Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

The rhinoceros couldn’t adjust its charge midway through the attack. Too much momentum built up. Too much mass moving too fast to change course.

It continued in a straight line toward where the lion had been hoping to hit on time.

But the lion moved laterally in the last second with perfect timing.

Clean evasion.

The rhinoceros thundered past through empty space.

And while it was passing, the lion attacked the exposed flank.

Claws raking across the armored hide. Not deep penetration, the rhinoceros’s skin was too thick for that. But at least superficial damage that would accumulate over time.

The rhinoceros wheeled around with surprising agility for its size. Attempted to ram again with renewed determination.

Same result. Light blinding at the last moment. Lateral dodge. Attack to the flank as it passed.

And again.

And again.

Dozens of times during the following minutes in a repetitive pattern.

Each individual attack didn’t accomplish much on its own. But after dozens of accumulated strikes…

The rhinoceros began showing signs of being on its last legs. Breathing heavily through flared nostrils. Movements becoming slower and more labored. Blood dripping from multiple small wounds that collectively summed to significant damage.

And then, after the next attempted charge…

The rhinoceros simply collapsed under the accumulated strain.

Fell to its knees first. Then completely to the ground with an impact that shook the arena. Exhausted beyond any chance of continuing. Too injured to maintain the fight… It disintegrated into dispersing mana particles.

The lion remained standing three meters away from where the rhino had fallen.

Also completely exhausted from the prolonged battle. Klein could feel through their bond that the beast was at its absolute limit. Another minute more and the lion would have disappeared from mana depletion.

But it had lasted just long enough.

The rhinoceros fell first.

Klein won the exchange.

He withdrew the lion before exhaustion could force the dispersion involuntarily.

And felt something strange settle in his chest while walking off the field.

Satisfaction at the victory. But also… closure for something deeper.

He had defeated Feng and Astor decisively. His former followers. The boys who represented everything he had been before his world collapsed.

And he’d accomplished it using methods they rejected out of pride. Using power that came directly from allying himself with Ren whom they despised.

It was more than a simple victory in the final exam.

It was severing metaphorical ties with his old self. More profoundly than ever before.

Demonstrating, to them, to himself, to everyone observing, that he’d made the correct decision. That changing had been good. That the pride which had defined him before was inferior to the progress he’d gained afterwards.

Klein felt genuinely good about his performance despite knowing what came next.

Though Luna and Ren’s situation still worried him on a personal level…

That also seemed to be better directed now. They had talked. The ice between them was thawing.

Klein could focus on his own battles with a clearer mind.

Even though he knew his next battle would be his last in this tournament. That he would be eliminated without doubt.

Because the next pairing would put him against the most impressive team so far in this final exam…

Taro’s team.

And nobody, absolutely nobody, had managed to pass Taro yet.

And when he was eliminated, when, not if… he would withdraw with his head held high.

Because he’d given everything he had. Had shown real improvement. Had honored the methods that Ren had shared so generously.

And he would use them to reach the level of Ren’s close associates someday, to have a genuine chance of competing at that new tier in the future.

♢♢♢♢

THE IMMOVABLE MOUNTAIN

Taro’s team had been putting on an incredible show throughout the entire tournament.

The strategy was elegantly simple. Taro always deployed at the beginning of battles. Liora always positioned at the end of their team’s rotation.

It was a formation that communicated a clear message: “If you can get past Taro, maybe you’ll have a chance.”

But nobody got past Taro.

Until now…

Nobody, no team had defeated his two Gold-rank beasts.

Not a single one had managed it.

Taro’s golden beetle hadn’t been defeated regardless of whether it faced all ten opposing beasts in succession. Desperate teams had thrown everything they possessed at the opening position trying to break through.

It didn’t matter what they attempted.

They could defeat his first beast, the Terror, after tremendous effort and accumulated damage… But the golden beetle remained standing firm afterward. Immovable. Destroying everything that opposed it with apparent ease.

The spectators had begun calling it “The Immovable Mountain” after witnessing match after match.

And the name was accurate.

The beetle stood in the center of the arena like a natural dune formation that had existed for millennia. Opponents crashed against it like waves against a cliff face.

And broke themselves trying to move what couldn’t be moved.

Taro had defeated Jun and his monkey decisively, a beast with incredible strength and agility that should have posed problems. It hadn’t mattered at all. The beetle was simply stronger in every measurable way.

He’d crushed Sora and her deer without difficulty, an elegant creature with wood element control that should have given problems through elemental advantage. It didn’t work. The beetle simply ignored the roots and vines as if they didn’t exist before cornering the beast and crushing it like fragile glass.

In earlier battles during the tournament, Taro had been “fortunate” enough to face off against Hector and Rosalind’s team. Those two had been particularly arrogant during the first year. Particularly vocal about how Taro was “wasting a spot at the school” with such a “mediocre” beetle that didn’t deserve attention.

The golden beetle had demolished both of them in less than one minute combined.

Vern and one of Jin’s followers, Cass, had ended up on the same team through random draw assignment. Also crushed easily without significant resistance.

Taro would have loved crushing Jin’s tiger as well and making that arrogant boy eat his words from first year… but the kid was already imprisoned, serving as test subject for analyzing the new corruption tactics that everyone hoped with desperate optimism weren’t harbingers that the “dormant” powers of Yino kingdom were returning.

Jin wouldn’t be released while corrupted by unknown forces, nor would the adults who’d accompanied him on that mission… but the young followers who’d gone along had been pardoned, with punishment falling instead on their tutors and keeping them under observation now and for several years.

Kai unfortunately hadn’t been matched against Taro through the bracket randomization. But that arrogant student had been eliminated by Min on Luna’s team with similar brutal efficiency.

Few rivals remained outside of Ren’s team and his closest associates who could give decent fights anymore.