Karl led the way forward, with Thor at his side.

They were the most durable of the group, and not just by a small margin.

Karl spotted movement in the trees, and sent a Chaos Vortex up to the snake that was preparing to strike. The creature twitched and fell out of the tree, where it was hit by a half dozen more skills before it reached the ground.

{The Ambush has been reversed.} Remi laughed.

Dana spotted the next snake, and again it was mercilessly blasted out of the trees.

But this time, the noise attracted one of the bears, and a massive Spirit Bear, a white furred beast the size of a dire bear, towering over the group, charged through the trees.

Thor moved to engage, and nearly got bowled over, his heels sliding through the soft ground as the bear rammed into his shield.

Karl joined from the far side, his claws layered with Chaos Vortexes, but leaving the close side of the bear open for the others to attack freely. Blood flowed from the wounds in the bear’s side, but some of the attacks appeared to do very little.

"Nearly forgot. Spirit Bears are immune to physical damage. Use something elemental."

Fortunately, Karl had [Brutal Pugilist], which caused his unarmed strikes to target the opponent’s weakest resistance. All he had to do was separate from the Haint Claw, and use the claws of his own cat demon form.

But it wasn’t his damage that was lacking.

Chaos damage seemed to do just fine against the bear, and the actual damage done by Karl’s claws was minimal.

However, the bleed effect was pretty solid.

Rae joined Karl on the far side of the fight, while Thor kept the bear’s attention as well as he could. There was damage coming from too many directions, and even if he taunted the enemy, it didn’t have one hundred percent uptime.

The bear was just a dungeon mob, no matter how durable it was. Within a minute, they had it down, and they were moving along.

But Karl did wonder how the golems were going to do.

They had [Elemental Wrath] on them, so they were doing fire damage, but he didn’t know how effective that was.

A happy screech pulled Karl’s attention to the right, just in time to see a snake go flying through the woods towards another Spirit Bear.

[Direct Hit!]

While Hawk celebrated, the bear tore the snake apart for inadvertently poisoning him.

It wasn’t easy to get dungeon mobs to turn on each other, but if you could get them to damage each other, it was one of the few ways other than mind control.

But the bear was not going to be satisfied with just one snake, and he charged toward the group when Hawk dove through the trees to grab and hurl another one at him. The bear roared as it mauled the snake with multiple applications of [Rend], his head turned to the annoying phoenix.

Hawk was laughing hysterically as he hunted for another snake.

If he grabbed them by the tail and gave a twist, they flew so well, like flicking a whip.

As long as he hurled them at the bears, it didn’t matter whether they damaged the bear or not. They would be out in the open where the team could attack them, and their best chance of reaching the team would be lost.

"Just keep it slow and steady. If we’re full on mana and energy when we get to the boss, we don’t need to take the extra break.

Usually, the breaks in a long dungeon like this take longer than the actual fights." Alix informed them.

"Got it, Elder. Don’t worry, we will be ready when the final boss is in sight."

[Oathbreaker, can I get an update?]

[We’re further ahead than you are, even though we’re taking the long way. You’re having too much fun playing with the snakes. We just let them attack the Golems, since they’re immune.]

Right, [Limited Invulnerability] meant that you needed a lot of poison damage for it to register on the Golems.

Karl continued to lead the way through the forest, letting Hawk’s newfound love for hurling snakes lead them to the targets.

[Just don’t forget to pick them up after, I’m certain that they taste good, ] the Phoenix reminded him.

[Don’t worry, we’re not leaving any of the meat behind.]

Fight after fight brought them closer to the final clearing, until Karl found himself staring at the most curious sight.

There was a tiny white bear standing on its hind legs, arms wide, trying to look intimidating, but visibly terrified. In nature, the Spirit Bears were an incredibly peaceful species that only knew one intimidation tactic, and it was using it.

But Karl and Thor were both vastly larger than it was.

Karl stopped, certain that this was the bondable special pet from the dungeon.

"Don’t do anything dumb. That’s not a dungeon monster," he warned the others.

"It looks like one to me. Could it be an albino vampiric panda?" Elder Alix replied.

The tiny creature growled at them, and Cara laughed. Then, she marched right past Karl and mimicked the creature’s intimidation pose.

They were close to the same size in animal form, and the bear was clearly confused by the action. It was the one doing the intimidating. Why was this strange winged creature mocking it?

That wasn’t how intimidation worked.

The little bear tried to stomp its feet to show its power, but Cara mimicked it, dancing along with the bear’s show.

Finally, Dana broke character, and began to laugh at the two beasts dancing with each other.

The bear dropped back down onto all four feet, defeated.

Then it marched over to Dana and lifted its arms, clearly demanding to be picked up.

"Should we put this little guy in a Pet Space or something? Maybe toss him in a villa stone until the boss fight is over? I’m sure that one of the Rangers will want him.

He’s adorable."

Karl winked at her. "Oh, I have a much better idea than giving him to some simple ranger. That little bear is a quest item that rolls a rare class.

And do you know who loves fluffy bears?"

"You wouldn’t."

"Oh, I totally will. I’ll do it right now."