It took a while, but Adrian managed to deal with the remaining six bulls before he found himself back where he had met them earlier.

The leader was still standing there, without moving an inch, despite the fact that its heard had been eleminated.

"I apologize for killing your herd," Adrian muttered as he stood before it, "but my cat wants your core, would you be kind enough to hand it over."

«....» Noctis silently listened to its contractor’s words, fighting the urge to face palm....or was it face paw?

Anyway, the bull continued watching the two for a while before it finally stepped forward, releasing all its suppressed pressure as it did.

Adrian’s eyes immediately widened as he felt the pressure hit him and he immediately realized how wrong he was on his initial guess about its rank.

Because the aura he felt from it was something akin to an A-Rank rather than B-Rank, his initial guess.

Did that mean that it was sharing its mana with its heard just to lower its danger level and attract foolish prey.

"It’s a lot smarter than I expected," Adrian said as the pressure continued pressing down on him.

Although he could keep himself standing, that took active effort, which wasn’t very ideal given that he was about to engage the thing in combat.

The bull looked at him for a second z as if curious about why he wasn’t on the floor just yet, after all, it could sense that the pest before it was a lot weaker than it was.

The pest was probably similar in strength of a bit higher than its former herd, so how come it was resisting such a pressure.

Without warning,

BOOM!

A force suddenly slammed into Adrian, sending him backwards and crashing into a tree. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He didn’t even get the chance to register the attack before it landed, knocking the breath out of him.

The beast had clearly used a gravity attack, but unlike the previous one he fought, this one’s attack was a lot heavier.

«Incoming,» Noctis, now in the [shadow Vault], warned and Adrian immediately rolled out of the way.

A second after he did, the ground where he was lying immediately caved, a large crater forming with in.

Adrian stood back up, but just before he could try switching places with his shadow.

BOOM!

The air warped.

His body slammed into the ground before he could react, his knees hitting first, then his palms, the force trying to crush him flat.

Again, gravity.

Adrian forced himself to move just enough to trigger his ability and switched places with a shadow several meters away.

The pressure vanished instantly.

But he didn’t waste a moment.

His clone immediately stretched all the way towards the bull, before it suddenly transformed into multiple large spikes.

The spikes formed so fastz that it would be impossible for any other beast to react to, unfortunately,

This one was not like the other beasts.

Using just gravity to fight him, even when it had access to other elements was proof of that already.

The spikes stopped just before they could reach it, the air around them trembling as they tried to force their way towards it.

The bull then looked back up at Adrian who was standing in the distance and again,

BOOM!

A force slammed into him again and his body flew through two trees before crashing hard against a third, causing the bark to splinter under the force.

"—KGH!"

His vision immediately went white and he landed back on the ground, right on his left arm.

He could’ve sworn he heard a crack from his left arm....which he did and by the way it was twisted at an unnatural angle,

It was definitely broken.

«You cannot win this.»

’I wonder who got me into this in the first place,’ Adrian replied, sarcasm ozzing from his voice.

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his good hand and stood back up, creating a makeshift cast with his shadows and wrapping it around the broken arm.

He looked back towards the bull and realized one thing, the damn thing had no intention of killing him.

It had many chances to, but it didn’t take them.

Rather, it seemed the beast was amused by his struggles, or more accurately, it was amused at the fact that he hadn’t given up just yet.

It was used to baiting in preys and the moment they realize its true strength, they just gave up and accepted their fate.

But this one, as small as it was, was standing up over and over again, which it saw as entertaining.

It wanted to see just how far this pest can be pushed before it finally gave up and accepted its fate.

"...."

Yeah, for an overgrown cow, this one definitely was sadistic.

Adrian continued looking at it, wondering how he would deal with it.

Their level difference were so high that he had been the one getting ragdolled all this while,

Yet, he hadn’t gotten the chance to land a single blow on the creature.

There still remained the fact that it wasn’t truly trying else, he’d already be dead.

With all this, Adrian could only come to a single conclusion, he couldn’t beat this thing, not as he was right now.

He wasn’t dumb enough to think that he would get a random power up the moment he was about to die.

He wasn’t the protagonist.

For now, there was only one option remained.

Adrian lifted his palm in the air, and a single shadow spike was formed, but this one was wrapped around an ice shard.

[Frozen Dark Rain]

The shard left his palm and launched itself into the sky and to the beast’s surprise, multiple shards suddenly started falling from the sky.

It lifted its head towards the approaching shards, but just before they could reach it, the were stopped midair.

The beast then looked towards the pest again, curious to see what it would show next.

But when it looked towards Adrian’s position,

He was gone, replaced by a shadow clone that looked at the beast for a second before getting dismissed.

The bull just looked at the spot where the pest was before the shadow ice shards frozen in the air, caught fire and completely melted.

It then turned around and heading towards its cave as if it hadn’t just lost a herd and the prey responsible.

But for some reason, the bull was certain that the prey would come right back, a lot more entertaining than it is now.

And it would calmly wait.