Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons - Chapter 736

Chapter 736: Chapter 736 – Taming the Fifth Year – Stars of the Past – 4
The scream Sirius made when he saw his wife turn into white crystal was something that if Luna had witnessed… she would hear in her nightmares for the rest of her life.

The sound of a soul breaking.

Of half a world ending.

Of half of everything that mattered for him being ripped away in an instant.

Just like the divided world they lived in.

Pure grief given voice.

THE STATUES

Two statues remained when the light finally faded.

One black and one white.

Both perfect in their horrible execution. Every detail of the women they’d been preserved in eternal crystal.

Lyzea in black and Lykea in white.

Opposites… Mirrors.

Two women who’d been friends and family reduced to matching monuments of tragedy.

A light shone in the same two indentations of the door. Orion retreated quickly but Sirius was so broken he had to think of Luna before dragging himself backward…

Had to survive… Had to get home.

Had to tell his daughter that her mother wouldn’t come back even though the words would destroy them both.

But these two lights didn’t attack them. Only crossed to aim a thin beam at the statues.

The light intensified to the point of making vision difficult. And when it stopped…

Both were missing something.

A hole in the chest. Perfectly smooth without extra damage, as if something had been extracted with surgical precision.

Or as if they were incomplete puzzles waiting to be filled with one last missing part.

The door they’d tried to open now had two crystal artifacts embedded in it. Two silhouettes that matched the ones missing from the statues.

Like keys.

But the door remained closed. The third indentation seemed to be missing its piece.

Whatever security mechanism this was, it required three components. Three sacrifices. Three keys extracted from three crystallized victims.

Sirius knelt before Lykea’s white statue.

And broke again.

Not in the elegant way nobles pretend in public. Not in the serious and quiet form he was accustomed to acting…

But completely.

Absolutely.

Wrenching sobs that shook his entire body. Hands caressing his wife’s crystal face as if he could bring her back through pure will.

Through love strong enough to reverse death. Through desperation deep enough to unmake what had been done.

“Come back,” he whispered again and again. “Please. Please come back. You can’t… you can’t leave me. You can’t leave Luna… Please.”

His voice breaking on every word. Each plea more desperate than the last.

But the crystal didn’t respond.

Couldn’t respond.

Whatever remained of Lykea was locked inside that crystalline prison.

Unreachable.

And then Sirius saw Orion.

Getting up and shaking himself off… With a stunned expression, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened.

But not grief… Not the soul-destroying anguish Sirius felt.

Just shock.

Numbness.

Maybe the emotional shutdown that came when reality became too horrible to process.

Walking toward where the draconic wolf’s body lay.

Toward where half its core remained exposed.

“What are you doing?” Sirius asked, his voice broken but with a dangerous edge growing.

Something sharpening through grief. Rage beginning to kindle beneath devastation.

Orion didn’t respond.

Started digging around the core. Pushing aside blood and flesh and draconic scales until he could grab it.

A spherical crystal the size of a head. Pulsing with residual power from the dead monster.

Platinum-rank core.

“Orion,” Sirius stood up, staggering. Exhaustion and grief making coordination difficult. “What are you doing?”

The question carrying a warning… Demanding answers.

Promising consequences if that answer wasn’t acceptable.

Orion looked at him. His eyes were… empty. Like something inside him had also died with Lyzea.

Like he’d broken in a different way than Sirius. Not collapsing inward but hollowing out. Becoming a shell animated by momentum rather than actual life.

And without saying a word, he placed the core in the last circular indentation of the door.

The core fit perfectly.

And began to glow.

The statues responded immediately.

Started sinking into the ground. As if the stone beneath them descended into the abyss slowly.

Mechanisms activating. Ancient security protocols engaging. The door accepting its keys and claiming its price.

“NO!” Sirius ran toward Lykea, trying to grab her, to pull her, to prevent her from disappearing.

Hands scrabbling at crystal that wouldn’t budge even a millimeter. Pulled by power that couldn’t be moved through simple physical strength.

The statue was immovable. Neither his Gold-rank strength nor his remaining mana could budge it a tenth of a millimeter.

The mechanism’s magic was too strong, too ancient and powerful. Built by people who understood forces that modern tamers couldn’t comprehend.

“ORION! STOP THIS!” Sirius screamed, absolute desperation in his voice. “IT’S GETTING WORSE! STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”

The words were raw… Pleading.

All dignity abandoned in favor of pure need.

But Orion only watched with that distant expression while his own wife also sank.

Watched Lyzea’s black crystal form descend into stone. Watched the last physical trace of her disappear.

He watched and did nothing…

The statues descended completely through holes perfectly adjusted to their forms.

The ground closed over them at the end.

Sirius tried to break it. Threw everything he had left at stone that wouldn’t yield.

The ruins were a construction more resistant than his best efforts even with all his mana.

Ancient builders had created something meant to last. Meant to protect the trials at any cost. Meant to be unbreakable by anyone who might try to cheat the system.

They were now sealed.

Inaccessible.

Lost.

Sirius collapsed onto the closed ground where his wife had disappeared.

Pressed his hands against the stone that was still warm, maybe from the statues’ passage.

As if warmth meant connection.

As if he could somehow reach through the solid rock through sheer force of will.

“Lykea,” he whispered. “Lykea, please.”

But there was no answer.

Would never be an answer.

She was gone. Trapped in crystal somewhere beneath his feet.

Conscious or not, he didn’t know. Suffering or peaceful, he couldn’t tell.

Just gone.