Read Novel Full Chapter 1332 - Taming the Old World - 0.5 hours - 2
Chapter 1332 - Taming the Old World - 0.5 hours - 2
Ren gave his mushroom the heads up…
In that exact same fraction of a second, the runic casings surrounding the five pillars of the star array snapped open, exposing the guardian cores and heart crystals resting at their hearts.
That was the Vanguard's cue.
Liora, Larissa, Luna, Sirius, and Liu materialized directly beside the five stone pillars.
They had initiated their approach the moment Ren gave the signal, arriving just as the mechanisms disengaged. Each commander had been assigned a specific pillar, executing a highly synchronized spatial jump that deposited them exactly where they needed to be on the very millisecond the locks opened. Liu, in particular, had spent the entire previous day rigorously practicing his shadow jumps, refining his spatial awareness until he could emerge mere inches from his designated target.
Moving in perfect unison, the five of them ripped their respective core and crystal pairs from the pedestals the moment Ren deactivated the seals, and then they immediately bounded upward, diving into Ren's shadow or his surroundings and the five ended grouping tightly around Ren's immediate perimeter.
Ren caught every single artifact through his enlarged shadow.
The entire elemental spectrum dropped directly into his dimensional pocket. Seven ruin crystals and seven primordial cores, the original five pairs from the prison combined with the two Ren had secured on the last days, were collected in an instantaneous harvest that no other strike team in history could have coordinated so cleanly.
"You have them now, Mooshy!" Ren roared over the deafening hum of the dragon energy in their shared body. "Seven crystals, seven cores! But I only want you to lock six of them into the grid! The enemy has zero access to the light element, so we do not need to weave the seventh!"
"AH, SIX! ONLY SIX, HOW GENEROUS OF YOU TO LEAVE ONE OUT!" Mooshito was already hard at work despite the frantic screaming.
"YOU KNOW WHAT? THIS METHOD OF WAKING ME UP IS OFFICIALLY THE WORST ONE YET! I HAVE ENDURED TERRIBLE ORDEALS WITH YOU, THE CORRUPTION, THE HALF MECHANICAL DRAGON, BUT THIS SUICIDAL CHORE TAKES THE PRIZE!"
The golden hyphae of the fungal network rapidly expanded, weaving themselves around the six ruin crystals and the six guardian cores. The symbiote began laying the complex geometric foundation for the hexagonal array while Ren relentlessly fed raw ether into the grid.
"I AM BOUND TO A SUICIDAL TAMER," Mooshito complained bitterly, though its glowing filaments moved with a microscopic precision that completely contradicted its hysterical tone. "A SUICIDAL TAMER WHO OVERLOADS HIS OWN SYSTEM PAST THE BREAKING POINT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY RECOVERY JUST TO SHOCK ME AWAKE WITH RAW ENERGY! AND THEN YOU HAND ME TWELVE NODES WITHOUT A SINGLE WARNING! OUR LUCK IS GOING TO RUN OUT, REN... ONE DAY, MAYBE TODAY, YOU ARE GOING TO SUFFER PERMANENT SYSTEMIC DAMAGE, AND GUESS WHO WILL BE SITTING RIGHT THERE TO SAY 'I TOLD YOU SO'? ME! IT WILL BE ME!"
"Thank you, Moosh," Ren replied, genuinely meaning every word.
"DO NOT THANK ME, JUST GIVE ME A HOST WHO ACTUALLY CARES FOR HIS OWN WELL-BEING! OR BETTER YET, GIVE ME THOSE RINGS YOU PROMISED!" Despite the tirade, the golden mushroom did not stop weaving for a single millisecond.
♢♢♢♢
Down inside the subterranean vault...
The exact instant Ren fractured the containment dome to extract the cores, the ambient energy of Selthia's corrupted network rushed back into the breach. The massive influx of dark ether flooded into the purple beast, now free from the harmonic interference that had choked it for days.
The purple parasite housed within that mutant meat chassis, the ancient mind that had spent days hoarding every scrap of power for a single freeing strike, felt the steel walls energy yield. It instantly turned toward the floor, trying to utilize its renewed strength to force its way to freedom.
But the Vanguard was fast and refused to grant it an inch.
At the precise moment the dome opened, the human Tamers stationed around the perimeter unleashed their combined elemental authority. Taro, the royal princes, Selphira, Yang, and the remaining earth and wood specialists poured every ounce of their reserves into the dome.
