Chapter 705: Chapter 705 - Taming the Fifth Year - Blood Debt - 7

Ren jumped instantly into the shadows, his body moving there with the ease he’d developed after months practicing fleeing from groups of girls when they got too intense with their "social interaction studies."

Those skills had unexpected applications. Evasion was evasion whether you were escaping overeager admirers or dodging attacks from multiple opponents. The footwork transferred perfectly too.

Lin’s techniques flowed naturally through his movements. Not her lethal combat techniques designed to kill efficiently and brutally. But the ones she used for training, for teaching and punishing mistakes. Techniques designed to incapacitate, those he could use now to demonstrate superiority without creating corpses.

The first enemy Ren recognized was Kai, fused with his Green Lizard. He never saw the blow coming...

Ren did a short jump in his shadow, only pulling out his right arm, and used his version of darkness claws to cut some tendons behind the knee armor with precision. The boy fell screaming, his leg unable to support weight, collapsing beneath his useless rock armor like a puppet with cut strings.

That would be a painful procedure... Yet not permanent damage.

Those clean cut tendons could be healed by a competent medical tamer, reattached and regenerated with proper treatment. But again, painful from this moment until after fully healed. Incapacitating and removing him from the fight immediately and completely.

The second, a girl with a Fire Eagle whom Ren quickly remembered was named Cass, tried to launch a flame blast at Kai’s shadow. Ren pulled his arm back easily, jumped and appeared at her side with another shadow-step that crossed three meters instantaneously, and broke her throwing arm at the elbow with a fast kick.

Not shattered... Just cleanly broken. Painful, incapacitating, but healable by a good healer too.

The girl wouldn’t be able to cast or fly for now even if she tried. Not that she would try in her current state... the pain would need to lower a lot to let her rise from her fetal position hugging her arm, and maybe she’d be far too traumatized to consider continuing the fight.

"Sorry," Ren murmured while continuing to move, his voice carrying regret that wasn’t for the injuries he was inflicting. "But you chose the wrong side from the beginning."

The apology was for not knowing any other way to help with their stupidity.

They were still in the wrong... For letting themselves be bought or convinced into attacking someone so far beyond their level.

They’d made their choice. Now they were learning what that choice cost.

♢♢♢♢

Meanwhile...

In the rear guard, Klein saw five kids approaching them from the back tunnel.

His teammates, loaded with backpacks full of valuable silk, were fumbling to remove them. The packs were heavy... easily 100 kilograms each, filled with the carefully aged silk that represented their enormous exam scores.

Removing them carefully while deciding if they would be maintaining defensive posture or joining the attack was proving difficult in the heat of the moment. Straps tangled, fingers slipped, panic making simple tasks complicated.

Klein was a bit better, he had already removed his. Had dropped the hundred kilograms of silk without thinking twice the moment he detected hostile movement. Let it fall to the ground with a heavy thump that he didn’t spare a second glance.

Ren had rolled the silk perfectly for the trip and dropped one himself, so it was probably fine... also resources in this exam didn’t matter if you were dead or too injured to turn them in.

But now, as the five attackers approached with clear intentions written on their faces, Klein thought for a moment about the situation.

The thing he’d been avoiding... The choice he’d been putting off.

A decision that would define which side of history he ended up on.

’If I act now, maybe I won’t be able to help Luna like we agreed...’

The agreement with the nobles.

The option to fake the arranged marriage that would "save" the Starweaver girl. The plan that had been whispered in opportunistic noble circles for months, waiting only for Klein to take the final step.

Though in reality he’d sworn to her that he’d fake everything already... But it was Luna who, even with everything supposedly "taken into account", wouldn’t take the final step. She really wanted the Heart... but didn’t want to be tied to her uncles.

Or so she said.

But Klein knew there was something more holding her back. And that something was, well, someone...

Someone whose presence seemed to make Luna reconsider every decision. Someone who made her want things beyond her main quest that started many years ago.

Klein pushed the thought aside. That particular complication could wait.

Would it be necessary? he wondered, watching the attackers close distance. Can’t we really trust that Ren will find a way that ensures the Heart won’t be used any more? Would Ren act without thinking to "save" Luna, forcing those guys to use the relic?

The questions spiraled. What-ifs and scenarios branching into infinite possibilities.

But Klein remembered today. Every moment since they’d crossed the bridge.

Ren navigating impossibly complex tunnels with knowledge he shouldn’t possess. Explaining entire ecosystems from memory, predicting expert ambush predators before they struck, guiding them through three-dimensional labyrinths like he’d mapped every meter personally.

Ren patiently explaining techniques that transformed deadly territory into safe passage. Teaching them tricks that academy instructors never bothered with or maybe didn’t even know, things that only practical experience could reveal. Making the impossible seem routine through sheer competence and preparation.

Ren aging silk artificially with elemental control that left professors speechless. Creating results in minutes that should take years. Magic that bordered on the miraculous performed like it was a simple party trick.

Every single demonstration of ability that should have been impossible. Every casual display of skill that redefined what "talented student" meant.

NO!

Klein had already chosen to believe.

Not in vague hopes or desperate gambling. But in concrete evidence accumulated over a full day of observation. In demonstrated competence that went beyond luck or advantage into genuine, undeniable mastery.

Ren would find a solution. Would create an option that didn’t exist. Would somehow, impossibly, make things work because that was what he did .

And Klein would be there to help him do it.