Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 537: Chapter 537 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 9

The Gold 3 layer was different from anything Ren had experienced before.

It wasn’t just that the creatures were stronger; it was that their strength varied in unpredictable and dangerous ways.

Gold 3 represented the transition toward Platinum, and many of the beasts that inhabited these depths were in different stages of mana accumulation...

Big accumulation.

A Gold 3 creature needed to store just over triple its common mana to ascend to the next level, which meant encountering one of those creatures almost ready to evolve was usually very dangerous.

Most tamers who needed to traverse this layer did so with extreme stealth, hiding and passing unnoticed to avoid unnecessary confrontations. It wasn’t a matter of weakness; it was simple survival common sense.

But Ren wasn’t interested in stealth. His confidence, inflated by easy victories in the upper layers, had convinced him that he could face anything these depths had to offer.

That arrogance was brought to light by his fungus, but Ren ended up ignoring it again. The subconscious desire to release stress had pushed him to prioritize his superficial desires over everything else.

Each time his fungus offered counsel or caution, Ren found it easier to ’rationalize’ ignoring the advice.

His first serious battle was against a Massive Crystal Cocoon that had been accumulating energy for decades. The body composed entirely of living crystals reflected and amplified every attack it received.

Each blow an attacker launched became three counterattacks coming from different angles. But Ren’s knowledge provided him with the solution, and his wood element, with great advantage, opened the path for his attacks.

The fight was elegant in its simplicity once he understood the creature’s mechanics. Where others would have been overwhelmed by taking the reflected damage, Ren could manipulate the crystal formations directly, turning the creature’s greatest strength into its weakness.

The second confrontation was against a duo of Nightmare Shadow Mimics that moved as one.

Ren had to use his partial fusion just to keep them at bay, creating light fields that forced them to maintain solid forms to approach and attack. Even so, eliminating both creatures together required elevated energy expenditure.

The Mimics’ coordination was unnaturally precise, as if they shared a single consciousness distributed across two bodies.

But it was his encounter with the Leviathan Worm that really worsened his situation considerably.

The creature emerged from the depths like a tsunami of flesh and magical mineral. Its body extended for more than 20 meters. But what made it truly terrifying was that it was halfway through ascension to Platinum.

Some parts of its body had crystallized spontaneously, creating natural armor that was practically indestructible to other creatures of this level. Its attacks cracked even the reinforced chambers that Ren created to contain the battles.

The fight was brutally one-sided during the first few minutes. His beasts, even fused, could barely make a dent in the creature’s dense mana defenses.

It was only when Ren realized that the ascension and crystallization process (which he had been studying so closely lately) had made certain segments of the Leviathan’s body unstable that he could find a winning strategy.

By attacking with a rhythm that initiated a dangerous feedback, specifically targeting zones where mana was in transition.

The technique required perfect timing and understanding of how mana behaved during the transitions. And it was dangerous not just for the target, but for anyone in the vicinity when the feedback reached critical levels.

The result that reminded him of the explosion of his first minor worm was spectacular and in a certain way also horrible.

Entire sections of the Leviathan exploded from within as its own accumulated mana turned against it. The creature died with a roar of agony, its cry resonating through the underground tunnels.

Ren had won, but the cost had been high. His energy reserves were quite low, and both his hydra and wolverine showed signs of exhaustion.

’We should return,’ his fungus warned him. ’We’ve pushed too far... you can try to obtain another proboscis and reach the corruption level on another occasion.’

”One more battle,” Ren murmured, observing the depths that extended further below. ”I just want to get a Gold 3 proboscis since we’re already here.”

His desires continued to be the top priority.

♢♢♢♢

And there it was: a Greater Deep Terror that had been hunting in these depths for years, maybe decades. It was twice as large compared to the Gold 2 Terror he had eliminated earlier.

But Ren was determined. This would be his ultimate test, the demonstration that he had truly surpassed the limitations of common tamers.

The battle began badly and worsened rapidly.

