Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1268 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - Reinforcements

The moment the transcendent heart of the guardian emerged from the wreckage, a core worth infinitely more than the massive body now evaporating around it, Ren severed his beam.

He immediately expanded his ethereal perception…

And scrutinized his surroundings, feeling the texture of the terrain and scanning deep underground. He searched for enemies, hidden ambushes, or any nasty surprises Selthia might have buried for the exact moment Ren lowered his guard in victory. A delayed attack, a dormant runic trap, anything at all.

He found nothing.

The northern front was completely clean.

Selthia had genuinely abandoned this battlefield without leaving a single hidden card beneath the soil. It was not because she lacked the desire to do so, but because it was tactically impossible. The bedrock beneath the Diamond rank crystal mountain was too dense, the Vanguard's perception was far too sharp, and leaving any asset behind meant almost surely sacrificing it to Liora's spiritual fire.

It was one of those rare moments when a grand victory did not conceal a secondary nightmare, and Ren knew exactly how to appreciate those clean wins as well.

"Liu!" Ren shouted over the fiery noise. "Ask Selphira to help me extinguish the flames near the carcass!"

He requested ground support, then turned to ask the same of the girls beside him.

Between Selphira, Luna, and Larissa, fueled by another massive pulse of wind that drove the black smoke away, they began to clear the immediate zone around the dragon's remains, cooling the inferno just enough to make it approachable.

Ren did not wait for them to finish the job entirely.

He mana jumped down toward the exposed core and instantly stored it within his shadow, offering a brief, silent mental apology to the unfortunate beast.

But there was no time for hesitation...

Securing the core was only half the mission. Resting just behind the guardian's fallen body, faintly visible through the dying flames and dissipating smoke, the entrance to the crystal mountain waited. It was the ancient ruin of Yano's Darkness dragon, harboring its ring deep inside; the true prize validating an entire day and a quarter of grueling stealth, elaborate deception, brutal combat, and fire.

Ren landed amidst the searing heat and stared into the dark mouth of the cavern.

The dragon was dead.

Now, it was time to go inside.

♢♢♢♢

Moments earlier in the capital, Arturo was still managing the defense quite well... But he was already much closer to the breaking point than he preferred.

One hundred and eighty Platinum beasts were currently on the field, and the original flow of mutants showed no signs of stopping. The safe threshold he had calculated himself, standing firmly at two hundred, was no longer a distant figure. It was a rapidly approaching wall, and beyond that barrier, the mathematics ceased to be in his favor.

Yet the encrypted message from Selphira, which had reached his hands just a moment prior, carried news that was simultaneously encouraging and grim.

It was a positive development because reinforcements were currently en route; Julius, Taro, Min, and Wei were all flying toward the city.

However, it was equally troubling because the corruption would inevitably receive reinforcements of its own.

Arturo ran the numbers once more, simply because running the cold arithmetic was the only thing keeping him sane.

At least a hundred more high-tier mutants were currently marching toward the capital, redirected from the northern front that Ren's group had practically won already and Selthia had abandoned, according to the recent dispatch. Furthermore, Arturo strongly suspected that at least two dozen stragglers from the most distant edges of the original swarm were still unaccounted for. These were the beasts Selthia had seeded in the farthest corners of the territory, and they were only just beginning to converge at the central rallying point surrounding the city.

The timelines did not align very well in his favor.

Those two dozen stragglers would arrive very soon, likely within five to ten minutes, pushing the total enemy count dangerously close to the maximum threshold.

But still not every time variable was working against them.

Selphira's designated reinforcements would arrive in an hour. In contrast, the hundred mutants marching from the north would require around two hours to complete the trek.

Even hovering precariously near the threshold, the Vanguard would only need to hold the line for less than sixty minutes.

The primary tactical advantage here was that Selphira's operatives would touch down long before the bulk of the corrupted horde arrived. Traveling through the air was inherently faster than traversing the rugged ground. And Wei was nowhere near as swift as a high-tier avian messenger, but even while carrying three additional passengers, he remained at least twice as fast as a marching Platinum mutant.

Securing Julius and Taro was fantastic news as well. They would fortify the wall better than anyone else on the roster. Even Min, armed with his volatile detonations, would prove devastating against the highly condensed enemy formations that a siege of this magnitude naturally generated.

Yet Arturo remained uncertain about how to deploy the rest of his available assets.

The core issue revolved around the southern deployment…

Would it be tactically sound to order the southern detachment to abandon their clash against the shadow dragon and return to bolster the capital?

That maneuver would entirely guarantee the city's survival, but it would effectively hand a sovereign shadow guardian directly to Selthia.

Or could he stretch his current forces to their utmost limit, tighten the defensive grid, and attempt to weather the storm without them until the aerial reinforcements arrived, thereby granting the southern squad a genuine chance to secure their own victory?

The situation was remarkably complex for him… Incredibly complex.

Every option carried a heavy potential cost, and Arturo, who perceived the entire strategic board more clearly than anyone else, recognized that neither path offered a clean resolution like Ren's impending triumph. Withdrawing the southern squad meant surrendering a dragon. Leaving them in place meant risking the capital. And he was forced to choose between those two grim alternatives relying on incomplete intelligence, watching the numbers constantly shift beneath his feet with every passing minute.

"I need more concrete data to be certain," he muttered, keeping his eyes glued to the tactical map. "Before committing to a decision of this magnitude, I need to observe the next movement and calculate the precise level of risk."

A vital piece of intelligence would arrive in roughly ten minutes. It was a message that would force him to completely rethink his logistical approach.

But he did not know that just yet…

♢♢♢♢

Meanwhile, on the southern front, the situation was turning grim.

The academy masters and directors were holding the line with everything they had. Unfortunately, Yang's massive stone wall had already collapsed. The dense wall simply failed to withstand the combined physical pressure of the mutant swarm and their continuous elemental bombardments, leaving only the ethereal barriers, specifically Ignatius's blazing walls, standing in the way.