Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 280 - Tamer’s Battle Week - 18

In the reserved stands of the high nobility, three figures observed with radically different expressions.

Kassian Goldcrest narrowed his eyes with disdain. ”Pathetic,” he murmured. ”The mushroom boy sends his lizard to die and runs behind like an idiot. The commoner doesnʼt even know the basics of beast combat... The spy I have following him is a waste of time.”

His fingers drummed rhythmically on the armrest of his seat. The ineptitude he was witnessing from the commoner with noble aspirations was personally offensive to him.

It was a waste that such a subject had a second beast. The fungus in the first place didnʼt count as a beast, so he was practically just a common tamer...

ʼWhat nonsense!ʼ

Several seats away, Sirius Starweaver observed with an indecipherable expression. Unlike the other noble who openly showed his disdain, Lunaʼs father seemed intrigued. He remembered the child with an unusual beast being interrogated that day, but his expectations had been betrayed...

”Terrible tactical choice,” he finally commented, his tone neutral but his eyes intensely fixed on the small tamer. ”I wonder if I expected too much.”

Finally, Selphira Ashenway showed an enigmatic smile. Unlike her companions, she didnʼt seem surprised or annoyed. Her eyes, sharp as a hawkʼs, followed Renʼs every movement with interest.

”The boy has guts and heroic desires,” she said softly, almost to herself. ”Or knowledge that we donʼt possess.”

Her long fingers interlaced over her lap as she leaned slightly forward.

”Either way,” she added with a spark of amusement in her eyes, ”this will be... revealing.”

♢♢♢♢

Ren ran after his beast, spear in hand, prepared to attack...

The enormous stone monster, detecting the small creature approaching, activated its attack mechanism. Using elemental control over earth and the brute force of its hind legs, it launched itself into the air, diving directly toward the small hydra.

”Itʼs finished!” someone exclaimed from the stands. ”The Lurker is going to bite that lizard!”

Ren adjusted his position, preparing the spear. Many assumed he would try to throw it when the monster opened its mouth, but those who knew the Stone Lurkerʼs anatomy knew that would be useless; the beast palate was reinforced with a structure as hard as the external rock itself.

Yet at that critical moment, Ren did something unexpected.

With a quick gesture, he retracted his hydra, which transformed into a beam of light returning to his body and merging with him. Instantly, the transformation began: reptilian scales appeared on his skin, his muscles grew slightly, and the characteristic translucent armor materialized over his chest.

But the most surprising thing was happening with the Stone Lurker in mid-air. Its trajectory changed abruptly, as if an invisible force was pulling it. Its head was thrown back, its mouth opened wider than normal, and...

Its belly was completely exposed in front of Ren!

”What the hell is happening?” Confusion was widespread among the spectators.

The answer came an instant later, when the effort to hold onto the beetle broke the invisibility of Minʼs amphibian. The translucent beast suddenly appeared on the shoulder of the Living Tunnel, Taroʼs enormous beetle that had been waiting behind the Big Stone Lurker the entire time, invisible thanks to the amphibianʼs ability.

The beetle was pulling the monsterʼs head back forcefully, having reached its back during those initial five seconds of apparent immobility.

”They were there the whole time!”

”The amphibian made them invisible!”

Now Ren had a direct shot at the Stone Lurkerʼs cloaca, the most vulnerable point of its anatomy that connected directly to one of its vital organs.

With gritted teeth, he concentrated all his energy.

The veins of light glowed intensely throughout his body, channeling maximum power to his muscles already reinforced by the hydra.

With an explosive movement, Ren launched the modified proboscis. The projectile shot out with devastating force, cleanly piercing the Stone Lurkerʼs cloaca and boring all the way to its brain, which retained the same basic anatomy as its lower-rank counterpart.

The Stone Lurker froze in mid-air, its body tensing completely before collapsing heavily. The lost glow in its eyes and the limpness of its legs signaled its total defeat.

The silence that followed was absolute. The timekeepers verified their devices with incredulity.

”Victory for Team Eight of Group B,” Yang finally announced, his voice betraying a hint of amazement. ”Time: fifteen seconds.”

For an instant, no one reacted. Then, a senior year student stood up.

”Fifteen seconds?” The question resonated in a completely stunned stadium. ”FIFTEEN SECONDS?”

Chaos erupted in the stands. Shouts, exclamations of disbelief, amazed applause, all mixed in a cacophony of reactions to what they had just witnessed.

Renʼs team had pulverized the previous record. They hadnʼt matched it, they hadnʼt surpassed it by a small margin...

They had reduced it to an eighth.

Min was the first to break composure. With a shout of pure joy, he jumped on Ren, nearly knocking him down. ”WE DID IT! DAMN, WE DID IT!”

Taro, normally the shyest of the trio, ran in circles with arms outstretched, his face illuminated by a smile so wide it threatened to split his face in two. ”FIFTEEN SECONDS! FIFTEEN! TAKE THAT, SNOBS!”

Even Ren, always the most controlled, couldnʼt avoid an explosion of childish euphoria. He raised the spear over his head like a trophy, his armor shining with almost blinding intensity.

”THAT WAS AMAZING!” shouted Min, hugging Ren and Taro simultaneously. ”DID YOU SEE THEIR FACES?! EVERYONE THOUGHT YOU WERE CRAZY!”

”PERFECT!” responded Taro, punching the air with his fist. ”ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! IT WORKED EXACTLY AS YOU SAID, REN!”

Ren, with his cheeks flushed with excitement, nodded between laughs. ”PERFECT TEAMWORK!”

In the first-year section, reactions were clearly divided between those who knew Ren and those who didnʼt.

Liora applauded with barely contained enthusiasm, her eyes shining with pride.

Larissa, normally refined even in her most expressive moments, had abandoned all pretense of decorum. Standing, she cheered like a fan at a gladiator tournament. ”THATʼS IT, REN! SHOW THEM HOW ITʼS DONE!”

And perhaps... Just perhaps... The girlsʼ reaction was greater than expected because they had been a little upset when Klein surpassed their teamʼs record...

Luna, always more controlled, observed with intensity, her shadow wolf partially manifesting as a reflection of her surprise at a greater defeat than expected.

But despite this, she had a contained but genuine smile, her eyes revealing a mixture of admiration and calculation. ”Impressive,” she commented softly. ”Truly impressive.”

Han, from his seat, nodded once.

”I suspected it,” he murmured, more to himself than to those around him. ”He really is different.”

Roran and the others practically jumped in their seats, shouting congratulations that were lost in the general tumult. Mira had conjured small flowers that she threw into the air in celebration, while Jun applauded with fire in his eyes.

The contrast couldnʼt be more marked with another sector of the stands.

Jin was pale, his fists so tight his fingers had turned white. ”Impossible,” he repeated mechanically. ”Itʼs impossible. It has to be a trick. A deception.”

Kai, beside him, shook his head in disbelief.

Cass, perhaps the most pragmatic of the trio, simply observed in silence, recalculating every assumption she had made about Ren Patinder and his useless spore. Perhaps that hydra was...

But the most violent reaction came from Klein. The Goldcrest heir seemed to have been physically struck. His breathing was irregular, his face contorted into a mask of fury and humiliation. The record he had worked so hard to establish, that meant so much to his family, had been pulverized in an instant.

And not by Luna, the Dravenholm or the Ashenway, that would have been understandable, maybe even acceptable... But by a nobody, a boy from the Gray Wing with a beast universally considered useless.