As Lucius fired one of his few remaining arrows that he got from the box, one arrow found its mark and inserted itself deep into the magical beasts remaining eye. When the bear felt its vision turn completely black, and throbbing pain in its eye. The bear became erratic, roaring and smashing its surroundings, trying to maul what hit its eye. As it turned and clawed itself, tremors started to ring around the bears surrounding. Then all of the sudden, a huge Boulder cracked and broke to pieces. Seeing Lucius's rash actions and stupidity, Lark shouted in his mind.
'Are you looking for an early death Luke?! I merely said that for laughs! I didn't think you'd actually attack it! If it still has that much energy to do a powerful attack like that, hope and pray that it doesn't locate where you are. Or else you will find your brain turn to mush! Now turn back and run!'
Despite hearing Larks' warning, Lucius decided to do the opposite and attacked the bear, while even trying to get its attention while using a whistle. As Lucius finished through all of his remaining good arrows, with not a single one piercing through the thick skin. Unfazed by this, Lucius instead decided to focus his remaining improvised arrows to the bears mangled face, where open wounds stood.
Deciding with his course of action, Lucius started to aim at the bears face. Half of the improvised arrows didn't make it, while the rest missed entirely. But luckily, one managed to hit an open wound and dug deep within the bears flesh. At first Lucius was discouraged after seeing the nonexistent effect of his volley of arrows. However, seeing that 1 arrow pierce through brought him courage to advance closer to fire arrows at the bear.
With Lark closely observing Lucius's fight with the behemoth, seeing if he could offer any meaningful advice. Lucius's action of advancing forward made him panic. 'What are you doing?! Don't get anywhere near 80 paces of that magical beast or else it'll use its magic on you!'
But it was too late, as the next thing Lucius saw and felt was his rapidly expanding view and the air splitting, while launching from where he previously stood. Out of sheer instinct, Lucius dropped his bow and curled himself, while having his hand cover the back of his head. Making sure that his head wouldn't crack on impact while hitting whatever surface he'll crash to. As Lucius braced himself for the inevitable impact, his body jerked and fell forward face first while still holding his head.
However, contrary to his expectations, his spine didn't break nor did he turn to a splatter on the tree after crashing, feeling lucky he tried to stand up. While trying to get up, he touched his back to assess whatever damage he could've sustained, what he felt though was searing pain from his back. With the pain overtaking his mind. Lucius again fell face first onto the ground, still regardless of the damage he sustained, Lucius powered through and went to grab his gun in one of the many pockets of his cargo pants. Turning off the safety, Lucius then aimed at the bear. Looking ready to fight another round.
'If you plan to die, at the least return me back to the Altar! Don't try and drag me into this! Die if you plan to! Just don't drag anyone down with you, you damned madman!' shouted The old Saint to Lucius, trying whatever in his disposal to dissuade Lucius's action.
'If you told me earlier of the bears ability I wouldn't be in this position dammit. If I planned to die I wouldn't have lived and suffered this long, you think I'd just come here without a plan?! To suffer a horrible death if that damned bear reaches me?! I'd rather jump face first on a pike than be eaten to death!' As the 2 argued, the bear laid down on its stomach while trying to sniff out the deer, as it found the deer. With a single swipe alone the underbelly of the young buck was cut-open, with its guts and entrails spilling out spraying the green grass red.
Suddenly waking up and feeling its insides spilling out, the young buck stood up trying to get away. However it only got so far before the young deer fell over, with the light on its eye dying out. The young deers head fell limp, angered at the deers last action for survival, the bear roared angrily while getting up and making its way over to where the smell of blood came from.
Reaching the carcass of the dead deer, again the bear layed down. While eating the deers corpse, from afar it would have looked cute, a giant bear laying on its stomach munching on something. However if one took a closer look, they could see the mangled face of the bear with the entrails of the deer hanging off on its mouth.
