Chapter 103 - 102: Bena Injured

Chapter 103: Chapter 102: Bena Injured

Bena’s spear plunged into the mutated black bear’s abdomen once more. The bear let out a bloodcurdling howl and charged at him in a rage, but Bena deftly dodged aside.

Seizing the opportunity, Bena reactivated his exoskeleton’s thrusters and shot toward the mutated black bear at astonishing speed.

He wasn’t aiming for a single killing blow, but rather trying to inflict as much effective damage as possible.

Wounds began to pepper the mutated black bear’s body. Feeling the extent of its injuries, the bear instantly realized Bena’s strategy.

The mutated black bear let out a piercing shriek and tried to charge in, hoping to trade blow for blow with Bena.

However, Bena had no intention of letting it have its way.

Bena tapped his toes lightly against the ground and shot backward.

As Bena fell back, the others immediately opened fire, forcing the mutated black bear to retreat.

Just as Bena was handily dealing with the increasingly wounded bear, a sudden sense of crisis washed over him.

In an instant, Bena felt the hair on his skin stand on end.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he aborted his attack and threw himself backward. An instant later, a cold flash of light sliced across his left arm.

Bena felt a sudden coldness in his left arm. A glance from the corner of his eye made him gasp.

Three deep gashes now marred the once-smooth surface of his exoskeleton. Where his arm wasn’t protected, three deep, bloody wounds had been torn into his flesh.

The wounds were torn wide open. Blood gushed from the flesh on his arm. In just a few seconds, his entire arm was stained crimson.

A wave of intense pain instantly caused cold sweat to bead on Bena’s forehead.

He was thankful he’d retreated in time. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been just three wounds—his entire left arm would have been torn open.

The situation was urgent, so Bena had no time to properly clean the wounds.

He immediately pulled a hemostatic spray from his tactical belt and quickly applied it to the gashes.

The cold spray instantly dulled the pain. The moment it made contact with his skin, it formed a thin, pale-yellow, gel-like substance over the surface.

As he treated his injury, he glanced at the mutated black bear in the distance. He didn’t understand why the creature, which had been on the verge of death moments ago, had suddenly become so ferocious.

When his gaze returned to the mutated black bear, he discovered a faint red glow shimmering around its fur.

While he was puzzling over this change, Zhou Mei called out a nervous warning from nearby:

"It’s going berserk! This mutated black bear can enter a berserker rage! It’s putting its life on the line. Be careful!"

’A berserker rage!’

Bena sucked in a sharp breath.

He’d never seen it firsthand, but he had heard that some powerful mutated creatures would enter a berserk state when their lives were in danger.

Before Bena could figure out how to respond, the bear, wreathed in red light, closed in on him with extreme speed.

Seeing the bear lunging for him, Bena had no intention of fighting it head-on. ’It’s obviously trying to take me down with it,’ he thought, ’but I’m not about to throw my life away on some beast.’

Bena turned and ran.

And so, a rather comical scene unfolded on the otherwise tense and deadly battlefield.

A three-meter-tall bear was rampaging in pursuit, while Bena, clad in his silver-black exoskeleton, fled for his life.

From time to time, Zhou Mei would use her firearm to harry the rampaging bear.

As for No. 3 and No. 4, they had already retreated to a safe position.

It wasn’t that they wanted to stand by and watch; their physical capabilities were simply no match for a direct confrontation with the mutated bear.

Before the bear went berserk, if it had tried to attack the two bionics, Bena could have used his exoskeleton to hold it off for a moment, giving them a chance to reposition.

But after the bear went berserk, its speed and attack power had increased so significantly that Bena didn’t dare try to block its attacks head-on.

Without Bena to run interference, the bear would tear the two bionics to shreds in seconds if it caught them.

Fortunately, this berserker rage didn’t come without a cost. The creature was forcefully overdrawing its life force and vitality to use it—a desperate, last-ditch effort.

So, this somewhat comical chase didn’t last long. After about ten minutes, the absurd pursuit came to an end.

At some point, the faint red glow on the mutated black bear vanished. Its previously swift movements suddenly slowed—a deceleration visible to the naked eye.

Its ferocious aura deflated in an instant. Bloody vapor plumed from its mouth and nose with every breath.

Beads of dark red blood began to seep slowly from its skin, trickling down its fur and dripping to the ground.

In just a few moments, a brownish-red pool of blood had formed on the ground beneath it.

Bena kept running for another ten-odd meters before cautiously stopping to look back.

He was surprised to see that the three-meter-tall bear seemed to have lost a significant amount of bulk in just ten-odd minutes.

’This temporary berserker rage is powerful, but the toll it takes on the body is just as severe.’

Although the bear looked as if it had completely lost the will to fight, Bena didn’t let his guard down.

He backed up another dozen steps. Once he was certain it couldn’t launch a surprise attack, he planted his military spear in the ground, drew the .32 pistol from his hip, and pulled the trigger on the distant bear.

Muzzle flashes spat from the pistol, and blossoms of blood bloomed on the bear’s body.

The bear, so agile just moments ago, now stood rooted to the spot like a living target, completely unable to fight back.

Seeing this, the others didn’t need a signal from Bena. They all drew their guns and unleashed a volley of shots at the bear.

After several volleys, the mutated black bear let out one last, almost inaudible howl. Its body twitched violently a few times, and then it collapsed to the ground, motionless.

Seeing the bear fall, no one rushed to check the spoils.

Zhou Mei rushed anxiously to Bena’s side. She had seen him take a direct hit from the bear earlier.

But things had been too tense to worry about it until now.

Seeing his blood-soaked arm, Zhou Mei immediately had Bena sit on the ground while she disengaged the exoskeleton on his arm.

She pulled a medical kit from her backpack and carefully used alcohol to soften the gel on Bena’s arm.

This hemostatic gel was only for emergency use, meant to prevent soldiers from bleeding to death in the middle of a fight.

However, if it wasn’t cleaned off properly after the battle, it could lead to infection or even necrosis.

As an experienced Mercenary, she could naturally make a basic assessment of the injury.