Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Lucius backed away quickly from the monster before it could catch a sense of him. He was able to circle back to where the party was waiting and informed them of what he saw.

Jen formulated a plan off the information. Essentially, Lucius would circle around to the back of the beast and wait for a few minutes for the party to get into position. He would launch a surprise attack on its backside, and when the bear turned around to attack its assailant, he would back off and at the same time, Rena would launch a spell while Paul shot an Arts enhanced Arrow.

Finally, Jen and Lethen would jump into the fray to engage in direct melee with the beast. Lucius would continue to pester it from its blind spots, and Rena and Paul would continue to provide cover.

"Sound like a plan?" Jen whispered.

Everyone nodded in agreement and they moved into their positions. Lucius circled around the opposite direction he originally went and got the bear within eyesight again. He made sure to watch its lumbering movements to ensure that it was not suddenly aware of his presence.

Even though he was doing everything he could to keep himself hidden from it, these monsters could be quite clever sometimes or extremely intuitive. Intuition was one thing you could always count on to exist, but you could never guarantee when it will come into play.

Every breath and every step was measured and steady so as not to ruin the plan. After a few agonizing minutes, Lucius was in position. By this point, the rest of the party would be as well, so he began to focus the mana in his body and forced it to travel into his blade and feet.

"[Forsaken Arts: Severing Slash]!"

By siphoning some of the mana from the skill and forcing it into another part of his body, like his feet, instead of the weapon, he would lose some of the damaging power of the strike itself. However, the energy would instead be put into his leap, speeding up the attack faster than he would have been capable normally.

He was way weaker than other children his age, physically, so he had to be tricky and learn how to manipulate the mana used by his skills as best he could. This was how he had learned to change the weapon focus from his sword to his hands in the Dire Rat battle. It was also how he was able to perform such blazing fast strikes.

Sure, it weakened the impact and lessened the already middling physical power he possessed, but it enhanced his natural speed that even some Intermediate Rank fighters would struggle to keep up with.

Dirt and leaves scatted in the wake of Lucius' attack and he shot like an arrow at the bear's backside. The target of the Severing Slash was the monster's hamstrings. It would not be a deadly blow, or even likely a debilitating one considering the terrifying regenerating abilities of monsters, but it would slow it down just enough to provide another advantage to the team.

Before the monster could even react to the sound of his voice and attack, Lucius was on top of it. His blade, coated in a golden sheen from the mana, slashed across the back of the bear's leg. It was deep, but not deep enough to cause the damage he had hoped for.

"[Bow Arts: Piercing Shot]"

"[Ferrum: Metal Spikes]"

A golden arrow followed by a trail of gray flew towards the bear as it was turning around to face Lucius. From the gray trail, dozens of metal spikes burst from the ground before instantly disappearing.

The arrow sunk into the bear's side and the spikes pierced the hide on its belly, though neither did much other than cause a flesh would. But since this wound was more annoying than his own, it quickly redirected its attention from Lucius and back towards the other attack.

It was at this moment that Jen and Lethen ran out from between the trees. Jen had her greatsword held out to the side and made a large swing from the right. Lethen had his shield in front of him and his sword held down and to the left before he made his attack.

"[Sword Arts: Overpowering Strike]!"

"[Sword Arts: Rapid Strike]!"

Jen's attack instantly became faster and it almost appeared as if the weight of the sword had grown as well. Lethen's attack also increased in speed to the point that his sword hand was a blur.

Both swords slashed towards the bear's front legs, Jen's cut almost cleanly through while the one from Lethen left over a dozen smaller wounds, though each was twice as deep as Lucius had managed with his one attack.

Not one to leave an opening gone to waste, Lucius took the chance given to him to attack the legs once again. Since the two attacks from the front made its front legs unusable for the moment, the bear decided to stand on its hind legs and roar in anger and defiance. This was the moment that he made his attack.

Once again using a Severing Slash, Lucius sped towards the bear. This time though, he used his natural speed and allowed the mana to be fed into the sword in its entirety. Again, the attack did not do much more than cause a flesh wound, so instead of pressing his luck, he once again retreated into the trees.

"[Glacies: Ice Spike]"

"[Glacies: Ice Spike]"

Two spells were activated back-to-back as twin conical spikes of ice appeared between the trees and targeted the bear's heads. Using the arm that was still somewhat attached, it attempted to swing and strike the attack down.

"[Bow Arts: Multi-Strike]"

Before the block could stop the spikes, a group of arrows caught the arm right in the shoulder, preventing the movement from occurring.

Both spikes struck their targets, one eye on each of the two heads. At this moment, Jen took advantage of the situation and leapt upwards before spinning and kicking the back of one of the spikes, pushing it further into the bear's head. When she landed on the ground, the twin-headed bear's entire body shuddered and twitched.

It went completely stiff and then fell backwards onto the ground, making a loud thud.

"Not bad guys. He went down a lot easier than I expected. Lethen, pierce the second brain just in case." Jen said. "We got lucky that we were able to stop it from using its claws. That's where its mana infused attacks originate. Let's get to skinning it.

Keep the claws for alchemy ingredients, I'll collect the heart. Everything else, leave for the other monsters."

Jen's commands were set and so the group set about on the corpse. It took everyone to break down the body of the large creature. Even Lucius took part even though he was also monitoring the area around them. After a few hours of tedious work, the deed was done and they had a freshly skinned fur, ten claws, and one massive bear heart.

"I've never seen a bear heart before…but that one looks…odd." Rena pointed out.

"Oh, have you ever seen any sort of monster heart?" Lethen inquired.

Both Rena and Lucius shook their heads. The strange thing about the heart was that it was…black with deep red veins surrounding it.

"Oh, well the difference between monsters and the base creatures they are descended from, is that monsters can use mana like humans. It flows through their blood. However, its in much higher concentrations and causes strange mutations and gives them powerful abilities. One of the results of that is that all monsters have these strange, black hearts." Lethen explained on their walk back.

They did not have to be as cautious since they smelled like the twin-headed bear. It was the strongest thing in these woods, so none of the other monsters wanted to be anywhere near them at the moment, so it was a rather peaceful trek back.