Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1321 - Taming the Old World - Last Dragon - 5

A short while later at the capital perimeter, Selthia finally initiated a full retreat.

But Ren and Liora refused to accept the maneuver at face value... Taking to the sky, they carved wide, sweeping arcs miles beyond the outer trenches to verify the enemy movements. They fully expected to find the mutant horde lingering just past the horizon, regrouping safely out of mana perception range to stage a sudden counter-maneuver.

Yet the expected trap never materialized.

The corrupted beasts continued to march away from the city, fracturing their tight formations and scattering across the plains in every possible direction.

It appeared the corruption had genuinely abandoned the siege.

They returned to the castle courtyard, though neither of them felt entirely convinced.

♢♢♢♢

"I do not trust this," Liora told Arturo the moment her boots hit the stone floor of the command post. "Selthia rarely gives up ground this easily… This has all the hallmarks of a feint, she might be ordering a tactical pullback to lull us into dropping our guard, waiting for us to look away before she snaps the jaws shut again."

Arturo weighed the variables and agreed with the cautious approach.

They immediately dispatched warning flares and courier hawks to the northern front, bracing for the other possibility too, that the Witch intended to funnel all her surviving assets into one massive push against Selphira.

They ordered the aerial scouts to monitor the northern highways closely. If the corrupted horde attempted to converge at a secondary rallying point, Ren and Liora were prepared to launch an immediate interception; his flying mount could cross the continent twice as fast as a marching army.

Twenty minutes crawled by, and the spotters delivered the exact same confusing intelligence.

The retreating units were not converging...

They were completely dispersing, dissolving into the wilderness. Furthermore, a handful of the beasts retreating southward had stumbled directly into the golden fungal abomination Ren had unleashed earlier. Those corrupted stragglers were now locked in a desperate, losing skirmish, hopelessly dragged into the chimeric predator's obsessive hunt.

Had the moody tantrum bad loser girl actually surrendered early?

Shortly after, a heavily prioritized dispatch arrived from the northern peak. It was written in Selphira's precise hand: Selthia had ordered a total evacuation of her northern forces.

The matriarch advised them to stay vigilant, assuring the capital that her Vanguard would keep their eyes open while they finished off the Light Dragon just in case the city defenders needed emergency reinforcements.

Ren and Arturo exchanged a long, puzzled look.

Had she truly forfeited both active fronts simultaneously?

They drafted a quick reply detailing their own secure perimeter and dispatched another wave of spotters to ensure the northern horde was not secretly looping back toward the capital. As the hour dragged on, the intelligence remained consistent.

The northern mutants were not marching toward the city walls and they were not massing for a flank. They were simply scattering to the four winds, mimicking the exact same viral dispersal pattern as the southern horde.

Against every past expectation, Selthia had completely folded her hand.

♢♢♢♢

Two hours later, official confirmation of the northern victory reached the command post.

The grueling siege had concluded the moment Luna channeled a massive, concentrated shadow strike that cleanly bisected the exhausted Light Guardian. The dragon fell, the ancient vault opened, and the prize was secured.

Selphira had entrusted the elemental ring to Larissa, and the entire elite strike team was currently flying back to the capital.

Both Light Dragons were dead. Both cores and holy rings now rested in human hands. Yet, the detail that truly finalized the day's bizarre conclusion was the conspicuous absence of the enemy's heaviest piece.

Selthia had never deployed her stitched-together Shadow Dragon mutant.

It was likely her ultimate trump card, the big asset she had kept buried underground for the entire campaign, waiting for the perfect window to shatter the human lines.

She never played it...

She kept it buried in the dark, entirely unwilling to risk it on the battlefield.

♢♢♢♢

Hours prior, tucked away in the cold isolation of her crystal chamber, Selthia had genuinely considered unleashing the beast.

She had weighed the gamble heavily while watching her expensive Diamonds and Platinums fall one after another. The corrupted Shadow Dragon was fundamentally stronger than a standard Diamond titan. It possessed the power and weight to maybe tip the scales in the north, and perhaps it could have ripped the Light Guardian away from Selphira before the human reinforcements secured the kill, or not.

Ultimately, cowardice dictated her final move.

What would happen if she lost that piece as well?

She had already watched several of her titans burn to ash... The shadow mutant was undeniably stronger, yet it was not invincible; if the humans managed to trap it and coordinate an execution, Selthia would lose far more than the biological equivalent of ten Platinums. She would lose the Shadow Core anchored inside its chest, the singular, irreplaceable catalyst she had bled an entire army to secure in the south yesterday.

She could always breed new Platinums… A primordial core may never be replaced.

Operating strictly on survival instincts, she ran the possibilities of her failing campaign. It was infinitely safer to hoard her assets, reverting to the long-term strategy she had toyed with earlier. She would retreat into the deep wilds, unleash her swarm upon the outer Platinum rings, and drain the ambient mana beasts down to the last one.

She would breed a horde so incomprehensibly massive that it defied containment. Then, and only then, would she march on the capital.

She would strip humanity of their final stronghold by burying them under sheer numbers, attacking with the strongest only when neither Ren nor Liora possessed the stamina to burn away the tide.

The Vanguard defending the northern peak today was significantly deadlier than the southern garrison she had faced yesterday. Risking her greatest weapon for a mere fraction of the prize was a terrible wager.

So she chose the safety of a guaranteed future over a highly volatile present, preserving her ultimate army and keeping the power of the shadows intact.

With bitter reluctance, Selthia surrendered the fight without playing her ace. It was not a decision born from profound wisdom or a brilliant overarching scheme.

It was just the fear of losing her only remaining advantage.