Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

A killing strike…

Not a tentative approach or warning. But a genuine fatal blow directed toward the position where Lin stood. Electricity sparking around his fist moving with huge speed that would’ve connected if she didn’t have insane reflexes perfected during a lifetime of combat and if she hadn’t seen the technique before.

The strike was even faster than he’d been moving moments ago. Enhanced by corruption and stolen energy and whatever the seed was doing to his cultivation base.

But it was also sloppy. For someone like Lin it was telegraphed and committed fully to a single trajectory without feint or deception or any of the sophistication his techniques now normally employed. Like an attack from a beast rather than a Gold-rank genius multi tamer with years of training.

Because he was operating on instinct rather than thought. Reacting rather than strategizing. Just lashing out at movement without considering what or who he was striking.

Lin had dodged with a narrow margin. Lateral movement extracting her from the trajectory just before impact would’ve connected.

The fist passed centimeters from her face. Close enough she felt displaced air. Close enough the electricity made her skin prickle.

It would’ve been frightfully bad.

Corruption made him stronger but stupider. More dangerous to enemies but also to allies. Double-edged transformation cutting in all directions.

Fortunately and perhaps disturbingly, Ren didn’t pursue after the initial attack failed.

Simply turned toward the nearest mutants and continued the massacre as if interruption had never occurred. As if Lin wasn’t there despite having just attempted striking her moments before.

He’d already forgotten? Already dismissed her as irrelevant?

Or maybe it meant there still was something of him there?

It was behavior that was deeply strange and alarming in what it communicated about his present mental state.

But there was a small hope.

If she could save him then…

She had to do something now. Had to stop him before he hurt someone else. Before corruption consumed him completely and left only monster that would have to be put down like rabid animal.

But what could she do? Knock him unconscious? Maybe. If she could land a decisive blow before he killed her. But that would make the defense situation worse…

Yet the corruption was still erasing distinctions. Making everything the same. Just targets. Just things to kill. Friend. Enemy. Student. Teacher. Ally. Threat. All the same. All irrelevant. All just meat and energy waiting to be harvested by the parasitic rot spreading from the shadow at his feet.

If he arrived at the endgame of corruption…

Kill him? The option she didn’t want considering but had to anyway. But she wasn’t there yet. Wasn’t ready to make that choice. Not while other options remained unexplored. Not while part of her still believed he could be saved.

She planned quickly… The only solution she saw available with present resources.

Fuse to be able to fight at the level where Ren now operated. Power equalization permitting her to contain him before he caused any damage.

It was likely that both would probably end up worn out or knocked out in a confrontation of that nature. Mutual exhaustion predictably resulting in incapacitation leaving them vulnerable to the mutants continuing to press against their weakened defenses.

And that almost certainly meant they’d die in the mutant attack that would very probably continue when they couldn’t appropriately defend themselves. Death being the price of preventing Ren from eliminating the very people he’d been protecting and what he’d regret if his consciousness returned and processed what he’d done.

The calculus was cold and wandered into sacrifice again. Two lives, hers and Ren’s, versus however many he’d kill if left unchecked. But it was better than nothing…

At least this way there was a small hope of being saved by others here, or if lucky some timely reinforcements, from the mutants before some irreversible disgrace occurred. A terrible possibility if Ren continued falling into the dark without restriction until he did something irredeemable.

Lin began channeling mana toward her two bonds that would activate the fusion.

Mental preparation requiring considerable focus when she knew this would probably be the last technique she executed. The last thing she did before dying.

Activating this would give her just minutes before the exhaustion inevitably takes her out.

Should she have regrets? Probably… Things left undone… Words left unsaid… Life left mostly unexplored because she’d spent most of her prime time training a weird kid…

But she didn’t. The mana gathered, her bonds resonating and the fusion beginning to…

But before she could complete the process, Liora appeared behind Ren in a flash, having no visible transition.

Spatial jump depositing her in the perfect exact position without needing to traverse any intermediate distance. And she struck Ren with a fireball that was purple and black instead of ordinary colors other flames manifested.

The fire wasn’t normal. Didn’t burn like conventional flames… Instead it exploded into dark particles when connecting with Ren’s back. Scattering black fragments that weren’t heat but something else. “Don’t be an idiot!” Liora shouted with a voice carrying urgency mixed with affectionate frustration.

Words being directed at Ren even if she wasn’t sure he could hear them in his present state. But she said them anyway. Because maybe some part of him was still listening.

“You’re accumulating too much! You have to expel it before it completely consumes you!”

It was an instruction coming from an understanding Lin didn’t yet share. Knowledge Liora had acquired through a recent experience Lin and Ren hadn’t witnessed.

Ren stopped. And seemed dislocated by the impact. Like the attack had interrupted a process operating without his consciousness.

He shook himself. Like an animal trying to clear confusion. Head moving side to side, body swaying.

And for a moment that was brief but perceptible, it seemed he recovered some of that consciousness the corruption had been suppressing.

Clarity returning to those eyes that had been empty of appropriate recognition. The corruption retreating slightly. The human underneath surfacing like a drowning person breaking water’s surface to gasp air before going under again.

He blinked, half focused. Seemed to see rather than just perceive targets. His lips moved like he was trying to say something. But the words didn’t come.

Still… It was something. More than he’d shown in the last moments. More than Lin had hoped for. Proof that he wasn’t completely lost. That some part of him remained salvageable if they could just reach it.