“Alarm! All units, heads up! A giant demonic brown bear is charging us—prepare by rank!” William yanked the siren, and its howl ran the mana light-net like ripples on a lake.

Vivian was already leading a squad toward the city wall, boots drumming like hooves, cloaks snapping like flags in a storm.

The front soldier shouldered his spear, shook his head with pity. “In weather like this, chased by that thing, we won’t keep a whole corpse,” he muttered as snow gnawed like wolves.

Vivian bit her lip, hands folded in prayer. Her breath smoked like incense as she whispered for those travelers.

Outside the gate, Eli measured the distance to the doors, checked the monster behind, and blew hot steam; he hugged the two women like a shield against wind.

He shouted, “Hold on!” His voice cracked the cold like thunder over ice.

Eli leaped hard, and a golden screen sprang before him, a sunshield that blunted the knife-wind rushing the two in his arms.

“Uwaaah!” The pair clung to his neck, while the wall raced beneath them like a river. The one on his back blinked, bonked his skull like a bell, rolled her eyes, and fainted again.

Soldiers on the wall gaped at the unknown thing flying overhead, like fish out of water, their duty blown off them like leaves in a gale.

Vivian watched the golden “meteor” arc past the wall toward the city center; joy bubbled up like a spring, and she hopped, laughing. “Lord, thank you for saving these poor souls.”

The demonic brown bear saw four vault inside and howled at the sky, its charge an avalanche that couldn’t brake in time.

Boom! x2. The sound rolled like drums through a frozen valley.

Two massive impacts rang out—Eli hit hard, and the bear smashed the wall, echoes piling like thunderheads.

“All units, attack the bear!” a commander snapped first, his shout cracking like a whip in the wind.

The bear’s impact was brutal; even the earth-warded wall split with a gaping wound like clay rent in a quake. Dizzy, it couldn’t counter the humans swarming like ants.

Eli set down the two women and the one on his back, rubbing his aching head as pain throbbed like drumbeats. “Ahem. Note to self—no showing off. No showing off. No showing off.”

Enchanted arrows and spears carrying Battle Aura punched in like thorns. Pain snapped the bear awake; it roared and swatted soldiers flying like leaves in a gale.

Vivian hopped anxiously, a sparrow on hot snow. A group in mage robes edged past her like storm clouds and strode out. “Target in range. Everyone, ready?”

Eli walked back to the gate, eyed them, and nodded, approval glowing like a warm ember. “Mm. The garrison’s decent.”

The bear’s roar rolled like thunder on the plains; Eli sighed, resignation heavy as wet cloth. “I should clean up the mess I made.”

He vaulted back onto the wall, hands drawing together. “Myriad Spirit Lock!” Three chains shot out like silver serpents, twining the bear’s forepaws and head.

The garrison mages glanced at Eli, puzzled as crows, then raised their hands like a forest. “Combined incantation—Undying Flame!”

Warriors surged Battle Aura and pressed the attack, a steel wind crashing like a tide.

It tried to roar, then found chains biting tight, the sound stuck like a stone in its throat.

At once, it slammed the ground in fury, blows falling like meteors on earth.

No Battle Aura, no magic—just raw beast strength pounded the ground like crashing waves.

Snow mixed with mud and flew everywhere, white and brown confetti whipped by a winter storm.

Shockwaves blasted toward the charging soldiers and the archers behind them, ripples that shoved men like twigs. The bear thrashed again, and a savage yank sent Eli crashing off the wall like a dropped stone.

The scene was awkward and a little comical, dignity crumpled like wet paper.

Edlyn had just reached the wall and laughed till she hugged her belly, bells chiming in frost. “Serves you right!”

Then a mouthful of snow and dirt hit her; her little face went dark like a storm cloud, and she knelt, spitting seeds one after another.

Eli lifted his head, spat snow, and brushed his face clean, breath steaming like a tired horse. He gave the roaring bear a helpless look, a lantern guttering in wind.

“Your damn brute strength is real.” Silver Battle Aura surged over him like moonlight armor.

“If my level didn’t edge yours, I wouldn’t hold you at all,” he said, words dropping like stones, and he shook his head as snow fell.

The array above glowed with mounting threat, a burning halo. The bear roared in defiance, grabbed Eli’s chains, and swung them like a flail, Eli attached and whipping like a banner.

Eli grimaced, a cracked mask, and swore. “Damn it, I really can’t out-pull him. This thing weighs way more than me.”

The bear swept down a swath of mages, broke their spell like snapped strings, then bolted like a landslide. Eli scraped across the ground, dragged like a plow through ice.

Eli muttered a chant, and a black glow film formed under his feet like ink on ice. He stomped down, spiral-gripping the chain. “Mother—try me sideways again!”

He held for maybe five seconds; the demon-bear doubled in size like a sudden balloon, and he got hauled again like a kite in a gale.

Helpless, he canceled the Myriad Spirit Lock. Momentum buried him in a snowdrift, a tossed sack under a white quilt.

Eli looked at the fleeing bear and the mages and garrison strewn like fallen stalks in a trampled field. He shook snow from his head, feathers flying.

“Next time, I’m not brawling with anything this big. I’ll just hammer it with a few magic blasts, like comets to the skull.”