The Divine Hunter

The night falls, and the cold wind blows from the mountainside.

Two scarlet ghosts floated in the dim light outside the mine, and a giant bear with a length of more than three meters walked out of the wooden house.

The information Roy observed from it was different from before.

Dire Brown Bear

Age: 48

Gender: Male

Identity: Believer of Svablo (Svalblo is a double incarnation of a bear and a man, symbolizing the never-ending struggle.)

Health: 220

Attributes:

Strength: 22

Agility: 14

Constitution: 22

Perception: 10

Will: 10

Charisma: 4

Spirit: 6

Skill:

Bloodthirsty (Passive): Dire bears are tireless, fearless, thirsty for blood, lose some of their sanity, and cannot return to human form until they have caused enough kills, eaten their flesh, or exhausted their stamina. Quick recovery from injury and physical fitness.

Madness (Passive): The injury will stimulate the potential of the dire bear. The more serious the injury, the lower the health and the more terrifying the combat effectiveness.

Brand of Corruption (Passive): Believers who accept the brand of the evil god Svalblo will gain gifted Strength +5 and Constitution +5.

...

Drink the medicine and transform into a giant bear, the Velka.

Roy suddenly realized.

So there is no Iber from Great Skellige, no fifth warrior, Farrick himself is the bear!

But his previous performance did not seem to know that there was an abnormal power hidden in his body, and Axifayin did not ask the truth.

Could it be that this guy is schizophrenic? Svablo's rituals are so wicked?

Roy's eyes of different colors passed over the color of thought.

According to the attributes of this fierce bear, it is not difficult to kill it by yourself, but doing so will not be able to interact with the blacksmith of Todalocqu.

Then make you change back!

"Whoa!"

The giant bear with a body of more than three meters stood up, casting a hill-like shadow on the ground, waving its sharp claws in mid-air, roaring loudly.

In response, Roy quietly took out his crossbow.

"Whoosh-"

Breaking sound.

A crossbow hit the snow at the bear's feet, and the snow splashed on its thick, black mane.

The witcher hooked his fingers, a sarcastic smile on his lips.

Chi Guoguo's provocation!

The giant bear was instantly furious, and its huge body swept across the snow, charging like a heavy chariot!

"Puff puff!"

The ground trembled, a series of deep footprints emerged, and large swathes of snow fell from the cliffs.

"Whoosh-"

The bowstring hummed.

Before the giant bear approached, Roy flickered, the arrow brushed the fluffy body, and instantly appeared in front of the damaged log cabin ten meters behind him.

"Huh...huh..."

The giant bear made an emergency brake, dragged a row of scratches on its limbs on the snow, exhaled a pale mist from its big mouth, turned around, and stared at the intact witcher not far away with scarlet pupils, even more angry.

"Roar!"

It charged again.

And the witcher repeated his old tricks, still relying on the flicker to avoid its collision, and the giant bear that passed by directly knocked a big hole in the wooden wall of the house.

Broken sawdust, dust mist, and shards of ice fluttered in the air.

In the mist, the giant bear sounded like a drum of war, standing opposite the witcher.

Roy thought it would take a little longer to remember and change its strategy. The deformable deprivation of reason was deeper than he expected. The giant bear lost his basic judgment, and stubbornly and futilely launched continuous collisions at him.

And the witcher made fun of this "big dog" and became a man who flew a kite.

With the sound of crossbow bolts breaking through the air, Roy's figure rose and fell, ghostly changing his position.

Sometimes he appeared in front of the wooden house that was about to fall apart and waved at it, sometimes he blew a loud whistle by the side of the mine, sometimes he applauded between the cliffs ten meters above the ground, and there was a snowy tree beside the stone ladder. From the top of the pine tree, he shot an arrow at the giant bear.

Continue to challenge and provoke!

A bright moon quietly hung in the sky.

Under the moonlight, on the platform outside the mine and between the stone stairs, the heavy footsteps of "Puff Puff" could be heard incessantly. A beast on all fours charged back and forth tirelessly and irregularly, braking, turning, and charging again.

Huge footprints drew circles and circles on the smooth snow, the water vapor exhaled from the bloody mouth was frozen by the cold air, and the black hair around the lips and the ice scum on the fangs.

The mountain clearing seemed to be a circus, the giant bear was the hard-working animal actor, and the witcher was the skilled animal trainer.

Hooking, calling, applauding, shooting arrows, and several actions made the giant bear exhausted.

...

A full half an hour.

The witcher used up the Activation and a few bottles of magic potion, and was unscathed by Blink.

The giant bear was sweating all over, and the black fur was covered with a layer of ice flowers. He panted so loudly that he spit out his lungs, and his eyes strayed to the proud figure in the distance.

