Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1289 - Taming the Old World - Compulsory Inference - 2

Out of the four days of wall buffer they had expected to have after the Shadow Dragon battle, a little over three and a half remained on the counter.

Factoring in the new shadow-boosted drilling speed, that buffer translated to slightly less than sixty hours of real time. It was a tight window, yet it remained sufficient, since it gave them enough breathing room to finish resting, top off their cores, and execute a decisive joint strike against the Light Guardian before the prison gave way.

Furthermore, hunting the final guardian first could offer a massive compounding reward.

Defeating the Light Dragons would put the seventh elemental cores into Ren's hands. If he returned to this place holding all seven elements, the mana-system agony of waking Mooshito and risking further crystallization would actually be worth the price.

They could construct a comprehensive, seven-point seal tuned to the entire spectrum of magic, leaving zero blind spots for Selthia to exploit in the future.

Better yet, there was that compounding reward chance… Getting a way to avoid the seven-point strain entirely.

If the Vanguard moved fast enough to claim not just one, but both Light Dragons across the two halves of the world, they could deny Selthia the final element altogether. If they stripped the Witch of both the rings and the cores, the corruption would have no new frequency to broadcast into the underground grid. In that scenario, a six-point array blocking her stolen Shadow Core would be more than enough to render the prisoner completely helpless at getting stronger.

The energy gap would be sealed from both ends of the board.

Ren finished pouring his surplus ether into the dome, feeling the mana lines flare as the stone walls thickened, buying back several precious hours of lost time. He slowly pulled his right hand away from the warm metal.

The action blueprint was locked in.

Step one: enforce the mandatory 24-hours, (now only 12-hour missing), of required rest across the capital to bring every combatant back to peak output to 100% power.

Step two: launch an all-out blitz against the Light Mountains, securing the rings and denying Selthia the cores at all costs.

Only when the surface was swept clean, with all seven cores secured and his own body properly rested, would he return to this place, wake Mooshito with a promise of a huge rings banquet, and forge a stronger cage that the ancient parasite could scratch at for a very long time.

Order and discipline... Each move setting the foundation for the next.

"Keep digging for a little while longer," Ren said quietly, addressing the frantic scraping echoing from the other side of the part-legendary steel wall. "I will let you widen that tunnel just enough to make you think you have a chance, right before I take that hope away. First, though, I need to be a responsible warden and confiscate the keys your assistant will try sliding under the cell door."

The metallic dome hummed beneath his fingertips, vibrating with the cold indifference of the monster inside.

Ren turned his back on the vault and began the long walk up to the castle. The parameters of the upcoming campaign had shifted. When they marched on the Light Dragon tomorrow, simply securing their own ring would no longer cut it.

This time, he had to take everything off the table.

♢♢♢♢

Selthia made her first move 4 hours after that, while the capital was still eight hours away from a full recovery…

Across the battered districts of Yano, the human forces were sitting at roughly sixty-six, some perhaps seventy percent of their total combat capacity.

Half the garrison was still dead to the world, sleeping off the bone-deep exhaustion of the previous campaign.

Mana cores remained a third empty, and the elite Tamers were still nursing bruised meridians and fatigued systems that had not yet bounced back from the strain of prolonged fusions.

That quiet window of recuperation ended the moment the forward scouts began dropping from the sky with urgent dispatches.

Ren stood at the central war table, unrolling a thick parchment covered in Arturo's cramped, precise handwriting. By cross-referencing territorial sightings with relative mutant density across the outer sectors, the strategist had put together a sobering estimate. Roughly five hundred Platinum-rank mutants were currently on the march, splitting into three massive columns to strike the exact same three fronts all over again.

Below the troop movements, the report highlighted an even more troubling peculiarity…

The scouts had registered sudden, massive spikes of energy inside the twelve elemental mountains bordering the edge of the explored world. Until yesterday, those hollowed-out peaks had been empty after losing their guardians.

Now, those twelve mountains were glowing like active furnaces. Selthia had turned the ancient lairs into breeding grounds for the next tier of evolution.

Ren read the intelligence reports twice, and the underlying picture clicked into place.

This time around, the Witch had no intention of waiting for humanity to set the pace.

"At first glance, it looks like she learned from her mistakes, though I doubt it is that calculated," Ren said, tapping the edge of the parchment as he chewed on the information.

"She is acting like an immature kid throwing a tantrum after losing a game. She is just doing the exact opposite of what she did yesterday, and doing it in a blind rush. Waiting for us to strike first cost her three fronts, so now she is throwing everything at the wall as fast as she can. It is a classic overcorrection."

Liora frowned, leaning over the opposite side of the table to study the map. "Are you sure about that? It could be a bait. If she pretends to lash out in anger, she might be hoping we get sloppy and walk into an ambush."

"It is a possibility," Ren admitted, weighing the angle for a moment before shaking his head.

"Still, I do not buy it. Not while the entity in the basement is cut off from her head. Based on everything we saw during the last siege, Selthia does not know how to plan three steps ahead on her own; she only knows how to react. When someone like that loses across the board because they were too passive, they do not set complex traps. They panic and dive headfirst into the other extreme."

"I agree with Ren," Larissa said, her voice carrying its usual cool, analytical certainty. "It fits her established behavioral pattern. She suffered a defeat by hesitating, so her immediate impulse is to eliminate hesitation entirely. The move is predictable precisely because she is not stopping to think it through."

Luna and Liora exchanged a brief look, turning the logic over in their minds before giving a slow nod of agreement.