Chapter 1278 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - Last Front - 3

Chapter 1278: Chapter 1278 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - Last Front - 3

Ren slid the ring onto his finger.

He possessed three now. Three elemental rings rested side by side against his skin. The concentrated weight of three defeated guardians sat heavily on his hand, matching the exact number the legendary King Dragarion had claimed during his quest.

Luna and Larissa flanked him in the dim light of the cavern. They reached out, their fingers gently catching his hand to examine the artifact up close.

The object possessed a strange, mesmerizing beauty that felt entirely detached from the brutal slaughter required to obtain it. It was an incredibly simple ring, seemingly too small to house the terrifying power to control and buff an element.

"Why such a small shape if this was meant for a dragon?" Larissa asked. She tilted his hand, watching the ambient light catch the subtle engravings on the metal. "A ring... It is almost ironic."

"I do not think the physical shape mattered to the dragons at all," Ren explained, looking down at the quiet glow. "This is likely a specific design choice by the Engineer. It is likely a user interface just for us. A practical way for humans to store, transport, and wield the artifact without requiring a completely ethereal system like the ones they have."

He paused, letting the residual mana of the cavern interact with the ring.

"The dragons would not even register the shape because they do not equip these items. They simply eat them... Just like Mooshito did with the first ones we found, for a mana beast, this object is essentially just a dense cluster of runes they swallow to integrate directly into their biology. For humans, it functions more like an external tool. The Engineer gave it a simple, wearable form to accommodate our limitations. The aesthetics were never meant for the beasts..."

Selphira stepped into their circle, cutting through the quiet academic-like moment with her usual sharp practicality.

"The mountain goes deep," she stated, her eyes scanning the long tunnels behind. "We have already burned a significant amount of time in this chamber. I trust the others to secure the capital, but we cannot afford to get comfortable. We need to head back."

Ren looked at his hand one last time... Then he gave a firm nod.

The huge black swamp outside the crystal mountain was undoubtedly still ablaze, choked by the inferno their own siege had sparked.

Navigating that hellscape would normally be a nightmare. But with Selphira taking point and the combined power of the girls supporting him, exiting the territory would be a relatively smooth operation. The blistering heat was no match for their ice and active barriers. Even though Ren’s core felt the lingering ache of felling a guardian, he had learned from his past mistakes; he had kept just enough energy in the tank to ensure a safe extraction.

"Let’s move out fast," Ren said, turning toward the exit. "We already have what we came for."

♢♢♢♢

Miles away on the southern front, Selthia’s army finally broke the dam.

Four hundred Platinum mutants represented every high level unit the corrupted princess had left in her arsenal, and that sheer volume of corrupted biomass simply rolled over the human defenses.

The reinforced stone barricades Yang, Shizu and Mako had painstakingly erected crumbled into dust. The towering walls of fire Ignatius conjured were smothered under mountains of flesh.

The tide had lost its brakes entirely.

The Shadow Dragon’s domain was also completely overrun.

The guardian could no longer stem the attack with its summoned shadow soldiers. There were simply too many mutants. They packed the terrain so tightly that the black ground itself broke beneath a writhing carpet of fangs and claws.

The dragon’s devastating breath weapon now fired at less than half its original output.

Hours of relentless, agonizing punishment had drained the behemoth. Even when a blast of dark energy managed to carve a deep trench through the mutants vanguard, it offered zero reprieve. The next wave of monsters filled the gap instantly. It was a suffocating wall of corrupted meat that replaced its own dead before the shadows could even settle.

The guardian was drowning in the ocean Selthia had poured over its head.

It was playing out exactly as Sirius and Liu had anticipated.

"It is time," Liu murmured, his sharp ears tracking the failing heartbeat of the dragon.

Sirius nodded, though his expression remained grim. The overarching strategy had worked perfectly. Selthia was spending her entire army to butcher the dragon for them. However, executing the human portion of the heist was where the logistics became a nightmare.

"This is not going to be a clean grab," Sirius noted, pointing through the wave. "Selthia makes emotional mistakes, but she is not stupid... Look at the formation."

He traced the movement of the horde. "She is saturating the frontline to crush the beast, yes. But she is also deliberately positioning too many of her heaviest units to shield the spoils from us the second the dragon drops. They are forming a living dome over the core and blocking the entrance to the mountain vault. A standard frontal assault will not be enough to punch through that kind of density and steal the prize."

