262 Chapter 262: Bearing a Bear Hug

With a single swing of its paw, the Hellfire Bear swatted me away. I had only just barely managed to parry its claws by crossing both of my swords, but I was unable to resist the immense force behind the blow.

"Kuh!"

I was sent crashing through several trees, hurtling over several dozen meters before I finally flipped myself over and halted my momentum by crunching my feet against an unfortunate tree trunk that splintered from the impact.

Lilith's Hellfire Bear was already charging toward me mercilessly, bellowing ravenously as flames combusted around its titanic form. Despite me swinging Gan Jiang and blasting him with a torrent of ice, the frost vaporized instantly upon coming contact with the superheated flames.

Then the Hellfire Bear barreled into the tree that I had used to stop my crash, immolating the unfortunate plant and setting the surrounding woodlands ablaze.

I had already managed to move away, cartwheeling through the air to land a few meters away. Realizing that I wasn't going to be able to take on the damned bear with two swords, I had no choice but to call for reinforcements of my own.

"Ursa Major!"

A gigantic bear materialized in front of me. As Lilith's Hellfire Bear slowly turned around to face me, Ursa Major tackled the immense Soul Beast and the two bears went down. Ursa Major wrestled with the Hellfire Bear, the two massive Soul Beasts rolling around in the forest, leveling trees and leaving small fires in their wake.

This was the reason why I had Lilith copy Laura Porter from Battle Frenzy and why I didn't bother changing her Soul Beast from Inferno Bear to another animal. There were readers who were furious about this and accused me of ripping off Battle Frenzy, but honestly ever since I read about that particular character and her Soul Beast, I always imagined Ursa Major versus Inferno Bear. Since I couldn't exactly just write a fanfiction and copy Inferno Bear, I had to come up with a "different" version that was still clearly a reference to the Inferno Bear.

I mean, come on, wouldn't you guys want to see which bear was stronger? Lilith's Hellfire Bear or my Ursa Major? It was a bear versus bear battle! Even if you guys didn't want to read about it, I still wanted to write a scene of monster bears wrestling with each other, thanks to my love of kaiju movies (just look at my penname – Tanaka Tomoyuki is the creator of Godzilla!).

"Stop breaking the fourth wall!" Lilith shouted. "And get back to fighting!"

"As you wish, Miss Lilith."

I darted toward her immediately, swinging my swords and unleashing another stream of ice that froze a path through the forest. Lilith blocked my attack with her flaming sword, melting the frost before it could reach her, and then countered with her torrent of flames that I dodged by spinning my body to one side. Even as I evaded, I didn't pause in my approach and continued to close in on her. With my other sword, I tossed another storm of razor-sharp flower petals at her, which she incinerated with another burst of flames.

If I was some Mary Sue protagonist in a winning streak and just couldn't lose, I would use Shadow Steps to evade Lilith's Inferno…I mean Hellfire Bear and attacked the summoner herself, thus ending the battle once and for all. It was widely known that the Soul Beast would disappear if you defeated the summoner.

Hence the summoner was always such a high-priority target. The sooner you take her out, the better.

The same went for me, of course. In any case, even though I was aware of the tactic, it was easier said than done. Earlier, before I summoned Ursa Major, if I had attempted to charge and attack Lilith, her Hellfire Bear would just swoop in and pulverize me to the ground. At the very least, it would draw my attention away from its summoner, forcing me to evade its attacks and engage it. A six-meter tall monster was not something you could simply ignore.

Right now, with Ursa Major distracting the Hellfire Bear, I was free to attack Lilith and take out the summoner herself. However, the tactic was a double-edged sword. By directly engaging Lilith, I was also directly exposing myself to danger and putting myself at risk. The same solution that I employed against Lilith could also be applied to me. If Lilith took me out, Ursa Major would disappear along with my consciousness.

Lilith was also aware of that, and she sprang forward to take me out. From her grim expression, it was obvious that she was hoping for a swift and decisive victory when her Hellfire Bear was summoned to the battlefield, but I had thwarted that scheme by bringing my own Ursa Major into play. With no other recourse, Lilith had to defeat me directly.

Well, she was superior in terms of swordsmanship. So I couldn't let my guard down.

Away from us, the two bears continued to wrestle. Ursa Major shoved the Hellfire Bear back and raked his claws across the flaming bear's chest, but the monstrous Soul Beast retaliated with an eruption of flames that scorched through the Constellation spirit's armored fur. Despite the magical resistance and protection the fur afforded, Ursa Major still suffered severe burns.

Undaunted, he continued to tackle and clawed at the Hellfire Bear, who slashed back. Blood sprayed across the clearing, almost drowning the grass in red fluid. Both monsters continued to slug it out, trading heavy blows that caused tremors. Quakes rippled throughout the forest, shaking birds and bugs loose as the two Soul Beasts continued to pummel each other senseless.

Bellowing, the Hellfire Bear unleashed another inferno that bathed and immolated poor Ursa Major. Stumbling back and fuming, the Constellation spirit began to teeter backward. However, he gritted his teeth and stubbornly regained his footing, refusing to fall to his rival.

The Hellfire Bear coldly delivered another slash, almost spearing Ursa Major in the chest. Flames rippled out of its paw and struck the suffering Constellation spirit, almost erasing him from existence, but he held on defiantly. Even though he was my creation, a figment of my imagination given form by infusing my mana into him, he still maintained some semblance of consciousness…of pride and desire. As Lilith explained earlier, these Soul Beasts were often reflections or shadows of our consciousness incorporating our own personalities and values into their own spiritual makeup.

However, such emotions still weren't enough. Ursa Major was slowly but surely succumbing to the Hellfire Bear's overwhelming flames.

