Genetic Engineer in a Tamer's World

The marble beneath Kale’s boots was remarkably smooth, yet the silence of the corridor was so profound it felt as though the air itself was holding its breath. He moved forward with a measured pace, his daggers held in a loose but ready grip as he navigated the ancient graveyard of the Buried Reaches.

Neo remained perched on his shoulder in his original hydra form, all three of his draconic heads weaving through the air with a restless energy. The shimmering green scales of the beast were the only source of vibrant colour in an environment that seemed designed to drain the world of its vitality.

As they ventured further from the initial landing site, the dim light from the ancient braziers began to falter, swallowed by a darkness that felt unnervingly physical. It was not merely an absence of light, but an active oppression of mana that pressed against Kale’s skin like a heavy, unseen weight.

He tried to expand his senses, reaching out with the Absolute Affinity he had inherited from the Nemesis Hydra, but the energy around him was stagnant and suffocating. The normal flow of mana that allowed him to map his surroundings was being dampened, leaving him feeling blind in a way he had not experienced since his awakening.

A strange sense of apprehension began to bloom within his chest, a cold and creeping dread that felt less like fear and more like a slow, biological corrosion. Beside his ear, he could feel the rapid, synchronised thumping of Neo’s four hearts, the beast clearly sharing his mounting unease.

The atmosphere was beyond eerie, mirroring the scripted tension of an old Earth horror movie where the audience waits for a monster that never truly appears. Every shadow seemed to twitch at the edge of his vision, and every soft click of his boots echoed back with a hollow, mocking resonance.

The silence was rattling his mind, forcing his thoughts to spiral into dark scenarios that his analytical side struggled to contain. To break the stifling quiet, Kale focused his thoughts inward, addressing the mechanical entity that lived within his neural pathways.

”System, give me the tactical options for an exit strategy,” Kale whispered, his voice sounding thin and fragile against the overwhelming weight of the tomb. ”How do we get back to the surface from this depth?”

The response came with the usual mechanical curtness that characterised the program, the blue text flickering across his retina with a cold and clinical detachment. There was no comfort to be found in the data, only the harsh reality of their current physical variables.

[Current Analysis: Host is in a sealed dimensional pocket established by the World Will to contain high-density residue.]

[Exit Option One: Host must physically ascend the primary entry shaft. Success probability is estimated at less than 0.1% due to structural degradation.]

[Exit Option Two: Host must conquer, destroy, or subjugate the remnant Beast Will of the Peak Mythical rank Flame Salamander.]

Kale stared at the text for a long second, a mirthless grin touching his lips as he processed the nonsensical nature of the system’s suggestions. Both options were beyond impossible for a mere Greater Apprentice, regardless of his Hexarion physiology or his unique chimeric beast.

”Conquer a Mythical Will??” Kale muttered, his hand tightening on the hilt of his dagger. ”You always grace me with the bad news in the worst possible way, don’t you??”

The system continued its report, elaborating on the sheer scale of the power gap with a cold efficiency that made Kale’s blood run cold. It provided a visualisation of the energy density required even to attract the attention of a Mythical entity, let alone defeat one.

[Clarification: Even if the System manages to regain all lost energy and empowers the Host to the levels used against the Red Dragon, the gap remains absolute.]

[An attempt to fight a Peak Mythical Will in the Host’s current state is akin to a mosquito attempting to pierce a wall of reinforced stone.]

[The mental pressure alone would likely result in immediate biological cessation for both the Host and the bonded specimen.]

Kale let out a long, heavy sigh, his expression turning grim as he stared into the oppressive blackness of the path ahead.

He was a regression survivor who had built a monster from a million failures, yet even his arrogance had limits when faced with the power of a beast that brushed shoulders with the title of supremacy.

However, just as he was prepared to accept the hopelessness of their situation, a secondary prompt appeared on the screen, offering a rare silver lining. The system had processed the historical markers and atmospheric decay of the corridor to provide a new variable for his calculation.

