My SSS-Rank Grim Reaper System-Chapter 102: The Iron Bull (2)
The Bull finished off Raven’s skeletons — smashed them in four seconds — and looked for the next target.
It found the entire team in position.
Not running. Not scattered.
Watching it.
Which for the Bull, which had been the sole predator of the Pass for decades, was probably the first time its prey hadn’t fled.
It lowered its head again — [Mineral Resonance] trying to activate once more.
"Now!" said Alex.
Grim to the neck — [Shadow Scythe] straight into the deepest crack.
Alex to the left flank — [Blood Weapon + Necrotic Burst combined] on the front knee joint.
Maya — [Fox Fire — five orbs] all at the same point on the right side.
Kira — three arrows in rapid succession, all at the base of the right horn.
Raven — [Blood Weapon — chain] wrapping around the Bull’s neck, pulling backward to force its head up and interrupt the Mineral Resonance channel before it could start.
All in two seconds.
[Bull HP: 116,100 → 107,800/120,000]
Eight thousand three hundred combined damage.
The Bull roared.
Not exactly in pain — something closer to fury.
The fractured plates cracked more. The cracks now deep, reaching the skin beneath.
And the Bull changed tactics.
Instead of charging forward, it turned backward. Toward the narrow corridor.
Toward Emily and Kira.
---
Kira saw it coming before the turn finished.
"Back!" — already moving, shoving Emily toward the right wall.
The Bull passed between them — or tried to pass. The corridor was narrow for its size. Its flanks hit both walls.
Kira against the left rock.
[Kira HP: 2,600 → 2,100/2,600]
Emily against the right rock. Luna emerged from the spiritual plane instinctively, her horn glowing between Emily and the wall — absorbing part of the impact.
[Emily HP: 850 → 680/850]
The Bull pressed forward into the corridor, trying to use the narrow space where half the team couldn’t pursue effectively.
Grim was already flying.
Literally — he leaped from the chamber into the corridor above the Bull, landing on its back.
The Bull shook its body.
Grim didn’t let go.
He drove the scythe into the neck crack he had opened earlier.
[Bull HP: 107,800 → 101,200/120,000]
The Bull twisted violently, trying to throw Grim off.
[Grim HP: 2,800 → 2,400/3,360] — the mineral plates cutting where Grim clung.
"Not letting go!"
"Good!" said Alex.
[Shadow Step] into the corridor — he appeared in front of the Bull.
The Bull saw him. Tried to charge.
With Grim on its back pulling its head back, the charge lost its angle.
Alex slid beneath — [Blood Weapon — sword] upward, straight into the underside of the neck where the plates were thinnest.
[Bull HP: 101,200 → 95,800/120,000]
The Bull staggered back.
Grim was still on its back.
The team in the corridor now — no room for formation, but the Bull couldn’t charge in a straight line either.
---
[Second Phase — 8 minutes from start]
Emily from the corridor — [Blessing of Protection] on Grim specifically, the magic shield absorbing part of the damage from the plates.
[Grim HP: 2,400 → 2,400/3,360] — the plate damage stabilized.
Kira with [Predator’s Sense] at maximum now, amber eyes glowing intensely, mapping every movement of the Bull in real time.
"The crack on the right side reached the bone," she said. "If you concentrate damage there—"
"How much?" asked Raven.
"A lot."
Raven summoned the maximum skeletons she could in the narrow corridor — fifteen, stacked in pressure formation, pushing the Bull toward Alex.
The Bull against the skeletons. Against Grim on its back. Against Alex in front.
It couldn’t charge. It couldn’t regenerate. It couldn’t turn.
Maya from the corridor entrance — [Fox Fire] focused, the orbs passing over Alex’s head with precision that required exactly the amount of trust built over weeks of coordination.
All to the right side.
All to the same point.
[Bull HP: 95,800 → 84,200/120,000]
[Bull HP: 84,200 → 71,600/120,000]
[Bull HP: 71,600 → 58,900/120,000]
The Bull tried [Mineral Resonance] twice more.
