Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 531: Chapter 531 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 3

Ren sensed the mana signatures long before reaching the ambush zone. Five Gold 1 and 2 signatures, each trying to hide with expensive artifacts.

For Ren, who had been using one too... and one of the best at that (artifacts from the newly discovered chamber), it was no longer difficult for him to detect them.

They were using good ones, but to the senses of his Superior World Mushroom’s root network and his jade seed, they were radiating power like bonfires in the night.

And his enhanced perception wasn’t just about raw detection.

Each signature carried information about the wielder’s specific types of beasts they had bonded with. Leopold’s team might as well have been announcing their presence with trumpets.

Subtle vibrations in the ground confirmed the presence of his two Gold 1 rank guards that Julius had assigned for his protection.

A firm tap of his foot against the ground sent response vibrations: Stay quiet. Hold position.

He had made a decision that even he didn’t fully understand. He could have called for his guards’ help, could have changed routes, could have avoided this confrontation entirely. But a part of him that had been growing for months, fed by accumulated frustrations, wanted this.

Finally, he thought with satisfaction that slightly disturbed him, something that might require a little effort.

The emotional honesty of that admission was worrying. When had he become someone who looked forward to violence?

The attackers moved with professionality. All had darkness, wind, or neutral beasts suited for silent attacks.

A Darkness Spirit materialized directly in front of him... an undulating mass of shadows that pulsed with malevolence, shifting between solid and ethereal states.

Simultaneously, a Darkness Serpent slithered from his shadow while seeking an optimal attack position.

A Minor Royal Wind Eagle dove from the heights, its talons wrapped in air currents that could cut like blades. The raptor’s approach was nearly silent, enhanced by wind magic that eliminated air resistance and sound.

A Royal Wind Hawk attacked from a different angle, creating an aerial pincer that left no space for vertical escape.

And a Royal Elephant Bull charged from behind, each step making the ground tremble with force that could have cracked stone.

Everything happened in the space of less than a second.

For normal observers, it would have been an impossible-to-follow coordinated attack. For Ren, time slowed until it became individual frames of movement, each attacker moving with the sluggishness of a swimmer in a honey pool.

His mind instantly processed trajectories, elemental weaknesses, counterattack opportunities.

He pivoted on his left foot, dodging the eagle’s talons by millimeters while his left hand created an ice wall to stop the hawk and his right hand extended toward the darkness serpent attempting to bite his right side. His fingers found the creature’s semi-solid form just as it solidified to attack, and he used it as a projectile, hurling it directly toward the darkness spirit.

The collision between the two creatures of the same element prevented them from avoiding impact by becoming shadows. Darkness beasts could phase through most attacks, but they couldn’t phase through each other, a vulnerability that few combatants could exploit.

Ren used the confusion as cover, jumping high just as the elephant bull’s massive horns crushed the spot where he had been standing.

Now it was his turn.

While airborne, Ren extended both hands toward the aerial attackers. Pure mineral shots erupted from his palms, finding the giant wind eagle with precision. Rock as an elemental advantage cut through the hawk’s wind defenses like paper, the elemental weakness turning what should have been a minor attack for a Gold Rank creature into something devastating.

The interaction was beautiful in its simplicity. Wind creatures, for all their speed and agility, were fundamentally vulnerable to earth-based attacks. Their lightweight nature became a liability when faced with solid, ’grounded’ force.

The hawk tried to change direction, but Ren had anticipated the movement through his knowledge of their flight patterns. His left hand launched another projectile that cut through the air to where he knew it would be.

Predicting beast behavior was one of his earliest abilities, refined over years of practice with his fungus’s analytical capabilities. Every species had instinctive response patterns that became predictable once you understood their underlying logic.

His shots found flesh and feathers, and the hawk fell in a dive with a cry that resonated throughout the forest.

Ren landed in a position that would have made Lin smile proudly: perfect balance, weight distributed for immediate mobility, arms positioned for defense or attack as needed.

The training sessions with Lin had become muscle memory.

The darkness creatures had recovered from their collision, but both showed considerable confusion. The spirit pulsed erratically, its form less defined than before. The serpent had become clumsier, clearly struggling to navigate the complex shadows of the forest.

