Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1323 Taming the Old World - Paradoxical Choice

They won't be happy about this…

He was particularly concerned about Liora. The fiery sniper was currently nursing a quiet, subtle foul mood. While she tried to hide it, Ren knew her well enough to spot the irritation brewing ever since the northern squad returned.

Luna was currently wearing the Shadow Ring her father had passed down, while Larissa sported the Northern Light Ring granted by Selphira. Liora had been left empty-handed.

Ren glanced down at the four ancient bands resting in his palm, his eyes lingering on the Fire Ring.

Earlier tests with the shadow ones had confirmed that wearing two rings of the exact same element did not stack their respective multipliers. Consequently, he would not actually need any of the duplicate Yino artifacts to construct the final seven-element array. He did need the primary Fire Ring, as the thermal manipulation was helpful for tempering the metallic shell of the containment dome. However, until he actually marched back here to the vault to wake his mushroom, he could easily lend the artifact to Liora.

When Mooshito finally woke up, Ren might be forced to feed the little symbiote a few rings to boost its structural weaving capacity anyway, perhaps offering four instead of the promised seven. In the meantime, handing the fire artifact over would appease the fire sniper, balance the scales between the three young women, and neatly bypass a highly uncomfortable conversation.

It was a minor logistical victory, yet he would gladly take one less problem on his plate.

♢♢♢♢

With his operational sequence locked in, Ren decided to rip the bandage off in one go and discuss the grim reality with the rest of the Vanguard immediately.

There was no time to spare. He summoned the core command staff to the main castle room. Selphira, Julius, Arturo, Victor, Sirius, his friends, the three girls gathered around him not even wanting to sit at the big table, and every key leader who had returned from the northern front with a clear head.

Ren laid the entire ominous picture out bare... He detailed the structural limit of the subterranean dome, the terrifying silence of the purple dragon as it pooled energy for a single fast breach, and the shrinking fifty-hour plus clock they had left to intervene. He finished by outlining the only viable solution: dismantling the active lock and forging a brand-new, seven-pointed array to permanently seal the shadow leak and make a stronger wall.

A cold silence draped over the room, lasting only the few seconds it took for the sheer lethality of the proposal to sink in.

Then, the uproar began...

"NO!" Luna screamed, her voice slicing through the heavy air with sharp, uncompromising finality. "Under no circumstances! Ren, you nearly turned to crystal building the last cage, and that array only required five cores! Now you want to channel seven simultaneously? Weaving more energy, maintaining more nodes, and controlling an entirely new spectrum of mana? You are going to crystallize your entire body on the spot, and this time too, there won't be anyone capable of pulling you back out!"

"I forged the last array with slightly exhausted channels right in the middle of a war zone," Ren countered, keeping his tone calm and measured. "I will handle this one after a proper rest. It will be a planned, methodical operation for…"

"Being methodical does not change the physical reality of your body and system," Larissa interrupted, bringing her cold, irrefutable logic to bear. "You needed to push your core to three hundred percent capacity just to finish the first attempt. I ran the numbers while you were explaining the architecture last time, cross-referencing it with the strain we felt radiating from your mana. Five guardian cores and five ruin crystals created ten active nodes. Upgrading to a seven-point star requires fourteen independent nodes. That is not just a marginal increase, Ren!

"…That is nearly a fifty percent jump in the number of frequencies you have to balance simultaneously, each tuned to a completely different elemental wavelength, all while holding the harmonic resonance perfectly stable. We have already seen that your system cannot sustain a 300% without beginning to suffer heavy petrification. Bridging fourteen nodes will force you to exceed 400% of your maximum capacity. The risk is too high, completely unacceptable!"

"Larissa and Luna are right, there is nothing to win from you ending up a statue mid project," Selphira said. Her voice carried the weight of four centuries of warfare, instantly silencing the room. "And I will add an even grimmer detail to that equation. The last time you attempted this, the enemy had no idea what you were planning. This time, the ancient parasite will be waiting. That means you must push your core to maximum overload before you even begin the weaving process. You will have to sustain that lethal overpressure while simultaneously constructing the most complex runic array of your life and be FAST. Those are two compounding risks, and even if you survive them both, the dragon might still manage to break free during the transition."

"Selphira makes a valid point," Julius added, his jaw tight. "The containment grid will remain weak during the entire restructuring process. The second you pull those existing cores out to trigger your overload, the suppression field collapses. You would be handing the dragon the exact escape window it has been waiting for. Furthermore, we would be forced to act before the two-day deadline. We cannot risk letting the beast reach critical energy mass, because if it accumulates enough stored energy, it might launch its breakout strike early and act before you."

Ren listened in silence with clenched fists. Every single objection they raised was a harsh, undeniable truth he had already calculated.

"What is the alternative?" Liu asked. His voice was low, yet it carried clearly across the tense room. "What exactly happens if you simply choose not to rebuild the lock?"

A heavy silence settled over the table.

"The beast shatters the wall anyway," Ren answered, offering no sugarcoating to soften the blow. "In roughly two days, perhaps a few hours more, it will pool enough power to breach the inner vault and reclaim its price. The purple dragon, the ancient mind driving the entire corruption, will be loose right beneath our feet. It will be standing inside the deep chamber of the castle, in the exact same room housing both Selthia's original body and the petrified remains of Dragarion, holding the three elemental rings required to unlock the second tier chamber."