UNLIMITED SPEED

Noah's heavy aura caused the beasts around them to fan out even more until a reasonable amount of space was left for him and his opponent.

Even with his spectacular transformation, the bear didn't flinch when it dashed toward him.

'I hope this is enough,' Noah thought taking two light steps forward, but directly appeared in front of the running beast.

Five consecutive punches left his arms at that point, and the ground saw cracks ridding its structure as Noah raised the bear about a meter into the air with his blows.

He ended the combos with an uppercut, by jumping and delivering the fierce punch on his opponent's jaw.

The connection between his fist and the bear's jaw forced a shock wave to spread while he sent the mass of flesh flying a few meters from his figure.

The bear crashed with a heavy thud, killing some deer that had been too close.

It voiced a grunt as it stood, revealing that Noah's attacks had failed to draw blood. Another roar escaped its beastly mouth, and it slashed at his figure twice, sending eight of the blood-red slashes coming his way.

Noah dodged the attack with a few steps to the side, but he didn't like that outcome anyway.

His figure appeared before the bear again, and this time, he executed the first form at what he would consider his peak.

Chaos unfolded at that point.

A storm of lightning bolts seemed to erupt out of thin air as their surroundings suffered the clash.

Noah's arms never stopped moving even if he had long since turned the bear into a shooting figure speeding through tens of trees.

The space before Noah's still spectacular figure turned into a mess of cracks and missing portions.

His punches carried enough power to shave significant portions of the ground and even killed beasts that were too slow to listen to their instincts.

Noah stopped at some point, and he sprinted forward to go find his opponent, in hopes that he had at least disabled it.

But the result proved disappointing.

He had only managed to draw blood from the cuts his fists had opened surprisingly, but even that healed mere seconds later.

The bear however looked confused, and Noah couldn't say he didn't know why. He had sent the beast far away from its former position.

But even that didn't stop him from executing the first form again and causing trees to burst into flames or be violently ripped apart.

His attacks were proper explosions and Noah continued to unleash the entirety of his strength on the beast without giving it a break.

He had confirmed that only that approach could give him a win since he had no weapons that could directly deal with it.

Soon he began to launch lightning bolts in the mix of his already terrifying flurries of attacks.

By this point all the beasts had run past them, allowing for the explosions he caused to ring out properly, disquieting those areas.

"Why won't this thing die!" Noah exclaimed amid his punches. His voice almost overshadowed the explosions his fists caused. Almost.

The bear continued to receive significant damage, but it continued to heal also. Leaving Noah frustrated after going on for more than 20 minutes straight.

The beast couldn't even defend itself, but it didn't die anyway. Noah couldn't amass enough damage to render it disabled even for a few seconds, since its regenerative abilities were basically on par with his.

The battle, although one-sided proved how frustrating one could be if they could heal quickly enough to render attacks useless. Noah experienced what his opponents felt during battles with him. And he had to admit that it wasn't a nice experience.

The fact that the seemingly unlimited amount of energy the bear possessed had come from utilizing the red plant made Noah re-evaluate the sheer importance and value of the plant.

He didn't want to even begin to think about how hard it would be fighting a tier 4 empowered by the same plant.

That forest was even more dangerous than he thought now that he saw what it could do.

The resource it had could put it on the list one of the most dangerous places he had ever been to, and he even feared the possibility of all the beasts being capable of that might.

'Is this what fighting an incomplete tier four beast feels like,' Noah thought now fed up of the entire thing.

It wasn't that the beast couldn't die. The middle-staged ape's had proved that even that empowerment didn't stop death.

The only issue was his weakness.

Noah felt like he could goon for hours, but he doubted he had that amount of time just to kill the beast. He was also at his best possible peak, meaning if he couldn't defeat it in that state, he would need to become stronger to.

A last punch arrived on the bears belly and caused the environment to experience a powerful wind flow as the beast directly disappeared from Noah's presence to crash over a kilometer from his figure.

Anger blazed in Noah's eyes, but also realization.

There was no doubt that he was probably the strongest middle-staged expert, but he too had clear limits. Limits that only more power could break.

A sigh escaped Noah's mouth as he flicked off the blood that had appeared on his fist. He had enough power to wound the bear, but injuring it was as much as he could settle for, as of now.

Deactivating his empowered state he felt his power fall, but not anything painful.

Noah found that he had utilized a bit more than 40k worth of Speed Essence within the thirty minutes he had used fighting.

That was an incredible amount considering the fact that he could generate a literal army of frozen golems with that much. But he didn't mind.

Even with that usage he still had more than half his core's content available.

"I would have decimated whole platoons of middle staged cultivators with that power," he muttered sweeping his gaze on the destroyed environment. "But that darn bear will be leaving unhurt."

The bear eventually reappeared in Noah's sight, and his hunch was right. It looked just as fine as before even if it was now slower; seemingly tired.

The beast sighted his figure and voiced a powerful roar, but it left Noah unfazed. He wasn't exactly in the mood anymore.

"Don't you get tired," a frown appeared on Noah's face, but he was prepared to move.

Something changed however. The bear suddenly groaned in deep pain, before stumbling and falling to crash right next to Noah's feet. Needless to say, he was stunned.

The event had been nothing short of pathetic.

The bear suddenly began to release a whole lot of steam as the sound of bones cracking and reshaping echoed in the silently burning forest.

Noah cleared the steam by merely commanding the wind to do so, and the scene that lay before him made him want to burst into laughter.

There the bear lay, in its normal form. It looked completely exhausted, as it struggled to lift even its head.

"So that state does have a limit," Noah giggled heartily. "Good old time limit."