Ren sensed the mana signatures long before reaching the ambush zone. Five Gold 1 and 2 signatures, each trying to hide with expensive artifacts.
For Ren, who had been using one too... and one of the best at that (artifacts from the newly discovered chamber), it was no longer difficult for him to detect them.
They were using good ones, but to the senses of his Superior World Mushroom’s root network and his jade seed, they were radiating power like bonfires in the night.
And his enhanced perception wasn’t just about raw detection.
Each signature carried information about the wielder’s specific types of beasts they had bonded with. Leopold’s team might as well have been announcing their presence with trumpets.
Subtle vibrations in the ground confird the presence of his two Gold 1 rank guards that Julius had assigned for his protection.
A firm tap of his foot against the ground sent response vibrations: Stay quiet. Hold position.
He had made a decision that even he didn’t fully understand. He could have called for his guards’ help, could have changed routes, could have avoided this confrontation entirely. But a part of him that had been growing for months, fed by accumulated frustrations, wanted this.
Finally, he thought with satisfaction that slightly disturbed him, sothing that might require a little effort.
The emotional honesty of that admission was worrying. When had he beco soone who looked forward to violence?
The attackers moved with professionality. All had darkness, wind, or neutral beasts suited for silent attacks.
A Darkness Spirit materialized directly in front of him... an undulating mass of shadows that pulsed with malevolence, shifting between solid and ethereal states.
Simultaneously, a Darkness Serpent slithered from his shadow while seeking an optimal attack position.
A Minor Royal Wind Eagle dove from the heights, its talons wrapped in air currents that could cut like blades. The raptor’s approach was nearly silent, enhanced by wind magic that eliminated air resistance and sound.
A Royal Wind Hawk attacked from a different angle, creating an aerial pincer that left no space for vertical escape.
And a Royal Elephant Bull charged from behind, each step making the ground tremble with force that could have cracked stone.
Everything happened in the space of less than a second.
For normal observers, it would have been an impossible-to-follow coordinated attack. For Ren, ti slowed until it beca individual fras of movent, each attacker moving with the sluggishness of a swimr in a honey pool.
His mind instantly processed trajectories, elental weaknesses, counterattack opportunities.
He pivoted on his left foot, dodging the eagle’s talons by milliters while his left hand created an ice wall to stop the hawk and his right hand extended toward the darkness serpent attempting to bite his right side. His fingers found the creature’s semi-solid form just as it solidified to attack, and he used it as a projectile, hurling it directly toward the darkness spirit.
The collision between the two creatures of the sa elent prevented them from avoiding impact by becoming shadows. Darkness beasts could phase through most attacks, but they couldn’t phase through each other, a vulnerability that few combatants could exploit.
Ren used the confusion as cover, jumping high just as the elephant bull’s massive horns crushed the spot where he had been standing.
Now it was his turn.
While airborne, Ren extended both hands toward the aerial attackers. Pure mineral shots erupted from his palms, finding the giant wind eagle with precision. Rock as an elental advantage cut through the hawk’s wind defenses like paper, the elental weakness turning what should have been a minor attack for a Gold Rank creature into sothing devastating.
The interaction was beautiful in its simplicity. Wind creatures, for all their speed and agility, were fundantally vulnerable to earth-based attacks. Their lightweight nature beca a liability when faced with solid, ’grounded’ force.
The hawk tried to change direction, but Ren had anticipated the movent through his knowledge of their flight patterns. His left hand launched another projectile that cut through the air to where he knew it would be.
Predicting beast behavior was one of his earliest abilities, refined over years of practice with his fungus’s analytical capabilities. Every species had instinctive response patterns that beca predictable once you understood their underlying logic.
His shots found flesh and feathers, and the hawk fell in a dive with a cry that resonated throughout the forest.
Ren landed in a position that would have made Lin smile proudly: perfect balance, weight distributed for imdiate mobility, arms positioned for defense or attack as needed.
The training sessions with Lin had beco muscle mory.
The darkness creatures had recovered from their collision, but both showed considerable confusion. The spirit pulsed erratically, its form less defined than before. The serpent had beco clumsier, clearly struggling to navigate the complex shadows of the forest.
