Li understood from Velita's words that the person before him had to be someone she relied on heavily—one of the elites under her command.
Sure enough, the man suddenly clapped his hands together, and a barrier began rising steadily before the bear-man. The previous barrier had only been two meters high and a little over thirty centimeters thick, but this new one was two meters thick and five or six meters tall—and it was still rising. The bear-man had assumed it could smash through it with ease, but when it rammed into it, it was as though it had struck an iron plate. It was violently sent flying back.
But the mage's expression abruptly changed, because although the bear-man had indeed been knocked back, it suddenly rolled across the ground. Its speed instantly more than doubled, and Velita's expression changed as well. "That is... a speed-doubling effect!"
The mage before them seemed to realize that this experimental Holy Mark was highly unusual. Magic barriers formed one after another in his hands, and in an instant, four enormous walls rose around the bear-man, continuously growing taller.
Could a speed Holy Mark turn a bear-man into a monster?
But what the bear-man did next completely overturned the worldview of everyone around them. The bear pressed against one wall, then leaped toward another. It began rebounding and jumping nonstop between the walls, and in mere moments, it had reached near the top of the enclosure. It was only a little short of escaping.
Was this a monkey or a bear?
The man seemed to feel humiliated as well, his face growing increasingly grim. He suddenly slammed his hand downward, and a tightly sealed lid covered the now barrel-shaped walls, completely locking the bear-man inside.
He had barely let out a breath when something