Read Novel Full Chapter 1257 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - 4
Chapter 1257 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - 4
Yang, utilizing the fusion of his contracted beasts, raised a massive stone wall reinforced with a solid wooden core.
The towering structure served a dual purpose; it not only protected the group's lateral flank but also controlled the flow of enemies near the chasm, effectively funneling the mutants directly into the specific coordinates where the attackers held the high ground.
Standing right beside that barricade, Ignatius fused with his two Fire-affinity beasts, both of which had now successfully reached Gold rank… Had manifested a secondary wall made entirely of roaring flames.
This burning barrier forced the corrupted creatures to either attack the dragon in smaller, more manageable clusters or attempt to bypass the flames altogether. Flanking the fire meant navigating the outer edges of the dragon's strike zone, which significantly increased both the distance they had to travel inside the shadows and the total amount of damage they sustained along the way.
The defensive walls naturally took heavy damage. However, they were constantly reinforced.
The specialized Earth tamers they had brought along, including Mako and Shizu, continuously patched the cracking stone as the battle raged. Meanwhile, the Fire tamers, led by the directors of the capital's other two major academies alongside Ignatius, kept the blazing barricade alive and burning hot.
Working in perfect tandem, the elemental barriers held firm, steadily channeling the endless tide of mutants straight into a slaughterhouse.
Zhao remained airborne, carefully surveying the entire battlefield.
But he was not just acting as a passive scout... He operated as a kind of dedicated sniper, launching highly precise attacks against any wounded beast that attempted to flee the dragon's lethal range, much like the mutants Lin was constantly kicking back into the fray.
Whenever a corrupted creature thought it had successfully escaped the danger zone and Lin or her fused beast's kicks, it immediately received a high-velocity projectile straight to the skull from Zhao's aerial position. The impact stunned them just long enough to keep them trapped within the shadow's reach while their regenerative abilities struggled to restore their consciousness.
The overarching strategy remained intact.
And to ensure Selthia did not second-guess her deployment, to prevent her from realizing the humans had no immediate intention of eliminating the dragon and shifting her focus elsewhere, Zhao, Ignatius, and Hikari occasionally launched their own attacks directly at the shadow guardian. They maintained steady pressure from both sides, with humans and the corruption simultaneously striking the same target. This made the scene look like a genuine dispute for custody, forcing Selthia to keep committing her forces to the southern front out of fear that the fake golem resembling Ren might mobilize and launch a decisive strike at any given second.
And to ensure Selthia did not second-guess her deployment, to prevent her from realizing the humans had no immediate intention of eliminating the dragon and shifting her focus elsewhere, Zhao, Ignatius, and Hikari occasionally launched their own attacks directly at the shadow guardian. They maintained steady pressure from both sides, with humans and the corruption simultaneously striking the same target. This made the scene look like a genuine dispute for custody, forcing Selthia to keep committing her forces to the southern front out of fear that the fake golem resembling Ren might mobilize and launch a decisive strike at any given second.
The waiting game proved highly beneficial because the mutants were slowly but genuinely losing their overall strength despite their cannibalistic nature.
Since the academy directors possessed a specialized hidden card…
They had recently received two of the new dual-affinity potions retrieved from the wooden vault. Their strong fire beasts partnered with their newly contracted Will-o'-wisps, which could be called offspring of Liora's original beast hatched from empty cores transformed into specific eggs Ren had provided, they utilized spiritual fire to severely cripple the mutants' cannibalism.
The unique flames burned away the corrupted energy, half severing the creatures' ability to feed on the lingering ether of their dead to grow stronger.
Their spiritual flames were currently only Iron rank… Yet the directors were veteran Fire tamers, and the Will-o'-wisp was incredibly compatible with their primary element, allowing them to imbue the spiritual trait with remarkable efficiency.
In a prolonged war of attrition against the corruption from these mutants, that specific effect, which was extremely rare and difficult to secure in this tamer society, proved enormously useful. Every single corpse that burned with spiritual fire was a corpse the corruption could not recycle past fifty percent of its original value.
Everything was progressing favorably on this front.
If the battle maintained this rhythm, they would not only have a good chance to secure Yino's shadow dragon but also succeed in significantly crippling the growing corrupted army.
However, the endless flow of mutants simply refused to stop.
Gradually, between every thunderous kick, reinforced wall, and sniper shot, the southern Vanguard began to realize a chilling fact that severely dampened their morale. A full third of the Platinum-tier mutants existing in the explored world, specifically those bred by Selthia within this isolated ring, could no longer be counted in mere dozens.
There were hundreds of them.
The army commanded by the indecisive hive mind, even while fractured into three separate deployments, remained overwhelmingly massive on every single front. Her hesitation had certainly made her inefficient… But it had not made her weak.
Any commander wielding hundreds of Platinum beasts was a catastrophic threat.
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Back in the capital, Victor was experiencing a situation that was simultaneously easy and incredibly difficult.
It was tactically easy because the condensed defensive core was functioning beautifully. With the population safely consolidated behind the newly constructed smaller inner wall, the overall perimeter was significantly shorter and more so the area underground.
A compact perimeter required far fewer defenders to hold the line, and his forces were holding it exceptionally well. The mutant horde crashed against a thick, heavily garrisoned barricade manned by thousands of unified Tamers, entirely failing to find the structural gaps they would have easily exploited on the previous much longer boundary.
Yet it was emotionally agonizing because it broke his heart.
Every single evacuated house a mutant tore down in the outer districts, every watchtower that collapsed, every piece of the city the massive mutants ripped apart during their blind advance toward the center, felt like a physical blow to Victor.
This was the exact territory he had sworn to protect his entire life.
It was land they had consciously decided to surrender, empty structures whose loss was deemed an acceptable metric on a tactical ledger. But Victor had grown up walking those specific streets. Watching his home shatter piece by piece, even if it was a calculated part of the master plan, even if no civilians were actively dying for it, tightened his chest in a way no logistical victory could ever soothe.
"Stand strong on the inner wall," he commanded his tamers, keeping his voice unshakable despite the internal pain. "It is only stone. Stone can always be rebuilt, people cannot. And the people are resting safely right behind us."
He anchored himself to that single truth.
He continued defending the heart of the capital while all three fronts of the global war burned simultaneously, and far in the north, Ren patiently waited for his moment.