'Now is your chance Luke! Endure your pain for now and make a run for it!' Saying this to Lucius's mind, the old Saint started to use his limited magic to try and conceal Lucius's presence. 'Now! Go!'
'That wouldn't be necessary, Lark. Look at the bears left by the tree line. Didn't you notice? A pack of wolves, I spotted them back from that vantage point, that's why I used my whistle.'
Flabbergasted by what Lark heard, he couldn't help but say a sermon inside Lucius's mind. 'That's your grand plan? To make a sound to catch the attention of that pack? Are you retarded Luke? From what I observed these past several days, you seemed smart. But this is just pure stupidity. A gamble made with little to no gains with risks as huge as possible deaths.'
'Well it paid off, didn't it? Now the bear is wounded, the pack of wolves can easily finish it off.' Replied Lucius, trying to defend himself but it just resulted in a backfire.
'Paid off? Did you not think about what would happen after those wolves are finished with the bear huh? Or perhaps did you think that just because you saw that Large wolf of a Magical beast passed by you a few days ago that now it followed you to be your guardian? This is just plain stupidity. Run off now before they finish the bear Luke. At Least with that you'd still be alive.'
While the old Saint kept on with his sermons to Lucius, the development with the bear and pack of wolves was unwrapping for them to see. As the pack of wolves got closer, it became more obvious that this pack was hugely different from the pack Lucius saw pass through while escaping from the fight of the 2 behemoths. This pack of wolves didn't have a huge wolf that led them. This pack all had black fur.
As the pack of wolves closed in quietly to the lying bear. While encircling it, after performing their encirclement, a single wolf pounced on the bears hind legs. Feeling the pain and something attacking it, the bear snapped its head and paea back to kill whatever attacked it. However it was too late as the Wolf backed off even before the bear could turn halfway. When the bears paws landed at where the previous wolf was at. The whole pack decided to pounce and attack from every direction.
As a dozen or so Wolves attacked, none of their attacks and actions brought about any damage whatsoever to the bears thick skin. Seeing this, they backed off but as they tried to back off 2 wolves were suddenly grabbed by the bear. With one in its Jaws and another crushed beneath the behemoths paws. Provoked, and wanting to avenge their fallen members, the pack again attacked, but this time with more precision, biting on the bears legs trying to restrict its movement. With the bigger wolf, presumably the alpha pounced on the face of the bear instead, adding more wounds to the already bloody and mangled face of the bear.
Seeing that this time their attack brought more success than the previous, the pack of wolves backed off trying to regain their stamina. In this order the pack of wolves assaulted and harassed the ever so growing tired bear. Until it slumped down, although the pack of wolves lost 5 of its members, the meat of a magical beast would be truly worth the cost.
This time with the intention of finishing off the bear, the remaining tired wolves attacked. However, for the last stand of the bear, it used its magic one last time to crush the remaining wolves, with the intent of not dying alone. Doing this 3 of the 7 remaining wolves got crushed under the sheer power of the bear, while the other 4 were sent flying to the tree lines. Not wanting to risk killing their whole pack, the alpha wolf made a howl, with this signal the pack retreated, limping their way into the forest.
With Lucius and Lark spectating far away from the point of action. The carnage waged by the wild beasts brought them awe, but compared to Lucius, Lark was constantly berating Lucius to leave and return now. 'What are you waiting for? Now is your chance to run!'
Hearing this, Lucius responded in a manner that went against the old Saints opinion and character built within his mind. "It's a chance alright. The bears tired, the wolves retreated. It's a perfect time to attack and reap the benefits." Said Lucius as he slowly got up, although the pain made him wince. The adrenaline from his previous bout with the behemoth negated the pain felt. After standing up and slowly limping closer to the dying Magical beast, Lucius reached his bow, although the string was broken. The overall frame of the bow was still usable however contrary to the bow his quiver was in a poor shape. Considering it was just made of cheap plastic, Lucius took it off and dropped the smashed quiver.
