Chapter 556: Chapter 556 â Taming the Fourth Year: The Bigger Picture
âYes, also exactly that color,â Zhao answered with a tense voice. âI saw it clearly during that expedition.â
Sirius made a sound of frustration before addressing Selphira.
âI have to go,â he told her urgently. âThose creatures are already deviating down there, and the projections are useless. When they begin to search more broadly and erratically, theyâll soon be invading the surface. And not just Yinoâs civilians are going to pay the consequences of a passive approach on our part!â
âYou made a promise,â Selphira responded with a firm but tired voice. âIf you do this, youâre going to lose the opportunity to reclaim the clan youâve waited so long to rebuild.â
Sirius shouted at her, his voice charged with accumulated frustration:
âWhat opportunity?! The chamber opened and although Luna was there, the situation didnât change as we expected. Being so young, she canât claim her part yet because we didnât end up acting according to protocol. And with things as they are, taking any crystals out would be an invitation to attack from a complete united front of those idiots. One that, without Dragarion, we could only repel by betting tens of thousands of innocent casualties.â
His voice became more bitter.
âThe clanâs recovery, the supreme leaderâs seat⌠Luna must take it anyway. Half the promise doesnât make sense now with the door open so soon. So I could go and do something of real benefit.â
âThings shouldnât stay like this,â Selphira insisted. âWait for counsel from Julius and Arturo too. If you leave the sealâs range, theyâre going to open it and use it against you when you return. The Gold 3 ring is too far to come back in time.â
âSelphira, youâre not going to do it!â Sirius finally complained. âThe three princes wonât either. Nobody has the necessary requirements, and if I donât do it, we donât know if weâll be able to survive an assault.â
âWe can withstand a few years without problem,â Selphira argued.
âNot if thereâs internal fighting!â Sirius replied. âThereâs no point waiting, defending passively, if thereâs no longer new hope! The boy lost our best powers and is no longer the light of hope you believed. I told you from the beginning. All thatâs left is for me to go while the idiots take over my star but help you contain the beasts. And when I return, hopefully with another part of the family treasure, then I can tear it from their dirty hands.â
âIt will already be âprofanedâ even if you manage to recover it,â Selphira murmured with pain. âAnd I know youâll never get over that.â
âWeâll both live with it,â Sirius responded with a broken voice, âhere and in heaven, as long as Luna can reach the final goal.â
Ren felt as if he had been struck. The implications of what he was hearing were enormous. There were references to a clan, to a family treasure, to requirements and protocols he didnât completely understand. But what he did understand better now was the pain in Siriusâs voice and a bit of the situation that had been hidden behind Lunaâs tears.
Her family was at the center of some complex political situation, something that involved not only Lunaâs clan but now also the kingdomâs defenses against the underground creatures that had been discovered.
And apparently, he had been considered part of some solution until he lost that part of his power.
The weight of this realization also hit him. It wasnât just that his loss of abilities affected him personally; there were political and military consequences he hadnât considered.
Had Luna lost some kind of hope with him too?
She was trapped in the middle of all this, probably feeling responsible for situations that were even more beyond her control.
Suddenly, her strange behavior, her anger toward her father, and even her declaration of âenmityâ toward him took on a completely different meaning.
It was about the impossible pressure her family was facing and the way his loss of power had changed political equations he didnât even know existed.
â˘â˘â˘â˘
While continuing to listen to the conversation, Ren caught a specific location that made everything begin to make sense.
In the Gold 3 ringâŚ
Ren started thinking as he silently moved away from the place. With the information he had from before losing his fungus, combined with what Zhao had told him after his biggest expedition, he began to piece together the puzzle.
The âtree that looked like a clawâ that Zhao had mentioned in his reports, similar to the one that had marked the tunnel toward his fungusâs improvement years ago.
Maybe what Sirius was looking for was some artifact or medicine that could help improve the general situation. Something that could give them an advantage against the mutant creatures that were becoming an increasingly greater threat.
Ren wanted to think that all the knowledge he had shared had left the city better prepared, but when imagining a relentless assault from mutant beasts, he realized the limitations.
Having many more Silver tamers was definitely a good thing, but it didnât feel sufficient for a proactive attack. Only for defending. And Silver tamers who were still in formation, if they were sent underground in combat expeditions, many would die in battle.
But there was an even bigger problem. If the mutants were absorbing all the small beasts to create their clones, the quantity would be ridiculous. And they would never stop increasing their numbers even when attacked relentlessly if the capture range of new small beasts was very wide.
It was like facing an infinite enemy that dawned equal or stronger after each defeat inflicted on them, growing more with each battle.
Traditional warfare assumed finite resources and attrition working both ways. But an enemy that grew stronger violated those fundamental assumptions, making conventional military strategy obsolete.
He analyzed his current capabilities while walking back toward the dormitories. His Silver 2 hydra and Silver 1 wolverine were still powerful, but without his fungusâs bonuses and the rings, he was operating at approximately half his previous capacity.
In his previous expedition to the depths, he had fought against Gold 3 creatures and won with considerable difficulty. Gold 3 with half his power would represent a significant jump in danger.
Additionally, there was the question of the journey itself.
The distance to the Gold 3 ring represented weeks of travel through increasingly dangerous territory. Without his enhanced perception and analytical abilities, navigation alone would be challenging, let alone the combat encounters he would inevitably face.
So the question that tormented him was simple but crucial: could he reach the Gold 3 ring and get them what they wanted in his present situation?
Uff, finishing these 5 chapters together with the second Amazon volume was toughâŚ
The romantic subplot is finally starting to get a little spotlight. Whether you like the direction or not⌠remember the end depends a lot on the votes, so if the story is leaning somewhere you didnât want⌠then vote harder!
Anyway, as alwaysâŚ
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