But he was so tired that he couldn't make a sound anymore, like a big dog squatting back and sticking out his tongue.

"Dude, can't take it for a while? Swablo's believers are so capable?" The witcher smiled, sitting comfortably on the shabby wooden beam of the skeleton, "Go ahead and catch me! Catch me! Stay with me and I'll give you a bite!"

"Breathe...breath...breath...breath..."

This time, he let his spit provoked, and the dire bear ignored it.

Instead, he lowered his big head in despair, and his body trembled.

The fighting spirit is gone, and everything becomes boring.

Under the moonlight, the body of the terrifying beast quickly shrank and withered, and two seconds later, on the snow that was trampled by the bear's paws, a man with a bare back, skinny, and fell into a coma appeared.

The witcher wiped his tainted eyes, and quickly confirmed that the blacksmith had just passed out due to exhaustion.

To be able to put down a vicious bear alive and tired, no one but me!

Roy took out a clean fur coat and put it on his body.

"Be content, man, even Coral didn't enjoy my 'personal' service!"

With the blacksmith on his back, the witcher rose and fell several times and disappeared on the way.

...

Three or four in the morning.

Cod Town.

The town was sparsely populated, and the townspeople who got up early went out to sea with fishing nets and equipment.

The blacksmith shop is brightly lit.

After the rattling sound, the blacksmith Clough picked up an iron embryo with an iron clip and put it into the furnace for calcination.

Little Goldilocks stomped on the blower in unison.

"You say Mr. Oakes can bring back Uncle Farik and Uncle Oraka?"

"Don't worry, Yuna, he doesn't make me feel like someone who is blindly confident." The blacksmith sat by the felt, wiping off the sweat with a towel, "I just hope the goddess blesses me, the trouble in the mine...not because of you Uncle Farik ."

"What's wrong with uncle?"

"It's a long story. You were not born at that time, and you have been living together for more than 20 years. It should not be his problem."

"Then if Mr. Oaks completes the commission." The little girl pursed her lips, "Are you leaving with him? You have lived in Udvik for more than ten years, are you willing? Why don't we help him build a piece of equipment as a remuneration?"

"Little girl, forgot the rules of the family? Integrity and honor! Since you have made a promise, you can't break it." The blacksmith suddenly turned his face and reprimanded his daughter. "If he saves people, it is the will of Goddess Freya. The surviving Farik and Ocala will stay at home and take responsibility for me."

"But, I... I don't want to be separated from you. My forging skills are not up to the mark, and I still need your guidance! Uncle Chamil is impatient, and he and aunt are busy all day looking for a husband for me!"

"My precious daughter, no one on Udwick Island is worthy of you." Clough Todaro smiled and glanced at his daughter's beautiful face, "I thought about it carefully."

"If you want, come with us to Novigrad and see the world outside the archipelago. As a girl, the burden of inheriting the family mantle should not rest on your shoulders."

"Family fame is both an honor and a curse."

Yuna's face was full of anticipation when she heard the words.

...

"Tattoo..."

A burst of hurried footsteps broke the silence of the town, and the eyes of the two father and daughter swept across the curtain of the blacksmith shop, looking into the distance, under the lavender sky, a figure in a black cloak ran wildly.

Oaks?

He was carrying a thin figure, with dry blond hair and a wide square chin quite familiar.

The two father and daughter looked shocked.

"Clough, Yuna, come and help,"

"Falek? Freya bless, my brother is still alive!" Clough was surprised and happy, and cooperated with the witcher to carry his brother back to the bed in the bedroom.

And Yuna called out the sleeping blacksmith Chamil's family with an excited face.

"God, just come back!" All the members of the Tuodaluoqu family—two blacksmiths, a young girl, a plump woman in a cloak, and a five- or six-year-old boy surrounded the sleeping room between the beds. man.

"Master Oaks, I don't know how to thank you! You saved an important member of Todaro Qu!" Chamil grabbed the witcher's hand excitedly, his voice trembling.

"Is Uncle Farik sick?" the blond-haired boy said eagerly. "Why can't I wake up? I'll call the doctor?"

"Don't worry," Roy stretched, and ran for six or seven hours with a man weighing hundreds of pounds on his back, with some back pain. "He was just in a coma due to excessive physical exhaustion. If you don't believe me, check it out."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Clough asked eagerly, "Is it only Farik, where is Ocala? And the warriors who went to save them?"

Roy shook his head, with a trace of mourning on his face, which made people panic.

"Unfortunately, everyone, he is the only living person in the mine, and the rest are corpses, a total of more than a dozen. The rescued warriors have all encountered accidents."

As he said that, he stretched out his hand and waved, and a pile of glittering "Memorabilia of the Dead" suddenly appeared on the round table beside the bed.

