Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1275 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - All Reinforcements

Isaac, a man who belonged in front of a forge rather than on a battlefield, found himself in a situation very similar to Klein's. Using his two fire beasts and a deep understanding of beasts fusion usually reserved for shaping crystals, he proved surprisingly effective at cornering a stray mutant.

He did not fight with the elegant grace of a trained soldier. He fought like a blacksmith striking an anvil; he used heavy force mixed with the practice of his trade.

The princes' half-siblings contributed to the meat grinder as well.

They lacked overwhelming firepower and they were not dual tamers, yet they stood their ground. They plugged minor gaps, held precarious defensive lines, and fed their own strength into the massive machine keeping the city alive.

Ren's old neighbors, the children of the humble villagers who lived near the hill outside the inner wall, fought shoulder to shoulder. Wielding their mostly plant-type beasts, they defended their territory with the exact same communal loyalty they had shown Ren over the past few years.

And surprisingly enough, even Larissa's mother stepped onto the stage.

Lutea had spent years isolated in her quiet, aristocratic corner.

Today, she proved her worth.

She was, after all, a genuine dual tamer. A relic of the older generation, certainly rusted from years of avoiding combat, but a powerhouse nonetheless. When the vibrant city Ren had shown her from the high tower, the sprawling capital filled with the common people who truly sustained the kingdom, began to burn around her, something shifted inside Lutea. She refused to just sit and watch it crumble.

She fought… She moved with rigid, haughty posture, constantly muttering bitter complaints about the sheer indignity of the dirt and the noise. Yet she unleashed her beasts, casting powerful spells that halted advancing mutants in their tracks, saving lives that would have otherwise been lost.

Perhaps Ren's little educational tour had paid off after all.

♢♢♢♢

But every well eventually runs dry…

Without the four most powerful earth tamers anchoring the frontline, the Vanguard's defense lost its sturdy foundation. Julius, Taro, and the remaining earth specialists had completely drained their internal reserves to break the massive wave.

A double fusion offered an incredible surge of combat prowess, but it came with a strict expiration date. Facing a staggering two hundred and seventy-five mutant apex predators, even the most resilient warriors had bled their cores dry.

Min was also running on fumes, his relentless aerial bombardments slowing to a mere trickle.

They had accomplished a monumental task. Through sheer grit, they had carved the enemy numbers down from two hundred and seventy-five to roughly one hundred and eighty. In any standard engagement, that remaining figure would have been highly manageable for the city as a whole.

However, the surviving beasts were already beginning to cannibalize the fallen…

♢♢♢♢

This was the exact nightmare Arturo had anticipated from the very beginning.

Lacking a specialized tamer to incinerate the almost full residual energy trapped within the corpses as mana, every single fallen monster transformed into premium fuel. Now, with the human defenders completely exhausted, the rotting corruption stepped forward to collect its debt.

The surviving beasts ravenously devoured their dead kin. They rapidly replenished their stamina, and the terrifying headcount began to crawl back upward. One hundred and eighty-five…

Then almost one hundred and ninety.

The monstrous army they had sacrificed so much blood to decimate was actively reconstructing itself using the husks of its own slaughtered ranks.

It felt like everything was lost.

In the eyes of any one outside his mind, Arturo's controversial decision to divert crucial reinforcements south right when the capital needed them most appeared painfully greedy. It looked like a catastrophic tactical error destined to cost them the entire city.

Or at least, that is what someone might assume if they failed to trust Arturo's flawless arithmetic.

He had not been greedy... He had executed a precise calculation, timed down to almost the exact minute.

The fast message he received earlier, the specific intel that had soothed his nerves and given him the tactical clearance to risk helping the southern front, was finally manifesting into reality.

Arturo never gambled blindly.

He placed his chips on hard data, banking on a meticulously scheduled arrival.

And that precise minute had just struck.

Down in the mud, the hundred slaughtered beasts that were actively fueling the enemy resurgence suddenly ignited.

The ignition was systematic. One pile of flesh caught fire, then the next, rapidly spreading across the perimeter of the capital. The corpses erupted in blinding purple flames mere seconds before the scavengers could sink their teeth into them.

