Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons novel Chapter 581

581 /633

Chapter 581 -581 – Taming the Fourth Year: Journey – Struggle Start

Luna and Liora arrived at the castle followed by the two maids and the four remaining guards, Umi, Hikari, Hana, and Kira, all looking somewhat disheveled after the “discussion” they had had in the dormitories.

The evidence of their confrontation was written across their bodies in bruises and torn clothing. Luna and Liora being dual tamers made them a major problem for their caretakers now.

Umi was still rubbing her shoulder, the joint clearly tender from whatever technique had been used against her. Hikari wore an expression caught between worry and genuine surprise; she had never seen Lady Luna angry enough to use so much power against her own guards.

“Lady Luna,” Hana murmured as they approached one of the castle walls, her voice carrying the careful tone of someone who had already lost one argument and feared losing another, “we still believe this is a mistake. Escaping from the academy, using so much force against poor us…”

“I did it because you had no choice,” Luna responded without turning around, her voice carrying the matter of fact tone of someone who had thought through the consequences. “You had orders to keep me there. If you’re not somewhat beaten up, they’re going to punish you for not fulfilling your role… Although I told you to stay there and say that we had escaped later…”

♢♢♢♢

It was too strange.

Ren and Julius had felt the same energy signature from that day, without doubt… here, below during the entire excavation. In their concentration on coordinating earth control, had the abomination escaped? Had it hidden in deeper tunnels while they worked?

No.

Suddenly they felt the signature again, stronger than before.

There was something directly beneath them.

A black claw emerged suddenly from the earth, moving with a fluidity that defied its woody appearance. Its fingers, long and curved like ancient tree branches, closed around the empty crystal sphere.

Ren recognized it immediately, though something had changed.

“The tree-shaped claw,” he murmured, instinctively backing away as recognition sent ice through his veins.

But this time it was completely different from the three previous occasions when he had come here. It wasn’t opaque like the first time, when it had simply been a useful object to mark the path. It also wasn’t covered with golden fungi like the second time… And it definitely wasn’t absent like the third time, when the entire area had been empty.

Had it moved by itself?

While Ren watched with fascinated horror, he could distinguish small lines of violet light flowing through the claw’s internal structure. They weren’t as dark as corruption marks, but they had a disturbing similarity to it and part of his own energy that made his stomach contract with revulsion.

The claw closed with devastating force and crushed the crystal sphere as if it were a clay bowl. The fragments fell between its fingers while it turned and pressed itself against the earth, using the leverage to push its body upward.

Zhao launched one of his feathers with great force, but it bounced off without effect, leaving barely a scratch on the surface that should have been vulnerable to his stronger than Gold-rank attacks.

The enormous entity kept pushing itself upward.

“Everyone back!” Julius shouted, but his voice sounded more fascinated than alarmed. Like everyone present, he was witnessing something that defied his understanding of the world, something that challenged the very categories they used to make sense of reality.

A complete arm slowly emerged from the ground. It wasn’t simply the claw Ren remembered, but a complete extremity that extended several meters in length. The surface was marked by intricate patterns that seemed to combine artificial design with organic growth, as if it had been sculpted and then grown by itself.

The enormous artifact that supposedly had been deactivated by corruption.

Ren had no way of knowing that Bloodwyn and Hagen’s group had already seen the complete form of this arm months ago, when they had been destroying the cradle in this same region. He didn’t know that since that moment, the enormous artifact had moved locations, ending up underground when the tide of corrupt beasts that deactivated it returned to their place.