Chapter 48: Unsealing

Sealing Zone, deep underground.

This was a vast ring-shaped chamber, over three hundred meters in diameter. The floor was densely inscribed with sealing runes, and at its center was a fifty-meter-wide pit, at the bottom of which the vague outline of a colossal creature could be seen.

At this very moment, a fierce battle was raging at the edge of the ring-shaped chamber.

“Get out of my way!”

With Madam Victoria’s furious shout, her summoned beast, the Subterranean Landshark, burst up from the ground. The giant beast, over fifteen meters long and armored in rocky plates, opened its maw filled with razor-sharp teeth and lunged straight at the enemy before it.

It was a burly Scarred Beastmaster—an Evil Trainer.

Facing the Subterranean Landshark’s charge, the Evil Trainer didn’t retreat; instead, he laughed wildly and threw a punch.

Fist and shark jaw collided, producing a deep, thunderous boom.

The massive Subterranean Landshark was actually forced back several meters by that punch, gouging deep furrows into the ground.

“Hahahaha! Is that it? An eighth-rank summoned beast? Not nearly enough!”

The Evil Trainer shook his slightly numb arm, the injuries that should have appeared shifted onto his modified beast. With a sinister grin, he looked at Victoria, the corners of his mouth nearly reaching his ears.

Behind him stood dozens of modified beasts of all shapes and sizes. Each radiated at least sixth-rank strength, several had reached seventh-rank, and there were even two at the eighth rank.

Further away, the Potion Master was leading several Elite Members, quickly setting up some kind of apparatus at the edge of the Sealing Array.

“Damn…”

Victoria gritted her teeth, her face pale.

She had rushed here on urgent orders to support the sealing zone. She had thought it would just be a small group of infiltrators—never expecting to run into a high-ranking member of the Dark Direbeast Legion, let alone with so many elites in tow.

One-on-one, she wasn’t afraid of the Evil Trainer. But with all those modified beasts helping him, it was nearly impossible to protect the seal and fight off the enemy at the same time.

“Useless old woman.”

The Evil Trainer cracked his neck, bones popping loudly.

“You think you’re the only one in the Academy who can fight? Let me tell you, today our entire legion is on the move. The Academy’s in trouble themselves—no one’s coming to save you!”

With a grand gesture, he shouted,

“Servants, go!”

The moment his words fell, dozens of modified beasts lunged forward.

Victoria’s eyes hardened.

“You think… this is all I can do?”

She pressed her palms together at her chest and closed her eyes.

“By blood as pact, by soul as guide.”

The Subterranean Landshark threw back its head and unleashed a sky-shaking roar, its massive body starting to glow.

It was no ordinary light, but a warm golden radiance. Within the glow, the Landshark’s form began to shift and shrink.

At the same time, Victoria’s body also began to emit light.

The two lights merged and intertwined in the air.

“Symbiotic Transformation—”

When the radiance faded, Victoria’s figure had vanished.

In her place stood a strange being, nearly three meters tall, half-human, half-shark.

She retained a human woman’s upper body and face, but her skin was now covered in smooth blue-gray scales. Her arms had transformed into sharp fin-blades, and her lower body was the thick, powerful tail of the Landshark. Her eyes became vertical slits, fangs faintly visible in her mouth, her entire being emanating an aura far greater than before.

Eighth-rank peak, infinitely close to the ninth rank.

“Wha…”

The wild grin froze on the Evil Trainer’s face, disbelief flickering in his eyes.

“Wh-what is this?”

“The Academy’s secret art. A ‘Complete Resonance’ with one’s contracted summoned beast.”

Victoria spoke calmly, her voice carrying an unusual cadence—a blend of human and beast.

Ordinarily, a summoner’s greatest weakness was their fragile true body. Without their summoned beast, they couldn’t compare with other classes at all.

To compensate, ancient summoners invented a skill called ‘Resonance Sharing,’ allowing the summoned beast to shield its summoner from harm, or vice versa, sharing injuries between the two.

However, in Victoria’s view, this still failed to change the fact that a summoner was little more than a pendant for their summoned beast. So, she had studied under Kolova and created an entirely new summoner skill.

Its name: Symbiotic Transformation.

“Though it only lasts a short while, to deal with you… it’s more than enough.”

Before the words finished, she was gone.

No, not gone—she moved so fast, the naked eye simply couldn’t keep up!

The Evil Trainer only glimpsed a blue-gray afterimage streak past. In the next instant, two of his eighth-rank modified beasts at his side exploded into pieces without warning.

“Bastard!”

The Evil Trainer roared, both fists wreathed in dark purple energy, and smashed them full-force at the afterimage.

But he struck nothing.

Victoria appeared behind him, fin-blades sweeping out.

Shrrrak—!

A deep, bone-exposing wound burst open on the Evil Trainer’s back, spraying dark purple blood.

He collapsed forward with a wail, rolling several times before barely regaining his footing. Even though he had transferred more than half the injury, he had nearly died from that single blow.

“You—you monster…”

“Monster?”

Victoria flicked the blood from her fin-blades, vertical pupils fixing him with a cold glare.

“You perform patchwork experiments with living summoned beasts, rob them of their will, turn them into fighting puppets—yet you call others monsters? What do you take life for!”

She moved again.

This time, her target wasn’t the Evil Trainer, but the modified beasts.

“Be released from your pain.”

The blue-gray afterimage weaved through the beast horde, every flicker marked by the sound of flesh being torn. Modified beasts fell one after another, unable to even resist.

Ten seconds.

In just ten seconds, more than twenty modified beasts had been reduced to mangled flesh on the ground. Blood fell like rain, and the Evil Trainer’s eyes bulged with fury.

These modified beasts were the fruit of his years of toil. Each had consumed enormous resources and time.

“I’ll kill you—!”

He snapped, surging at Victoria with no regard for anything else. A dark purple energy storm erupted around him—his trump card forbidden art, trading life force for a surge in power.

Where the energy storm passed, the ground shattered and rock disintegrated.

Victoria didn’t take the attack head-on. She darted and dodged with agility, sometimes parrying with her fin-blades. Each block drained most of the force from his blows.

She could see that, though the forbidden art was fierce, it had little staying power. Her plan was to stall for time. But on the Potion Master’s side, their work was almost done.

Because of someone’s actions, the Sealing Array had been specially reinforced in recent days. The Stitchmaster’s special potion had little effect, so the Potion Master had to

set up some extra devices to assist their unsealing.

Strange, ghostly blue runes flowed across the surfaces of the devices, emanating magic waves completely at odds with the Sealing Array.

The Potion Master stood in the center, holding an old leather-bound notebook, chanting rapidly from its pages.

As his incantation grew, the devices activated, blue light intensifying until it fiercely contended with the Sealing Array’s golden glow.

Crack—

A fine fissure appeared at the edge of the Sealing Array.

The Potion Master’s lips curled into a savage grin.