Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 569: Chapter 569 - Taming the Fourth Year: Journey - 7

The next phase of the battle would determine not only who would win this confrontation, but whether Ren would maintain enough control over the black marks to remain himself.

And by asking his friends to use fusion, he already showed that the future of the journey was beginning to matter less than the need to win for him. This could be interpreted as an increase in his loss of emotional control as well.

So the implication was clear and terrible. After using their maximum transformation, they would be completely exhausted, vulnerable, and defenseless.

But not everything would be lost if they managed to finish the battle quickly... it could be their only opportunity to escape before more reinforcements arrived.

In the end, they wouldn’t have to fight the Giant Cat Bear either if they didn’t have bad luck.

Min, Taro, and Liu exchanged glances for a fraction of a second. There was no time for debate or doubts. They had come too far to give up now.

”Understood!” they shouted in unison.

Taro was the first to complete his transformation. His beetle armor expanded dramatically, becoming thicker and more articulated. A twisted horn like a drill, long and sharp, emerged from his forehead (not from his mouth as Min would have wished with all his heart) like a powerful weapon, gleaming with the hardness of a high-level assassin’s proboscis. On his back, multiple articulated spears deployed like the legs of a mechanical spider, each capable of moving independently under his conscious control.

His beast, duplicated by fusion, materialized beside him: a monstrous beetle, thinner and with more legs than its original form, and a drill on its snout that spun with enough force to perforate Gold rank minerals in seconds.

”Let’s finish this!” Taro roared, his voice now distorted by the transformation. ”We don’t need to hold back anymore!”

Min completed his fusion almost simultaneously. His body acquired transparent armor that seemed made of crystallized water, providing him active camouflage that made him practically invisible without need for conscious control. His control over water also multiplied exponentially.

His duplicated beast emerged as a serpentine amphibian 15 meters long, capable of becoming completely transparent and with dozens of sensor whiskers that undulated constantly, detecting pressure and movement changes in an enormous radius.

”This always feels incredible,” Min murmured, his form now barely visible while water began responding to his most subtle thoughts.

Liu completed his transformation with a laugh that sounded more bestial than human. His body was covered with armor made of fused bones and blood that pulsed with its own life. In the air above him, his duplicated beast materialized as an enormous hyena, completely covered with bones that protruded like natural armor, with membranous wings made of coagulated blood that seemed to constantly drip but never ran out.

”Showtime,” Liu roared, his voice now multiplied by supernatural echoes.

The change in battle dynamics was immediate.

Taro’s beast immediately launched toward where Mako and Shizu were trying to maintain their sporadic underground shenanigans. Its drill pierced the earth like butter, creating tunnels that collapsed the guards’ defensive movements. Min’s transparent beast followed behind, using its whiskers to track mana signatures and exactly where the girls were hiding before launching pressurized water jets that forced them to emerge.

The two guards, already wounded by Liu’s previous sonic attacks, couldn’t resist the coordinated assault. Taro’s beast’s earth attacks kept them unbalanced, while Min’s water jets struck them every time they tried to recover their defensive positions.

In less than a minute, both guards lay unconscious on the ground, defeated by the overwhelming combination of underground and aquatic attacks.

But slightly before, during the resolution of this secondary combat...

In the air, the situation was equally intense. Liu’s winged beast had launched directly against Zhao, completely ignoring the feathers that pierced through it. Each wound bled profusely, but the blood immediately solidified into new armor plates, allowing constant regeneration.

”That annoying beast!” Zhao murmured while dodging the flying hyena’s claws. ”The blood-based regeneration that Ren discovered for Liu is too bizarre and fast!”

His feathers found their target repeatedly, perforating the membranous wings and creating deep wounds in the beast’s body. But for every wound inflicted, the creature barely lost speed and altitude.

All the synergies that Ren suggested were already beginning to show abilities never before seen in any conventional beast.

Meanwhile, not only the beasts but also the three boys intensified their support for Ren from the ground.

Except for Taro, who continued being the shield... But he extended his earth control to protect not only Min and Liu, but also Ren, creating mobile shields that rose to intercept Zhao’s feathers, freeing Ren from having to do it himself and with more resistant walls due to much higher quality earth control.

