Read Novel Full Chapter 1183 - Taming the Old World - Amplifying Power
Chapter 1183 - Taming the Old World - Amplifying Power
The silence that followed Ren's declaration was completely different from the breathless, adrenaline-fueled lulls of the battlefield.
It was a suffocating, absolute stillness...
It was like those veteran commanders were staring at a ghost, the blood draining completely from their faces.
"No." Selphira said it before he could even draw a breath to explain himself. Her voice cracked like a whip, sharp and laced with a terror she hadn't felt in centuries. "It is infinitely too dangerous!"
"If you crystallize yourself," Julius added, stepping forward, his exhaustion entirely forgotten under the crushing weight of the ultimatum, "it is over! All of it… The entire war and our bright future lost."
The youngest yet more politically significant Qilin prince grabbed Ren's shoulder, his grip unnecessarily tight.
"You are the only living being on this planet capable of reversing the crystallization process. If you fall to it, there is absolutely no one left to pull you out of the problem. Our King Dragarion has been trapped in that frozen state for years and not even him can escape without your help. And if you freeze, we don't only lose hope for our previous King but much more. And without you, almost everything we have bled to build over the last year is lost forever."
Ren looked at his friends. He saw the genuine, unmasked terror in their eyes. He knew exactly what he was risking. He was risking an eternity trapped in his own mind, staring blankly at a world he could no longer save.
"I know," Ren said.
He certainly knew...
He understood the huge risk intimately, vastly better than anyone else breathing on this battlefield. Ren had literally served as the conduit for that forbidden energy once before. He had felt the insane power current and knew the crystallization process, felt it creeping through his veins. It was an ancient power that offered absolute, god-like dominion over the world, but it could end up demanding your soul in exchange.
"I know the risks," Ren continued, his voice steady despite his exhaustion. He spoke rapidly, cutting off any further protests before they could take root. "But my three-way fusion pushing my baseline output into the Diamond tier grants my body a localized immunity near the core of my system. It acts as a buffer."
He held up a hand, tracing a glowing, microscopic runic array in the air to make two light mana spheres and illustrate his point to the veterans.
"I have already tested the theory using the power of the fusion absorbing weaker ether runes. The absolute key to surviving it is outward pressure. I have to absorb a manageable fraction of the energy, aggressively maintain a flawless outward flow, and never allow the ether to pool in my core faster than my metabolism can push it."
He looked Julius and Selphira directly in the eyes.
"I can do this... I have spent the last year obsessively training my fusion's Diamond rank mana control without even realizing this was the exact scenario I was preparing for."
Selphira didn't blink.
"And if your calculations are wrong?" she asked softly.
"Then I crystallize…"
Ren didn't try to sugarcoat it. He didn't offer false comfort.
"I freeze solid, just like the King," he stated flatly. "But listen to me very carefully. It does not matter what we don't do today. If I refuse to take this gamble, our world ends anyway. The artifact successfully drains the sphere below the academy, claims the third ring, and returns here with an insurmountable power spike in its regeneration. It will tear my adamantium tower apart given enough time, breach the castle doors, and mutate into an entity we lack the power to kill. The safe option no longer exists on the board. We are only left with a suicidal gamble, or a guaranteed loss."
Selphira stared at the dirt-stained teenager for a long, heavy second. Her brilliant tactical mind raced, desperately searching for a flaw in his logic, a hidden variable, or a counter-argument she could use to stop him.
She found nothing… The boy was absolutely right.
"Then," Julius said, stepping forward, his golden eyes hardening with royal resolve, "if you are going to tap into that cursed energy, we are doing it too."
"All of us," Selphira added. She let out a long, defeated sigh, her shoulders dropping.
Ren mirrored her sigh, then ran a tired hand through his face.
He had fully anticipated this stubbornness... They were the Vanguard's finest; they were never going to let him walk into danger alone.
"Only the dual-contract Tamers," Ren commanded. His tone instantly shifted from a fellow soldier to the Glorious General. He turned his gaze toward Li, his expression leaving absolutely no room for debate or childhood sentimentality. "Only those possessing the capacity to sustain the overwhelming mana load."
Li opened his mouth to argue, his fists clenching at his sides, but the sheer gravity in Ren's eyes silenced him. A single-contract Tamer with a Gold-tier Plant beast would be instantly vaporized by the current. It was useless suicide.
"And you all will only pull a fraction of the energy," Ren instructed the remaining tamers. "A very small, relatively stable sliver. Just like me. None of you possess a true Diamond-tier aura, which means you lack the organic immunity I have developed. You will have to be infinitely more careful than I am. You absorb a drop, and the exact millisecond you feel the cold begin to pool in your chest, you sever the connection... Is that understood?"
The dual-contract Tamers nodded in grim unison. Selphira, Julius, Victor, Lin, Taro, Yang, Min, Liu and Zhao. Some of the absolute strongest weapons humanity had left.
It was not a choice any of them made lightly. Every single person standing in that circle had witnessed the horrific aftermath of the crystallization process. They had seen the frozen statues of their ancestors, neighbors, enemies and friends. But they also understood the brutal reality Ren had just laid bare.
There was no safe harbor left. They either embraced the risk, or they lost the world.
♢♢♢♢
They moved immediately.
Leaving the crippled Yino perimeter behind, the elite strike force launched themselves into the sky, flying directly toward Yano Castle. They were forced to leave the mechanical artifact entirely unchecked as it aggressively drank the barrier beneath the central academy. They had to place their blind, desperate faith in the adamantium tower.
They prayed the monolith could hold the castle gates long enough when the Diamond-rank dragon inevitably returned to finish the job.
It was the ultimate gamble.
The monolithic tower pitted against a ticking clock. The Vanguard racing against the geographical distance.
And finally, all of them, armed with the forbidden energy of 7 sleeping gods, waging a desperate internal war against their own capacity to control the power without turning to glass.