Flame War
The bear was tearing through my territory like a bat out of hell. Or a bear out of hell.
Was hell a thing in this world?
Maybe. Anything was possible with magic.
Regardless, I wanted- needed to kill it. Green Bean had been bothering me in the back of my mind for ages.
My worry that the bear would attack me in my sleep had grown over the past few months. I knew it could climb trees, even if it didn't like to. What was stopping it from wandering into my territory, climbing up my tree, and deciding I looked like a snack?
Well, I was ignoring the fact that I no longer slept in the first place... and that I could just teleport away...
I was still killing it.
Green Bean lumbered over roots and fallen branches on the forest floor below me. I stared at it with hatred in my black, dead eyes. It hadn't noticed me yet.
I remembered our first encounter. Meeting the damn thing in that cave, and then getting paralyzed by its roar. It wouldn't happen again.
I'd been leveling up Garden Arts, so I coud expend MP for a degree of phytokinesis. I fashioned earplugs out of the plant matter from one of my gardens. With these earplugs, that paralyzing roar wouldn't be able to affect me.
Probably.
I positioned myself behind the beast, allowing my Stealth to keep me hidden.
Despite this, it only took five seconds for Green Bean to still somehow notice me, turn around, and roar. I was five meters away, and I could still feel its disgusting breath and see the spittle flying from its mouth. As it roared, the air in front of it's mouth rippled.
My earplugs did their job though. I couldn't hear anything, and thus, did not get paralyzed.
I teleported to its side and let loose my first attack.
My Firebending skill had reached its maximum level, which was odd, as it wasn't my most-used skill. I used telekinesis in place of my arms, and teleportation in place of my legs, so one would think those two skills would be my highest-leveled ones. But that wasn't the case. In fact, teleportation wasn't even maximum-level yet.
I rationalized this as certain skills being easier to level than others. And for whatever reason, Firebending was one of those.
Of course, that meant that the flames I produced were powerful, baseline level. They were hot, and I could produce a lot of them at once. And when the effects of my Firebomber and Destroyer titles were taken into account, then...
Let's just say my offensive capability with the Skill was quite high.
I let loose a plume of my hottest flames, directly at Green Bean's face.
Tongues of fire reached out to the bear, striking it across its front. It roared again in pain, although I didn't hear it due to my earplugs.
It charged at me. I teleported out of the way and observed my handiwork.
Green Bean's fur was scorched and singed. But its toughness showed. Where a normal creature would have been reduced to ashes by that attack, Green Bean barely looked fried.
And it certainly wasn't dead yet.
It turned to me again and roared one last time. In response, I sent some more flames at it, turning up the heat.
Some nearby shrubbery caught fire.
Green Bean abruptly stopped roaring, and dodged to the side as best it could, escaping the worst of the attack. It then rushed towards me again, glinting claws outstretched. It swiped a paw at me, creating a strange shimmer in the air.
Its claws seemed brighter than normal, reflecting the sunlight.
It was nighttime.
Realizing something was wrong, I jumped out of the tree and teleported midair to a different one nearby.
The place I had just been was torn apart by claw-shaped shockwaves of force. Wood splintered and shattered, as a gaping hole was rent in the tree-trunk.
There was a long, deep creaking noise, and the tree began falling. With an unimaginably loud crash, it impacted the forest floor. I was glad I'd worn earplugs.
I stared in shock at the fact that my opponent had a ranged attack. A powerful one.
Then I teleported away, as another shockwave blasted through my previous location, churning up the earth and sending roots in all directions, like ropelike shrapnel.
I could not be hit by that. I'd die.
I began teleporting around more, sending bursts of flame at the bear, as hot as I could make them. I was burning (heh) through MP like crazy, but I was succeeding at hurting the bear.
White hot fire spilled across the forest like a flood. It seared trunks of trees and liquefied the dirt. Smoke rose from the area in great big gouts.
Hopefully, Green Bean was choking on it.
The smoke was blown around by more shockwaves the bear was firing from its claws. I dodged as best I could, but the bear was getting better and better at sniffing me out, Stealth skill or not.
Every second longer this lasted was more risk of me getting hit.
I couldn't take a hit.
I began using telekinesis in conjunction with my Firebending, preventing the air around me from convecting and cooling the place. I wanted things as hot as possible.
<Heat Mitigation Lv.2 -> Heat Mitigation Lv.3>
Yeah. The temperature was definitely rising.
