Chapter 77 - Reaching the City-3 (2/2)

The forest bears were both about 6 feet high and 8 feet large. Bears usually had high defence and health. It was best for Magic damage classes to attack them. These bears had high damage and lower agility. So, attacking from a distance or classes with high agility are the best options to attack the bears.

Bears usually fought by swiping their claws against the players. They had a huge frame and even being hit by their limbs usually result in throw back and stun effects on the players. They even ram into the players when their health is low. The only advantage against them is their low speed.

The sun bear was about 4 feet high and 5 feet large. It had golden fur instead of brown, wore a helmet and plate armor around its torso and carried a sword. All bears high strength and defense. The different kinds of bears only differed in other aspects. The only exceptions were two kinds of bears - sun bear and starlight bear.

These two kinds of bears are humanoid. They could speak and use armaments like humans. They also move very fast with quick, agile movements. It is easier to take down 4 bears than one of these sun bears. They were similar to players in most aspects but had the physique of a bear.

With most of the team being level 9 players, Shadow left them to deal with the forest bears. As long as they maintained a reasonable distance and attacked, it is not hard to deal with the forest bears. He also put Rudra and Merlin in charge of one forest bear each. These two being at level 10 will have an advantage over the bears.

Shadow ran to handle the sun bear himself. Although it was a boss monster, it was two levels below him. Moreover, a monster could never match a fight against a seasoned veteran like him. He cast a shadow clone and used Red Rage skill as soon as he attacked the bear. Like always he cast the clone to use cheap shot skill.

The sun bear was a humanoid similar to the worgen. Though it didn't physically look different from the other bears. It was able to use a sword. It wasn't an easy task to fool the sun bear into not observing the shadow clone. That is why he used the red rage skill so that the visual effect of the skill would distract it. He had to keep at a distance from the rest of the team. It would certainly cause disturbance in their coordination of the group in fighting the bears.

He immediately had the clone cast cheap shot to stun the bear and began to lower its health. He focused his attack on joints of the armor first. It was always best to disable or remove the armor of the monsters to lower its defense. Striking the joints that held the armor pieces together was the best option to remove plate armor.

Removing the armor could best be done while the monster is stunned. It is a lot harder to aim at the tiny joint when the monster is trying to evade. With the repeated cheap shot from his clone and himself, he managed to remove the armor and helm in 6 seconds and began to attack the sun bear rapidly.

The sun bears main advantage was it speed and movements. Most of its defense was provided by the armor. Without its armor it began to lose health rapidly. The sad thing was that it couldn't even match its speed with Shadow. At level 12, his agility was more than high enough to deal with it.

He could easily stop its attacks and deal damage to it. It slowly began to lose health and within three minutes, its health went below 50% which put it into a berserk state. It started to attack the others in its desperate state instead of attacking Shadow who was the only one who inflicted damage to it.

It ran around and tried to attack others, but Shadow being faster than it easily got hold of it and kept it at bay. Yet due to the berserk effect, its speed clearly increased by at least 20% and it was getting harder for him to hold it at bay.

He tried to control it with the garrote. Though he wasn't able to loop the garrote wire around its head, he managed to loop it around its limbs. But still it could not control it. The bears have limbs which could smack at players who are using chok and are on their back. So, it was a futile attempt to control using choke or garrote.

He had only on option left. It was the halberd that he made. It could be used to control and pull away the bear by the hook like gaps in its head. He already had enough strength attribute to use it even though it is a two-handed weapon. The flaw with the halberd was that without the appropriate skills, he could hardly deal decent damage and the frequency of attack also was quite low with this weapon.

The good part was that, Rudra who always played berserker had made good use of the three new skills he learned recently. Using the harpoon tackle and whirlwind strike, he managed to already push the bear they were fighting away from the other two.

With him being at level 10, his attacks had a stronger effect on the bear. The halberd could also be used for these skills and the best was already on its last legs. With a shattering strike, Rudra quickly put an end to the monster and five more were ready to help Shadow.

The remaining also were able to control the bear in a decent manner but they didn't have enough firepower. Tetsujin who could usually control the monsters using choke skill failed as the bear could smack him away with its arms even when he was on its back. This wasn't possible for wargs or cats.

Due to this, they had to change their fight style. They were using tanks for cover and attacked the bear with magical long-distance attacks. This wasn't a hard task, but it definitely took a long time to kill the bear in this manner.

”Join the others to finish off the other bear,” said Shadow as soon as he saw Rudra finish one of the bears. He was quite confident in his capabilities to keep the sun bear away. Though the damage he inflicted was quite small, engaging it in a fight at a stalemate was an easy job.

With all 10 of them attacking the other bear didn't even last for a minute. After that the same fate awaited the sun bear. The sun bear though was fast enough to evade even most of the level 10 players, it couldn't handle escape the co-operative effort of the 12 players and died within two minutes of the 12 players joining to kill the sun bear.

With the sun bear dead they have been done with all the monsters in the quest. All that was left is to go to the gate at the wall and inform the guards about the town head's quest and finish the quest. They quickly made their way along the path in the direction of the city wall.

The soon came to a junction where a large number of paths from various towns and villages joined. A few meters away from the junction there was a large watchtower and check post. This check post is the teleportation point that would be available for the players at level 9 to teleport to. They can't directly teleport into the city till they reached level 10.

Even after the death of the sun bear, none of the others managed to level up. The others could only register at the check post for the completion of the quest and come back when they have managed to reach level 10.

Shadow quickly went to the check post and pulled out informed the guard about his quest. The quest reward was based on the number and type of monsters, a player helped to kill. The experience gained was dependent on this. Thus, there was a good chance for most of the team to level up. Even in his previous life, situation where someone managed to complete the quest without reaching level 10 were rare occurrences because of this. He immediately heard the notification.

Quest completed: [Clear a path to the city] (Difficulty: High)

Performance: Moderate;

Experience gained: 700;

Rewards: Gained access to the White Heart City.