Clough recognized at a glance a badge of forging hammer and iron felt,

"Ocala's badge?!"

"I found it on a frozen corpse."

Everyone in the room immediately turned red with grief, the woman hugged the tearful boy into her arms, and Yuna pulled her father's sleeve.

"Uncle Ocala's gone? What the hell happened?"

"As you guessed before, something has attacked the mine." The witcher crossed his chest with his hands and glanced at the faces of the five people with a look of scrutiny, "The next topic is quite heavy, women and children. Best avoided."

"I won't shy away! In terms of courage, the women of the Todaroqu family are by no means inferior to any man!" Yuna raised her head and stared at the witcher, and said loudly, "I can bear it!"

And Chamil glanced at his wife, who hugged the child into the inner room and closed the door.

The witcher nodded and said a long story short, "I dived into the forging furnace in the deepest part of the mine and found two ice trolls stewing meat there, and the ingredients used were... um... the remains of the warriors who went to the rescue."

"Ugh..." Yuna covered her mouth.

Clough and Chamil turned blue.

"Ice troll? A monster with a green face and fangs, and its body is as hard as a stone?"

"Have you seen it? In short, they are very dangerous. They can smash people into flesh with one punch, and they can smash bones by throwing a stone."

"I heard the elders say... The deepest part of the Udvik Mountains is home to a humanoid monster covered with ice blocks... and a frost giant larger than a house." Clough's face was heavy and his fists clenched, "We have always obeyed the ancestors. Training, never far from the mining area and the forging factory, and went deep into the mountains, but I didn’t expect that it would still lead to disaster.”

"It's unreasonable!" Chamil questioned, "Although the two ice trolls are strong, but a dozen of us went to the rescue, and we won't be able to get a single message back! How can you escape from the troll's eyes and rescue me? Brothers?"

"You don't know, I don't need to run away..." The witcher smiled happily, and pointed to the floor of the room, a corpse of a bloody troll appeared in front of everyone. "I have avenged you."

Yuna's face turned snow-white, but she forced herself to stare directly at the corpse.

The two blacksmiths swallowed their saliva and glanced at the ice troll who was over 2.5 meters tall and whose arms were thicker than the waist of an ordinary person. In comparison, the witcher could be described as "weak".

How does human flesh and blood kill this terrifying monster? They are much more powerful than killing Hekna!

The witcher's back has grown taller than ever.

"You're right, the two ice trolls won't kill all the rescue team members." The witcher changed the subject, "They also have accomplices - I found traces of dire bears in the mine."

Dire bear?

At this moment, Yuna's face was dazed, while the expressions of the two blacksmiths changed drastically for a moment, and then returned to normal.

"What did you say?"

"I think you must know something about the inside story..." Roy made a judgment in his heart, and put a bottle of wine on the round table - mead with human blood and Madoka mushrooms.

He lifted the cap off the bottle.

Clough and Chamil smelled the sweet smell of wine and the faint smell of mushrooms, their faces tightened, and even their breathing stopped.

"It took me a lot of time to find that giant bear. Until I stumbled across this bottle of wine..." The witcher stared at the faces of the two, applying pressure word by word, "I handed the wine to Farik. …”

"Don't say it! Master Oaks!" Clough suddenly gave a strange cry, lowered his head and said in a slump, "It seems that you know it all! If you have any questions, feel free to ask, we know everything."

"But I promise, it's not Falik's original intention to become a giant bear, and all the killings have nothing to do with him. It's another cruel guy who is haunting him!" Chamil looked into the witcher's eyes and said sincerely. , "It has been more than 20 years without an accident. We originally thought that the thing had disappeared, but we didn't expect that he would accidentally eat the medicinal wine. He was also involved with the troll."

Perhaps because they both love to eat people, have a simple mind, and like to get together to exchange food experiences.

Roy complained.

"Didn't you talk about trolls just now? What are you talking about wine and giant bears?" Yuna's innocent eyes slowly swept across the faces of her relatives and the witcher.

"Quiet! Yuna, don't ask what you shouldn't ask! Go in and accompany your aunt!"

"No! I'm fifteen years old, I have the right to know everything, what are you hiding from me?!" Yuna blushed and shook her head, her ponytail rippling, she actually got behind her father and hid behind the witcher. stand up.

Roy felt the girl's breathing behind him and shrank his neck. What's the situation, you trust me so much?

If you don't leave soon, you won't be able to leave later.

"Stop arguing! So, this Falric is a Velka and believes in Svablo?" Roy asked, while a lot of memories flashed in his mind.

There are seven most powerful families in the Skellige Archipelago, including Deadly Clayt, Mondra, Tursek...

Most of the islanders live under the seven major families.

But in addition to the seven families, there is a group outside the seven families, called the Velka.