Alex cut the channel both times.
The third time, the Bull didn’t try.
---
[12 minutes from start]
The Iron Bull had fifty-eight thousand nine hundred HP.
The plates on the right side completely fractured, the bone beneath visible, the skin exposed.
Grim still on its back, the scythe working systematically on the neck crack.
[Grim HP: 2,400 → 1,900/3,360] — the fight on the back taking its toll.
The Bull stopped moving forward.
It stood still in the corridor.
Breathing heavily — the sound of enormous bellows, mineral and flesh working together with the effort.
Alex three meters away, sword in hand.
[Alex HP: 720/1,110]
The Bull looked at him with those small eyes.
Something different in them now. Not the slow assessment from the start. Something closer to recognition — the first predator in decades that could truly hurt it.
It lowered its head.
Not to charge.
Just downward.
Grim felt it. He released the scythe. Jumped from its back to the ground.
The Bull didn’t attack him.
Alex looked at the Bull.
The Bull looked back.
[Bull HP: 58,900/120,000]
"Is it surrendering?" asked Raven from behind, genuinely unsure.
Kira studied the Bull’s posture for three seconds.
"It’s not surrendering." Her ears rotated. "It recognizes it lost the corridor territory." A pause. "If we fall back to the chamber, it’ll return to its zone and not follow us."
"Sure?"
"Eighty-nine percent."
Raven to Maya: "That’s higher than the Shadow Forest percentage."
Maya: "I’ll take it."
Alex looked at the Bull for another moment.
Then he took one step back.
The Bull stayed still.
Another step.
Still.
The team retreated toward the chamber slowly.
The Bull watched them retreat without moving from the corridor.
When the team reached the chamber, the Bull turned. It went back to its central territory in the Pass. It sat — if something that size could be described as sitting — and looked ahead again with its usual slow assessment.
As if the last quarter hour hadn’t happened.
---
[Chamber — 9:20 AM]
The team checking damage.
Emily with [Heal] on Alex first. Then Kira. Then checking everyone.
[Alex HP: 720 → 950/1,110]
[Kira HP: 2,100 → 2,400/2,600]
[Grim HP: 1,900 → 2,100/3,360]
Raven looking at the corridor where the Bull had returned to its position.
"We’re leaving it alive?"
"The objective was to cross the Pass, not kill the Bull," said Alex. "And it’s in its corridor."
"What if the way back goes through here?"
"We’ll evaluate it when we get there." Alex put away Raven’s knife — which he had used twice in the fight. "For now, there’s another corridor to the north that leads to Veltharr without going through the central territory."
Kira confirmed: "Yes. A kilometer and a half longer but without a predator zone."
"That one, then."
Grim looked at the corridor where the Bull rested.
[Grim souls: 703.5/1,000] — no change. The Bull lived.
"I don’t harvest," said Grim. "Respect."
Everyone looked at him.
"It was a good fight."
Kira looked at him for a moment.
"Agreed."
---
[Northern corridor — 9:35 AM]
The extra kilometer and a half in silence.
The kind of silence after an intense fight where the body is still processing adrenaline but the mind is already elsewhere.
Raven to Alex as they walked: "When did you learn to cut the mineral regeneration channel?"
"In the moment."
"You just guessed it would work?"
"Yes."
Raven looked at him.
"And if it hadn’t worked?"
"Then the Bull would have regenerated and we would have had a different problem."
A pause.
"That’s terribly informal for a tactical decision."
"It worked."
Raven didn’t respond to that.
But the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
---
[Exit of Iron Pass — 10:15 AM]
The Pass ended abruptly.
The dark rock of the corridor gave way to open terrain — low hills, different vegetation, and on the horizon, less than a day’s travel away, the profile of a city built against dark rock.
Veltharr.
Kira looked at the horizon.
"How long?" asked Grim.
"At this pace, we arrive before dark."
"Good."
The team set out.
The Iron Pass exit behind them.
Veltharr ahead.