At the edge of my wide vision, I saw animals and insects fleeing the growing inferno. Flames were steadily creeping outwards in all directions from where I was fighting Green Bean. Plants were burning and smoke clogged the air.
I belatedly realized that if this kept up, I'd have a real forest-fire on my hands. And I wouldn't be able to put it out as easily as I had the Greenskin village.
But it was fine. It would grow back. Probably.
I kept fighting.
At this point, I was no longer sending fire directly at Green Bean. Instead, I was focused on dispersing the heat throughout our environment and making everything burn as quickly as possible.
I'd noticed the bear struggling to deal with the smoke. Its eyes were watering, and it coughed, in between sending shockwave strikes at my position.
This meant that I could asphyxiate it by making the environment as hostile as possible. After all, I had both Heat Mitigation, and Suffocation Resistance. If it came down to it, I could hold my breath longer than Green Bean could.
And so I was. I was stilling the air, preventing oxygen from returning, while simultaneously sending white-hot flames onto everything in sight, teleporting around the bear, leaving concentric rings of fire around its position.
Firebombing techniques worked here too, after all.
Green Bean was no longer sending shockwaves at me. It was too busy stumbling around, roaring. I think it was blinded by the smoke.
It could no longer aim its strikes. It probably couldn't even smell me anymore, which was how it had been getting around my Stealth skill.
Within the blazing forest, I watched through the smoke as Green Bean finally dropped to a burnt knee.
It had been a long time. The bear was tough.
But not tough enough.
Heh.
After all this time, I was finally killing it. Putting it down, and out of my mind.
I teleported directly in front of the bear, prepared to escape at first sign that it wasn't as exhausted as it looked. I probably wouldn't need to though.
Its eyes were swollen, burnt and fused shut by the flames I'd splashed onto its face. Its nose was charcoal. Its fur was a mass of liquefied keratin, now charred a deep black color, rather than the green it had once been.
Even this close to it, it couldn't sense me anymore. Its eyes and ears were done for, and I was making no sound for it to hear. Its mouth hung open, desperately panting, but receiving too little air.
It was pathetic. The mighty beast brought low.
By me.
With a cold, victorious expression, I grinned and placed a hand in front of me, aiming for the mouth. I called upon my Firebending once more, sending a small, but hot stream of flame into its mouth.
I could feel the flame's movements. It traveled down the throat and into the stomach and lungs, imparting heat all the way. Tissue was fried. Bones were charred. Muscles were roasted. All from the inside.
There would be no surviving this.
It tried to roar and thrash, in its last moments. For a few seconds.
Then it fell to the floor, leaking smoke from its nose.
<Level 26 -> Level 29>
<Firebending Lv.9 -> Surya Fire Lv.1>
<Teleport II Lv.8 -> Teleport II Lv.9>
<Firebomber + Destroyer -> Natural Disaster>
<Heat Mitigation Lv.3 -> Heat Mitigation Lv.4>
My laughter rang throughout the burning forest.
A droplet of blood slid down from a cut on my cheek.
I felt great.
---------
System Status (At End Of Chapter):
Name: Harry Potter
Titles: Hardened Rock, Unhinged, Fugitive, Survivalist, Hunter Hunter, Territorial, Ecosystem Engineer, Natural Disaster
Race: Wizard
Level: 29
HP: 1400/2900
MP: 495/3650
SP: 1030/2450
San: 33%
Vit: 77
Str: 50
Dex: 73
Int: 99
Cha: 52
Skills:
-Mana Manipulation Lv.5
-Surya Fire Lv.1
-Telekinesis II Lv.9
-Teleport II Lv.9
-Culinary Arts Lv.6
-Garden Arts Lv.7
-Cleaning II Lv.2
-Widevision Lv.4
-Stealth II Lv.2
Resist:
-Heat Mitigation Lv.4
-Cold Mitigation Lv.2
-Cutting Resistance Lv.6
-Impulse-Force Mitigation Lv.3
-Pain Mitigation Lv.4
-Fear Resistance Lv.9
-Poison Mitigation Lv.9
-Hunger Mitigation Lv.4
-Suffocation Resistance Lv.9
-Faint Resistance Lv.9
-Paralysis Resistance Lv.1
Buffs:
Debuffs:
-Claustrophobia (-50% to San when in enclosed spaces)
-Cursed (Horcrux)