This is still too easy, Ren thought, and the naturalness with which that thought ca troubled his fungus.
He raised his right hand toward where he knew the serpent was trying to reposition. Light shots erupted from his fingers like bullets, each designed to explode on impact. The serpent tried to beco ethereal to avoid damage, but the light fragnts hard it in both forms, physical and spiritual.
His next movent flowed naturally from the previous one. A series of shots aid at the darkness spirit, but it escaped by being called back by its tar.
Everything had happened in re seconds, but the neutral tar took advantage of Ren’s "distraction" while attacking the others.
The elephant bull launched itself, charging with force that sank the ground under its feet. This ti, Ren didn’t dodge. He planted himself firmly, extended both hands, and decided to receive the impact head-on.
The collision resonated through the ground with waves that were felt quite far away.
For a mont, both struggled in perfect stasis. The elephant bull, all its mass and power concentrated at one point, against Ren, who was dragged backward while absorbing every joule of kinetic energy with supernatural strength.
It was then that Ren decided to end the farce.
His fusion with the hydra was partial but spectacular. Crystal scale patterns spread across his arms, legs, and torso, each line glowing with power. His muscles expanded, not with mass but with power density, and his strength multiplied exponentially.
The elephant bull, which had been pushing with all its strength, suddenly found itself stopped without being able to move its feet even one more centiter.
But Ren hadn’t finished.
With elental control that bordered on artistic, he transford the terrain under his feet. The earth sank, creating a perfect angle of support that channeled all his strength and the bull’s force to propel it upward and spin it. The massive animal suddenly found itself flying through the air, its own strength used against it.
The technique was pure leverage and timing.
The impact when the bull hit the ground resonated with a brutal crack of its back.
Ren turned to clap his hands and crush the eagle that was trying to regain flight between two enormous stone blocks. But its tar managed to recover it on ti... the larger flying beast was the attackers’ exit ticket.
The spirit tar took advantage again and attempted to teleport.
When the spirit tar materialized directly behind him, Ren had already read the mana and turned around, his long light claws extended in a perfect arc that cut through the shadow armor provided by the spirit as if it were mist.
The spirit tar’s scream before barely escaping a deeper cut into the shadows was so satisfying that Ren allowed himself a small, cold smile.
The expression felt foreign on his face, but undeniably genuine. When had he started taking pleasure in others’ pain?
Ren straightened, assessing the damage. All attackers were wounded but not completely knocked out, exactly as he had planned.
I’m good at this, he thought, and the satisfaction he felt was more intense than expected.
But the tars had learned from Ren’s demonstration of power over their beasts. The boy was undoubtedly a monster and would be difficult to defeat, but they had been assigned this extrely important mission and couldn’t return empty-handed.
Now it was their turn to rge with their wounded beasts to ignore most of the damage and attack the boy simultaneously with their bodies directly.
The figures leaped from hidden positions, each fused with the remnants of their damaged beasts’ power. They moved with the desperate coordination of professionals who knew they were outmatched but had to try sothing.
Yet the desperation made them more dangerous, not less. Cornered opponents took risks that could sotis overco superior power through sheer unpredictability.
But Ren saw them coming again as if they moved through gelatin.
And he was already bored with this... it was ti to use a bit of his real power.
Only his right hand completely transford into translucent jade crystal, the partial fusion between his wolverine and hydra creating sothing that transcended either individual beast.
The three rings he now possessed allowed him suprely controlled partial fusion that wasn’t too taxing.
The hand pulsed with concentrated multi-elental power, capable of, certainly, manipulating multiple elents simultaneously.
With a single gesture, he trapped all the attackers in their elental weaknesses.
Even the tree where Leopold, who hadn’t dared to attack was hidden, responded to his command. The branches moved like living tentacles, wrapping around the noble and bringing him to the ground.
Ren walked slowly toward where Leopold struggled against the roots holding him immobilized.
"Weren’t you going to co down?" he asked with a voice that was perfectly calm but carried an undertone that made Leopold stop struggling.
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