Seeing the ma.s.sive bear, which seemed to be made out of muscles and bloodthirst Ivan was sure that he had no way to parry any of its attack and the only way for him to survive was to evade to the best of his abilities while searching for a opportunity to counter attack.

The speed of the Steelback Bear was so great that even though he was prepared Ivan could only evade the first swipe of its claws by a hairs width. He could feel the sharp wind that the wipe brought with it on his skin and he once again was reminded at how fearsome such a simple attack could be.

And even though he had experienced death many times before it had not made him less afraid of it. Quite the opposite since he was clear of how painful it was to get killed. And the pain was something he could do nothing against but endure. As such he had later learned how to get killed fast which had the positive effect of increasing his own lethality since he was now knowledgeable about the points of the human body which could lead to a fast death. Of course he too was able to inflict horrible pain on another human without him dying but he really hoped that he would never be in a situation to use it.

Hurriedly banis.h.i.+ng these distracting thoughts and suppressing the instinctual fear he felt towards a superior opponent he concentrated on his fight.

Having evaded the first attack he tried to counter attack with a stab of his word towards the throat of the Steelback Bear but before the tip of the sword could come even close to his opponent the claws once again swiped towards him.

* F**k this guy is really to fast. *, he helplessly thought before adjusting his strategy. It seemed like he could only hope to do it the slow way by inflicting light injuries with the hope that the Steelback Bear would loose some of its fearsome speed.

Dodging the next claw attack too he then slashed down with his sword. When the sword hit the thick hide of the Steelback Bear it barely penetrated it and left only a small wound.

* Such a thick hide. How the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l am I supposed to cut through that? *, he could only lament. Sadly he had no better sword and he couldn't afford one either. The dagger he had gotten from his mentor would surely be sharper but the reach was also much shorter and there was no way that he would be able to evade the next attack after trying to hit the Steelback Bear. As such he could only try it again and again while trying to hit where there were tendons.

After many tries when is breathing had already became ragged he finally managed to cut the tendons on the front paw of the pear which instantly reduced the pressure on him. Sadly it still wasn't enough for him to go after its weaker points like eyes or throat. It seemed the only way was to slowly whittle it down.

Now that the pressure on him had lessened he could stabilize his breathing to reduce his consummation of stamina which sadly was already nearly depleted. If he didn't find another good cut soon he would have to disengage and hope that the Steelback Bear wouldn't be able to catch up with its nearly useless front paw.

Another good point about the lessened pressure was that he was now able to place his cut with more precision, since the time frame for his slash had widened. As such he soon managed to cut of another tendon, this time on the other front leg. This weakened the Steelback Bear significantly since it now couldn't use either of his front legs to attack him. He was only barely able to stand on them so how could he lift one to attack him.

Just as Ivan slightly relaxed the monster used his ma.s.siv back legs to lunge on him with his fearsome teeth on full display.

Surprised he could only tumble backwards but he was a bit to slow and the teeth of the Bear sank into his shoulder. At the same time he hurriedly dropped his sword to take out the crystal dagger and stab it into the throat of his attacker. The daggers sharpness was incomparable to that of the sword and as such it easily sliced through its throat which resulted in a huge amount of fresh blood shooting out of the severed jugular.

The feeling of having the Steelback Bears teeth sticking in his shoulder and begin splattered by its blood really wasn't a comfortable one. Luckily his slash together with the disabled front legs of the bear had stopped it from pulling back his head and completely mangling of his shoulder. Even though such wound would heal surprisingly fast with the application of some medicine it would still stop him from doing much for at least a week.

As soon as the light in the hate filled eyes of the Steelback Bear dimmed he carefully pried open his muzzle to extract his shoulder from it. He then fell down on his b.u.t.t as all his strength left him. At the end of the fight the only reason he had been able to continue on was that his body was filled to the brim with adrenaline. Now that the danger was over he naturally felt powerless, not even able to lift an arm. The only thing he could do was to quietly sit there and recuperate while hoping that nothing else would come over and take the opportunity to attack him.

His luck wasn't bad and nothing came close to him. He guessed that the loud sounds the Steelback Bear had made during the fight had scared away any other creatures in the vicinity. Without any attacks he was able to regain some energy before checking out his gains.