Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 541: Chapter 541 - Taming the Fourth Year: Discovery - 3

The declaration carried more confidence than he felt, especially when he had no mana to help...

Around them, the chimeras continued emerging, their calls creating a symphony of unnatural sounds that echoed through the crystallized graveyard.

Ren’s mind began working through possibilities, analyzing the creatures’ construction and behavior patterns. They might have exploitable weaknesses built into their design.

The question was whether he could identify those weaknesses before they were overwhelmed.

♢♢♢♢

For a while, Julius expended considerable amounts of energy keeping the tide of monsters at bay.

But the chimeras were no longer simply throwing themselves at the attack; they showed concerning intelligence, stalking and gradually approaching, slowly closing the circle while trying to reduce casualties and wear down the defenders.

Ren had tried to analyze the creatures to find weaknesses or patterns, but the data wasn’t accessible like with any normal beast. It was as if they operated under principles completely different from anything that could be called natural in this world.

The analytical framework that had served him so well with traditional creatures simply didn’t apply. These things violated the fundamental rules he had always used his fungus network to exploit.

Julius was about to suggest sending Ren to the surface with his wolverine to seek help while he stayed fighting alone with his qilin, when something changed dramatically.

A chimera much larger than the others emerged from the depths.

This wasn’t like the Silver-sized creatures they had been facing. It was massive, easily the size of a Leviathan Worm.

”Its energy footprint is high Gold,” Julius murmured, feeling the mana density radiating from the creature. ”I need to use more power.”

He fused completely with his two beasts, his body transforming into an enhanced version of himself covered in hard hair, golden scales, with claws and horns that gleamed with fused power.

He launched an enormous wave of rock and mineral against the new beast.

The giant chimera defended itself immediately, but not with direct actions. Instead, it used a surge of lesser chimeras as living shields, positioning them strategically to absorb Julius’s attacks.

Then it opened all its mouths simultaneously and generated a sound that wasn’t exactly a roar, not exactly a scream, but something that resonated at frequencies that couldn’t be perceived by normal humans.

The shockwave hit the area like an invisible explosion.

Julius, protected by his fusion and elemental control, managed to resist the impact. No, it didn’t even hurt a little.

But Ren...

Ren doubled over as if he had received a physical blow to the stomach. Intense pain exploded in his chest, radiating toward all extremities. But worse than the physical pain was what was happening in his mind.

His anger returned with renewed force, more intense than ever. Frustration, rage, the desire to destroy everything in front of him. The emotions he had been beginning to control spilled out like a broken dam.

But there was something more. A sensation of cracking, as if something fundamental in his core was fracturing.

”Ren!” The small fungus screamed with desperate urgency. ”Don’t lose control! The seed is cracking more!”

Through the pain and confusion, Ren understood the implication. The jade seed was being damaged by whatever the creature had done.

He struggled to maintain control, but the chimera’s shockwave had activated something primordial in his system. It was as if the creature had found exactly the frequency that resonated with his deepest insecurities and fears.

The attack was much more than physical, it was like spiritual warfare.

Julius transformed completely, his fused form reaching the peak of power he could maintain. Golden scales covered his body like living armor, and his eyes blazed with golden light that made the lesser chimeras instinctively retreat.

Seeing Ren suffering, ”Ren, resist!” he shouted while launching devastating attacks toward the giant chimera. ”Don’t let whatever that was defeat you!”

But the massive monster kept controlling hundreds of the smaller ones to shield itself.

Ren was fighting an internal battle that was as intense as the external one. Each breath was a struggle, each thought a fight against his impulses. Green scales began forming and his body changed in a transformation that threatened to consume him completely.

The seed cracking in his core sent pulses of pain that mixed with his emotional turmoil, creating a feedback loop that was becoming increasingly dangerous.

And the giant chimera, sensing his distress, focused more of its attention on him, pushing the ”scream” harder as if it had found the prey it was seeking.

Julius had no idea what was happening. From his perspective, Ren had simply collapsed under the chimera’s sonic attack, but the specific nature of the damage was incomprehensible to him.

Yet he couldn’t kill it even with his maximum output... All he could do was keep the pressure and with that, the creatures at bay.

Inside Ren’s mind, his fungus was struggling to understand a crisis that challenged everything it thought it knew.

It rapidly analyzed Ren’s internal connections. The energy from its own roots was intimately connected to the seed’s roots, which meant anything that could destroy the seed should also affect it. However, although it could feel the damage resonance, it wasn’t experiencing any negative effects in its golden body.

The energy that had cracked the seed the day everyone became statues wasn’t just corruption... it had also brought extreme purification intensity, which ruled out this being a pure reaction to crystal energy.

’Besides, that shouldn’t be possible,’ the fungus thought desperately. ’All corruption should be frozen because it was connected to the same crystal network.’

There had to be something that explained this strange effect somewhere in its information...

Its memories turned to the investigations Ren had conducted during past years’ vacations. They had gone to review the chamber where Bloodwyn had destroyed the corrupt heart, but had found nothing there, not a trace of residual energy.

But perhaps these creatures had obtained something from that place before they arrived.

’The energy must have some type of connection to mine... If it were completely alien, I would feel the damage too... So this energy must be the same as... mine?’

Observing the chimeras through Ren’s and its senses, the fungus began to notice crucial characteristics. These creatures all seemed identical to themselves, different from the corrupted ones that had a seemingly random variability.

They had the capacity to absorb characteristics from other creatures, and could clone themselves in ways the original corruption had never demonstrated.

Moreover, they were no longer connected to the corruption network.

’Maybe they stole some energy from the cradle and acquired its essence... If so we’re facing a third force,’

it realized with growing horror. ’One that separated from the corrupt, like a mutation that gradually originates something different, like new adaptations, to get a completely new species in the end.’
The fungus had been carefully tending the golden spores that remained from the final battle. Although they hadn’t yet found them a new core, it kept them alive with its own energy.

Desperately, it connected with them and tried to inject what little power Ren had left to form protection against the creature’s attack. It made sense as they were the pure form of that mutated energy.

But it wasn’t enough.

There were still some strange energies it didn’t understand, energies that had contaminated the seed’s crack with something that resisted all its isolation attempts. The waves that increased damage to Ren’s seed kept passing through the blockade as if it were a leaky roof.

The seed was fragmenting more rapidly, and Ren couldn’t endure much more pain.

The fungus considered its options during milliseconds that felt like eternity.

Finally, it made a decision it would have preferred never to need to make.

’Ren,’ it told him mentally, its voice loaded with concern it had never shown before, ’I trust you’ll manage to obtain the power necessary to unfreeze time for everyone.’

’What?’ Ren could barely form thoughts through the pain. ’What are you talking about?’

The fungus smiled in his mind, a strange sensation Ren had never experienced from his beast.

’When you have time, think of a name for me that you do like. You’ll have time because I have to prevent you from accumulating that toxic energy... it makes you toxic too... I hope you understand I can’t allow the seed to break, or we’ll never complete the final development.’

’Final development? Why do you sound like you’re saying goodbye?’

But before the fungus could respond, it did what it had seen its corrupt enemy do years ago. It encysted itself.

Its form separated into long fibers very similar to those its network extended in the world and expanded, wrapping completely around the cracked seed like a protective cocoon. The process required all its energy, transforming its conscious essence into a crystal shell that could resist the strange energies that had been attacking the seed.

The transformation was both beautiful and terrible. The fungus that had been his constant companion, his source of knowledge and wisdom, dissolved its individual consciousness to become a living shield around a crucial part of Ren’s power system.

Ren’s pain stopped instantly.