This is still too easy, Ren thought, and the naturalness with which that thought came troubled his fungus.

He raised his right hand toward where he knew the serpent was trying to reposition. Light shots erupted from his fingers like bullets, each designed to explode on impact. The serpent tried to become ethereal to avoid damage, but the light fragments harmed it in both forms, physical and spiritual.

His next movement flowed naturally from the previous one. A series of shots aimed at the darkness spirit, but it escaped by being called back by its tamer.

Everything had happened in mere seconds, but the neutral tamer took advantage of Ren’s ”distraction” while attacking the others.

The elephant bull launched itself, charging with force that sank the ground under its feet. This time, Ren didn’t dodge. He planted himself firmly, extended both hands, and decided to receive the impact head-on.

The collision resonated through the ground with waves that were felt quite far away.

For a moment, both struggled in perfect stasis. The elephant bull, all its mass and power concentrated at one point, against Ren, who was dragged backward while absorbing every joule of kinetic energy with supernatural strength.

It was then that Ren decided to end the farce.

His fusion with the hydra was partial but spectacular. Crystal scale patterns spread across his arms, legs, and torso, each line glowing with power. His muscles expanded, not with mass but with power density, and his strength multiplied exponentially.

The elephant bull, which had been pushing with all its strength, suddenly found itself stopped without being able to move its feet even one more centimeter.

But Ren hadn’t finished.

With elemental control that bordered on artistic, he transformed the terrain under his feet. The earth sank, creating a perfect angle of support that channeled all his strength and the bull’s force to propel it upward and spin it. The massive animal suddenly found itself flying through the air, its own strength used against it.

The technique was pure leverage and timing.

The impact when the bull hit the ground resonated with a brutal crack of its back.

Ren turned to clap his hands and crush the eagle that was trying to regain flight between two enormous stone blocks. But its tamer managed to recover it on time... the larger flying beast was the attackers’ exit ticket.

The spirit tamer took advantage again and attempted to teleport.

When the spirit tamer materialized directly behind him, Ren had already read the mana and turned around, his long light claws extended in a perfect arc that cut through the shadow armor provided by the spirit as if it were mist.

The spirit tamer’s scream before barely escaping a deeper cut into the shadows was so satisfying that Ren allowed himself a small, cold smile.

The expression felt foreign on his face, but undeniably genuine. When had he started taking pleasure in others’ pain?

Ren straightened, assessing the damage. All attackers were wounded but not completely knocked out, exactly as he had planned.

I’m good at this, he thought, and the satisfaction he felt was more intense than expected.

But the tamers had learned from Ren’s demonstration of power over their beasts. The boy was undoubtedly a monster and would be difficult to defeat, but they had been assigned this extremely important mission and couldn’t return empty-handed.

Now it was their turn to merge with their wounded beasts to ignore most of the damage and attack the boy simultaneously with their bodies directly.

The figures leaped from hidden positions, each fused with the remnants of their damaged beasts’ power. They moved with the desperate coordination of professionals who knew they were outmatched but had to try something.

Yet the desperation made them more dangerous, not less. Cornered opponents took risks that could sometimes overcome superior power through sheer unpredictability.

But Ren saw them coming again as if they moved through gelatin.

And he was already bored with this... it was time to use a bit of his real power.

Only his right hand completely transformed into translucent jade crystal, the partial fusion between his wolverine and hydra creating something that transcended either individual beast.

The three rings he now possessed allowed him supremely controlled partial fusion that wasn’t too taxing.

The hand pulsed with concentrated multi-elemental power, capable of, certainly, manipulating multiple elements simultaneously.

With a single gesture, he trapped all the attackers in their elemental weaknesses.

Even the tree where Leopold, who hadn’t dared to attack was hidden, responded to his command. The branches moved like living tentacles, wrapping around the noble and bringing him to the ground.

Ren walked slowly toward where Leopold struggled against the roots holding him immobilized.

”Weren’t you going to come down?” he asked with a voice that was perfectly calm but carried an undertone that made Leopold stop struggling.