A furious, searing wave of spiritual fire swept across the battlefield like a cleansing tide. It aggressively consumed every fallen body, permanently denying the corruption the grim banquet it required to resurrect its army.

The mutants leaning down to feast found only searing pain and drifting spiritual ash instead of nutrient-rich meat. The rising enemy headcount froze, then began to drop once more, this time permanently.

The exhausted defenders slowly lifted their heads, searching the smog for the source of their miracle.

They found it in the sky.

Liora had arrived.

She soared at maximum speed atop Liu's massive winged vampire bat mount, crossing the vast expanse from the recently conquered northern territory to the collapsing capital. She arrived carrying half the energy she had meticulously conserved following the brutal clash against the shadow dragon, holding that power in reserve for this exact moment.

That was the crucial intelligence relayed to Arturo… The north had fallen ahead of schedule.

Ren had successfully subdued his dragon and the mutants had fled the scene, meaning Liora, the only individual possessing enough spiritual fire to halt the cannibalistic cycle on a massive scale, was no longer required to wait for them to breach the mountain vault. She would take flight immediately, arriving around a maximum of thirty minutes behind Min and the others, touching down at the precise instant Arturo calculated the capital would desperately need her.

Therefore, the tactician had not been greedy at all.

He simply possessed unwavering faith in his numbers, and more importantly, he believed in his people and their word.

♢♢♢♢

Liora glided majestically over the battered city. Her spiritual fire Bashe unleashed a torrential downpour of purple flames across the perimeter, systematically turning corpse after corpse into harmless cinders, firmly slamming the door on the corruption's only avenue for recovery.

"Sorry for the delay," she muttered to herself, fully aware no one on the ground could hear her over the roaring inferno. "Some idiot cloud bird got in our way..."

Down in the ruined streets, Finch stared up at the blazing silhouette in the sky. With Theodore trembling uncontrollably on his shoulder, the old accountant let out a hysterical, breathless laugh born of pure relief.

"Theodore!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "Take a note that the business is officially saved! And make sure to log that we owe the fire lady a massive favor! But calculate it with compound interest or we'll be forever slaves…"

And for the first time in hours, the bleeding city that had stood on the brink of annihilation finally felt the scales tip back toward life.

♢♢♢♢

Liora completed a full sweep of the perimeter.

Her spiritual fire Bashe ignited corpse after corpse. As she pressed forward, the number of mutants remaining at the end of the line dwindled rapidly. The corruption watched its grand banquet turn to ash and panicked.

"QUICK RETREAT DO NOT LOSE ANYMORE HIGH RANK UNITS!" Selthia commanded.

It was a frantic, messy order. The kind of command issued only when a general realizes the board is lost and just wants to salvage the remaining pieces.

Yet, even in full flight, Selthia pulled off a somewhat clever maneuver... She forced the swarm to drag dozens of bodies underground, pulling them deep into the soil before Liora could finish her lap and incinerate the rest.

She saved a significant portion of her high-tier units that way, bringing her projected losses down from a complete hundred to something closer to seventy.

A decent move, for a change.

But once again, the battlefield was shaped by her chronic hesitation. If Selthia had simply committed more of her force to the capital from the start, instead of dividing her army equally across three different fronts, or sending some extra to the south, the city would have fallen before Liora arrived.

Doubt had cost her the window of opportunity… Again.

Even right now, she was likely making a mistake.

Selthia would probably never know it, but her sudden retreat had inadvertently saved Liora and the entire city.

Because the moment Liora finished torching the perimeter, she was running on fumes.

The conflagration up north had consumed a decent chunk of her mana pool, though it hadn't even drained half. That had been a single, focused blast.

This was completely different…

The wall, even after the Vanguard pulled back to the inner city, stretched on for miles. Activating her ability on every single giant beast, painting the fire line by line across that vast distance, proved exponentially more draining than one giant explosion.

Drop by drop, the sweeping flight had bled her dry.

If Selthia had decided to dig her heels in, wait for the flames to die down, and push a counterattack regardless of the casualties, she might have discovered the grim truth for the defenders. The savior of the capital had nothing left in the tank after that first infernal strike.

But it didn't matter now.