Chapter 1285: Taming the Old World - Compulsory Rest

Ren unrolled the parchment, scanning the rushed handwriting. As his eyes traced the ink, a tight, heavy knot he had not realized he was carrying finally uncoiled in his chest.

Sirius and Liu had secured the elemental ring…

They failed to retrieve the core, leaving it as a bitter consolation prize for Selthia's surviving horde.

However, claiming the two rings was a massive strategic victory. It guaranteed that the corruption would not possess the complete set of keys required to unlock the third chamber of their ancient vault.

But it was the final paragraph of the report that truly steadied his breathing. It was the only piece of intelligence that genuinely mattered.

In the casualty section, added now the final piece to his knowledge spanning the aftermath of all three fronts, not a single familiar name was listed.

His childhood friends, his mentors, his family, the people he cared about most; they were all alive.

The report noted severe exhaustion. Several commanders were unconscious from severe mana depletion, their bodies pushed hard past their limits, but their hearts were still beating.

The war had exacted a heavy toll in sweat, blood, and broken bones. But it had not claimed any lives that Ren would have not been able to overcome.

He let out a slow breath, rolling the parchment back up and tucking it into his coat.

"We are heading back to the castle," Ren announced, his voice steady and quiet. He looked at the weary but determined faces of the girls and his team. "There is no need to go south anymore. They are already coming home."

♢♢♢♢

Back in the royal castle of Yano, a makeshift war council convened.

The atmosphere inside the tactical room was heavy with the energy toll of the day. Selphira stood beside an exhausted Julius and a drained Arturo. These leaders were running on sheer willpower, forcing themselves to keep the city's command structure functioning despite being pushed far past their limits.

They gathered around Ren to determine their immediate next step. There was still a Light Guardian remaining on both sides of their explored world, a lingering threat that needed to be addressed.

However, the entire room quickly reached a unanimous consensus.

It was not the time… Not today.

Ren was operating on less than forty percent of his total energy reserves following his campaign in the north. The rest of the Vanguard, with the notable exceptions of Luna and Larissa, were in much worse shape. They were completely tapped out, running on fumes, and several key commanders were barely clinging to consciousness.

Launching an immediate offensive against the Light Dragon would be a massive tactical error. Those specific guardians were different from the others. They possessed less raw offensive firepower but boasted an incredibly resilient defense and high-tier regenerative capabilities.

It was a battle of pure attrition, a grueling marathon that strictly required fresh, fully energized troops.

Even if they miraculously managed to secure a victory using their last standing fighters, the cost would leave the capital entirely defenseless.

Selthia still commanded an army of roughly four hundred high-tier mutants. Ren needed to maintain his position as a looming, untouchable deterrent. The Witch could never be allowed to realize his core was running low.

Furthermore, relying on the sealed dragon energy from the second vault was there as an option but was also almost out of the question. Channeling that kind of power right after felling a Dark Guardian, and immediately engaging a Light Guardian, would push his body beyond the breaking point.

The risk of crystallization over a body that already had a crystalized left arm was too high...

Selthia would undoubtedly recognize that vulnerability. She might even conclude that forcing humanity's greatest weapon into a crystallized state was well worth sacrificing her entire remaining swarm by attacking the city right after Ren finished the Light dragon.

"Then we rest," Ren decided, finalizing the strategy. "Everyone stands down… The entire city needs to recover. When we are back to full strength, only then we execute the next strike. There is no rush to hunt the Light Guardian, since it is not going anywhere in a single day."

Selphira gave a firm nod, fully endorsing the call.

It was the prudent choice. It was the exact decision a seasoned commander makes when reckless heroism threatens to cost far more than it could ever win.

♢♢♢♢

Miles away, secluded inside a purple crystal connected to the world's mana net very close to Dragarion's statue, Selthia came to a decent realization.

She now possessed the capability to forge Diamond-rank mutants.

Not only using shadow mana, but getting better units was her final consolation prize…

The ancient corruption would have fed her this exact knowledge a bit earlier than her last battle. The trapped purple dragon had understood the corrupted mechanics of using the mana in the elemental mountains since the very beginning.

But due to the frantic rush to capitalize on recent openings, combined with the heavy magical interference severing her direct link to her master, the entity had been unable to transmit the blueprints to her mind after the imprisonment.

It was not really a mistake in the purple Dragon's mind…

Truthfully, breeding Diamond ranks had not been an efficient tactic prior to the entity's imprisonment… The math simply had not favored it since they didn't have as many Platinum units as Selthia had this time, when Ren attacked the Fire Dragon they had less than two hundred.

The five elemental Dragons and the artifacts were also a good collection of high level assets that made making extra Diamond ranks for that time even more inefficient.

But the current landscape was different, she had only 2 Diamond rank units now. Her army had been decimated, yes, yet it remained formidable enough to hold its ground as still double that time's numbers. And with the clock ticking to secure her own Light Guardian, the strategic equation had fundamentally shifted.

The primary bottleneck was still the exorbitant cost. Forging a single Diamond-rank mutant required the concentrated sacrifice of ten peak High-Platinum beasts.