He didn't panic, but was rather calm. From what he knew the golden flame war elephant wasn't one that was very calm nor did it act rationally. In fact, he thought it was more a coward than anything else.
If it wasn't, then it would have no reason to stay in the forest and would have moved on in pursuit of strength and transformed into a human long before Laura and her temporary mate stumbled upon it.
Since he was trying to hunt it, then naturally he was going to seek it out, but he wasn't going to just barge in and seek his own death. This wasn't an unintelligent beast, in fact it was as smart as the average human adult, and as such he had to deal with it as such.
In the inner ring he had stumbled across many a beast, but all of them could only be classified as 'lower' meaning that they would have no chance of transformation and be as intelligent as any random animal. They were oftentimes much stronger than him, but the lack of intellect made dealing with them trivial.
But this was different, for a greater beast to transform into a human or regain the ability to freely transform between the two forms, it had to reach the saint tier and break through to the extremity tier.
This golden flame war elephant spent god knows how many years in the saint tier refusing to transform so its strength was definitely at the very peak. Even if he was at the peak of the grand-master tier, which he wasn't, he would be absolutely crushed.
Yet even with that he still drew it out intentionally, while he was testing the heart flame palm and needed a target, he was smart enough to run a few simulations in his head and have a rough idea of the power it had.
He didn't even need to expose the hearth flame divine method's flower, but he did anyway. From what he gathered from Laura and what he observed from the strength of the beasts in the inner core, the golden flame war elephant wouldn't tolerate anything that had the potential to rival it.
There were many grand-master tier beasts in the inner core, oftentimes in the late stages of it, but that's as far as they could go. But the aura of the heart flame divine flower was on the verge of breaking through to the saint tier, meaning that it had the potential to be as strong as it was, and it wasn't going to take that sitting down.
While the flame blast was fast, it wasn't anywhere near as fast as Ray was and he could easily dodge it, but after a little thought he decided against it. Instead he activated the flower and both of his hands ignited.
With a smooth motion two flaming palms shot out, with one slightly ahead of the other. The first one hit the golden flame ball, but instead of a large explosion they both simply disappeared. They were of similar strengths and of the same root element so instead of a violent reaction they dispersed each other.
While the golden flame war elephant was at the saint tier, that didn't mean that it could draw upon that level of power for every random attack, only something at the extremity tier or higher could do that. If it did then it would quickly exhaust itself, and in its eyes whatever that was releasing that aura wasn't worth a full power blast. It would be an issue a few centuries in the future, not now.
But Ray was different, while his mana was extremely strong, his physical body was at the grandmaster tier as well. Meaning that he could draw upon that level of power whenever he wanted without running out of mana or stamina. Such an attack wasn't forcing himself in any way and was as easy as simply moving his hand.
Only the ancient behemoth and its offspring could rival this, but that was something that they were born with. He reached such a state with a combination of his talent and the hundred flowers cultivation method.
For others they would be lucky if their raw physical strength would be 2 to 3 tiers below their mana level. Unless they specialize in cultivation of the body, but that would mean that their mana would be much lower than their raw strength and they would end up in the same place.
Not many would be in the same situation as he is where their physical body and mana level were on the same level.
Past that he would need to properly cultivate the hundred flowers method and get closer to one with mana while he also cultivated his physical body to maintain parity.
Since the golden ball of fire was dissipated by his first attack, his second continued to shoot into the distance before it struck squarely onto the forehead of the golden flame war elephant.
Since it was stronger than him he couldn't detect its presence before, but now that it attacked him and had to come considerably close to him to do so then he wouldn't miss it. His sixth sense could pick up on its life signature and if he couldn't see such a wide attack with mana sense then he might as well turn it off for the first time in 3 months and never use it again.
Since the golden flame war elephant was within 100 meters of him, just hidden away in the forest brush, the flame palm carried over all of his strength and the full power of the heart flame divine method.
As a beast its natural strength was high, but without the protection of its mana its defenses were only at the lower grandmaster stage. A full power middle grandmaster stage attack wouldn't immediately kill it, but it was instantly knocked out.
Not for nothing was it a war elephant. While its bloodline was diluted to the point of no return, the words 'War elephant' in its name meant that it could still draw upon the essence of the ancient war elephant whose physical body was second only to the devouring turtle and the diamond wasp, the two of which were tied in first.
What should have been a tiresome and drawn out battle ended in two attacks because the golden flame war elephant underestimated its prey.
"Well that's anti-climatic, but how was I supposed to know it wouldn't protect its body?" He was a bit pouty as he walked over to its body, "If I knew it would have been so stupid then I wouldn't have gone through so much effort."
After only a few seconds of walking he could see its body, and he had to admit, it did look impressive.
In size alone it was twice as tall as the mutated elephants in the old world which somehow managed to survive the calamity at 10 meters, with the mutated elephants at 5 meters and pre-calamity elephants only around 3.
The entirety of its giant body was golden yellow, from its skin to its toenails and even its 2 massive tusks. He couldn't see its eyes but he could bet that they were gold as well. It looked like it had practiced the Jin clan golden overlord physique, except for the fact that it looked more like dirty gold than the pure gold it should have looked like.
On its head were 4 eyes arranged radially in the center of its head, and it was in the middle of these eyes that there was an extremely detailed palm shaped indentation.
Naturally this was where it got struck by him, but besides that there were many dangerous looking scars all over its body, showing just how much it worked to remain the leader of this forest.
Not for nothing was it called the 'golden flame' war elephant. Since it was knocked out it wasn't accompanied by its signature gold and black flames, but its body was still extremely resilient and resistant to fire.
Had it been another beast with different attributes then this strike would have simply exploded its head.
But this was the root of his issue with its bloodline. The ancient war elephant had 5 major elemental alignments which were, earth, metal, nature, water, and wind.
While the golden flame war elephant similarly had the metal alignment, not only was it lacking the other 4, it's only other elemental attribute was polar opposites of what it should be.
This in and of itself wouldn't make it any weaker, there were many reasons for that, but it did mean that it wouldn't do much for him and his needs.
"If that's the case then there's no reason to kill it. Of the ancient behemoth's children the only ones whose bodies are worth wild are the dragon, phoenix, stag and turtle."
This was off course when compared to one another, by themselves the flesh and blood of any of the ancient behemoth's children would be a great tonic to anyone who ingested them, if they could find it.
But the bloodline of the golden flame war elephant was so thin that not even this common trait was passed down to it, its flesh was no different from any other greater beast at the saint stage, if not a bit more difficult to digest because of the metal attribute.
He placed his hand in the hole that he created and with a little soul power a massive amount of light illuminated the forest.