Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons-Chapter 339 - - Taming the Shadows

Nieth remained motionless, like part of the corridor shadows themselves.

His years of training had perfected him in the art of invisibility; not mere visual concealment, but the complete suppression of his presence. His breathing, so slow that it barely disturbed the surrounding air. His scent, so light that the best beast olfactory senses would take several minutes to perceive. And his mana, hidden so deep within his core that it didn't stand out even in the city's almost null mana environment.

He observed the three young people and the elderly Ashenway walking away down the opposite hallway. It was time to return and complete his mission... he would withdraw to inform Kharzan of what he had witnessed.

The information about the strange glowing creature would be of particular interest to his masters.

It was then that he felt it.

A subtle change in the density of the shadows behind him. An almost imperceptible shift in the texture of darkness. A stealth as good as his own.

The black snake launched itself behind him, its shadow attack unfurling like a wave of ink in the night.

But Nieth was no ordinary spy. His Dark Trickster Spirit, a Silver 3 rank beast with natural affinity for shadows, responded instantly. The snake's attack was canceled against an equally dense shadow barrier, each strand of darkness counteracted.

With a fluid movement, Nieth reversed the dynamics of attack and defense. His Trickster extended shadow tentacles that coiled around the snake. The shadow tendrils wrapped around the serpent, restricting its movement.

They've discovered me, he thought, maintaining calm despite the situation. The decision was made in a fraction of a second. Priority: immediate withdrawal.

He began to melt into the shadows of the floor, his body rapidly vanishing. It was a technique he had used and perfected over decades, an infallible escape even against higher-level tamers.

The cage would only last an instant against the trapped Silver 3 rank snake, but it should give him the precious milliseconds he needed to completely disappear.

But something changed much faster than expected.

The captured snake seemed to dissolve. The chains imprisoning it broke instantly to Nieth's surprise.

A flash of light, so intense it seemed to tear the very fabric of darkness, burst from the snake's core.

Where the snake had been, now stood Sirius Starweaver. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

And just before Nieth could escape, Sirius's hand closed around his throat, ripping him from the shadows and lifting him off the ground with surprising strength.

"Spy from Yino or the Goldcrests?" Sirius pronounced, his voice as cold as ice. "Did you think we wouldn't notice your presence?"

Nieth was genuinely astonished. His concealment technique was legendary among Yino agents, capable of deceiving even several beasts specialized in detection. He hadn't expected to be discovered with such ease, much less caught with such precision.

'Suicide or forced escape?'

But he hadn't survived so many years in his profession by surrendering to the first complication. With a calm born of countless life-or-death situations, he made a quick decision...

He activated his trump card.

If he used it, he would reveal the use of abyssal power among Kharzan's troops, but the leader had already used it himself so it should have little significance to use a bit more for a second.

His second beast, hidden until that moment, emerged to the surface. The Abyssal Dark Coyote, a synthetic creature specialized in escape and information gathering, a perfect complement to his Trickster. His body combined and expanded, altering the structure of his cells to make them more malleable.

The corrupt synergy between both beasts transformed his body. His shadows mixed with the abyssal corruption, converting his humanoid form into something black and more fluid.

Sirius squeezed, but his fingers sank into a mass that was no longer completely solid. Despite this, thanks to his shadow control, he didn't let go.

However, Nieth's neck had transformed, shifting laterally while his arm took its place in the grip.

A distorted and cacophonous laugh, a mix of the Coyote's howls and the Trickster's cackles, resonated in the hallway.

Nieth opened a mouth that had expanded far beyond natural limits, revealing rows of sharp teeth that glowed with a sickly purple tone. With a brutal movement, he sank these fangs into his own arm, cleanly severing it from Sirius's grip.

The separated limb lost its shadows and became normal in Sirius' hand while Nieth plunged into the floor again at a vertiginous speed.

'I've made it,' thought Nieth, feeling the freedom of the shadow jump. The between-space welcomed him, a realm of pure darkness where he was faster than anyone. 'Not even a Gold tamer can…'

His thought was abruptly interrupted when he felt a presence behind him. Impossible. No one could follow him inside his own shadow jump. It was supposed to be an absolute domain, an inviolable sanctuary.

And yet, there was Sirius, sliding through the darkness as if it were the domain's sovereign.

Starweaver's face had transformed. His eyes, normally cold and expressionless, now burned with fury. The irritation initially directed at Ren had turned into pure anger, fueled by the abyssal presence he had detected in the spy.

"Don't underestimate a guardian," Sirius growled, his voice distorted by the shadow realm's properties.

A strange light spun around him, interwoven with shadows in a perfect and impossible balance. The pure white of his celestial tiger merged with the absolute blackness of his serpent.

With a movement that defied all logic, Sirius extended his hands toward the very edges of the dimensional tunnel through which they were traveling. His fingers seemed to grab the fabric of shadows and, with a brutal pull, tore the bridge.

The world around them fragmented. Nieth felt how he was violently expelled from the intermediate space, his body forcibly materialized in the hallway. The transition was so abrupt, so contrary to the natural laws of the shadow jump, that his body suffered the equivalent of a dimensional whiplash. Pain beyond description tore through him as his physical form was wrenched back into reality.

Before he could recover, Sirius emerged beside him. But this was no longer the same Sirius who had initiated the pursuit.

Sirius had fused the power of his beasts, reaching a state that few tamers in the world could even conceive.

With a speed that contradicted his apparent calm, Sirius lunged at Nieth. His hands, now wrapped in that strange combination of light and darkness, pierced through the spy's shadow armor as if it were wet paper.

Nieth felt how his last defense and his mutations were vanishing. The Coyote and the Trickster tried to reform the protective shell, but Sirius's mixed energy neutralized their efforts. The corruption that had been his strength now writhed in agony, unable to withstand the light of the Tiger combined with the darkness of the Snake.

Sirius's hand closed again around his throat, this time with an inflexible firmness. Nieth tried to transform once more, but discovered with horror that his control over his own form had been nullified.

"Yino," Sirius pronounced, his voice resonating with power.

The fingers began to squeeze, gradually increasing the pressure. Nieth felt how his trachea began to yield under the relentless force.

"Abyssal corruption," Sirius continued, "is not a power that should be mastered. It is a plague that must be exterminated."

The first crack was soft, almost inaudible. Cartilage yielding under pressure. Nieth tried to speak, negotiate, beg, but no sound could escape from his compressed throat.

Sirius's eyes, now two orbs of intermingled light and darkness, showed no mercy whatsoever. The shadow of the coming war, the threat to his family, to his... everything was symbolically concentrated in this act of elimination.

The second crack was more audible, the hyoid bone fracturing under inexorable pressure. Nieth's eyes opened wide, absolute terror reflected in them as life began to leave his body.

The Yino spy, who had survived countless impossible missions, who had outwitted the best security systems and many powerful tamers, met his end in a dark hallway, at the hands of a power he had fatally underestimated.

The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was Sirius's face, not with the satisfaction of victory, but with the somber resolution of one who knows that this is probably... only the first death of many to come.

The final crack resonated in the empty hallway, followed by the soft sound of a lifeless body sliding to the shadows on the floor.