Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 570: Chapter 570 - Taming the Fourth Year: Journey - 8

The voice emerged from the shadows themselves, cold and tranquil, laden with an authority that made the air feel heavier. Each word seemed to carry physical weight, pressing down on the exhausted students like an invisible blanket of dread.

Sirius materialized from the darkness as if he had been waiting for exactly this moment, his form coalescing from shadow like smoke given substance. His eyes gleamed with an intensity that contrasted dramatically with his serene expression.

The temperature around them seemed to drop several degrees. Even the Golden Nose trees in the distance appeared to lean away from his presence, their branches rustling despite the absence of wind.

Ren spun around and immediately got into guard position, his heart hammering against his ribs. His friends, despite their bone-deep exhaustion, forced themselves to do the same. The black marks on Ren’s body pulsed with greater intensity upon sensing the new threat, responding to his fear and rage like living tattoos that fed on emotion.

”Your shadow jump is very clumsy,” Sirius observed with an almost academic tone, studying Ren as if he were an interesting experiment laid out for dissection. ”Slow and forced. You’re imitating a technique you don’t really understand yet.”

The criticism hit Ren harder than any physical attack could have. His hands trembled as he loaded an arrow with electrical energy, the black marks on his arms crackling while he channeled power through the projectile.

The arrowhead blazed with lightning, illuminating his face with harsh light that cast deep shadows under his eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool air, and his breathing came in short, sharp bursts.

Sirius simply smiled and waited, his arms crossed in a posture that radiated absolute confidence. He stood as still as a statue, utterly relaxed, as if watching a child throw a tantrum rather than facing a potentially lethal attack.

Ren fired the overcharged arrow with all the force he could muster, his entire body straining with the effort. The projectile screamed through the air, trailing electrical discharge like a comet. For a heartbeat, it seemed the arrow would find its target, Sirius hadn’t moved, hadn’t even flinched.

But he simply disappeared.

It wasn’t like Ren’s clumsy shadow jump. There was no buildup, no gathering of power, no telltale distortion of mana. One moment he was there, solid and real, and the next he was gone, as if the darkness itself had devoured him whole and regurgitated him somewhere else entirely.

The arrow passed harmlessly through empty air.

Sirius reappeared directly behind Min, who was still struggling to maintain his complete fusion. Before Min could even register the presence behind him, before his enhanced senses could process the threat, Sirius struck with precision at the base of his neck.

The blow was controlled, measured, exactly enough force as needed. Min’s eyes rolled back, his mouth opening in a silent gasp as his body went limp. His fusion deactivated like a switch being flipped, the transparent armor dissolving into ordinary water that splashed uselessly to the ground.

He collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, hitting the earth with a soft thud that seemed impossibly loud in the tense silence.

Sirius vanished again before Taro or Liu could even attack.

He reappeared in exactly the same position where he had begun, as if he had never moved at all. His clothes weren’t even wrinkled, his breathing hadn’t changed, he might as well have been standing there the entire time.

”LEAVE!” Ren roared, his voice distorted by rage and the black marks that now covered more than half his body. The markings writhed across his skin like living serpents, pulsing with each heartbeat, each pulse of fury that coursed through his veins. ”You shouldn’t be this far from your territory! Go back! You’re hurting Luna!”

The words tore from his throat raw and desperate, carrying all the pain and frustration he’d been holding back. His hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles went white, and electrical energy arced between his fingers in chaotic patterns.

Sirius’s serene expression hardened visibly, the mask of calm cracking to reveal something far more dangerous underneath. His eyes narrowed to predatory slits.

”What do you think you know?” he asked, his voice now loaded with menace.

He made a casual gesture to cover his pocket, and Ren caught a glimpse of the edge of a new letter he hadn’t seen before. A letter that would probably put Luna in that same strange, heartbroken mood she always fell into whenever she received one of those from her father.

The sight of that letter, the casual way Sirius treated what was obviously another source of pain for his daughter, snapped something inside Ren’s chest.

”You’re a horrible father!” Ren screamed without thinking, the words erupting from him like poison that had been festering too long. They carried all his rage, all his frustration at being powerless to protect those who mattered most to him.

Sirius went completely still for a moment that stretched like eternity. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath. Even the distant sounds of creatures in the Golden Nose clusters fell silent.

Then, without changing his expression, without even a flicker of emotion crossing his face, Sirius raised one hand and launched a simple light ray directly toward Ren.

The attack was casual, almost lazy, the kind of strike one might use to swat an annoying insect. But Ren could see the deadly precision in it, the way it cut through the air with lethal intent.

Ren managed to dodge it, throwing himself sideways with desperate agility, but the ray traveled directly toward where Taro was trying to protect Min’s unconscious body and Liu.

”Taro!” Ren’s scream echoed through the clearing, raw with worry for his friend.

Taro managed to cover himself with his armor plates, the beetle-shell protection flaring to life just in time. But the sound of impact, a resonant crack like breaking stone, was immediately followed by Liu’s choked cry of pain.

Sirius had used the distraction to teleport again, appearing behind Liu like death itself. His strike was clinical, efficient, targeting the same nerve cluster he’d used on Min. Liu’s bone and blood armor dissolved as he crumpled.

Taro, now the only friend Ren had left standing, sealed himself completely behind his armor.

But Sirius didn’t strike him directly.