Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1159 - Taming the Old World - Guardians

Ren and Zhao pushed through the final stretch of the largest Platinum ring.

The river of mutants had thinned out considerably. It was sparse now, almost sporadic. Only beasts that had breached the Gold rank as minimum managed to survive this far into the zone. They were the grotesque yet strong result of the relentless cannibalism and brutal synthetic selection that had taken place along the march. Anything weaker had been left behind, either crushed by the oppressive gravity or devoured by their stronger kin, entirely unable to withstand the suffocating environment of the dark mana at Platinum 3 rank.

Yet, despite their dwindling numbers, the core problem remained. They were still moving deeper.

Even if it was just a trickle compared to the raging river they had witnessed in the Gold rings, the vanguard was still receiving a steady supply of fresh biomass. Ren kept his eyes locked on that specific detail as they flew. It didn't matter how thin the line became.

The chain hadn't broken.

They flew in silence for a long time, the atmosphere growing heavier by the minute, weighing especially hard on Zhao's lungs. Finally, the dense black haze thinned, revealing the towering entrance to the mountain.

And for the first time in hours, a wave of genuine relief washed over them.

At least this time, it wasn't bad news.

♢♢♢♢

Selthia's mutants stood absolutely no chance against this guardian.

That reality was immediately apparent, lifting a massive weight off both their shoulders.

Multiple times during the flight, Ren and Zhao had fought the urge to swoop down and cull the strongest Platinum beasts anchoring the swarm, hoping to sever the supply line. But acting blindly before seeing the terminus of the march would have been a waste of critical fusion energy. Cutting the chain in the middle without knowing what was happening at the front was a tactical error they didn't know if they could afford.

Now they were finally at the end of the line. And they could see that intervening here would still be pointless.

The dragon's sheer presence had fundamentally altered the frontier terrain. It had carved out a massive, deep lake around the entrance of the mountain. It wasn't normal water. It was a moat of dense, tar-like sludge, heavily saturated with the exact same dark mana that choked the rest of the ring but much deeper.

This was a fatal obstacle for the mutants. Stripped of the ability to cast elemental skills, the corrupted swarm could only rely on close-quarters physical strikes. Against a liquid barrier that swallowed their bodies whole, the corruption had no immediate answer.

Ren saw the aftermath of the initial skirmish that was written into the mud.

The dragon had clearly given the vanguard exactly what it wanted. Those initial, hyper-scaled beasts hovering near Platinum 3 power had reached the guardian with enough momentum and surprise to actually reach for a physical confrontation.

The dragon had simply erased them…

A single breath had torn them to shreds. After dealing with the immediate nuisance, it had casually summoned the heavy swamp to ensure the endless stream of weaker stragglers wouldn't bother it further.

Ren pieced the narrative together through his mana perception, peering beneath the murky surface. He saw the ruined husks of the first attackers resting at the bottom. Drowned above them were the intact corpses of the newer mutants. They had blindly marched into the water, realizing a second too late that the crushing gravity and viscous liquid offered no escape. The moat was incredibly deep; only a few jagged spikes of dead flesh managed to break the black surface.

And the guardian? It was slacking off.

The colossal beast rested near the mountain entrance, practically asleep. A single eye remained half-open, tracking the edge of the water with just enough focus to keep the corrupted tide in check. It refused to dedicate a single ounce of unnecessary attention to the swarm.

♢♢♢♢

High in the clouds, the two Tamers analyzed the standoff. They kept their own mana strictly suppressed, hiding from the dragon's radar.

"Will the flow eventually fill the moat with bodies if we don't stop it?" Zhao asked, his voice hushed. "Could they bridge the gap and reach the dragon?"

"It's possible, considering the sheer biomass her network possesses," Ren replied. "But Selthia would have to leave this running for months to make that strategy work."

He tipped his chin toward the resting guardian.

"Look at it… The dragon is doing the bare minimum, it isn't even using half its power. If it wanted to, it could expand that moat or make it ten times deeper. It has more than enough range to hold them off for a very long time."

Zhao tracked the dragon's lazy posture and nodded. The moat wasn't a desperate last stand. It was a casual swat at a fly. The minimal effort required to keep the pests away.

"There's no point in us trying to cut the flow from here either," Ren added. "If I fuse, the dragon is going to register me as a high-level threat and blast us out of the sky with a breath. We'd have to retreat and sever the line much further back, hunting the Platinums…"

"I see... And we're not sure that would even work," Zhao thought aloud, running through the idea. "We cull the strongest ones, and the swarm just eats them to recover the lost energy. Even burning them to ash without Liora's spiritual fire might not be enough, based on what we saw earlier." He frowned. "Not even the lethal venom of the black serpents slowed them down. As long as they feed on the corrupted energy of their dead... their vitality is just insane."

While Zhao continued to weigh their options, Ren's mind was already racing ahead. A colder, far more pressing concern gripped him.

The Shadow Guardians and the Light Guardians were the 4 strongest creatures in this physical world. They were the absolute hardest to kill.

That was exactly the problem.

If Selthia chose to target the Shadow Guardian, knowing full well it was one of the four toughest entities in range, she didn't do it because it was an easy mark.

She did it for another reason entirely.

And if she could afford to throw this much biomass at a wall of brick, the weaker elemental guardians were in critical danger.

Or worse. Maybe already…