what he got to do. And with the wolf's aura ability giving him a strength boost, Matthew had a slight hope that at least the slashing attack will leave more than just a shallow cut to the bear's body.
Matthew then winded up his right hand to prepare for commencing the attack, he stretched his fingers and positioned his claws so that they would be in the exact position where they would slash through the bear's left ribs.
'Please work, please work! Don't let me down mi precious claws!'
The bear who was facing in the other direction from where Matthew was coming from, didn't notice the flying 2 meter-long creature that was going in his direction fast.
Matthew finally flew past right beside the bear, with his right claw extended out and with Matthew's added adjustments when he was still in the air, the claw successfully slashed the bear's body left side, starting from the top of the bear's left hind leg all the way to the top of the bear's left front leg.
Matthew felt some resistance when he dragged his claws against the bear's body, but he pushed back the force that was pushing his claw out and dug his claw even deeper inside the bear's body.
Matthew forgot that not only did the wolf's aura ability enhanced his muscles and gave him more strength, but it also increased the toughness and sharpness of his claws that it was now able to slash through the bear's aura-infused muscles.
And when he was halfway through the bear's body, he felt that his claw was hitting against something solid and it almost bounced his claw out of the bear's body. But with Matthew constantly applying force hoping that his claw will pierce even deeper into the bear's body, he was able to prevent his claw from being bounced out.
After passing through the left side of the bear's body and leaving a long and continuous claw mark on it, Matthew finally landed a few meters away, directly in front of the bear's face. And with his claw that was transferring most of the momentum from his jump earlier to attack the bear, his speed was greatly reduced and Matthew was able to land comfortably on the ground without spraining his ankles or hurting his other joints.
The bear was confused at first when he suddenly saw a creature appear right in front of his face. Since the bear couldn't see the creature clearly earlier, now that the creature is standing right in front of him the bear observed the creature closely.
The creature was way smaller than him, it stood on its two legs just like a monkey, but the sharp claws on each of its limbs, the head that looks like his neighbor's the wolves, the absence of fur on its body, and the sharp scales covering the creature's back made the bear doubt if the weird creature was really a monkey. And if it was really a monkey, it would be the strangest and weirdest monkey that the bear had ever seen.
While the bear observed the creature, the bear also noticed red liquid was covering the creature's right claw and it slowly dripped down to the ground. As the bear wondered what that liquid that looked very similar to blood was, he suddenly felt severe pain on his left side of the body.
Matthew's attack earlier was so sudden and fast that it took the wound about 2 seconds to be finally registered into the bear's brain and caused the severe pain that it currently felt assaulting its left body.
Fresh red blood started to flow out of the open wound of the bear, but it didn't last long as the aura-infused muscles tightened up again and somehow stopped the blood from gushing out.
'Look at this creature with cheat-like abilities, if that blood didn't stop flowing out, then I will be having quite an easy time going against an anemic bear.'
But Matthew didn't stay idle for too long. Although he was rejoicing in his heart that his slashing attack worked way better than he expected, the bear suddenly has the ability to either magically stop blood from flowing out of its body or temporarily close its wound.
Matthew didn't know the exact details, but it certainly made Matthew's earlier ambush attack to be less effective than Matthew hoped it to be and it irritated Matthew that abilities like that would suddenly pop up out of nowhere.
And with his already limited time to keep on running every second along with the depletion of his aura that was already on the verge of drying out, Matthew didn't plan to waste any of his precious time by doing a face-off with the bear.
Right after he saw the bear growling to suppress the intense pain that it felt, Matthew decided to run out and made the first move to attack the bear.
This is the first time that Matthew had a head-on fistfight with another creature that was stronger than him. Although the wolf's aura ability helped quite significantly for Matthew to keep up with the bear, Matthew's limited experience in a real fight is limiting his body capabilities.
His reference for fighting is limited from watching superhero movies back on earth and a few weeks of real-life experience he got from living in this world, but his kills are mostly consisted of sneak attacks and relying on his venom.
So for this fight against the bear, Matthew is fully relying on his animal instincts and he's also trying to imitate some martial arts moves that he had seen before. But of course, being a crafty person himself, Matthew had come up with a plan as he was attacking the bear.
With the bear's body being bulkier than Matthew's, Matthew got a slight advantage in speed and agility, while the bear got a considerable advantage in his strength.
Matthew would try to circle around the bear and slash his claws towards the boar's huge body since he wasn't able to reach the bear's face without jumping. But if Matthew jumped, then he would be in a defenseless position where he could only take the bear's slap with his body, which is simply not an option if Matthew wanted to maximize his remaining aura to defeat the bear.
Matthew would try to use his claw to slash the bear's body, but the bear is able to use its hands to block off Matthew's claws. Then the bear tried to launch an attack on its own, but Matthew didn't entertain him and instead used the hit and dodge method to try and find a gap in the bear's defense.
Although Matthew's attack wasn't as strong as his earlier jumping attack that could pierce through the bear's skin and muscle with only slight resistance, his current attack is still able to go past the bear's skin and reach halfway into the boar's dense muscles.
The action repeated again and again, and although Matthew hadn't succeeded in doing much damage to the bear's body by leaving only a few cuts on it by using several quick attacks, Matthew had already attacked the bear's hands about 8 times for each hand, and each of Matthew's attacks cut deeper and deeper into the bear's hands.
4 minutes have gone by and Matthew only got another 4 minutes left before his aura reserve runs out. Matthew realized this fact by seeing the glow on his orb is getting dimmer and dimmer as if it could die out any second.
'I think that should be enough, let's do this.'