Taking out his pistol, after chambering a bullet Lucius aimed the gun to the Magical beast on the ground, lying down while grimacing from the pain it felt to its whole body. As the bear heard a bullet slide on the chamber of the gun, it turned to look at where the sound came from. There it felt the presence of a human, trying to save itself the bear opened its maws. But before the dying behemoth did its final action, Lucius fired a bullet, straight through the bears bleeding eye that pierced through its brain. Killing it instantly.
"With that, all your misery and pain you felt would be over." Said Lucius as if comforting the bears carcass. Getting close to it, he pulled out a knife from his hiking vest pocket, with the intention to skin the bear. However as he tried to pierce its thick hide nothing happened.
'Skin it from the tail, that's the other soft spot of a Bear type magical beast, other than its eyes and mouth.' Taking this chance, Lark took the opportunity to say extra words and hit Lucius for his dumb gamble. 'You know, I thought you were a reasonable man with the will to live but this is just stupidity at its peak. Shooting a bear just cause you saw that it was wounded, and coincidentally with a pack of wolves here? Just for those reasons you attacked a magical beast that could have quite easily killed you and those damned pups if it was in prime health. So now what if you did succeed, so what if your gamble paid off? Now with the noise made by your little toy and the previous fight, along with the smell of blood here, all the surrounding predators would be attracted to this place. The sun's going down so that's no good, you're wounded, everythings bad there isn't a chance you'll make it out alive by dawn…'
'Don't be so down, I'm sure eating the meat of a Magical beast has good effects right? If a Magical Beast's meat doesn't have anything beneficial to them then there'd be no way those wolves would risk it all.' Replied Lucius as he neatly skinned the back portions of the bear, while slowly making his way over until the whole thing was just a pile of meat and flesh.
'You're correct, it is beneficial, a single sitting with a moderate size bear meat is enough to fill your stomach for a whole day. However, risking your life for just this? You nearly died Luke. You gambled it all just for this, meat though is nutritious however is hard to chew on. I have no words.'
"Well there's always the skin of these animals, this bear hide could be used as an alternative tent of mine. Even the fur of those black wolves." Replied Lucius absent-mindedly, just quietly and repeatedly butchered pieces of the bear while wrapping them in whatever he could wrap them with, froze them and laid on his side. Finishing this, he went and looked for his missing backpack. After some time he eventually found the bag and started to look for anything he wouldn't need and threw them out to make space for the pieces of bear meat. When all the meat eventually fit together, Lucius estimated that he could take about 35-40 kilo worth of frozen meat. Lucius then folded the bear skin tightly and tied it to the bag.
Continuing on, Lucius then wore the backpack carefully. Making sure to not make his injuries worse, grunting a little, Lucius stood up straight and started to walk back the direction of the clearing. Looking back at the scene, Lucius couldn't help but feel disappointed with the leftover meat and carcasses of the wolves.
'Wise decision to leave Luke, if you hurry up getting back to camp would only take some 2 hours'
As Lucius kept on getting ever so closer to the treeline, feeling second thoughts. Lucius on a whim, made the decision to turn back, but instead of going back to bear he went to the wolves instead.
Surprised by this The old Saint shouted quickly. 'What are you doing?! If you stay any longer you'll walk in the dark halfway through Luke. Stop being greedy and go already!'
"Leaving all these furs is just a waste Lark, especially so as they can be used by my friends when they wake up. It won't take too long."
'Fine, suit yourself' Feeling that no matter what he said Lucius still wouldn't follow through and just ignore him, so now Lark lowered himself and quietly allowed Lucius to do his own thing. After half an hour or so quietly skinning, Lucius did the same to the wolf skin as the bear skin. But now, his bag was full. full and heavy, along with the imbalance brought by the tall stack of fur and skin.
'It's your problem to carry it all now. One day Luke, the cause of your death is going to be greed. Now hurry, the sun will fall in an hour, when the sun falls I'll use my remaining magic to hide your presence. Go, before other wild beasts gets attracted to the smell of blood.'