Chapter 187 - 186 The Cordillera Depths (2)

After having traveled through the tunnels of the Cordillera Depths, Marcus and Lilia came out into a massive cavern that had a blanketing forest that went on for miles within it.

'Damn it is hard to believe we are deep under a mountain right now. There really is a forest down here, and some type of crystals hanging from the ceiling that are providing light.'

Lilia and Marcus awestruck by the scene in front of them took a few moments to catch their bearings and enjoy the view of the forest.

However, it was not long before a large familiar looking scaled bear that had noticed their arrival came out of the woods and began lumbering towards them.

The bear seemed to be approaching Marcus and Lilia without much care as if they were already as good as dead.

The bear believed itself to be stronger and faster than the two weak humans and the beast that seemed to have almost no presence behind them.

Of course, this bear did not realize it had made a huge mistake.

'Hm level seventeen. It is just in the range of where Lilia might be able to beat it, but I am not quite sure. Oh, she will be fine, if it seems she cannot handle it I can always jump in and help.'

As the bear was getting exceedingly closer, Marcus turned towards Lilia and said, "Lilia you take this one. It is a little higher level than you so it might be a bit tough but do not hold back, I want to see just how strong you are now."

Nodding her head though looking a bit nervous, Lilia step forward and began approaching the bear that was nearly five times her size.

The bear in its arrogance thought that its appetizer was offering itself up before the main course.

However, the small little girl that seemed to be no threat to the large bear suddenly moved with extreme speed and before the bear knew it, a heavy gauntlet impacted it right in the face.

The bear recoiling from the hit to its face that had broken some of its protective scales, tried to reflexively swipe forward but found that the one that had hit it had already retreated.

In anger the bear no longer taking its new prey for granted, reared up onto its hind legs and let out a roar before charging towards Lilia like a truck.

The bear approaching Lilia with unexpected speed for its size began to let out a barrage of claw swipes, but Lilia using her small agile body and speed enhancing skills dodged each of the attacks as she quickly chanted a spell.

"Control Impact."

Cladding her left fist in a shimmering aura as her magic spell took affect, Lilia slipped past one of the bears frenzied attacks and uppercuted its face using her magic to empower her attack.

Crack!

The scales under the bear's chin shattered from the attack and the bear went airborne for a moment before crashing to the ground.

With the scaled bear still incapacitated from her powerful blow, Lilia raced forward to try and finish the fight, beginning the chant for another spell.

However, unlike what its position and actions may have suggested the bear launched forward slicing with its claws towards Lilia who was caught off guard.

Turning to the side Lilia was able to dodge the majority of the unexpected counter strike, but as the claws raked across her armor the bear lurched forward with its jaws open and snapped closed around Lilia's shoulder.

Lilia immediately felt a crushing pain around her shoulder where the bear had clamped its jaws.

Luckily the armor she was wearing was keeping the teeth from piercing her flesh, but the force behind the bears jaws were still crushing her shoulder.

In a desperate attempt to get the bear to let go of her, Lilia began hitting it in the head with a rapid barrage of punches from her still free arm, but the scaled bear endured them all and slammed Lilia to the ground where it pinned her still free arm with its front leg. 

The bear with its quarry now restrained continued to apply pressure with its jaws and the pain soon caused Lilia to begin screaming as she felt the bones in her shoulder about to break.

Except before the bear could crush her shoulder it stopped moving, going completely limp and began falling over on top of Lilia until it stopped.

It then seemed to magically fly away from Lilia and crashed into the ground a dozen feet from her.

Looking up Lilia saw Marcus still standing in the same spot not having moved, but she did manage to catch a glimpse of a translucent purple arm before it disappeared.

'Looks like that was a bit to much for her right now. I guess it was to be expected, the scaled bear was two levels higher than her.'

After having saved Lilia from her losing battle against the scaled bear, Marcus walked towards her as she struggled to get up.

When he arrived in front of her, the first thing Marcus did was cast a healing spell on Lilia who had a number of bruises all over her body.

As the healing magic took effect and the pained expression on Lilia's face began to disappear Marcus looked at Lilia sternly and said, "Lilia you should not have charged that bear after you got that hit in. You have a ranged spell so you should have used that to bombard the downed bear without getting into its range. You also should not have stopped your chant when the bear attacked. Had you finished the chant you could have used your magic to counter even in that situation. And finally, I know that you are best at close combat, but beasts and monster are typically stronger, so you need to use your intelligence and skills to outdo them. Now you did pretty good at the beginning just try to be more wary, an injured beast will lash out more ferociously than you think."

Once he had finished giving Lilia a run down of what she had done right and where she made her mistakes, Marcus told her that she just had to do better next time.

With their first opponent being a scaled bear now dead, Marcus went over and began dismantling its corpse while Lilia watched and learned.

Going for the core first, Marcus took out the small green crystal within the bear and stored it away.

With the most valuable part now recovered, Marcus proceeded to butcher the bear, first taking out the cut of meats that were edible.

However, while Marcus was doing this a pack of large wolves numbering eight in total, came out of the woods that they had been on the periphery of, obviously attracted by the smell.

'All pretty low level, the strongest is only fifteen, while the others are level twelve or thirteen.'

Seeing himself and Lilia being surrounded, Marcus stood up and stared at the wolf that were trying to intimidate them and said to Lilia, "I will deal with all of them except the leader, you take it on alone and keep in mind what I told you before."

Stepping forward, the wolves all of them began growling trying to scare Marcus and have him run away so they could begin the chase.

Except Marcus had no reason to be afraid as he sauntered forward and then suddenly moved faster than the wolves could see, and with seven swings of his scythe cut down the pack leaving only the alpha.

The remaining wolf seeing its pack unceremoniously cut down, turned to run but found Lilia in its way as it narrowly dodged her first strike.

Seeing the wolf evade her first surprise attack and begin to try to run away, Lilia quickly began the chant for her tier two spell.

"Force Cannon."

Completing her tier two spell, a ball of pure force blasted out of Lilia's hand and headed straight towards the fleeing wolf.

The wolf's instincts began screaming at it telling it to dodge as the ball of force rapidly approached it.

Jumping to the side the wolf avoided the force cannon from impacting the center of its body but was unable to fully avoid the attack as its left hindleg was ripped out of its socket.

Letting out a sharp yap of pain the wolf fell to the ground as one of its limbs was torn from its body.

Blood gushing out of its grievous wound the wolf tried to stand back up and continue running but found Lilia right behind it.

With flight no longer an option, the wolf snapped towards Lilia but after her experience with he scaled bear before, she was being far more careful and jumped back to dodge the attack.

She then positioned herself on the side of the wolf that was missing a leg and unleashed a series of punches with her mana clad gauntlets.

A sickening cracking sound could be heard after each of the strikes as the wolf's ribs broke.

Blood began flowing out of the wolf's mouth after Lilia's onslaught and the wolf who was no longer in any shape to offer resistance collapsed onto the ground.

Being careful not to make the same mistake she had early, Lilia began chanting her force cannon spell again and when it was done, she sent the spell flying right towards the wolfs head.

With a final whimper the wolf laid down its head right before Lilia's force magic spell hit it, taking its head clean off and killing the level fourteen wolf.