They summoned massive physical restraints to anchor the colossal machine, binding its metallic limbs the second it attempted to surge downward.
Simultaneously, the shadow specialists clamped down on the ethereal plane. Utilizing the sovereign rings, Ren and Luna synchronized their dark output with Liu and Sirius. The four commanders wove a suffocating net of shadow magic directly over the beast, aggressively jamming its spatial coordinates. It was the exact same tactical lockdown Ren had utilized against the Diamond titan on the surface, now scaled up to trap a primordial threat.
They sealed the half mechanical dragon in the physical space, ensuring it could not blink past the wood and earthen chains.
Surrounded, physically tethered, and spatially locked. It had no subterranean tunnel, no spatial jump, and no access to the freedom it had patiently awaited.
Then, Ren brought the hammer down.
The strike, fueled by a reckless draconic overload that vastly exceeded his biological limits, descended upon the primordial threat.
It was not a flawless execution. It physically could not be, as Ren was currently dividing his sheer concentration across multiple necessary tasks simultaneously. Yet, the strike carried the crushing weight of the dragon energy actively incinerating mostly his right arm channels, the synchronized fury of four shadow commanders, and the support of dozens of high-tier Vanguard soldiers funneling their strength into a single focal point.
The purple dragon, the ancient god that had once cracked the world in half, took the blast head-on. Pinned by the shadows and unable to evade, it could only raise the six indestructible ruin artifacts welded to its chassis to serve as a makeshift shield.
The entire cavern lit up under the blinding discharge.
In that frozen fragment of time, everything converged. The strike crashing down, Mooshito frantically weaving the twelve nodes of the new hexagon jail, the Vanguard commanders pouring their magic into the restraints, and the capital above fighting for its life against what would in the end be a thousand Platinum horrors.
The ultimate, desperate race Ren had dreaded for days was finally here.
It was a dead sprint between sealing the new runic cage and letting the apocalypse loose in the most important basement.
Between Ren's survival and eternal petrification.
Between humanity and the ancient horror that had waited so patiently to shatter its cell.
That final race had begun.
And this time, the doomsday clock was measured in a handful of seconds.
♢♢♢♢
The ancient dragon had sensed Ren's presence perfectly…
The moment the young human man overloaded his core with such ridiculous, lethal intensity inside Yano's second chamber, the purple entity registered the spike through its own perception. It analyzed the sheer recklessness of the maneuver, an arrogant disregard for biological limits that bordered on pure insanity.
'That human is completely mad,' the dragon mused with cold disdain.
The suicidal stunt reminded it of the weird mind of the engineer.
It remembered that grand traitor from centuries past, the foolish mortal who had also destroyed his own body chasing impossible dreams. The engineer had defied a god with the stubborn, pointless tenacity of a slightly clever vermin that failed to understand its place in the cosmic hierarchy.
Humans were always the same in the end. They happily burned themselves to ash from the inside out, genuinely believing they were glowing with glory.
But the dragon was fully prepared.
It knew these humans.
It understood their pathetic biological limits.
More importantly, it knew the engineer... It did not matter what obscure traps or failsafes that dead traitor had left buried in the system. The purple dragon had survived betrayals, world ending wars, and thousands upon thousands of millennia in the dark. It would advance despite these minor inconveniences, just as it always had.
The true game was only just beginning, and it possessed countless methods to reclaim exactly what these insignificant, defective constructs had stolen from it.
Though, it had to begrudgingly admit that some of these insects were remarkably astute.
The Vanguard had held their cards close to their chest until the very last possible second.
The beast had been barely thirty minutes away from hoarding enough force to shatter the dome on its own. Yet, with a precision that genuinely surprised the ancient entity, the humans had calculated the threshold very well and intervened very close before the tipping point.
If it was not pure luck, and the dragon was beginning to doubt that anything involving Ren was mere coincidence after dealing with that cursed engineer, they had timed their breach with admirable accuracy.
Yet it hardly mattered now…
Because the moment they cracked the prison to execute their desperate lockdown, they committed a fatal strategic error.
The ambient energy of the corrupted network, the sprawling ether grid its useful girl had cultivated on the surface that the harmonic interference had choked off for days, was now flowing back into the dome without restriction. That massive influx of purple power would instantly bridge the 30 minutes gap, granting the beast the final thirty minutes of hoarded energy it required in the blink of an eye.
By opening the cage to fight, the humans were actively handing their prisoner the exact key it needed to escape.
What profound irony... What delicious, perfect irony.