Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 746 - Taming the Fifth Year - Stars of the Past - Betrayal and Its Consequences - 2

Orion clutched the purple core, feeling corrupt power pulsing against his palm with a rhythm that felt wrong, unnatural, like a heartbeat from something that shouldnʼt be alive.

Sirius had earned this through his actions…

By leaving him here unconscious and vulnerable. By stealing Lyzeaʼs crystallized heart that should have remained in Orionʼs possession. By always, always acting as if he were better, more moral, more deserving of respect and authority.

By making Orion feel inadequate through his simple existence, through achieving Gold 2 easily when Orion had struggled to reach Gold 1, through being the golden child their father had favored while Orion had been the disappointing spare.

All the resentment from years of living in Siriusʼs shadow crystallized in this moment, all the jealousy, inadequacy and suppressed rage finding focus in a corrupt sphere that promised revenge if he was willing to pay its price.

He knew what activating it would mean…

He understood the consequences that would ripple through close families and territories neighboring his. Recognized that innocent civilian deaths would result from summoning corrupted beasts into populated areas without proper defenses in place.

But Sirius deserved all of it for his arrogance, for his theft, for leaving Orion behind like worthless trash.

The rationalization felt thin even to himself, justification that couldnʼt quite cover the enormity of what he was about to do. But fury and jealousy made excellent blinders, letting him ignore most of the consequences by focusing on the immediate satisfaction of ʼrevengeʼ.

Orion activated the core.

The sphere cracked in his hand, purple light exploding in wave that passed harmlessly through him but carried corruption into the world. Summoning signal that would attract every corrupted beast within a massive radius, drawing them toward the heart of this Starweaver territory and a bit of his for appearances sake, like moths to a flame that would burn them and everything else around where they land.

He felt it propagate through stone and earth, felt the corruption spreading like a disease. Felt the moment when those beasts began responding to the call, thousands of corrupted creatures turning toward a signal they couldnʼt ignore even if theyʼd wanted to.

Heʼd never use it on himself, but the enemy of his enemy, today, was his friend…

Satisfaction warred with horror in his chest as he realized fully what heʼd done, what couldnʼt be undone now that the core had activated and the signal had spread. This wasnʼt just revenge on Sirius anymore. This was something that would make him responsible for atrocities heʼd rationalized as justified when they were anything but.

But it was done. The core was spent, its energy released into waves that couldnʼt be recalled. The beasts were coming whether he regretted the decision or not.

So he pushed the horror down, buried it beneath the anger that was easier to feel than guilt. Convinced himself Sirius had forced this choice through his actions, that this was consequence rather than cause, effect rather than independent decision.

Lies he told himself because admitting truth would mean facing what heʼd become in pursuit of revenge that felt hollow now that it was accomplished.

The earth shook with an approaching horde, tremors announcing catastrophe rushing toward people who had no idea why they were about to die. Toward civilians whoʼd trusted the powerful Starweaver family to protect them, who would learn too late that protection had been abandoned for personal vendettas and ancient secrets that mattered more to nobles than common lives.

Orion stood in the ninth chamber listening to advancing doom, holding the shattered remains of a purple core that had just condemned thousands to death for the crime of being in the wrong place when a jealous noble decided revenge was worth any price he didnʼt have to pay.

He smiled with bitter satisfaction while waiting for the wave to begin emerging far from here, on the surface, in a radius around the core as theyʼd told him where it would cause maximum chaos in Siriusʼs territory.

But then he felt something that made his satisfied smile freeze…

A tremor in the ground that was too close, too immediate to be what heʼd expected. Not a distant rumbling from surface attacks but vibrations directly beneath his feet suggesting proximity that shouldnʼt be possible given how the core was supposed to function.

And the sound came next, confirming his growing dread.

Roars, growls and shrieks from beasts that shouldnʼt sound like that. The type of sounds creatures made when corruption had twisted them beyond natural, when what had been alive became something that violated the concept of life itself.

Coming from above, from the stairs, directly toward him instead of dispersing across Siriusʼs territory like the plan had promised.

No…

The realization hit him like fist to the stomach, understanding arriving with the weight of doom. The core wasnʼt directing beasts toward the surroundings in a kilometer radius as theyʼd promised him. It was attracting them directly to the summoning source with a single-minded purpose that ignored everything else.

Directly toward him in these sealed chambers where he had nowhere to run.

ʼDamned Goldcrest traitors!ʼ

They wanted to bury him with the evidence, wanted to make it look like heʼd died heroically battling against the wave he himself had caused. Nobody would find the truth after the beasts tore him apart and scattered the pieces. Nobody would know House Goldcrest had been involved.

Clean hands through his death, plausible deniability even if he survives as he couldnʼt even declare he used their dirty corruption here.

The first corrupted creature appeared at the ninth chamberʼs entrance, something that might once have been a wolf but now had too many limbs sprouting from wrong places, too many eyes staring with hunger that went beyond simple animal need.

Orion didnʼt wait to see how many more followed behind, didnʼt pause to count enemies when counting would only confirm his doom. He still didnʼt have sufficient mana or his beast link recovered nor ready to defend himself against what was coming, he wouldnʼt survive a fight with even one of those things in his current state let alone the horde he could hear approaching.

He ran toward the stairs descending to the tenth chamber, ignoring the pain from his wounds that screamed protests, ignoring the arm hanging useless, fleeing with everything he had because stopping meant death and running might mean survival.

If Sirius was still mad but hadnʼt seriously decided to kill him yet…