Even so, I appreciated his refusal to go down without a fight. So I spared a single glance at him after deflecting Lilith's sword to the side with Mo Ye and cleaving through her fire spell with Gan Jiang.

"Ursa Major! Alioth!"

Black flames exploded out from Ursa Major's form and washed over the stunned Hellfire Bear, washing over it. The immense Soul Beast staggered back, grievously wounded by the flames, but it swatted the injured Ursa Major back, breaking through the black inferno and countering it with crimson flames of its own. Its mane seemed to rage even more furiously than ever, as if affronted by the unnatural fire that Ursa Major had sparked.

Ursa Major replied with a paw to its face, a right hook that sent Hellfire Bear staggering again. Even as blood dripped from ugly wounds torn deep into its face, the Hellfire Bear snarled and straightened up. Diving forward, it drove both pairs of claws into Ursa Major's chest and bodily lifted it up. The Constellation spirit flailed weakly and responded by slashing the back of the Hellfire Bear's neck, but that supposed vulnerable spot was protected by the ferocious flaming mane that danced madly.

With a triumphant bellow, Hellfire Bear finished off the limp Ursa Major with another eruption of hellfire, and the unfortunate Constellation spirit exploded into countless mana orbs that drifted randomly before dissipating. Crowing, Hellfire Bear turned toward me.

"It's over," Lilith told me coolly as she drove me off with another strike of her sword. "You've reached the end of your rope."

"Hah!" I snorted. "Isn't it too premature to be celebrating your victory?"

Lilith narrowed her eyes, but didn't reply. Instead, her Hellfire Bear came charging over. If I was Wang Zhong, I would just use Shadow Steps to completely evade all of Hellfire Bear's attacks and then take Lilith out by surprise, but I wasn't an invincible Mary Sue capable of mastering every weapon in existence, a genius who could solve some weird equation that a college professor and headmaster had problems solving, top in theory, yet was also unbeatable in practical battles and just never lost a single match in some weird OP system.

So I had to do this the hard way.

Flipping myself up and over the charging Hellfire Bear, I then took a deep breath and completed my next summoning spell. While the Hellfire Bear spun around to charge in my direction again, a gigantic whale that was several times larger than the poor Soul Beast materialized.

"What the hell is that?!" Lilith demanded, her eyes going wide.

I smiled. "Cetus. Mira!"

Cetus obeyed and cast Mira immediately the moment I commanded him to.

"?!"

It wasn't just Lilith, but even the Hellfire Bear was taken by surprise when Cetus charged right at it. Casting the spell I had commanded him to, Cetus left a tremendous trail of ice in his wake. Mira was an ice-type spell, after all, and was of a much greater magnitude than the ice spell I attempted to cast when imbuing Gan Jiang with Black Tortoise.

In just a moment, the entire clearing was frozen. The section of the forest Lilith and I occupied as completely covered in ice, almost as if winter had come…or an ice age had taken over.

Even the Hellfire Bear was not immune to this sudden change in climate. Despite its ferociously burning flames, the Hellfire Bear was unable to melt the enormous amount of ice that had entombed it and its surroundings. The superheated flames were still unable to put a dent in the extremely low temperatures that Mira had created, which was close to Absolute Zero.

"How?!" Lilith demanded, shivering violently from the cold despite her desperate attempts to warm herself with her fire spells. She clutched her sword tightly and intensified the flames around her blade, to no avail.

"How what?" I asked flippantly. She gritted her teeth and pointed her sword at me. Focusing her mana to the point of her blade, she unleashed a highly intensified heat beam that seared a clear path through the fog that resulted from the cold. The water vapor in the atmosphere had condensed from the low temperatures, and this time my infrared vision that was built into my glasses came in useful. Even so, despite being perfectly able to see the heat beam coming straight at me, I made no move to dodge it. Instead, I slashed it apart with Gan Jiang.

"How is this possible?!" Lilith murmured, her confidence shaken. She then jolted upright when she heard something moving behind her. Glancing around, she caught sight of dark shapes darting through the dense white fog, but she was unable to see anything.

"Earlier, you said that you like teddy bears, right?" I asked.

"W…what about it?!" Lilith was desperately trying to clear the fog by casting several fire spells. Even as she did so, I was weaving my own complex spell, drawing enchantments and formulating a spiritual array. For now, I allowed her to recklessly expend her own mana. She was gradually raising the temperature and clearing the fog, but by the time she achieved her goal, I would have another nasty surprise awaiting her.

I merely smiled and allowed my Constellation spirits to do the talking. Especially since the fog was inevitably becoming diminished, there was nowhere for them to hide. So they took the initiative and pounced on Lilith before she could fully clear the fog.

"EH?!"

Credit to the fire mage, she was able to incinerate a couple of my Constellation spirits with her flaming sword, but the rest of them fell upon her before she could follow up with a second spell or attack. The pack of cute Ursa Minor crashed onto her, sending her toppling onto the ground. As Lilith cried out, they began to mercilessly pummel her to the ground, pinning her sword down and piling on top of her. Before long, there was a mountain of deceptively cute teddy bear-like Constellation spirits weighing down on the helpless Lilith and beating her up.

"What's the matter?" I asked, amused at Lilith's muffled shrieks. "I thought you like teddy bears."

I thought she responded with some sort of angry retort, but I couldn't catch it because it was drowned out by the noise my Ursa Minor were making, their fluffy paws smashing into her with the force of a three-ton truck. Normal monsters would have died from such devastating damage, never mind a human. Fortunately, Lilith had her protective magical aura and physical reinforcement spells to keep her alive, but even those wouldn't be sufficient against the relentless onslaught from my horde of aggressive teddy bear type Constellation spirits.

Pushing up my glasses as I turned away, I couldn't help but smirk.

"I hope you're enjoying your…uh, bear hug."