Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons novel Chapter 918

Chapter 918: Chapter 918 - Taming the Crystal Hearts - 2

Selphira was considerably more affected by what was happening than she’d anticipated would be the case.

She’d faced multiple crises. Situations where lives depended on her decisions and where failure resulted in catastrophe. She’d learned through many errors to maintain an appropriate emotional distance. Separation between personal feelings and tactical necessities permitting her to function effectively under pressure that would paralyze those less disciplined.

But today was different...

And the Ashenway matriarch realized with uncomfortable clarity that she cared about Victor and Sirius’s inherited mission considerably more than she’d expected permitting herself to feel.

Victor was her grand-nephew technically. Family connection coming from marriages rather than blood... Perhaps little blood shared between them through some of those marriages.

Family nonetheless.

The boy she’d watched grow from child into prince. Who’d trained under her observation and who represented the future of the kingdom if by normal succession.

And Sirius... Sirius had been her most difficult student. The quietest and then most annoying as an adult.

In life she’d come to avoid him. Treated him as a nuisance many times because his reserved attitude and stubborn independence frustrated her teaching methods that required open communication.

But investigating his tragedy in the last years, looking back and considering his reserved attitude being only a facade hiding pain and isolation, she’d realized something that hadn’t been obvious while he lived.

When he didn’t return from that cave, it had left a wound that had never healed appropriately.

Because she’d never had closure...

Never had a chance to say things that should have been said, an opportunity to understand him properly before it was too late.

And now Orion was playing with both memories simultaneously. Victor and the Light Heart in his power.

That manipulation was touching nerves Selphira normally kept well protected behind a cold mask and implacable professionalism.

Now she needed to know what was happening with Victor. Needed seeing with her own eyes what Orion had done with Victor whose mana she couldn’t sense. Mana that should be enormous and easy to perceive. His mana signature should be blazing like a bonfire visible from kilometers away to anyone with perception abilities.

But there was nothing...

Waiting patiently while the situation developed at the slow pace Orion climbed the stairs was no longer an option she’d tolerate when her instinct screamed that each second could matter for survival of a ’little bird’ that, whether she admitted it or not, she’d come to consider as genuine family.

Not just the overindulged prince that his mother pampered and spoiled rotten. Not just a political asset to be protected for strategic reasons. But someone who mattered personally in ways that transcended duty or calculation.

That spoiled brat mattered a lot to her. Maybe it was Leonel’s loss or maybe she was finally getting too old.

Selphira absorbed her Black Tortoise in a decision that was more emotional than calculated.

The massive creature was withdrawn to her core where the energy it contained could be accessed without needing to maintain the enormous physical manifestation limiting her speed.

The tortoise had been a devastating weapon. Crushing mutants by the dozens with each movement. Creating a defensive anchor that enemies couldn’t easily bypass. But it was slow and somewhat ponderous. Not suited for rapid repositioning toward a new objective.

And she needed speed now more than raw crushing power.

She launched forward now mounted on her White Serpent that was considerably faster. Acceleration converting the distance into a blur as she closed the space between her current position and the army.

The serpent moved like flowing water. Fast in ways that her massive tortoise could never match. Not as durable perhaps but mobility had its own defensive value when you could simply not be where enemies expected you.

She had to reach the rear guard soon. Place where Orion would appear when he emerged from the ruin.

She created an enormous ice wall in her path. Structure rising from the ground in seconds and extending laterally to cover more than a considerable area.

Not simply a defensive barrier but a weapon eliminating mutants getting in her way. Creatures being crushed or frozen when the thick wall manifested in the space they occupied.

The ice didn’t grow gradually... It erupted.

An explosive formation that gave no warning and permitted no escape for anything caught in the manifestation zone. One moment there was empty space and the next moment there was a solid ice wall several meters thick and dozens of meters high.

Mutants caught in that zone were frozen solid if they were lucky or crushed between the fast forming ice masses if they weren’t. Bodies preserved in crystalline structures or reduced to paste depending on exactly where they’d been standing.

It was a casualty result that would have taken several minutes of careful combat... Though in a certain way much less efficient than more sustained elimination methods would have been.

Organized volleys that lit the sky with elemental energies and that would have instantly killed anyone even with Gold-rank defenses.

When hundreds joined their mana, the fire blasts were hot enough to melt stone and wind blades turned sharp enough to cut through steel. Combined techniques that magnified effects beyond what individuals could achieve. All focused on a single target with intent to eliminate the threat before it could close distance.

It was a textbook response to a solo attacker. Overwhelming firepower applied before they could engage at close range where the numbers would be a nuance too.

But Selphira wasn’t any ordinary solo attacker.

She responded with the same combination of evasion and defense she’d perfected during centuries of facing exactly this type of assault.

The White Serpent moved with huge speed, its zigzagging making it difficult for attackers to predict its trajectory. Serpentine paths converting precise aim into an impossible task when the target changed direction with frequency defying any prediction.

And when attacks that couldn’t be completely evaded converged toward her position, she manifested conical ice shields she’d used in several previous wars. Protections not simply blocking but deflecting projectiles at angles that dispersed energy without permitting it to penetrate her defense directly.

It was geometry applied to survival under siege. Understanding of how force behaved when encountering inclined surfaces that redirected most of the impact rather than absorbing the hit directly.

And projectiles that glanced off continued traveling away from the target rather than remaining a threat.

Simple principle. Devastatingly effective when executed near thousands of enemy soldiers by someone who understood the dynamics of combat at an intuitive level that came from surviving hundreds of battles.

She was doing what she’d initially decided avoiding to not leave the enemy in her rear. And she was doing it without activating her fusion.

For her it would be considerably easier making a frontal assault if she used fusion right now.

The power that the duplicated Genbu would provide would be sufficient for destroying even the combined attacks from dozens of soldiers together without needing to evade or deflect individually.

She could advance straight through the front through absolute superiority, converting the enemy army into an irrelevant obstacle.

Could simply penetrate everything without worrying about minor damage accumulation because amplified capabilities would make that type of wear negligible compared to massive resistances fusion would unlock.

But she feared that if she revealed all her power now, Orion would retreat.