My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

The thick, churning smoke from the spatial detonation began to part, forced aside not by the wind, but by the sheer, oppressive weight of the mana rising from the center of the crater.

Vetra’s breath caught in her throat. Lyrielle raised her staff, her knuckles white.

The purple eyes glowing in the darkness didn’t belong to a dying man. They belonged to a apex predator.

Step by step, Vince emerged from the haze. He had completely discarded his human restraint. Black-and-crimson dragon scales armored his entire frame, tight and impenetrable. A heavy, scaled tail lashed through the dust behind him, and broad dragonkin wings flared slightly from his back. He was in his full Man-Beast Form—a terrifying fusion of dragonkin majesty and raw, violent power.

Crackling arcs of golden kinetic energy and black spatial lightning danced wildly off his body. The point-blank spatial landmine hadn’t destroyed him; his dragon core had absorbed every ounce of its raw force, storing it like a coiled spring beneath his skin.

Across the ruined earth, Vesper stood dragging his breath through blood-slicked teeth. His body was battered, his squad wiped out, but his dark eyes burned with an unholy, fanatic fire.

Without a word, Vesper ignited his remaining soul-mana.

[Shadow Art: Umbral Blade-Swarm]

Dozens of razor-sharp shadow needles materialized in the air around Vesper, shooting forward like a storm of dark iron. Simultaneously, Vesper slammed his palm into the earth.

[Shadow Art: Tendril Anchor]

Thick, writhing tendrils of liquid shadow erupted beneath Vince’s feet, wrapping around his ankles and calves to bind him in place.

Vince didn’t bother dodging. He flexed his leg muscles, and the raw physical pressure of his dragon aura shattered the shadow tendrils into harmless mist. With a casual sweep of his scale-armored forearm, he smashed the incoming blade-swarm, turning Vesper’s shadow construct into a shower of harmless dark sparks.

Vesper was already inside his guard, executing a [Shadow Mirage Step]. Three identical shadow decoys blurred around Vince, each thrusting a pitch-black dagger toward a vital point—neck, heart, and liver.

Vince spun in his man-beast form, his tail whipping through the air like a steel beam. The tail pulverized two decoys into smoke, while his heavy, scale-clad fist collided with Vesper’s true blade.

BOOM!

The concussive shockwave blew the surrounding debris outward. Both fighters disengaged simultaneously, vaulting backward across the crater, creating thirty paces of space between them.

Arcing sparks of kinetic energy hissed off Vince’s scaled chest. Across from him, Vesper gripped his remaining shortsword with two hands, his legs trembling from total physical exhaustion.

In the quiet distance, Vetra watched the suffocating tension reach its breaking point. She swallowed hard, her voice barely a whisper.

”This is it...”

Vince looked across the distance at the assassin leader. Despite the blood and the madness, Vince recognized the absolute, unwavering conviction in Vesper’s posture.

”You fought well, Vesper,” Vince said, his voice deep, resonance vibrating through the air like rolling thunder. ”Your squad was loyal to the end. Maybe in another life... we could have been brothers.”

Vesper stared at him, his face bloody, his dark eyes cold as ice. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the dirt.

”That’d be a stain on my blood.”

Vesper dropped into a low, lethal stance. He channeled every single remaining drop of his life-force, his shadow mana, and his soul into one final, absolute technique.

[Shadow Art: Sovereign Piercing]

Vesper’s lower body completely dissolved into a jet-black, pressurized umbral mist. He shot across the clearing at sound-breaking speed, hovering an inch off the ground. Three shadow mirages split off from his body to obscure his trajectory, all converging into a single, razor-thin point of dark spatial force aimed straight for Vince’s heart core.

It was the ultimate strike of a master shadow assassin. Flawless. Lethal. Absolute.

Vince didn’t dodge. He didn’t raise his guard.

He braced his feet and shifted his weight.

Vesper’s true blade struck Vince directly in the center of his chest scales.

CLANG!

The tip of the shadow-blade bit into the obsidian scale, but it didn’t pierce the heart. The exact moment point-blank impact was made, Vince triggered the technique he had perfected at the academy.

[Kinetic Redirection]

All the pent-up, explosive energy stored within Vince’s core—the kinetic force from Vesper’s earlier spatial landmine, the relentless blade strikes, and the violent momentum of Vesper’s final lunge—was inverted in a microsecond.

Instead of absorbing it, Vince redirected every single joule of stored energy back out through his chest point at zero distance.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A blinding, cataclysmic shockwave of golden-and-black force exploded outward from Vince’s core.

Vesper’s shadow blade shattered into a thousand useless fragments. The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force hit Vesper like the slam of a siege engine, shattering his armor, snapping his ribs, and tearing away his shadow form instantly.

Vesper was blasted backward like a ragdoll, hurtling fifty feet through the air before crashing violently into the dirt, rolling several times, and coming to a complete, motionless stop.

Silence descended upon the forest.

The dust settled slowly. Vince stood in the center of the crater, his breath steady as the crimson-and-black dragon scales receded back into his skin, returning him to his human form.

Before his eyes, glowing, translucent purple text flared into existence.

> [CONGRATULATIONS]

> Target Neutralized: Vesper (Leader of the Death Crows)

> Squad Annihilation Confirmed: Death Crows Unit (100% Defeated)

> [Soul Essence Harvested]

> [Experience Gained: High-Tier Assassin Core Claimed]

> [Reward: Spatial-Shadow Affinity Shard Acquired]

Vince closed the system interface with a flick of his mind.

Vetra and Lyrielle hurried over to his side, looking at the crater, then at the fallen Vesper, and finally at Vince.

”It’s over,” Vetra breathed, exhaling a long, tense breath.

”They have fallen,” Lyrielle agreed softly, looking toward the horizon where the sun was beginning to dip.

Vince turned his eyes away from the ruined clearing, looking out through the trees toward the very distant western duchy of Duke Owen.

”Vesper was just another pawn in the Duke’s board,” Vince said quietly, his voice hard as iron. ”We’re headed back to the beginning.”