Chapter 574 - Taming the Fourth Year: Journey - 12

Sirius’s statement hung in the air like an accusation against reality itself.

In their world, mana signatures were as reliable as heartbeats, when someone was unconscious, their energy patterns became dormant and predictable.

For Ren to be showing activity so soon after a direct strike suggested what was waking him up was something far beyond normal recovery.

Julius studied the ’unconscious’ boy, immediately noticing that the strange resonance emanating from his core was growing stronger. It was subtle but constant.

"But now," Sirius continued, his voice betraying doubt that Julius rarely heard from the ’shadow warrior’, "it seems something is awakening in him. Julius... this has gone too far. The boy is too anomalous, too risky..."

The words carried the weight of the evidence before him.

Julius felt a knot form in his stomach, a cold certainty that they were approaching a point of no return. He didn’t want to think badly of Ren, the boy who had always helped readily, who had mostly listened to advice, who had never shown signs of malice or corruption.

"I don’t want to believe anything bad about the boy," Julius responded carefully, each word chosen with apparent diplomatic neutrality. "Everything we’ve seen suggests he’s fundamentally good. He’s helped many people, taken risks to protect others..."

"Julius," Sirius interrupted him, his attention divided between the prince and the body that was beginning to move imperceptibly, "you just saw the remains of a battle where he defeated Zhao and then transformed into something that required my fusion and a direct light of purification strike to stop... Are you sure we can trust him? Isn’t all this looking too much like what Yino did with the crystal?"

The comparison sent ice through Julius’s veins.

Julius could feel how the boy’s energy gradually increased, an accumulation that presaged an awakening very soon. The mana patterns were becoming more complex, more active.

"I sense something bad," Sirius admitted, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "He gave us the power of fusion, the same power I used to stop him indeed, but in the end it’s still a power we don’t understand, that’s why... The boy could end up being a bigger problem than any supposed solution he represents."

Julius observed Ren more carefully, noting how his muscles gradually tensed, how his breathing became deeper and more controlled. The other students remained unconscious, but Ren was clearly fighting his way back to awareness with a determination that spoke to either admirable resilience or deeply concerning obsession.

The atmosphere had become strange, but Julius remembered all their previous battles where he had been able to see Ren’s true "heart", the core of what drove the boy’s every action.

"Innocence until proven guilty," Julius declared firmly, his voice carrying the authority of a prince. "It’s a principle I’ve maintained for decades, and I’m not going to abandon it out of fear of the unknown."

Sirius considered Julius’s words for a long moment, his eyes never leaving Ren’s slowly stirring form.

"I’ll have to get better proof then," Sirius finally murmured, his voice carrying the weight of reluctant acceptance. The admission hung in the air like an unspoken threat, proof surely meant testing Ren more later. "But if he awakens like he did a moment ago, it’s up to you and the others to transform. I’ve already lost too much energy that I might need for the real journey."

Julius was genuinely surprised to hear such an admission from Sirius. Few people of his caliber ever admitted limitations in their power.

Ren’s core began pulsing with greater intensity, the energy radiating outward in waves that made the air feel thick and charged. The boy clenched his fists with growing strength as he began to rise, his movements trembling but determined, as if some internal force was pushing him to stand against his physical exhaustion.

When he finally managed to kneel, gasping but stubborn in his resolution, Julius could see that something had changed in his eyes. There wasn’t the loss of control that Sirius had described, the wild, bestial fury that had required purification to stop was gone, but there was an intensity that Julius hadn’t expected.

A focus that spoke of purpose rather than mere rage.

A powerful pulse was born from his mana center and provided him extra energy again, the burst of power so strong that Julius felt it resonate in his own chest like a second heartbeat.

Then the energy traveled into the distance, expanding outward like ripples in the air.

Ren looked at Julius and the guards, then managed to stand completely upright. His legs trembled for a moment under the weight of exhaustion from the transformation he had undergone, but he found his balance and raised his arms in a combat pose.

The stance was imperfect, he was still recovering, but his intent was crystal clear. He was prepared to continue fighting against impossible odds.

But before anyone could react to his silent challenge, they all felt something that made their combat instincts activate immediately.

An avalanche of mana signatures in the distance... hundreds, maybe thousands of energy signatures moving in formation, directly toward them.

Every trained warrior present recognized the feeling immediately: they were about to be overwhelmed by numbers.

On the horizon, the nearest small forest of Golden Noses began altering violently. The golden trees, which normally remained motionless except to feed opportunistically, swayed and creaked as if something massive was pushing them from within.

The sound of battle between beasts carried across the distance, punctuated by sharp cracks as ’trunks’ began to snap.

Ren felt momentarily ignored in his battle stance, his attention divided between the approaching threat and something in his hand. He lowered his gaze and saw the letter that Sirius had left there, its surface wrinkled by his unconscious grip during his brief unconsciousness.

He didn’t fully understand why he had it or what it meant that they hadn’t taken it from him, but what happened next left no time for detailed interrogation.

The small Golden Nose forest literally split in two.

The massive beasts that had grown to respectable power over many years were torn from their places and hurled aside like twigs in a hurricane.

A path opened through the cluster, and through it emerged a wave of familiar beasts that made everyone present feel a sense of déjà vu.

Hundreds of mutant creatures were heading directly toward them.