Read Novel Full Chapter 1164 - Taming the Old World - Scouting
Chapter 1164 - Taming the Old World - Scouting
A few hours earlier…
While Ren was quietly tracking the corrupted trail that would send him toward the Fire ring, Zhao was tearing through on his way to the deep zones of Yino.
Fused with his Raptor, his flight was an aerodynamic marvel. It was still entirely silent, but now possessing an immense, blistering speed that his old Owl could never hope to replicate.
He cut across the sky at an altitude and velocity that left the clouds swirling in his wake, moving faster than almost any other Tamer in the Vanguard could.
He didn't dare approach the guardians directly. He observed them from the absolute edge of the horizon, prioritizing his safety and shaving hundreds of miles off his route. Relying on the enhanced eyesight granted by his now fusion enhanced Owl's lineage, he peered through the atmospheric haze to check the Shadow Dragon on Yino's side first.
Following the clockwise rotation, it was the closest and most resilient target on the map.
The Shadow Dragon was intact…
The sprawling dark clouds over its domain churned undisturbed. Zhao let out a slow, shaky breath, allowing his shoulders to drop a fraction of an inch. If the guardian of which same element Selthia was attacking on the other side of the fissure was still standing here, then maybe her assault on Yano's Black Dragon didn't mean she had a free pass in Yino.
Perhaps the board wasn't tilting quite as drastically as Ren and him feared.
But a single surviving dragon didn't clear the board yet. He pushed forward, diving deeper into the continent.
Then the next dragon in the rotation delivered the worst possible surprise.
And it did it with its absence…
♢♢♢♢
Yino's Fire Guardian was gone.
Zhao hit the invisible brakes, coming to a dead halt in the freezing air. He stared down at the landscape, his mind struggling to process the sheer emptiness of the crater.
The geography was scarred by a colossal battle, but it lacked the sharp, bleeding edges of recent destruction. The combat felt old, perhaps a month or more. The shattered bedrock had settled. The volcanic vents that should have been spewing liquid fire were choked with cold, gray ash, and the deep scars in the earth were already mostly under that same ash.
There were no corpses… Nothing.
The mutant swarm had packed up and left a long time ago. They had undoubtedly cannibalized their own fallen troops before marching out, ensuring not a single drop of energy was wasted. They left absolutely no trace of the apocalyptic clash, save for the broken, silent earth.
The mountain itself was turned off.
Its elemental heartbeat had stopped.
The ring was gone.
A shard of pure ice slid down Zhao's spine. He banked hard, pushing his Raptor fusion to its absolute limits, racing toward the next dragon. He prayed to every Dragon God he knew that this was an isolated incident. A single, tragic loss, not a pattern.
But the nightmare simply repeated itself.
Two rings... Empty.
Zhao's face drained of all color, turning ashen pale.
♢♢♢♢
The third dragon, the Guardian of Water, presented a slightly different scene.
The destruction here was fresh. The battle over the coastal waters hadn't ended that long ago. Down in the churning surf surrounding the great blue mountain, a swarm of mutants was actively feeding on the massive, submerged corpses.
The corrupted mutant beasts didn't look comfortable in the ocean. The aquatic element and the shifting tides clashed awkwardly with their land-based biology. But the water here wasn't weighed down by the crushing, magnified gravity of the deep dark zones, allowing them to paddle and thrash efficiently enough to strip the remaining bones clean.
Sadly...
The water mountain, just like the others, was dead.
Yino was the only territory in the known world with access to the sea. It was a massive coastline that swallowed a quarter of the continent, biting deep into the borders of both the Wind and Wood zones, affecting them.
Geographically speaking, the ocean was barely an eighth of the world on this side of the Fissure. But in the ancient castle murals, painted with crushed lapis lazuli and faded gold, suggested something far grander. The scholars believed that on the other side of the divine world, past the blinding barrier of the Light Fissure, this sea continued unbroken. The old paintings depicted a huge ocean covering nearly 3 quarters of the remaining globe.
What started here as a mere coastal corner became an empire of water on the other side.
But none of that ancient history mattered right now… Ren-like mind processes were infecting him.
The present reality demanded all his attention.
♢♢♢♢
Zhao's mana reserves were flashing a critical warning.
Maintaining a high-tier fusion at maximum velocity was a mana management nightmare. His veins burned, and his muscles felt like they were packed with sand. He had been burning ether for nearly half an hour straight. He desperately wanted to push forward and check the two remaining common elements in Yino, Earth and Wood, but he had to make a tactical call.
Three rings belonged to Selthia. At minimum.
That was all the intelligence the Vanguard needed. It was more than enough.
He didn't need to risk his life and lose the chance to give an early report just to confirm the fourth or fifth. The city had to enter a maximum state of emergency immediately.
Every single minute he wasted scouting additional empty mountains was a minute the Vanguard spent completely blind to the guillotine hanging over their heads.
Three elemental rings in the hands of corruption. And all of them located in Yino, where Selthia's underground network was vastly larger, deeper, and more entrenched than anywhere else on the planet.
Zhao spun around.
He flew back at absolute top speed, wringing every last drop of mana from his core.
He only canceled the fusion when he finally crossed into Yino's shallow Silver ring. His energy was completely spent, but here, the natural aura of his Golden Royal Raptor was enough to ward off the low-level scavengers hiding in the sky.
He allowed himself to collapse onto the broad, soft back of his Owl.
From these inner rings, the avian beast could cover the remaining distance to Yano's center in about ten minutes.
Zhao lay flat against the feathers, his lungs heaving, completely exhausted. The heaviest news in human history sat like a lead weight on his chest. He watched the spires of the city slowly rise on the horizon, knowing the people sleeping inside had no idea what he was bringing them.
Three guardian dragons have fallen.
And counting…
♢♢♢♢
Zhao bypassed the gates and flew directly into the castle courtyard.
The ten-minute rest on the Owl's back had allowed his core to regenerate just enough mana to steady his breathing. The moment his boots hit the cobblestone, he broke into a dead sprint. He navigated the polished corridors, ignoring the startled guards, heading straight for the war room. He even had arrived miles ahead of Ren's messenger bird.
Selphira and Julius met him in the grand hall almost instantly. The sheer, unmasked panic in his approach had triggered their instincts.
And at that precise moment, though no one in the castle knew it, Ren was only just deciding to challenge the Fire Guardian.
Ren hadn't pushed his speed to the absolute limit like Zhao had.
He couldn't.
Ren had to stockpile his energy for the apocalyptic fight waiting for him. Arriving with a drained core to challenge an apex beast would have been tactical suicide. So, even though Ren's three-way fusion technically boasted a higher top speed than Zhao's, he had covered the vast majority of his journey riding casually on the back of his mantis, meticulously preserving his mana.
Zhao had done the exact opposite. He had weaponized his energy purely for speed, burning his candle at both ends to cross the same massive distance ten times faster. His mission was to scout and warn, not to fight.
That was exactly why Zhao was already standing in the castle, delivering a kingdom-shattering report, while Ren still had miles to fly before his battle even began.
But the ticking clock wasn't the biggest threat on the board anymore.
Ren had made the enemy change gears hours ago. By returning to physically inspect the Wood ruin, he had tripped a wire in the dark.
Now Selthia already knew...