The Greater Terror wasn’t just stronger than the previous one Ren had faced; it was more intelligent. It had survived in the most dangerous depths of the underground world by developing strategies that bordered on tactical genius.

Its web wasn’t simply for detecting prey; it was a complete control system. It could manipulate illusions with its spheres through mana impulses that made attacks miss by critical centimeters.

The Terror’s legs moved so fast in an attack cadence that required Ren to use all his perception capacity and process 30 simultaneous threats, each with unique timing and trajectory.

The complexity was overwhelming. Each leg movement created ripple effects that changed the positioning of other limbs.

After a few minutes of intense combat, Ren realized he was losing and exhausting the last of what he had.

His hydra and wolverine had deep wounds.

’We need maximum fusion,’ he told himself. ’All or nothing.’

Maximum fusion was something that tripled his power. It combined not only his beasts’ boosts at 150%, but also himself, synergizing a total of 300%, creating a form that completely transcended individual capabilities.

But the cost was immediate and severe. Ren felt large chunks of his remaining energy drain to fuel the transformation.

Every cell in his body contributed energy to the transformation, leaving him feeling hollow even as his capabilities soared.

The battle changed instantly.

Now Ren’s team and his fused beast dodged the Terror’s counteroffensives with movements that seemed to violate the laws of physics.

The Terror’s legs, which had seemed impossible to follow moments before, began to look slow under tripled perception. The cores and legs were ripped away, eliminating both weapons and sensors from the Terror’s possibilities.

But energy would run out soon even at this rate, he needed a precise attack.

Ren feared damaging the proboscis with a powerful light ray, but time was pressing. He only had a fraction of a second to prepare his final shot.

He concentrated most of the fusion’s remaining energy. The resulting attack was like a laser of pure destruction that cut through the air toward the Terror’s core system.

His aim was perfect. The Terror’s proboscis received no damage; the beam continued, piercing through the main body and eliminating vital systems without damaging most of the parts Ren wanted to harvest.

The Greater Terror collapsed, its massive limbs twitching once before becoming still.

Ren deactivated the fusion and immediately fell to his knees, gasping. The world around him spun as his energy levels plummeted toward dangerous territory.

’That was too much,’ the fungus murmured. ’We barely have enough energy to hide and crawl back in the return trip.’

But Ren was smiling as he looked at the carcass. The Gold 3 proboscis he had wanted was intact, along with other materials that would make this expedition worthwhile.

The satisfaction was intoxicating. He had achieved exactly what he set out to do, proven his capabilities beyond any reasonable doubt...

It was then, while he was concentrating that his energy-depleted senses failed him completely.

The Shadow Mimic had been stalking him since his battle started.

The creatures were pure opportunism in physical form, scavengers that survived by waiting for other predators to weaken themselves in combat, then striking when defense was lowest.

This one had been patient, waiting for exactly this moment when Ren’s energy reserves were at their most vulnerable.

The attack came from directly behind him. His depleted mana network couldn’t detect the approach.

Ren barely managed to throw himself sideways, but one claw raked across his shoulder, tearing through flesh and drawing blood that steamed in the high-mana and heat environment.

His defensive reaction was purely instinctive, which absorbed most of the impact but left him sprawled on the ground with his energy reserves almost exhausted.

The Shadow Mimic loomed over him, its form shifting and changing as it prepared for a killing blow.

The creature’s appearance was fluid nightmare, always maintaining just enough coherence to be recognizable as a Mimic.

’This is how it ends,’ he thought with surprising calm. ’Not in greatness, but because I got greedy.’

The Mimic’s claws descended toward his throat.

And suddenly stopped, held by hands that glowed with golden energy.

”Do you always have to do things the most dramatic way possible?” Julius asked, his voice carrying both relief and exasperation as his fused Qilin and Earth Wolverine helped him overwhelm the Mimic.

The rescue had arrived just in time. Julius was an expert at last-second saves... And perhaps the lessons Ren had learned here would stay with him for much longer.