The Velkas are more warlike than any islander. They live by serving and fighting. They do not belong to any blood or family on the archipelago. They secretly worship the evil god Svablo, who has long been banned by the archipelago, and increase members through cruel rituals. .

And Svalblod likes to have followers make bloody and savage sacrifices of living people.

The Velka people were gifted by it and mastered the ability to transform into a giant bear, but they had to drink a special hallucinogen composed of human blood, mead, and mardau mushrooms.

In Roy's memory, about nine years later, King Skerry Jeblan died.

At the banquet for the selection of the new king, a group of Velka entered the banquet, drank a special hallucinogen under the conspiracy of Queen Bierna, turned into a giant bear and started killing, destroying the entire banquet.

And Geralt followed the clues to find out the truth, so that Bi Erna was punished, and the new king was successfully enthroned!

...

"He was forced!"

"how do I say this?"

Clough said bitterly and helplessly, "Falik became a master blacksmith at the age of 20, and his reputation spread throughout the Skellige Islands, and he got into trouble because of this. A group of Velka kidnapped him to the Great Skellige Island and forced him to He took part in the bloody ritual of sacrifice to 'Svablo'."

"In order to survive, he killed his opponent in a ritual, let the giant bear devour it, and turned into a Velka with dual identities of human and dire bear."

Roy remembered the general steps of the bloody ritual, which required the two participants to fight to the death with their bare hands inside the "Ring of the Bears".

Those who survived covered their bodies with lure potions and devoured the Madoka mushrooms, then lured out the dire bears in the caves of shadows, and the giant bears shredded and devoured themselves piece by piece.

Then the bear's shape began to change, the hair fell off quickly, and changed into human limbs, gradually becoming the Velkas they devoured.

The Velkas have another, more prominent name, the "Berserkers" of the Skellige Islands.

Their leader is a fallen druid who has betrayed the Skellyjdruid Circle.

Proficient in the art of transformation of beasts.

"After passing the ceremony, Farik was forced to have the power to transform into a giant bear, but under extreme anger, or drink special drinks."

Clough shook his head,

"He felt that there was an evil presence in him, and he was extremely disgusted by it. He had always been disgusted with senseless and bloody killings. He hated Svablo, the god of the Verka who provoked battles everywhere! So one day he took advantage of it The Velka didn't pay attention, escaped the 'Ring of the Bear' and returned to his hometown Udvik by boat, and he told me everything and everything!"

"Accompanied by his family, during the busy forging work, Farik has always been in good control, and he even gradually forgot that he had such a fierce bear hidden in his body. Later, he completely lost the relevant memory of the Velka people. We think this is Svalblo's punishment for betraying his followers, taking back the power of the bear."

Roy frowned, forgetting the previous experience?

This is really a schizophrenic.

Clough took a deep breath and raised his voice,

"Believe it or not, in twenty years we haven't seen Farik transform into a dire bear! He never thought he had anything to do with the Velkas."

Roy nodded.

If they saw the giant bear, the blacksmith family would have hated Huangquan long ago.

The different-colored pupils turned to Farik, who had a calm face and was sleeping.

This guy is under the control of Axifa Seal, but what he tells is a fabricated lie. There is only one possibility. He regards the lie as the truth. He has dual personalities - the normal blacksmith Farik, and the fierce bear Farik.

The witcher can imagine that the ice troll broke into the mine and started a killing spree with Farik, who turned into a ferocious bear by mistakenly ingesting the medicinal wine.

Falric subconsciously knew that there was a monster locked in his body, but was unwilling to admit it, so he fabricated a warrior Iber from the Great Skellig Islands, and believed that the giant bear incarnated by Baier had killed several companions.

He locked himself in an iron cage and was unwilling to leave. It should be some kind of crisis defense mechanism of normal personality, and he was afraid of hurting his family after becoming a bear.

But the monster was about to come out, he couldn't stop it!

The little girl behind the witcher was stunned and her mouth grew.

"Master witcher, please spare him..." Chamil glanced at the bloody troll, "I swear by the reputation of the Todaloch family! I will watch Farrick day and night, and let him Don't transform, hurt people's lives!"

Clough dragged the dull-faced girl Yuna from behind the witcher to his side. "You rescued Farik, killed the troll, and avenged so many brothers. I should also fulfill my promise and become your full-time blacksmith! Let's pack up and set off immediately, how about returning to Nuocheng?"

"I can't ask for it, but don't worry, I have something to do in Skellige." Roy shook his head. "Don't worry, I want to do it. I sent him to see Goddess Freya a few hours ago."

"I have a suggestion." The witcher paused, his eyes flashing eagerly, "I can try to free him from Svalblo's control and influence! Erase the brand of the evil god in him!"

...