Novel Full Chapter 1096 - Taming the Wall - True Ruins - Unfair Deals - 2
Chapter 1096: Chapter 1096 - Taming the Wall - True Ruins - Unfair Deals - 2
Ren didn’t deflect the energy; he inhaled it strongly...
The golden light in his chest flared even brighter, shifting from an outward shield to a ravenous, internal furnace. He was deliberately absorbing the lethal corruption to forcefully convert it into the fuel he desperately needed to sustain his shield and his shadow.
He was even burning his final fifteen percent in a way the human body was fundamentally not designed to survive.
"You are risking to permanently cripple your own network just to save a few worthless pawns... That is pure greed!" Selthia sneered. Her voice had dropped from a scream to a freezing threat. She recognized the fatal flaw because it was a flaw she would have done herself. "You are entirely too greedy, Ren... Just like me!"
She pushed harder. The invisible weight of the corruption doubled.
Sirius, caught in the devastating crossfire, collapsed entirely. The corrupted tide slammed into his vulnerable network, violently buckling his knees and sending him crashing into the stone floor.
Yet Ren didn’t let him fall to the dark. He reached out, grabbing Sirius by the shoulder, and brutally forced his own golden energy into the tamer’s chest. He injected a massive surge of pure mana he shouldn’t be able to give away.
Deep within Ren’s soul-space, the small fungus friend violently woke up in pain.
And it screamed into Ren’s mind.
’What are you doing?! The flow is too massive! You are running on less than ten percent baseline mana! We cannot sustain this conversion rate. If we are in this much danger, you need to run! Full speed, right now!’
Ren heard the frantic, desperate logic of his just awakened and confused companion.
He ignored it... He kept pushing.
The shadow sliding across the floor just needed to stretch a few more inches to completely engulf the thrashing prisoners.
On the floor, Sirius felt the blinding surge of Ren’s golden energy flood his veins. His failing body was suddenly, violently hyper-energized. A profound shock rippled through him, immediately followed by a soaring, undeniable respect for the sheer, impossible strength of the determination the boy standing over him had.
But then Sirius looked up and he saw Ren’s face.
The blood wasn’t just trickling anymore. It was a torrential, horrifying flow. Thick, dark crimson poured steadily from Ren’s nostrils. It leaked from his ears and wept from the corners of his eyes, staining his teeth as he gritted them. It was the catastrophic physical failure of a central nervous system being pushed so far past its breaking point that the blood vessels in his skull were simply rupturing.
"Stop!" Sirius roared. He forced himself up, grabbing Ren’s arm with a trembling, vice-like grip. "The prisoners aren’t worth this! You are vastly more important to the future of this world than seven pawns! Prioritize your own life!"
Sirius understood the grim truth of war. Ren was the ultimate weapon against the corruption. To throw away that weapon for seven hostages was a catastrophic tactical failure.
But Ren refused to yield his ideals.
’Just a little more!’
Crack.
The sound didn’t echo in the cavern. It was entirely internal. It was a sickening, metaphysical fracture that vibrated straight through Ren’s soul. It was the sound of an invisible pillar collapsing under an impossible weight, a pillar Ren had subconsciously assumed would always hold because it had never failed him before.
The small fungus ruptured from the pressure and vanished.
It didn’t carefully retreat into the depths of his soul-space, nor did it gradually fade from exhaustion. It was violently obliterated... Its projected physical form was shredded, forcibly dispersed back into the ether as the corrupt flow it was trying to filter vastly exceeded its processing capacity.
The agonizing pain that accompanied the broken bond tore through Ren’s mana system. It was a profound, hollow agony he had never personally experienced before.
He had seen others suffer it. He had watched Taro wince when he lost a beast in combat. Watched almost all his friends even... He knew the devastating, soul-tearing grief of having a beast, a piece of your own spirit violently restarted.
Ren swallowed the scream. The pain was blinding, but pain had never been enough to stop him.
His main beast ability to project would be back in a day or two as every one did. And at least the fact that the fungus body had been broken had released the energy outside, preventing Ren’s system from being damaged further and losing all future potential.
Yes, pain wasn’t the problem. The present situation was.
Without the fungus acting as an external processor, the internal scaffolding holding Ren’s massive system together instantly collapsed. Without those vital supports, his core could no longer resonate at the precise frequency required to project the golden light and maintain the physical manifestation of even the full long shadow.
The blinding golden halo sputtered and almost died, shrinking down to a faint, pathetic ember.
On the floor, the sprawling shadow snapped shut instantly.
More than halfway.
Two prisoners had fallen into the Wolverine’s void. Five were left writhing on the cold stone.
Stripped of his ability to convert the incoming purple mana, Ren’s small remaining reserves took the full, unfiltered impact of Selthia’s crushing power.
The blow was absolute.
Ren’s vision exploded into chaotic, fractal colors, the final warning signs of a brain abruptly shutting down to protect itself from a lethal aneurysm. His legs gave out.
But Sirius was still glowing.
The massive dose of golden energy Ren had desperately injected into him was still burning in his veins. Sirius’s elite biology was processing the foreign mana slowly, utilizing it differently than his own.
Operating on pure military instinct, Sirius made the brutal, split-second decision only a veteran commander could make.
He triggered a partial fusion with his tiger. His muscles expanded, rippling with sudden strength. He lunged forward and grabbed Ren.
There was no gentleness in it. He hauled the unconscious boy up by the harness, securing him with the desperate, vice-like grip of a man carrying his only lifeline. With Ren practically dangling from his arm, Sirius pivoted and launched himself up the cleared stairwell at blinding speed.
The five remaining prisoners were left behind in the dark.
As they sprinted upward, Selthia’s voice drifted up from the depths of the seventh chamber. It carried the chilling, satisfied tone of someone who hadn’t gotten exactly what she wanted, but was perfectly content with the bloody compromise they had forced upon themselves.
"I told you," she cooed into the darkness. A heavy, mocking pause followed. "You were way too greedy!"
Sirius didn’t look back. He hauled Ren up the stone steps, his heart pounding with the terrifying realization that whatever nightmares were rushing to meet them from Yino would be here far sooner than any of them wanted.
Selthia’s laughter followed them all the way up into the dark.