Edlyn felt a tug like a silk thread between hearts and glanced toward where Eli had gone. No silhouette. Her breath tightened. “So you went out? Foolish Hero—only I get to kill you. Don’t you dare get hurt.”

The Demon Bear Cavern lay within Moon City of the Northern Domain, deep in the Alfred Grand Snow Mountain. Unlike common bears, these demon bears lived in packs. Outside this place, they’d gone extinct as the land shifted and the climate turned.

This had to be the last demonic brown bear.

Eli’s party had just crossed the narrow strip between the Draco Empire and the Miter Empire. They used an abandoned portal and got flung at random.

They strayed into the bears’ territory. Thanks to Eli’s superb stealth, the three slipped out shaken but safe—until a smaller bear dragged in a stone slab, piled with human corpses.

Eli spotted Shiri hidden among them and pulled her free. The bear chased, its breath a storm at their backs.

He faced the ice-sculpted mountains, their ridges like frozen waves, and the cave mouth yawning wide as a black sea. His pulse tightened. “This time, I’m not dealing with a cub.”

He wasn’t Birand Aste, the world-crushing, heaven-cutting Hero. He was Eli Aestor, twenty-eight, and mortal breath steamed in the cold.

One-on-one against a rare breed that pressed human limits, he felt no certainty. Doubt pricked like frost.

Compared to Birand, he lacked that killing intent born of corpse-mountains and blood-seas, that near-solid murderous aura, that battle-scarred instinct.

Eli pulled down his hood. His pupils shifted. One eye flooded to pure black. The other refused to turn white, stubbornly human.

Behind him, a pale wheel flickered into view and spun unsteadily, its presence pressing down like winter sky.

Eli drew a long breath. “Dragonkin Wild Howl! ROAR! (Sixth Tier)”

Sound became force. The roar burst from him and raced outward, a shockwave ripping the slopes. Snow thundered. Avalanches roared in answer.

From the cavern, the bears answered with a chorus of harsh roars, a wall of sound slamming against his challenge.

“Come on, beasts! Give me back my ring!” Killing intent licked up his spine. He closed his eyes, calm inside the storm.

To save Shiri, he’d flung his precious silver ring high and cast a wide flash. A giant bear cut the spell with its breath and snatched the ring.

This fight had one purpose: take it back.

“You’re courting death, human!” A burly man stepped out first, an X-shaped scar across his face. Two sturdy men followed, and behind them surged bears far larger than the one from that day.

Eli’s mouth quirked. “Didn’t expect you to evolve far enough to take human form.”

“Speak. You shattered my hall and cracked these peaks. What do you want?” The lead man held his anger like a blade. His eyes burned crimson on Eli.

“Nothing much. Return what’s mine.” Eli folded his arms, breaths steady.

The man on the left blinked, then fished out a ring. His gaze gleamed with greed. “This one?”

The leader glanced back, displeased, but held his tongue.

Eli nodded and reached out his hand.

The man laughed. “You think I’ll just hand it over?”

“Isn’t that the plan?” Eli kept his eyes shut, tone light.

“Boy, tell me how to open the space inside it. I’ll take what’s within and return the ring.”

Eli shook his head, amusement bitter as cold. “Beasts are beasts. Brains still don’t work.”

The leader straightened, body like an iron tower, presence dizzying and heavy.

“Tell us, and we won’t pursue your trespass.”

Eli laughed, soft and certain. If he wasn’t ready, he wouldn’t have shaken the mountain. Their wit was truly thin.

“Enough talk. A fight will settle everything.” He formed signs with both hands and eyed the bears.

“Fine. You want death, we’ll oblige! Together—tear this clown apart!” The man roared and swelled, body surging into a hundred-zhang giant bear. He thundered forward.

Eli opened his eyes slowly.

His black pupils weren’t just black now. Colored runes shimmered upon that deep veil, like prayer-ink on night. He lifted both hands. “Taste what I’ve been working on.”

The giant paw rushed in, wind howling. Eli spat a beam that unfolded into a shield before him.

The bear’s slap hit like a landslide. The shield shattered in a bloom of light. Eli was hurled back. He wiped the blood at his mouth and watched the bear charge again. Between his hands, a gray magic array bloomed like ash-snow.

He shouted, voice ringing against ice and stone, “Myriad Spirit Locking Array!”