Chapter 532 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 4

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มี.ค. 2569 07:42

Chapter 532: Chapter 532 - Taming the Fourth Year: Isolation - 4 Crack. The darkness serpent tamer’s arm bent at an unnatural angle. His scream echoed through the forest. Ren felt pity for a moment but forced himself to pretend it didn’t bother him. Just feedback, confirmation that his technique had been executed correctly. ’This is nothing,’ he told himself while moving toward the next attacker. ’I’ve killed people who deserved to die almost as much as these ones. These will barely have some broken bones, and they surely would have treated me worse if they caught me.’ The justification felt hollow even as he thought it. Enjoyment was... The spirit tamer tried to escape using his shadow jumps, but Ren simply grabbed him with his jade crystal hand, canceled the shadow control, and pulled. The sound of the shoulder dislocating was satisfyingly definitive. ’I must be strong to prevent more tragedies, stronger,’ he reflected, ignoring a desperate, weak cry from the first wind tamer. ’But I’m no longer the weak boy from before, right? I’m stronger than the vast majority. And the idiots who keep attacking me need to understand that.’ He continued... is punishment was brutal. A combination of strikes that Lin had taught him, but executed with force that turned submission techniques into something much more damaging. Ribs cracked under his fists. The tamers kept trying to flee, but the wood Ren controlled trapped them, holding them in place while Ren increasingly enjoyed the punishment. ’The feeling of being so strong is something great,’ he thought, and the smile that crossed his face would have alarmed anyone who knew him well. ’I should believe it more. I should accept that this power is mine now.’ Leopold tried to free himself, but the roots were too resistant. "Please," Leopold managed to say through the pain, "we can negotiate..." "Negotiate?" Ren stood in front of him, a finger from his jade crystal hand positioning itself dangerously close to Leopold’s throat. "You brought five Golds to attack me, surely to kidnap and torture me. What exactly do you think you have to negotiate?" His fungus pulsed in his head, sending signals that felt like warnings, like concern. ’Why should we feel alarm?’ he wondered, dismissing the sensation. He charged energy into his jade crystal finger, preparing to deliver another lesson in why attacking him had been a mistake... "That’s enough." The voice came from behind, sharp and authoritative in a way that made Ren freeze mid-motion. He turned, irritation flashing across his face before he could control it. Liora stood at the edge of the clearing, Luna beside her. Both had their beasts partially manifested in their bodies, ready for action. But they had arrived too late... "It’s better to send them with our guards," Liora continued, her voice steady despite the tension radiating from Ren. "So Julius can judge them. You don’t need to dirty your hands..." For a moment that felt like an eternity, Ren considered ignoring her. Part of him wanted to continue, to finish what he had started. The power flowing through him made everything seem possible, including dismissing the concern in Liora’s voice as irrelevant. His jade crystal hand pulsed with barely contained energy, and Leopold whimpered beneath him. The sensation was intoxicating. Complete control over life and death, the ability to end threats with casual gestures. It would be so easy to simply squeeze, to eliminate this problem permanently. Ren saw Liora directly in her eyes with an expression she had never seen before. His own green eyes blazed with an intensity that wasn’t completely human, and his jade crystal hand continued pulsing with barely contained energy. "Dirty my hands?" His voice carried an edge that made both Liora and Luna instinctively step back. "I’m not an innocent child... And who the hell do you think you are to tell me what to do?" For the first time in years, he was seeing these girls, those pampered princesses, for what they really were in terms of power: inferior. Significantly inferior. What right did they have to interrupt him when he was dispensing well-deserved justice? The hierarchy was suddenly clear to him. He was stronger, more capable, more important. These girls had benefited from his generosity. They should be grateful, not presumptuous. His jade crystal hand moved toward Leopold’s throat, who whimpered pathetically before him. A simple squeeze or a simple light shot and this entire problem would disappear. Leopold had planned to kidnap him, torture him for information. Why should he show mercy to someone who wouldn’t have shown it to him? But at that critical moment, something impacted against his forehead from within. His small fungus finally manifested by force, pushing through his skin to appear directly on his head. The light veins running through his body dimmed instantly, and the partial fusion in his hand disintegrated, leaving him with a normal human hand. The intervention was jarring, like being suddenly awakened from a dream. The rage and satisfaction that had felt so natural moments before now seemed foreign, imposed from outside rather than generated within. "Mooshito!" Luna screamed, and for the first time since he had known her, her usually controlled voice was full of panic. "Help us get Ren to see reason! That’s not him!" The small fungus pulsed once and with a strange conflicted expression looked down. But Ren didn’t calm down. Instead, annoyed by the interruption, he focused on something completely different. "That name is ridiculous!" he yelled at Luna, his irritation finding