Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1216: Chapter 1216 - Taming the Old World - Respite - 2

Julius visited the dome daily to run meticulous structural diagnostics, eventually refining his original countdown. The mathematical projection settled at a hard fifteen days, rather than the initial fourteen.

Regardless of the math, the absolute strongest elites of the Vanguard established a relentless, rotating guard duty around the star-prison. No one genuinely trusted the calculation... They were terrified the trapped monstrosity was deliberately attempting to deceive them, playing the long game just to drastically accelerate its digging speed at the very last part.

Absolutely no one wanted to be looking the other way if the spoon somehow managed to shatter the wall ahead of schedule.

But the monolithic dome held firm, degrading at the exact microscopic pace Julius had predicted. The nightmare trapped inside was not advancing any faster than anticipated.

For the moment, neither side of the apocalyptic war made a move. It was a fragile truce forged entirely of absolute exhaustion and crystals.

The girls established a relentless rotation at Ren’s bedside.

Luna barely moved from her chair. Carrying the fresh, freezing burden of the corruption within her own system now, that terrifying, toxic thread her shadow wolf had ripped and swallowed, she understood vastly better than anyone else now exactly what would happen to the world if Ren did not wake up soon and corruption won. She also refused to let him wake up alone in the dark.

Larissa silently managed the logistics, bringing in untouched meals with Maria’s gentle assistance. Liora sat beside the bed for hours, meticulously flickering tiny, highly controlled spiritual flames over the jagged crystalline spikes that Ren’s own immune system was desperately trying to reject. She used the targeted heat to forcefully stimulate his cellular response, agonizingly reclaiming his skin centimeter by centimeter.

Sirius, fully recovered but noticeably quieter and more brooding than before, sat in the corner of the infirmary for hours on end, rarely speaking. Lykea refused to leave his side for a single second.

One day.

Two days.

Five agonizing days.

The massive, terrifying slabs of crystal encasing the vast majority of Ren’s arms absolutely refused to yield.

♢♢♢♢

On the eighth day, Julius pressed his palm against the vibrating adamantium dome, and a dark scowl etched itself across his face.

”It is accelerating,” the Qilin prince murmured, keeping his voice incredibly low to ensure the tamers stationed nearby wouldn’t hear him. ”The countdown is no longer fifteen days. It is thirteen days. Perhaps less. The entity has adapted. It learned how to carve the stone using a vastly more efficient angle.”

Selphira didn’t respond. She merely turned her ancient eyes toward the distant infirmary window where Ren lay unconscious, silently calculating the rapidly shrinking margin of survival.

♢♢♢♢

Day ten arrived, stretching the collective sanity of the Vanguard to its absolute breaking point.

Ten days of relentless guard duty. Ten days of elite healers shaking their heads in grim defeat. Ten days of listening to a trapped, apocalyptic monster relentlessly scratching away at its cage. Ten agonizing days of an entire continent collectively holding its breath, completely terrified, unsure if their Glorious General would ever open his eyes, or if they would be forced to face the nightmare trapped in the courtyard without him.

And then, late that night, while Luna dozed fitfully in the chair beside the bed and Liora meticulously maintained a warm spiritual ember over his frozen forearm...

Ren’s shoulders twitched.

It was a small movement. A faint, biological tremor. The absolute first sign of life in ten days.

Luna snapped awake instantly, her heart hammering against her ribs.

”Ren?”

Ren’s eyelids fluttered. They slowly parted, immediately squeezing shut against the harsh glow of the infirmary lamps, before cautiously opening again. He blinked heavily, fighting through the thick, suffocating fog of a ten-day coma, until Luna’s tear-streaked face finally swam into sharp focus above him.

”...How long,” his voice was a brutal, agonizing rasp, his throat completely parched from ten days of disuse, ”did I sleep?”

Luna let out a wet, trembling laugh that was half-sob. She didn’t answer him immediately, desperately trying to swallow the massive lump of pure, unadulterated relief blocking her throat.

Ren was finally awake.

Just in time. Or at least, terrifyingly close to it.

He recognized exactly where he was before his mind had even fully booted up... It was the same impossibly high, opulent ceiling of the royal VIP infirmary he always seemed to wake up under.

The superficial crystal wounds had already been meticulously treated. He could feel it; the skin on his cheek was smooth again, and the localized patches on his upper arms felt lighter, confirming the master healers had carefully excised the solid mana where it hadn’t merged with anything vital.

But deep beneath the skin, there was a fundamental wall...

His internal mana simply was not flowing as it was biologically designed to. And when he instinctively tried to clench his hands into fists to run a diagnostic on his small runic pathways, absolutely nothing happened.

His fingers refused to answer his command.

Not his fingers, not his wrists, and certainly not his forearms.

The girls were gathered tightly around his bed, with the three maids standing dutifully just behind them. Six pairs of eyes were locked onto his face, waiting in suffocating, anxious silence.

Ren didn’t say a single extra word for the moment. He looked at them, one by one. His fiancées wore an expression hovering agonizingly somewhere between profound relief and something closely resembling a reprimand, not directed at him personally, but rather aimed at the horrifying circumstances. Then, with deliberate slowness, he pulled his hands out from beneath the heavy silk sheets and everyone in the room got a clear, unobstructed look.

All seven of them stared.

Ren’s forearms were almost completely transparent. Solid crystal encased his limbs from just below the elbows all the way down to the tips of his fingers. The mortal flesh, all the muscle and skin, had been fundamentally transmuted into something that flawlessly refracted the light of the room, rendering his arms entirely immobile, undeniably beautiful, and profoundly terrifying all at once.

Liora immediately brought a trembling hand to her mouth. Larissa’s sharp analytical eyes rapidly misted over. Luna simply clenched her jaw, her fingers turning white where she gripped the edge of the bed.