Chapter 385: 385 - Taming the Fusion - 2

Chapter 385: Chapter 385 – Taming the Fusion – 2

Kieran tried to retreat, create distance, regroup his scattered thoughts.

Lin and her beast launched toward him from opposite angles, moving with a speed that made her previous efforts seem sluggish in comparison.

Kieran threw all his remaining wind power, creating a storm of compressed air that should have sent both Lin and her fused beast flying backward. It was everything he had left, his final desperate gambit.

But the air blades disintegrated again upon contact with Lin’s black feathers and those of her beast. The intensity of the barrier didn’t seem to matter, the feathers cut through his power as if it were mist.

Kieran barely had time to ascend as a last resort, desperately trying to escape toward where he could hear reinforcements approaching.

Height had always been his domain, his advantage.

Lin leaped between trees, following his ascending trajectory with multiplied agility. She launched after him, and Kieran finally managed to push her with a wind gust in the air. It seemed that the heights were indeed still the tamer’s domain. Lin could keep the earth and its immediate vicinity…

For a moment, it seemed he would manage to escape.

Then Lin’s fused beast arrived from below her, its powerful legs carrying it to meet back-to-back with Lin and giving her the extra boost she needed.

Lin rose at great speed, physics and bestial power combining into something unstoppable…

Her claws closed around Kieran’s ankle, and she hurled him toward the forest floor with even more devastating force than before.

Kieran tried to stop himself, launching desperate gusts that didn’t work entirely this time.

The impact was brutal.

His partially corrupted body absorbed some of the damage, but not enough.

When Lin landed, Kieran barely managed to rise unsteadily to attack, the abyssal potions giving him more and more beast traits that allowed him to squeeze every last gram of energy from his creature while roaring with feral desperation.

But Lin effortlessly dodged each of his attacks while moving around him and delivering cuts and blows that opened bleeding furrows in his increasingly transformed form.

When Lin’s beast also landed behind Kieran…

“Wait!” Kieran gasped, blood running down his transformed face. “I know things! Valuable information about…”

“You’re right,” Lin responded, her now red eyes fixed on him with the cold evaluation of a professional. “You know a lot.”

Her beast moved like lightning, its talon finding Kieran’s neck with precision. The crack was final and definitive.

♢♢♢♢

A few moments earlier, the small mushroom had returned to Ren’s system, materializing back into his body with a flash of golden light.

«Time to go,» it announced immediately, its mental voice carrying satisfaction and urgency in equal measure. «I already saw that I can do what I wanted.»

“Great,” Ren grunted while dodging another scorpion thrust. «Though you seem a bit upset.»

«The sadistic one didn’t thank me,» the mushroom responded with a hurt tone that would have been comical under different circumstances.

«She’s busy,» Ren blocked an attack with his crystalline claws, the impact sending vibrations up his arms. «I’m sure she’ll thank you later. But right now, help me deal with this.»

The small creature grudgingly accepted the logic of the situation.

The light lines began pulsing through Ren’s body with renewed intensity. His light attacks became more concentrated, more powerful. He was finally managing to hurt the scorpion significantly, each ray leaving visible damage that didn’t immediately regenerate.

But then the reinforcements arrived.

Two figures emerged between the trees. Ren analyzed them quickly: a normal tracker with a terrestrial beast, and another abyssal, this one with a Silver 1 core and one Silver 2 corrupt core specialized in speed.

He immediately found himself surrounded, three enemies attacking him from different directions.

“Ren!” Lin’s voice cut through the air as she and her beast arrived like a storm of black feathers and claws to dominate the new battlefield.

The normal tracker was the first to fall. Lin’s beast reached him from behind with devastating efficiency. He didn’t have a chance to even manifest his defensive abilities.

The speedy abyssal was more difficult. Lin cut him repeatedly, but he regenerated each time, his abyssal core repairing the damage.

The scorpion was in the same situation, its regeneration keeping it in the fight with Ren despite accumulated damage that should have been fatal.

Lin remembered her time limit, the five-minute countdown ticking in her consciousness.

She hurried, her figure with 360% speed increase making her a blur that the speed abyssal couldn’t match despite his specialization. She began cutting him systematically, dismembering him faster than he could regenerate.

At the same time, her beast kept the scorpion occupied, giving Ren space to maneuver and plan his final attack.

‘The spores are slower,’ Ren thought, an idea forming as he watched the two abyssals resist more than they should have. ‘Maybe now I can use the ray to finish this…’

“If you get them together, I can cancel their regeneration with a concentrated attack!”

Lin understood immediately. She and her beast began pushing both abyssals toward the same point, destroying them with blows and cuts while positioning them for Ren’s finishing move.

Ren channeled almost all his energy into a single attack. The light lines in his body blazed like stars while a massive ray formed in his chest, drawing power from every enhanced cell in his body.

“Now!”

The ray impacted both creatures simultaneously. The purifying energy spread through their abyssal systems, destroying the combination and regeneration processes permanently. The corruption that had sustained them simply… ended.

The screams cut off abruptly. Where the two had been, only smoldering ashes remained, the purifying light having reduced them to their fundamental components.

The next reinforcements arrived, but only found scattered ashes and some bodies almost completely consumed by golden spores.

There was no sign that the fugitives were anywhere nearby.

♢♢♢♢

Lin ran across the plains, her fused beast moving alongside her while Ren rode on its back.

They had already crossed the border, but continued moving quickly to put distance between them and any possible persistent pursuer. The open terrain favored speed over stealth now.

“Another to the left,” Ren indicated, seeing through his mana eyes and his mushroom’s knowledge. His enhanced perception painted the landscape with invisible information. “There’s also a group of hypnotic frogs ahead.”

Lin and her beast veered, easily avoiding the minor creatures. When an unavoidable zone blocked their path, Lin’s new wind blades cleared them without reducing speed.

“We left them far behind,” Ren observed, looking toward the magical forest fading in the distance. “I think we’re safe.”

“Good,” Lin panted, stopping along with her beast, her breathing becoming labored. The transformation’s demands were finally catching up with her. “Because I’m out of time.”

The transformation unraveled suddenly. Her fused beast vanished, returning to her interior, and Lin collapsed as the extreme energy that had sustained her simply evaporated.

Ren managed to slide off the beast’s back before it fell completely, catching Lin as she fainted from exhaustion. Her body felt surprisingly fragile after witnessing her display of overwhelming power.

“Thank you,” he murmured, lifting her onto his back. Despite his young age, his enhanced strength made the burden manageable. “Now it’s my turn to carry.”

The small mushroom pulsed in his hair. «Where to now?»

Ren looked toward the plain, where the city began in the distance.

“It’s time to ask for more support,” he said with determination. “We have to get my parents and the neighbors who want it out of Goldcrest territory.”

With Lin unconscious on his back, Ren headed toward the city, toward the support they would need for the next phase of their mission.

Once again I lost some time editing a visual scene… Did you see it?

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