Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons novel Chapter 375

Both men screamed involuntarily, the Yino soldier from the pain coursing through his arm, the wounded and fainted tracker from some subconscious suffering as several 'parasitic' mushrooms were torn from his system.

The sound echoed through the forest clearing.

"What happened?!" exclaimed the flyer, watching both men writhe in apparent torment.

The Yino soldier examined his arm, where the energy seemed to have partially vanished, as if erased by some invisible energy. The purple veins that normally pulsed with abyssal power had been burned away, leaving pale, empty channels beneath his skin. He could feel a strange void where his abyssal energy once flowed.

But then, from the depths of his abdomen, he felt something stir. The abyssal scorpion that had been implanted weeks earlier activated, pumping new corruption to fill the void. The process was painful but efficient, purple veins beginning to regenerate slowly as the creature worked to restore its host's connection to dark power.

"Seems to be side effects of fighting that thing," gasped the soldier, quickly inventing an explanation. "My beast had an aggressive reaction to save the soldier from... whatever infected him." The lie came smoothly.

His companion looked at him with understanding born of shared corrupted beasts species, the same scorpion. "Can you continue?"

"Yes," he responded, though his voice sounded strained as the scorpion's rebuilding process sent waves of discomfort through his system. "But now we have a report to make and more questions than answers."

They turned toward the flyer, who continued holding the unconscious tracker but now appeared to be breathing more normally. The wounded man's complexion seemed to have improved a bit, color returning to his previously ashen cheeks.

"The filaments have disappeared on this side," observed the flyer with amazement. "The left shoulder wounds no longer show those golden markings. It's as if something had... cleansed them."

The two Yino soldiers exchanged another meaningful look.

"One of us should return with him," suggested the affected soldier, who still felt the stinging sensation of the abyssal scorpion reconstructing his connection. "To report this... incident."

"I'll go to the deep forest," offered his companion. "My beast wasn't affected. So I want to check the source of the problem... You go and take advantage of being there to get that arm examined too." The division of responsibilities made sense while serving their intelligence-gathering mission.

The other Yino soldier nodded, understanding the logic behind the decision.

Whatever was in that place the wounded man came from, whatever had created those mushrooms aggressive against abyssal energy, could be related to reports about a child capable of using purifying light.

"Take them to the nearest healers but on the rift side, our Yino could help against that unknown 'parasite'," he ordered his companion while helping transfer the tracker's weight. "And make sure the report mentions the... 'purifying' effects of whatever infected him."

His companion nodded, understanding the implications perfectly. If they had found something capable of neutralizing abyssal energy, Yino needed to know immediately what they were dealing with.

'What kind of power could simply burn away abyssal energy on contact?'

The answers, he suspected, lay in the place where the fugitives' trail had ended.

♢♢♢♢

Ren and Lin finally emerged from the ruin's main tunnel, now in a more natural cave that was somewhat more spacious and without the dense golden spongy coating on its walls…

But relief quickly transformed into horror when they encountered the remains of the trackers.

They were barely recognizable as human. The bodies had been consumed almost to the bones, with only some equipment shreds indicating they had once been people. Golden mushrooms grew abundantly over the remains, forming small macabre gardens that pulsed with bioluminescence.

"Dear Dragon Gods," whispered Lin, instinctively backing away. "Was this...?"

"I suppose they stepped on the mushrooms and stirred up the spores," Ren confirmed solemnly, his voice weirdly carrying a mental disconnection but also the weight of someone who understood the mechanism of such death. "Without proper protection, they were consumed from within. That's why the coating I gave you..."

Lin looked at the grayish dust still glowing dimly on her exposed skin, suddenly understanding that she had been walking on the razor's edge of horrible death throughout their entire underground expedition.

"Your mushroom really is essential for entering down here," she murmured, with new appreciation for the small creature now manifested in Ren's hair.

They headed toward the nearest surface entrance when Ren stopped abruptly. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed with a warning pattern.

"Someone's watching us," he murmured, his eyes scanning the dense foliage in the distance. "Abyssal. Strong."

♢♢♢♢