an easier target than confronting what his fungus was doing without his consent, evidencing his still obvious lack of control over his main beast. "I don’t like you using it! Besides, it’s MY beast, not yours to name as you want!" Luna froze as if he had slapped her. During these years, she had been using that nickname for Ren’s fungus during their occasional conversations. It was, according to her, something sweet and innocent. For her, that he let her call it that without saying anything was a small intimacy that had developed because they were genuinely friends of both Ren and his unusual beast. She had never thought it would bother him. The nickname had been one of the few purely innocent connections she maintained. In her world where every interaction carried political implications and social calculations, her relationship with Ren and "Mooshito" had been refreshingly simple. Her eyes filled with tears she tried to blink away, but the hurt was too visible to hide. "Liora," she whispered, "call the guards." Liora had been observing everything with growing concern. This wasn’t the Ren she knew, the boy who had always been gentle with them, who had taught them techniques and shared knowledge without asking for anything in return. This was someone different. "Umi, Hana, Hikari, Kira," she called out in a voice that carried perfectly through the forest. The responses were immediate. Mako and Shizu also emerged from the earth as if they had been part of it, their earth-specialized beasts allowing them perfect concealment underground. Their movements were fluid and professional, the result of years of training specifically to protect Ren. Umi, Hana, Hikari, and Kira appeared from the trees behind the girls, dropping silently from concealed positions they had maintained during the entire confrontation. Almost all six guards were now Gold 1, their advancement, which had already been accelerated, sped up dramatically by the cultivation methods Ren had developed and shared. In the absence of Larissa, who had once been part of the inner circle of protection, the two of the guards with the wolverine and the night ambusher had been assigned specifically for Ren’s safety. Selphira and Julius had more adult Gold 1 guards positioned throughout the academy, but they left these girls as the first shield of defense. Given the level of power both Ren and the girls had achieved, it was difficult to get protection of higher quality. When Ren’s fungus had emerged from his head, something had shifted in his mental state. The emotions that had been simmering just below the surface didn’t disappear instantly, but there was a clarity that hadn’t been there moments before. His thinking felt less clouded, less driven by impulses that weren’t entirely his own. But even with that clarity, the irritation and frustration were still real. The stress hadn’t magically disappeared. Of the six attackers, only two remained conscious: Leopold and the elephant bull tamer. Both began struggling with their restraints, probably realizing their only window for escape was closing rapidly. The guards moved quickly, taking advantage of Ren’s attention being focused on Liora and Luna. Mako and Shizu used earth techniques to create extra restraints, while Umi dispatched a small messenger bird toward the castle with a brief report of the incident. "Ren," Liora said carefully, watching his face for signs of the darkness she had seen moments before, "you don’t have to act like this. You don’t seem like yourself." Her words were gentle but direct, the tone of someone who genuinely cared but also wouldn’t hesitate to call him out when his behavior warranted it. Ren grumbled, reaching out to grab his fungus from the top of his head. His fingers closed around the small creature, squeezing just hard enough to make it clear he wasn’t appreciating the intervention. "It’s my beast," he muttered under his breath, pressing the fungus against his chest and forcing it back into his body through sheer will. "And I decide when I need its intervention." The fusion happened roughly, without the smooth integration that normally characterized his bond with the fungus. It was more like forcing a square peg into a round hole, and both Ren and his beast felt the discomfort. Without waiting for more conversation or questions, Ren activated his elemental control of earth. The ground beneath his feet became liquid, accepting him as if he were made of the same substance. Within seconds, he had melted into the earth, using underground movement to head toward the mining tunnels in a way Liora and Luna could not follow him easily. The message was clear: leave me alone. After he disappeared, the clearing fell into uncomfortable silence. Liora turned toward Luna, whose face still showed traces of the tears she had been trying to hide. A small tear finally escaped, trailing down her cheek before she could wipe it away. "It’s not worth crying over this," Liora said softly, wrapping her arms around Luna in a protective embrace. "I’m sure it’s just the situation with Larissa and the stress. All the time we’ve known him, he’s always been a kind and sweet boy with us. He’s given us so much..." It was true. Ren had been consistently kind toward both of them, sharing techniques and knowledge that had accelerated their advancement dramatically. He had answered their questions with patience, helped them understand complex cultivation principles, and never asked for anything in return. He had been, in many ways, the perfect educated gentleman despite his relatively humble background. Luna nodded, but her voice was small when she spoke. "That’s why it hurts to see him like this."

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