[Observation: The signature of the Beast Tomb indicates it is incredibly ancient, likely dating back multiple thousands of years.]

[Hypothesis: Assuming the tomb’s integrity has been subject to natural mana corrosion, the Beast Will has likely weakened significantly over the millennia.]

[Subjugation may be possible if the core of the Will has fragmented or entered a state of terminal hibernation.]

Kale gritted his teeth, his resolve hardening as he clung to that tiny shred of possibility. Even a weakened mythic remained untouchable, but at least it was a target that could potentially be bled, and that was all a predator like him needed to move forward.

He kept walking silently, his boots making almost no sound on the ancient stone as he moved deeper into the suffocating gloom. He found himself constantly bracing for something ghastly to pop out from the shadows or burst through the fluted stone walls that lined the path.

Minutes turned into a half hour of agonising tension, yet no traps were triggered, and no guardians emerged from the darkness to challenge his progress. This lack of activity unnerved him even more than a direct assault would have, as it felt like the calm before a devastating environmental shift.

His energy senses were still mostly offline, providing only a blurred and distorted view of the mana density around him. He felt as though he was walking through thick, heated oil, every movement requiring more effort than it should have as the air grew progressively warmer.

Just as he was beginning to wonder if the corridor would truly stretch on forever, the floor beneath him gave way with a sickening, sudden crack. There was no warning, no vibration in the stone to signal the collapse of the ancient marble structure.

”Son of a—!!” Kale’s curse was swallowed by the sudden rush of air as he plummeted once more into the darkness, his stomach lurching. He felt like a vulgar rodent caught in a trap, falling into another lightless shaft while his coat whipped around his legs.

Thankfully, this time he didn’t allow panic to freeze his limbs. He lashed out with his hands, his fingers scraping against the rough stone of the tunnel walls as he desperately sought purchase.

Within seconds, his gloves bit into a series of jagged cavities in the rock, the impact jolting his shoulders with enough force to make his teeth rattle. He hung there, breathing heavily, while Neo clung to his coat with its claws dug deep into his shoulder blades.

He looked down, and the sight that met his eyes thirty feet below made his pupils constrict into sharp, draconic slits. The darkness had finally been replaced, but the light that emerged from the depths was a hellish, incandescent orange that promised only death.

The floor of the lower chamber was not stone, but a flowing river of liquid lava that snaked between islands of charred, blackened ground. A sudden wave of violent heat hit him like a drowning tide, the temperature spiking so rapidly it felt as though his skin was beginning to scorch.

He could feel the moisture being sucked from his lungs with every breath, and the smell of sulfur and melting mineral was nearly overwhelming. But the heat was not the worst part of the scene unfolding beneath his dangling boots.

The charred islands and the edges of the lava pools were teeming with activity, filled with the writhing shapes of fiery salamanders. They were large, reptilian entities with scales that shimmered like cooling embers, and their eyes glowed with a predatory, elemental malice.

Kale’s energy senses finally flickered back to life, overloaded by the sheer density of the fire mana radiating from the creatures below. Every single one of them was at the Alpha rank or beyond, creating a localised army of predators that thrived in the very crucible of the tomb.

His expression hardened into a mask of cold, analytical focus as he evaluated the sheer numerical weight of the threat. The transition from a silent graveyard to a molten furnace had been jarring.

Neo hissed on his shoulders; even its usual arrogance seemed to be weighted down by the severity of the situation.

”Fuck!!!” Kale cursed once more, and then again...

”F**k!!!!”

”F**k!!!!”

”F**k!!!!”

The position he was holding onto currently didn’t allow him to climb back up. In fact, even if he did climb up, there was no damned solution.

Crawling back the near one kilometer long tunnel through which he fell was a stupid idea not even worth considering from his part, despite his superhuman strength and stamina.

So, he was going to have to face the Mythic Will of the dead salamander one way or another.

And the space below seemed to be the core spot, where the Remnant Will likely resided.

So, regardless of whether the lava-flowing hellish ground below held his doom or not, he had no choice but to go down.