Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons novel Chapter 850

Chapter 850: Chapter 850 - Taming the Fifth Year - Devour Thyself, Lesser Ouroboros

A self-devouring serpent.

Theory said it was possible for sufficiently advanced spiritual beasts to consume portions of themselves and convert that consumption into explosive power increase. Not sustainable, but devastating in the moment.

Like burning your own furniture to heat your house. Effective short-term but catastrophic long-term.

But Liora didn’t need it long-term... She just needed to win now.

The severed tail section, still spiritually connected to the main body despite physical separation, began moving. Writhing toward the serpent’s head with unnatural purpose.

The Bashe’s permanent smile widened impossibly as its jaw opened.

And it bit down on its own tail, teeth sinking into spiritual flesh, consuming itself.

The crowd went silent.

Ren’s smile vanished, replaced by intense focus.

A serpent devouring itself in an act defying normal biological logic but resonating with profound symbolism permeating spiritual cultivation.

The ouroboros. The eternal cycle. Death and rebirth contained in a single impossible moment.

Ren sighed while watching the technique in its earlier form, expression communicating resignation more than frustration.

He’d known this was possible... 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Had even explained it to Liora in the Bashe’s potential development path. But he’d expected this particular breakthrough to come much later, not now.

Yet he realised that Liora, like him and his other companions, had obtained an ability they were supposed to acquire later.

The elemental curse ability the Bashe had just unlocked normally required the serpent to be at Gold 3 rank.

Two full ranks ahead of where it currently was. That was the standard progression. But intense battle seemed to have pushed both Liora and the Bashe beyond normal progression limits.

It was a phenomenon Ren had seen before, even in himself, moments where extreme pressure unlocked capabilities prematurely because necessity exceeded considerations of gradual preparation. Survival didn’t care about optimal timing.

The curse ability now activating would allow the Bashe to assimilate wood and earth elements much more easily for a considerable period, thanks to having consumed them along with its own essence in the self-devouring act.

It wasn’t permanent mastery... More like a temporary affinity boost for those specific elements. The Bashe could drain wood and earth mana from attacks and the environment at way higher rates.

It was a significant advantage considering the field was covered with roots and wooden structures that had previously been threats but could now convert into resources.

Every root the wolverine created became potential food. Every earth construct became potential fuel. The battlefield itself had transformed from weapon to buffet.

The disadvantage was that the serpent would be in what ancient texts called "possessed mode" during the curse’s active duration.

It would spend considerably more energy producing large quantities of miasma, consumption that would eventually exhaust its reserves if the battle prolonged too much. The burn rate would be 2× or 3× normal spiritual energy expenditure, maybe higher depending on how aggressively the Bashe used the enhanced power.

But short-term it would provide defensive and offensive power exceeding what a Gold 1 Bashe could normally manifest. Maybe approaching Gold 2 or even Gold 3 levels of output, though without the corresponding increase in base stats.

Ren had genuinely expected Liora and the Bashe to learn this technique upon reaching Gold 2, maybe early but not as far as Gold 1. Seeing it execute now was testament both to the desperation of the situation and to the extraordinary determination Liora had consistently demonstrated.

Desperate brilliance.

Ren realized that if he let the Bashe eat at its own pace or escape upward now, any future containment attempt would fail.

He’d have to rebuild the central tower again to reestablish the 5-point network and create double the number of launch stakes to compensate for the new miasma capacity.

That would require maybe 60% of the wolverine’s total reserves. And he didn’t have that much left after the tower construction and stake creation. Current reserves were probably sitting at 50-55% total mana.

The math didn’t work. He couldn’t afford a war of attrition anymore.

Trying to starve the Bashe now was also considerably more difficult when the serpent could literally eat earth and wood thanks to active curse.

Every strategy he’d prepared had assumed the Bashe couldn’t consume his constructions directly. That assumption was now invalid. The game had changed.

So Ren made a decision many observers didn’t anticipate.

Instead of starving it, he’d feed it.

He launched the 4 remaining towers from their tips downward. Not controlled demolition but use of massive structures from their points as spears, direct weapons, giant serpents of earth and wood thrown to strike the ground where the Bashe was positioned.

The towers fell like judgment, 200 meters of accumulated mass accelerating under gravity’s relentless pull.

They were spears weighing hundreds of tons, momentum accumulated during descent converting them into devastating weapons despite lack of additional elemental propulsion. The kinetic energy alone was staggering, simple physics making them nearly unstoppable forces.

Any ordinary beast would have tried dodging attacks of that magnitude, blows clearly exceeding what reasonable defense could handle.

But the Bashe didn’t dodge.