Chapter 1697: New method

Sam stood up hurriedly and stepped back to increase the distance between him and the Bear.

At first, he wanted to take care of the bear slowly to observe while conserving his energy. The Bear is clearly stronger than him, so he didn't want to use up all of his energy at the start and suddenly get caught by it because of his wrong estimations.

He would still like to do that. But he doesn't know how long he would be able to do that in his current state.

He is slightly injured. Compared to him, the bear's injury is less critical. He needs to find a way to finish the battle quickly.

The only reason, his tactic of dealing with the bear slowly might even work is because the bear was running purely on instincts. But now that the advantage is clearly taken away, there is no way, he could continue the tactic.

The only problem is that he might exhaust himself and Hel might put him at a disadvantage like she did in the previous round.

He just hoped that he is not that unlucky to be done in for the same trick twice in a row.

He raised his aura and took out his spear. The silver lightning crackled as he threw the spear at the bear with all his strength.

*BOOM*

An explosive sound came when Sam threw the spear. His surroundings are swept with a small shock wave. The trees shook and dust clouds formed.

The spear left a large crater in its path as it reached the bear in a fraction of a second.

*ROAR*

The bear stood up on its hind legs and threw its claws at the coming spear. Taking it head-on.

The claws formed energy rays that hit the spear. The clash stopped the spear and the energy rays shaped like claws in mid-air.

Bear took this chance and escaped from that spot. The spear destroyed the claws and landed at the spot the bear was previously in.

*BOOM*

A large silver lightning explosion covered that spot. The bear that just escaped wasn't completely unscathed. It took in the aftershock and felt the lightning slow down its muscles a bit.

The bear looked around to find Sam. But with the dust cloud as his cover, he let his shadow undead out. He utilized shadow fusion and let his aura match the one that was given out by the undead creatures.

The bear got confused as it caught all different auras that are similar to its opponent and didn't know which one it should go after.

All undead including Sam, charged at the bear as they attacked. Sam even went as far as distributing his weapons to the humanoid undead creatures to confuse the bear even more.

If the bear is running on instinct, it would have just attacked the nearest undead to it first and then moved on to the next. It wouldn't have cared much if it was just Sam. It started thinking of a way to go and get Sam without wasting much of its energy.

But of course, when the undead neared it, it finally made its move. And unlike before, it didn't blindly charge forward. Rather, it first dodged the nearest shadow and tried to get out of the encirclement from the undead.

It acted carefully without any of beastly instincts.

Sam felt more and more sure that something is wrong with this bear.

But he didn't have time to focus on that at the moment.

The undead moved up on his orders. They changed their direction and followed the bear. But after covering a few yards, they disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

The bear that was about to launch its attack on the creatures, was stunned for a moment and vigilantly looked around.

Sam also disappeared in a puff of black smoke as he used the shadows along with the undead to attack the bear.

The bear is standing an open ground which is devoid of any other shadows other than its own. But that was enough for Sam to close the distance.

He used the shadow as a medium and arrived near the bear.

He attacked the bear with his sword.

The bear barely managed to dodge it before it launched its own attack. The claw went through a puff of black smoke. Sam already disappeared before he could get hit.

*ROAR*

The bear roared in frustration. And to add to that frustration, a bunch of small protrusions appeared around it. The rocks stuck out of the ground randomly and they are creating a bunch of shadows in that area.

Sam and the undead creatures started running amok. They appeared near the bear while leveraging the small shadows besides the rocks. They threw their attacks at the bear from all directions. But most of them are focused on the small patch Sam left.

Most attacks that landed on the rest of its body were bounced off easily. The bear didn't even feel the pinch. But the small patch on its back which is laced with poison was attacked repeatedly. It started bleeding slowly.

But the bear didn't feel anything at that time as well.

Soon, the bear finally got used to the speed of the attacks and threw its claws into the surroundings. The claws destroyed the rocks and razed them to the ground. All the shadows were gone and the undead popped out of nowhere.

The bear lunged at them as it threw repeated attacks.

Sam escaped from the spot. He jumped up in the air. Shadow fusion turned to wind elemental fusion. Wings popped on his back as he flew high into the sky.

He put his sword away and took out his bow.

Now that he already hit the bear so many times and the bleeding increased with every second, he decided to wear the bear down with these arrows and finish it off.

It also became easier since Sam also has a clear target on the bear's body. The bleeding hole on its back. With every arrow he shot, the bleeding intensified. And every arrow is laced with turbulent and sharp wind energy.

So arrows not just attacked the hole, rather they created a hole and expanded it bit by bit as they made the bear bleed more and more.

Soon, the bear started slowing down.

Sam took this chance and started using lightning along with his wind element.

The lightning arrows hit the bear and paralyzed it.

Finally bear was unable to move. So, Sam shifted fire element to finish it off.

The arrow is filled with fire elemental energy. Golden flames erupted. Sam poured as much energy as he possibly can and shot the arrow directly at the bear.

The golden flames enveloped the creature and its surroundings.

The bear wanted to move, but it couldn't. All it could do is burn in the golden flames as it took it all. Its fur burned and soon it is followed by burning flesh. Soon the bear died and then only Sam managed to heave a sigh of relief.

He landed on the ground. He wanted to examine the burning body of the bear a bit. But the corruption hit him and the new corruption gathered by the bear joined him. He is full and he is sent back to the pillar.

Sam heaved a sigh once again. Now it is time to experiment with the method he thought of. The method he wanted to temper his body while not having to store it inside his body.

And the answer he came up with is pretty direct and idiotic even. Since he cannot store it inside his body, all he has to do is store it inside the place where it belongs. The pillar.

To get the most out of the corruption without spending the actual time required, Sam decided to use his unique physique and put it to the test.

Instead of going for the quantity in terms of time, Sam decided to go for the quality. So, in the past few days, while he was still fighting, he made some calculations. He estimated what kind of effect the tempering brings to his muscles and organs before he started analyzing how can he achieve the final results of tempering using the corruption energy to achieve the desired effects.

After making millions of calculations at least, he felt like he had stumbled on the solution. All he has to do is use the corruption energy to enhance his muscle fibers. While simultaneously trying to heal himself. His muscles are subjected to endless destruction. And there is another catch. He is not just using the energy that is inside his body. He decided to look for the energy outside of his body.

Then he thought of the pillar.

First, he wanted to try out one thing. He wanted to see if he can move the energy from the pillar directly. And it didn't take long for him to get the answer.

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