Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 399 - Tamers War - The Immortal (1/2)

Longevity was undoubtedly costly...

The combination of the Black Turtle and White Serpent was the pinnacle of Vitality enhancements, and Selphira had managed by luck to bring both to ranks never before achieved.

Enormous luck... Unfortunately in a chaotic youth. She hadnʼt catalogued her chaotic and unorthodox numerous ”small changes” to the family cultivation methods.

Her first children had lived long and full lives, dying of old age in their beds surrounded by their own grandchildren.

A family with long histories, most showing complications in health or mind only after 200 years.

It had been painful, but eventually she managed to accept it as natural.

Time heals everything...

She seemed to have too much of it. But it was something she understood and could accept.

But then her grandchildren had died, and her great-grandchildren, each generation adding new branches to the family tree until she had become not just matriarch, but an almost mythical figure for the younger generations.

Already 300 years and her health and mentality seemed perfect... Even her relatives with Silver rank turtles couldnʼt come close.

Even with 300% extra Vitality at Silver 3, it didnʼt seem to translate to much more than 250 years of life... their minds simply couldnʼt bear the enormous ”history of their lives”.

Mental fatigue, increased sleep, those gradually claimed them in the end. The quiet death.

But after 500%, something strange seemed to happen... A wall seemed to fall.

Selphira had a Vitality enhancement of 860% upon completely finishing her cultivation.

For three centuries she had been too busy to adopt more ʼchildrens for the futureʼ.

The family had grown so much that it required her constant attention, mediating disputes, guiding important decisions, ensuring the legacy remained intact.

There was no successor.

But gradually, as the large family took on more responsibilities, she had found herself with free time she hadnʼt had in dozens of decades.

And then had come the last abyssal wave, thirty years ago.

The sound of hurried footsteps in the corridor interrupted her reflections. She knew those steps... urgent, determined, with a touch of arrogance that made her sigh internally.

”Mother!” Leonelʼs voice echoed through the hallway before he appeared in the doorway. ”Where are you going?”

Selphira turned slowly, studying her adoptive sonʼs face. At 35 years old, Leonel had grown into an imposing man. His beasts were the same turtle and serpent, having both simultaneously was rare even in the family, very difficult to obtain and cultivate… Yet they had evolved magnificently to Silver 2 and 3 ranks. The markings in his hair and arms spoke of genuine power.

One of the few in the family who had surpassed the 500% wall...

He was, objectively, an exceptional tamer.

But the eyes... the eyes were still those of that four-year-old boy she had found crying among the rubble of his hometown, destroyed by the worst abyssal wave.

”Leonel,” she said softly, ”I thought you were supervising the eastern sector defenses.”

”The internal defenses have been quiet for a long time, they can wait,” he replied, entering the room completely. ”I asked you where youʼre going. And donʼt tell me itʼs a routine inspection again... nobody puts on their best armor to check walls from afar.”

Selphira felt a familiar pang of guilt. It was that expression... demanding, needy, with a hint of hidden desperation, that had led her down this problematic path from the beginning.

She vividly remembered the day she had brought Leonel and Laura home. Two traumatized children, clinging to her, lost in a world that had suddenly become dangerous and unpredictable.

Both with that desperate fierceness that only children who have lost everything can show.

Laura had been the younger, barely three years old, with large eyes that seemed to see too much for her age.

ʼThey were so similar to my first children,ʼ she thought, remembering how the first fruits and seeds of her family tree had come into her life centuries ago. ʼThat same mix of vulnerability and attachment.ʼ

It had been inevitable that she would give them her heart completely.

”Leonel,” she began, choosing her words carefully, ”there are things I must do. Responsibilities that...”

”Responsibilities?” He interrupted her, and for a moment Selphira saw a flash of the temperament that had been growing in him for years. ”And what about your responsibilities to me? To our family promise?”

ʼOur family promiseʼ... The words carried the weight of decades of misunderstandings and unfulfilled expectations.

The problem had begun shortly after she adopted the children. The main family... her great, great, great, etc... grandchildren from various generations, had viewed with suspicion how Selphira gave the newcomers not just love, but legitimate position within the lineage.

It hadnʼt been malice, simply the natural concern of preserving succession lines that had been involuntarily guarded in her shadow for centuries.

But Selphira had had too much maternal love to give, and Leonel and Laura reminded her so much of her first children that she couldnʼt help treating them as legitimate heirs.

”The war has begun,” she said finally, deciding on partial truth. ”There is a promise I made... A debt that must be paid.”

Leonelʼs eyes lit up with a light that Selphira had learned to fear.

”Exactly! The war!” He moved closer, his lesser White Serpent manifesting partially in his features, sharpening his face. ”This is the opportunity Iʼve been waiting for. Take me with you.”

”Leonel...”

”No!” His voice rose, and for a moment he was again the desperate child demanding she not abandon him. ”Listen to me for once. These old foxes in the family donʼt listen to me, donʼt respect me. They think that because I was adopted, because I donʼt carry the ʼoriginal bloodʼ, I have no right to lead... That blood doesnʼt matter... You promised that too!”

Selphira closed her eyes, feeling the weight of every wrong decision she had made during the last decades.

She had lost Laura just eight years ago. Her adoptive daughter... her beloved daughter. The girl who had grown into an intrepid explorer had died along with her husband on one of their adventure trips.