Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

"SHOOT!" Orion shouted from the floor where he'd fallen, blood streaming from multiple wounds but his mind still working through tactical assessments. "If you let your heart keep using the shield it's going to wear it down anyway!"

Sirius gritted his teeth, hating to admit the bastard was right but unable to deny the logic. Passive defense was still draining the heart, still wearing away what remained of their wives with each attack blocked.

Better to attack and end this quickly than die slowly behind shields that would fail eventually.

"Together then!"

Both raised the hearts simultaneously with coordination that came from years of fighting side by side before hatred had poisoned everything. The crystals touched and because of that contact they elevated above the men's hands, beginning to spin with white and black rotating at speeds that seemed to defy the physical laws.

They fired as one.

The combined beam that emerged was something beautiful and terrible simultaneously, light and darkness intertwined as perfectly as the fused spirits they'd faced before but with power magnified by synchronization between the two hearts. Not simple addition but multiplication, synergy that created force far greater than sum of its components.

It struck the Platinum spirit directly in the center of its mass and the form began disintegrating with screams that sounded almost like words in a language nobody living could understand.

Orion's eyes gleamed while observing the attack's power, his expression showing hunger that went beyond simple greed into something darker. Avid imagination already calculating what else they could accomplish with that type of combined force, any enemies destroyed if they learned to wield this properly.

Sirius closed his eyes for a moment, whispering words that only he and perhaps the light heart could hear. "Thank you, Lykea."

Gratitude mixed with grief because her essence was being consumed to keep him alive, to give him power he'd never asked for at a price he couldn't bear to pay but had no choice except accepting.

But the battle hadn't completely finished despite the spirit's apparent destruction.

The Platinum spirit didn't disintegrate completely like the previous ones had, didn't simply fade into nothingness when defeated.

In its last moment of existence it divided itself, separating into its original components with deliberate malice. Pure light launched toward Sirius. Pure darkness toward Orion, both seeking vengeance even in death.

Both energies exploded on contact with devastating force.

The explosion's sound reverberated off ancient stone walls with echoes that seemed to carry on forever, thunder trapped in the confined space.

Orion was thrown against the wall with sufficient force to knock him unconscious, multiple wounds covering his body where he'd managed to deflect the worst of the impact with a last-second shot that saved his life at cost of consciousness.

The injuries would be considered superficial only if you were a Gold-rank tamer with enhanced durability. For normal humans they would have been fatal, but Gold-rank mana system enhanced bodies could survive damage that would kill lesser beings.

Sirius was also thrown but the white heart shielded him automatically in the last possible instant, leaving him less injured. He even had time to see another thin line appear on the white crystal's surface, a mark joining previous wear in the pattern that suggested how many more uses remained before nothing was left.

More wear. More of his wife consumed to keep him alive when maybe he should have died instead.

He fell into unconsciousness seconds later, darkness claiming him despite the heart's best efforts to sustain consciousness that his body couldn't maintain.

♢♢♢♢

Sirius woke first, awareness returning fast in fragments that slowly coalesced into coherent thought.

The white heart had protected him better during the final explosion, leaving him with minor injuries that his Gold-rank body had already begun healing on its own. Accelerated regeneration knitting torn flesh and mending broken bones without conscious direction, one of the many benefits of achieving this rank that actually mattered in moments like this.

He sat up with effort, looking toward where Orion lay motionless against the chamber wall.

Still unconscious, bleeding from multiple cuts with his arm at a strange angle that 'suggested' broken bones. But his breathing was stable and none of the wounds appeared mortal when examined with an experienced eye.

He wasn't in immediate danger of death even if he'd need medical attention from a healer eventually.

Sirius stood up with slight stagger, balance not quite returned after the explosion's force.

He saw the massive core where the Platinum spirit had fallen and separated, a crystal the size of his head divided perfectly into half brilliant white and half profound black.

He took it with both hands, feeling the weight that was both physical and metaphorical. Power purchased through suffering, victory that felt hollow when measured against what had been lost to achieve it.

He looked at Orion once more, still unconscious on the ninth chamber's floor surrounded by blood and debris and evidence of battle that had nearly killed them both.

And left him there without saying a word, without checking more carefully whether the injuries were truly non-fatal or whether his brother might need immediate help…

Some part of him didn't care, exhaustion and grief making compassion impossible when it was Orion's fault they were here at all.

He began descending the last stairs toward the tenth chamber alone, each step taking him farther from his brother and closer to whatever final revelation waited below.

THE TENTH CHAMBER (AGAIN)

The tenth chamber was completely different from all the previous ones, a transformation so complete it felt like entering a different ruin entirely. Smaller and more intimate somehow now that the Platinum spirit had been defeated, with an air of ceremonial place rather than battlefield.

At the far end stood a large door unlike anything they'd encountered during descent.

Sirius approached slowly, each step resonating in the absolute silence that felt oppressive after the violence of the recent combat.

The door was similar to the first one they'd found above, but the differences became obvious once you got close enough to examine details rather than just surface appearance.

Three indentations here as well, matching the pattern established by previous door.

But these didn't have two shapes for the crystallized hearts they carried.

All three were designed for large cores like the one he held in his hands, circular depressions that suggested something massive and powerful needed to be inserted before the mechanism would engage.