Jin and Augusta were the first to react once they saw Samuel take off like a speeding rocket. While the two didn't have skills like dragon blood, their own instincts, honed from years of battle before the apocalypse had even started, had alerted them once the time manipulation was cancelled.
The two saw as the spectacle of a volcanic eruption rose from the bear's location wanting to take Samuel's life, only to miss due to the man's unreal speed due to his 40 agility stats, and instead take the lives of at least ten of the members in the raid, Flynn and Ashton among them. It left them with a mere thirteen fighters.
The Magmatic Bear gave an angered roar, clearly enraged by its target escaping as it spread more and more magma onto its surroundings, before looking right at Jin and Augusta, because they seemed like the most dangerous members. Augusta wanted to go and fight it, but she was stopped by Jin, who shook his head.
Jin landed onto one of the buildings closer to the bear, which didn't look like it wanted to surprise attack him, which surprised Jin. Now that he was closer, he could finally see the changes to the bear's body. Instead of the flaming fur it had before, it now had flaming volcanic rocks covering its body like armor, providing protection.
Jin took a deep breath before he stepped down to the bear's level, stepping on the lava like it was solid and activated a skill, causing his hair to turn red and a crimson aura to surround his body.
The bear gave a roar before charging at Jin, who disappeared from his place and struck the bear's jaw. Expecting the bear to be sent flying by his attack, Jin was surprised to see that it only slid away for a few metres. It raised its arms and swung down on the ground, creating cracks in the ground, filled with lava that rose up to claim Jin's life.
The others thought it was over for Jin, but they would see him step out of the fountain of magma somewhat burnt, but they were mostly superficial. Instead of screaming or cursing, Jin laughed as he gathered mana in his fist.
"You like big attacks, don't you, little bear? Have a taste of my big attack!"
Shortly after saying that, Jin appeared before the bear once more, and struck its stomach with his fist. The bear, being confident in its new armor, didn't expect that Jin's attack would break past all of its protection, and instead put a hole in its guts. The bear only coughed up some blood before it fell unconscious to the floor.
"Heavenly demon's teachings, fourth move— Shieldbreaker."
Jin declared with a grin before pouring a few bottles of health potions on it to keep it alive. While the loot from it would probably be great, he decided to keep it alive to be his tame. He beat it, and if it didn't submit, he would make it submit to him.
[You may brand a beaten creature with your mana to tame it.]
Jin did as he was told, and although he didn't initially succeed, his attempts bore fruit once the system alerted him that the magmatic bear was his familiar.
The others could only look at the fight's direction, dumbfounded at how quickly it ended. They were expecting the fight to last for at least five minutes, but Boss Jin defeated it in less than a minute.
They began to think why the fight had ended so quickly, and quickly deduced that it must have been due to the bear's initial attack eating up too much of the mana that it also needed to use to make the armor on its body.
Augusta suddenly felt something approach them at a rapid speed from the air, and was ready to intercept it, but quickly changed her expression from one ready to fight to one of shock as she saw the thing poke its head from the clouds— it was a gigantic bird big enough to carry a house.
The people were almost in despair, until they saw its movements and heard its fearful chrips. It was running away from something, something most of them couldn't see, but those with far sight skills, along with Jin, saw it. Something— someone was fighting it.
"Is that-?!"
"Samuel?! HAHAHAHA"
Jin couldn't help but laugh loudly as he saw the giant bird afraid of Samuel, who held several electric chains they hadn't seen before, wrapping them around its neck, paralyzing it and restricting its access to air. Finding itself unable to breathe, the bird crashed on the ground, unconscious, shaking the city in the process, with burn marks on its neck.
"We're going!"
Jin shouted as he charged in the crash's direction while carrying the bear he just beat up, followed by his subordinates.
Not five minutes after Samuel's cowardly escape from the bear, the man was above the clouds checking his spoils from last night, which were several common items, and one uncommon item, being an electric core.
Before Samuel could react, though, he saw a giant shadow in the sky, eclipsing the sun, which turned out to be the giant bird, who wanted him for a quick meal, casting wind magic to knock him out. Samuel tried his best to escape, but the bird only continued its relentless chase.
"System, how do I stop this thing?!"
[Find out on your own.]
"A hint, please?!" Samuel shouted as a blade if wind magic grazed his back.
[Ultimate Fusion.]
"Death knight, how the hell do I deal with the current situation?!"
*Fuse the chains you found, and the electric core.* The death knight, despite not having known Ultimate Fusion's effect, the knight deduced it from the name.
Samuel did as he was told, and a new item was created, that being an electric whip.
[Electric whip {uncommon}: A twenty metre chain embedded with an electric core, granting it paralysis abilities.
Paralysis effect +20%.]
Samuel then made a quick turn to surprise the giant bird, its face painted with fear as it saw what he looked like, and immediately tried to escape, but it found a chain whip around is neck and two evil eyes staring at it, furthering the paralysis' effect, causing to let out fearful chirps as its head poked out of the clouds while it attacked its aggressor, and eventually ended up with its unconscious body falling on the ground like a meteor.
Once the boss and his followers got there, they saw a bloodied Samuel wearing tattered clothes along with his mask. Their noses picked up the scent of charred meat, which the keen eyed few saw that it came from the man's hands.
"How much are you willing to pay for it?" Samuel asked.
"Is it dead?"
"I didn't see any items drop, so no, this just another mount."
"I'll give you fifteen uncommon items. I'll give you your items and skill book once we get back to base."
"I'll rent it out to you or the others for three uncommon items." Samuel said as he branded the beast.
[You have tamed a Giant Sky Eagle.]
[You have reached level 10. +10 undistributed stat points.]
[Multiclass option unlocked.]
[Your Dragon Master class grants you: Pocket dimension expansion (Breeding cave)]
While Jin wanted to complain, he knew that while the eagle wasn't really of use to Samuel, he realized that Samuel knew the importance of the eagle to them. Jin could only nod as he saw it get branded.
"I'll give you a ride back as an apology for ditching the fight when things got heated. Once it wakes up."
"Don't worry about it. Nothing wrong with using your wings for their intended purpose."
While Samuel and Jin were talking, Zhang went to take a look at the eagle. He was silent as usual, but very excited to see the big bird as he went and began to touch its body.
Augusta, instead of looking at the bird, walked right up to Samuel, still wielding her sword. The man was prepared to fight her, but the next words that came out of the tall, muscular woman's mouth cast a sudden silence over the gathering of fourteen people.
"You're strong, chicken wing. Come find me tonight."
"Huh? What?"
The thirteen other people burst into a joyous shout after a moment of silence, while Augusta walked away from them.
"What's going on?" Samuel spoke, confused about
"I don't know if you're lucky or unlucky, but that was Augusta's way of confessing to you." Said Jin.
"Come again?"
"Just go along with it." Eli said with a laugh as he pat Samuel's shoulder.
Samuel did not know what to do in this situation. In his twenty three years of life, the man had never gotten a confession due to his average looks. His sixty points of intelligence were of no help in this situation, as he didn't know what to do. The system answered his prayers, however.
[Worldwide announcement: It has been seven days since the start of the apocalypse. All users, please prepare for a mass teleport in three hours.
Make sure not to move or hold someone when the teleportation starts, otherwise you will be solely responsible for your actions.]