Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons-Chapter 223 - Taming the Finals (Unit 1) - 14

Darkness enveloped them completely as they fell.

For a moment, everything was a chaos of sensations, stomachs contracting from the free fall, air whistling in their ears, the absolute disorientation of not knowing what was up or down. The sudden weightlessness made their bodies feel simultaneously heavy and light.

Ren reacted instinctively. His mushrooms pulsed with increasing intensity, brightening until they illuminated the tunnel through which they were falling.

The walls passed rapidly, an oddly smooth surface that seemed almost polished, reflecting the glow of his mushrooms.

"Hold on!" he shouted to Han, who was falling beside him, the other boy’s face a mask of shock and terror.

When they had fallen barely five meters deep, Ren managed to get rid of his backpack, extract his dagger and, with a precise movement, attempted to drive it into the tunnel wall. The blade penetrated the surface, creating a metallic screech as it momentarily reduced his falling speed.

With his free hand, Ren managed to grab Han’s arm, his fingers digging into the fabric of his sleeve.

But their combined weight exerted extra pressure on his grip. The dagger, though crafted from exceptional materials, didn’t have enough grip area to withstand such tension.

The wall emitted an alarming crack as it began to break.

"It won’t hold," Ren warned, feeling the dagger beginning to loosen. "Your spider! Use your web and drop the bag!"

Han, who had been momentarily paralyzed by the suddenness of the fall, finally reacted. His weaver spider partially manifested, silvery strands appearing at his fingertips as it launched a silk thread toward the opposite wall.

At that precise moment, the dagger gave way completely. Gravity reclaimed their bodies, dragging them deeper into the darkness, the momentary respite gone in an instant.

Han’s spider’s thread hit the wall, but instead of adhering firmly as it should have, it seemed to slide. The silk, normally capable of supporting the weight of both boys, barely managed to slow their fall before detaching.

"The walls!" Han shouted, desperately launching another thread. "They’re treated with something!"

Ren noticed it too. The surface appeared to have been deliberately polished and treated with some substance that prevented adhesion. He got rid of Han’s backpack too by cutting the straps.

But it was still not enough…

Han continued launching threads in all directions, each one momentarily slowing their fall before detaching. It was a battle against gravity they were gradually losing, but each deceleration meant less force in the eventual impact.

Meter after meter, they continued descending in the darkness barely illuminated by Ren’s mushrooms. Thirty meters... fifty... one hundred... The depth became alarming, taking them much deeper than expected.

"Keep launching threads!" Ren instructed while trying to position himself below Han, calculating angles and trajectories even as they plummeted.

Two hundred meters... two hundred fifty... Their falling speed had decreased considerably thanks to Han’s persistent efforts, but it remained dangerous, still fast enough to break bones or worse.

The hydra partially manifested. Not in its complete form but as a protective armor, scales overlapping across Ren’s body. The 140% increase in his defense would be crucial for what he planned.

At approximately three hundred meters deep, Ren perceived a change in the tunnel’s acoustics. The space was widening, indicating they were approaching some kind of chamber.

"Prepare for impact!" he warned Han.

Han launched so many desperate threads that he managed to reduce their speed even further before they finally landed from the vertical tunnel into a wider chamber.

The impact came with a dull thud that resonated in the darkness. Ren received the worst of it, his body serving as a cushion for Han. The hydra armor absorbed much of the force, distributing it through its reinforced structures.

Still, the pain was immediate and intense, wrenching an involuntary groan from him, the breath knocked from his lungs.

Han rolled to the side immediately, conscious of Ren’s sacrifice.

Some small rocks and what appeared to be crystals fell from above, perhaps due to the dagger Ren had embedded. Fortunately, they didn’t hit Han’s head, clattering harmlessly beside them.

"Are you okay?" Han asked with a tense voice, his own breathing choppy from pain and adrenaline.

Ren slowly got up, assessing the damage. Nothing seemed broken beyond small cuts and bruises that he felt were superficial. Without the hydra’s armor, the result would have been much worse.

"I’ll survive," he responded, his mushrooms now pulsing with reduced intensity. "You?"

"I think I hurt my left shoulder," Han grimaced while trying to stand. "But nothing serious thanks to you."

Ren looked up. The tunnel through which they had fallen was barely visible as a tiny circle of deeper darkness against the chamber’s ceiling. The distance was overwhelming, there was no way for them to return that way.

His mushrooms slightly increased their brightness, partially revealing the space in which they found themselves. It wasn’t a natural cavern made by any of the beasts in this area. The walls showed unmistakable signs of having been intentionally carved, their surfaces too regular, too deliberate.

"Where are we?" Han whispered, his voice tight with apprehension.

"I don’t know," Ren admitted, his mushrooms pulsing with what could be interpreted as unease. "But I’m sure of one thing: whatever made this shouldn’t be here in the first place."

♢♢♢♢

Moments before…

"Ren!" Taro and Min’s desperate shout echoed through the tunnel as they watched their friend disappear into darkness.

"Han!" Sora exclaimed almost simultaneously, lunging forward, her hand outstretched as if she could somehow pull him back.

Everything happened with dizzying speed. One moment Ren and Han were there, guiding the group through the tunnel, and the next they simply vanished, as if the ground had devoured them in less than a second.

Lin reacted with the quickness of a combat veteran, throwing herself toward the point where the boys had been standing, her arm extended trying to reach them. To her surprise, her hand went through what appeared to be solid earth, as if it were made of mist.

"It’s an illusion!" she shouted, as her arm sank up to the shoulder in what should have been firm ground.

She wasted no time. Her arm partially transformed, crane skin erupting to cover her own. With a precise movement, she struck what seemed to be the corner of something hard and crystalline.

A satisfying crack indicated she had hit her mark. The crystal fractured and, for a brief moment, the illusion fluctuated, revealing a dark, deep hole where before there had seemed to be solid ground.

The noble cousins reacted instinctively. Larissa, Luna, and Liora simultaneously attempted to activate their transportation abilities, disappearing in flashes of light and shadows with the intention of appearing further down the tunnel, following Ren and Han.

"No!" shouted one of the guards, her Antenna Venus instantly manifesting, tendrils of green energy erupting from her skin.

A pale green field briefly pulsed, and the three cousins reappeared confusedly next to the guard, not in the depths as they had attempted.

"What are you doing...?" Larissa began, clearly frustrated, her hands clenched into fists.

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"I canceled your jumps," the guard explained in an authoritative tone. "None of you is capable of transporting another person with your ability, nor can you exceed the falling speed. You would have ended up falling for no reason."

Mira and Sora observed the scene with enormous eyes, their surprise at the revelation that the cousins could teleport momentarily eclipsing even the current crisis.

"Can they... make jumps?" Mira murmured, but no one paid attention to her.

"We have to go down after them!" insisted Taro, his living tunnel fully manifesting, ready to create a passage, earth already beginning to shift at his feet.

"Not so fast," another guard raised a hand. "That fall could be hundreds of meters. The best option is to find Zhao so he can fly them out, or create a rope with Matilda’s turtle’s wood and the resistant mosses from Mira’s rat."

"Silence!" Min suddenly shouted, his hand raised as he listened carefully. "What’s that sound?"

A low but growing hiss filled the tunnel. Min visibly paled.

"The females," he pointed toward the entrance of the tunnel, where dozens of shadow stalkers were beginning to stir. "We’ve woken them up."