"And they will chase us even if we manage to pry the door open," Liu added. "The second we step foot inside that crystal mountain, the horde will follow... Fighting through an ancient trial with four hundred Platinum mutants breathing down our necks would be hell..."

The two commanders ran the grim calculus in seconds, speaking in clipped sentences over the roar of the dying beast.

They debated how long they could realistically keep the entrance clear. They mapped out escape routes. Digging an underground exit was virtually impossible given how easily the mutants burrowed through the soil and the severe lack of earth tamers stationed in the south. Escaping upward was equally flawed, as the entrance would be completely choked by the same thick wall of monsters.

"Holding the door open is the real bottleneck," Sirius concluded.

"Since she can’t drop an indestructible artifact to seal it, we should be able to force a path," Liu calculated. "I can use my concentrated sound waves to blast a very small, temporary tunnel through the mass. At least enough for one person..."

"I am going with you," Sirius stated without a hint of hesitation. "When I merge with the shadows, my space needed is closet to zero. We have to secure that ring... Two men is the absolute minimum required for extraction. You carve the path; I will cover your blind spots."

The plan was set.

They readied their stances, waiting for the final curtain to fall.

♢♢♢♢

The moment the Shadow Dragon finally stopped firing its breath, the battlefield shifted. The creature’s prodigious regeneration sputtered and died under the crushing weight of the horde.

As the mutants swarmed over the colossal carcass to finish the job and claim the spoils, the human Vanguard unleashed everything they had left.

They struck the mutants, the fallen dragon, and the mountain entrance in one synchronized, massive barrage.

The three academy directors pooled their remaining mana, conjuring a massive, blinding sphere of fire. Hikari and Umi channeled their reserves directly into helping Sirius, amplifying his Light magical output. High above, Lin plummeted from the clouds like a burning meteor, slowly wrapping her body in lightning. Yang crashed into the dirt right beside her, encased in a towering suit of woven wood and bedrock, a choice that cost far less energy than manipulating the surrounding terrain. Zhao spread his wings wide, unleashing a blizzard of razor-sharp feathers.

At the exact center of the chaos, Liu released his most devastating sonic attack. A destructive, vibrating pulse of pure sound ripped through the air, aimed squarely at the mountain’s blocked entrance.

Every single attack slammed into the living wall of flesh.

But the corrupted tide was far denser and more resilient than any of them had projected.

With the dragon no longer thinning their ranks, the mutant swarm had compressed into a solid, unyielding mountain of Platinum rank muscle and bone. The combined might of the Vanguard, the directors’ inferno, Lin’s kinetic strike, Yang’s siege armor, Zhao’s storm, and Liu’s sonic boom, failed to obliterate the blockade.

They barely managed to tear a minuscule gap in the formation. ℴℴ𝘮

It was a tiny, ragged sliver of empty space. A fleeting crack that would remain open for only a fraction of a second before the surrounding mutants rushed in to seal it.

"Keep hitting it!" Sirius roared to the rest of the squad, instantly realizing the breach was closing now. "Do not let them close the gap!"

Without wasting another breath, he grabbed Liu firmly by the shoulder.

He initiated a shadow jump.

Sirius and Liu vanished from the sky.

They materialized just inside the mouth of the mountain, slipping through the small fissure at the last possible instant. A heartbeat later, the writhing wall of mutants slammed shut behind them, sealing the entrance completely.

Outside, the exhausted Vanguard squad maintained the pressure, desperately buying whatever time they could for the men inside.

Inside, Sirius and Liu stood alone. The darkness of the southern shadow mountain wrapped around them. Ahead lay the deadly, unknown trials of the ancient ruin. Behind them lay a meat sealed door, with four hundred Platinum apex predators leading an army of thousands, currently tearing at the dragón corpse but it wouldn’t be long until they started to get inside.

"Well," Sirius said into the gloom, his steady voice masking the sharp spike of adrenaline. "We are in."

"We are... in," Liu echoed.

The two commanders quickly moved deeper into the mountain, racing to secure the elemental ring before the corruption followed through, fully aware that the clock was ticking and their only exit was buried under an army.