Chapter 364: A Frozen World

The massive Polar Bear let out another furious roar, the pressure of which dispersed the adverse weather in the immediate area.

At the same time Luna felt her domain be impacted by the beasts maddened will. Its attacks against her defended positions within her own domain were put under increased pressure.

Her mind worked overtime as she furiously adapted her domain to account for the renewed ferocity of the bears assult.

As for the bear itself, well it went into a true rage fueled onslaught. Dense red energy gathered about the beasts limbs, its claws slashing out with incredible speed and ferocity. From each claw strike that dense red energy was launched forwards in an arcing path.

The red aura seemed both incorporeal yet entirely real. When it impacted the snow covered ground around them, the snow was entirely erased, deep furrows left in the frozen ground below.

The bears body twisted and spun, constantly moving to try and land a blow on the true Luna. For her part Luna was forced to up her evasiveness, not wanting to be hit by the beasts new form of attacks, whilst she believed that she could survive such an attack, she was by no means excited to test that theory out.

So she adapted, her movements turned mesmerising, her body never quite in the place that it visually should have been, her strikes landing a moment later than what should have been expected, not that the bear even bothered defending.

Whilst before the bear had at least put some effort into defending itself, or at least it did against attacks against more sensitive parts of its body.

Now, now the beast seemed to have entirely forgone any attempt at defense in favour of overwhelming offense.

Luna’s array of ice weapons rained down blows on the beast, daggers, swords and more lances down scoring shallow cuts in the beasts now red tinted fur. It was not from bleeding but it seemed to have absorbed some of that red aura the beast was emitting.

To Luna’s consternation it seemed to have bolstered the innate defenses of the beasts hide.

Still with how many successive strikes she had landed during this battle, her attacks were able to impart enough force to price through and inflict at least some damage.

Saddly for Luna the bear also seemed to have gained some kind of regeneration whilst in this state.

For each small wound that Luna opened up along the beasts body, one more would close up and heal at a noticeable rate. It was frustrating for Luna as she was relying on slowly whittling down the beast until it fell.

Now whilst that was not impossible, it would extend the duration of the battle entirely too long for Luna’s comfort.

That left her with a couple of options, first she could simply back away, retreat from the fight and simply go on with her day. However, that option wrangled Luna, she felt like doing so would be paramount to admitting that this beast was more powerful than her. It technically was more powerful that Luna, yet she still felt intrinsically that she could defeat this beast, so to retreat from it just felt fundamentally wrong.

As such she swiftly ignored that option.

The second was to bide her time, create some space and simply wait out whatever state the beast was currently in. It seemed like it was a similar state to Violet’s limit breat skill. A powerful yet temporary boost to its might.

Yet that would require a comparatively large expenditure in return for that boost. Be it mana or something else, it couldn’t be an entirely free boost.

Her final option was to rise to the challenge and match the energy of the beast by going on the offense herself.

Luna smiled sardonically as she muttered to herself. "I’m getting infected by Violet’s battle lust aren’t I?" Then she chuckled mentally as she knew that she would choose option 3 and go on the offensive.

Like that her decision was made and she unleashed everything that she had.

Her movement seemed to speed up, as she unleashed one of her most powerful abilities, Arctic wrath.

The world around Luna seemed to shudder in response to her will. Her domain seemed to resonate with her activation of the skill as she stopped retreating from her entrenched positions and instead returned the ferocity of the beasts attacks.

Ice bolts, spears, lances, crescents, spikes and more erupted from the world around Luna as her mana surged through her body.

In mere moments dozens of magical attacks were formed and unleashed towards the bear. Each one that struck sent waves of biting cold through the beast, a cold so intense that even this beast, attended to the cold as she felt a shiver run down its spine from the furious cold of Luna’s attacks.

Still in its wrathful state it failed that react in any way other than increasing the tempo of its retaliatory attacks.

At the same time Luna’s body flashed with ephemeral blue illumination as she returned to her humanoid form.

Whilst she was stil proficient in her beast form, she felt that she would be able to do more with hands in this current battle than what she would gain with her increased size in her true beast form.

Plus she was simply more skilled at combat like this and she needed every last advantage she could gain at this moment.

The enraged beast seemed momentarily surprised at the sudden shift in Luna’s size and form, yet that confusion lasted but an instant before its rage ivertook it once again and it resumed its offensive.

Luna met that with her own.

She stepped to the side and appeared on the other side of the beast, a large halbard of ice slicing cleanly into its rear leg. Then she took another step as several ice spears flew down from the sky and stabbed into the fresh wound she just created.

Luna then appeared by sides its other hind leg, this time wielding twin swords, she plunged then down, lancing its its foot and piercing right through them, the words growing in length upon impact till they pierced right through and into the ground below.

The bear, in its fury tried to spin around, either uncaring or unknowing of its foot currently impaled to the ground.

A wet ripping sound rang out as the blades stayed stationary whilst the foot moved. The blades tore through the foot as it was yanked away. A small fountain of crimson blood flowed from the vicious wound.

Yet as the beast howled in pain and fury Luna appeared on its head. A massive greatsword of ice held in both hands.

At the same time the world seemed to slow down. The blizzard around them slowed till it seemed to entirely halt. All sounds around Luna ceasing as the very concept of time was momentarily frozen.

Yet the beast still moved.

Its domain surged with its fury, its movements were most definitely slowed to the extreme, yet unlike previous foes Luna had encountered the polar bear was able to somewhat resist Luna’s most potent skill.

Still Luna did not allow that to halt her attack.

Every conjured weapon struck at once, all of the magical attacks formed with Arctic wrath descended alongside them. Luna herself swung down at the bears neck with all of her might.

Her chain strike having reached sufficient potency to cleave into the beasts flesh with some effort.

And effort Luna put in.

She hacked into the neck of the massive beast, blood flying out before pausing less than a meter away from the beasts body.

The icy domain of the bear surged in response to the fury of its owner, yet Luna’s will was like iron, unbending in this pivitol moment.

Luna’s mana was draining at a prodigious rate, her two most potent skills practically singing with the amount of mana she was utilising to maintain their effects.

Still before she ran entirely empty she had succeeded in her fast and allowed her skills to cease.

A moment later the decapitated head of the massive bear fell to the floor with a resounding boom.