Min, now practically invisible, launched pressurized water jets that finally reached Zhao’s flight height. The Professor was forced to execute more complex evasive maneuvers, limiting his capacity to maintain constant feather attacks against Ren.

And Liu not only coordinated his aerial beast but also began launching ominous sonic attacks that traveled through the air in concentrated rays. The distorted sounds affected Zhao’s balance even when he managed to avoid direct impact.

For the first time since the beginning of combat, Zhao found himself genuinely overwhelmed by the now so many variables. Despite his legendary firing speed and being fused, his movements became more defensive, more pressured.

The offensive coordination between the four students had reached a level that transcended what should be possible for their age.

Ren seized this opportunity to charge another arrow, this time with more power than he had used before.

The black marks on his body pulsed to the rhythm of his concentration, channeling energy that made the air itself crackle with visible electricity.

Zhao quickly evaluated his options. He could dodge again if he ignored or took a weaker hit like Min’s, he had the agility for it, but perhaps it would be better to explode all his feathers simultaneously in a total coverage pattern to break the impasse. It would be very costly in energy for a complete attack again, but perhaps necessary.

’But I must concentrate to the maximum because I can’t hurt these children more than necessary,’ he calculated while preparing the maneuver. ’Especially Ren. I owe him too much, and precisely because of that I can’t let him continue this path. These sacrifices for power, these risks he’s taking don’t...’

Zhao executed the most intense feather explosion he had used in the entire battle.

Every feather he had available launched simultaneously, creating a storm of projectiles that literally covered all possible escape angles.

On the ground, Taro had barely maintained his shields protecting his companions throughout the feather explosion. Liu’s beast also barely stayed airborne despite the massive damage it had received, its wings torn but functional thanks to constant regeneration.

But Ren had been waiting for exactly this moment.

With perfect timing, he disappeared in a shadow jump, the same teleportation technique he had used to blind Lin but with another element. For a fraction of a second, he became intangible, passing through the rain of feathers as if he were a ghost.

He reappeared next to a tree branch at an angle that would be difficult for Zhao to counter even with mana perception. It was perfect timing, taking advantage of the moment of vulnerability when all feathers were in outbound flight and unavailable for defense.

He needed to do it now, before the feathers could come back...

The overcharged arrow fired from relatively close distance, at a speed that leveraged Ren’s new elemental control to maximize its chance to impact.

Zhao attempted a desperate evasive maneuver...

It seemed Ren had fired just an instant late.

But at the crucial moment, when Ren’s arrow approached its target, Liu’s winged hyena released its most powerful paralyzing roar.

The sound wasn’t just audible; it was physical, a wave of force that traveled directly to Zhao’s nervous system. For a critical fraction of a second, his muscles convulsed involuntarily, interrupting his evasive maneuver.

The arrow connected with his shoulder.

The electrical shock that followed wasn’t just the power contained in the projectile. It was all the energy Ren had been accumulating since the beginning of battle, amplified by the black marks and concentrated into a single point of impact.

Zhao was struck as if he had been hit by lightning. His fusion flickered, his wings lost synchronization, and he completely lost control of his flight.

He fell from the sky like a stone, crashing into the ground. The impact raised a dust cloud that obscured the battlefield for a few seconds.

When the dust settled, Zhao lay motionless in the center of the crater, his transformation completely deactivated, breathing laboriously and clearly defeated.

The four students remained on guard for a moment, barely able to believe what they had achieved. They had defeated one of the kingdom’s most respected tamers.

But victory had a cost. Min, Taro, and Liu began staggering almost immediately, exhaustion from complete fusion taking its toll.

Ren jumped from the tree, the black marks still pulsing on his skin, but now with a control he hadn’t had before. This battle had taught him something important about his new power.

He still hadn’t extracted its maximum potential.

”Cover them with a cone of earth so the beasts won’t find them and let’s go,” Ren murmured, walking toward his friends. ”We have to move fast before more arrive...”

”Where exactly are you supposed to be going in such a hurry?” Sirius asked from behind him.