The Monarch Who Levels Up by Devouring - The Tamer's Resolve
The source of the multicolored light was the tattoos.
Victor’s unique ability, Synchro.
It reflected a portion of the stats from animals or monsters with whom he had formed a bond of trust.
Synchro – Runic Bear’s Strength
His black skin turned pure white, as if coated in frost.
Synchro – Elder Rapid Dash’s Agility
Crimson flames rose in flickering wisps across his bare upper body.
Synchro – King Sabel Tiger’s Stamina
Tiger stripes were etched across his pale skin.
“Here I come, King of the World!”
Victor charged straight forward.
It wasn’t an illusion.
The man whose class was undoubtedly in the Tamer line had taken the vanguard.
On both flanks, the King Sabel Tiger and Elder Rapid Dash matched his speed, while the Runic Bear followed close behind.
“Hah.”
This is ridiculous.
I had seen the press releases even before my regression. I knew Victor preferred fighting on the front lines, but still—
Was there any reason for him to leave that massive bear in the rear and take the lead himself?
Nyx’s commentary made sense intellectually, but my heart refused to accept it.
“A Tamer acting as both vanguard and damage-tanker… That guy really has a mountain of things worth learning from.”
First, I would show him the difference in power.
To make him accept the training process, I needed to demonstrate clear superiority.
Ars Goetia & Cocytus – Internal Skill: Dantalion’s Phantom
A curse of illusion that stimulated fear descended upon them.
Victor’s steps halted.
The freeze lasted only an instant, but in battle, even the slightest opening could be fatal.
Even the tamed monsters had stopped in perfect sync, giving me more than enough time to prepare something big.
Inferno Blast
Element Boost
Eclipse
Thousands of crimson lightning bolts as thick as forearms writhed like a tidal wave and surged forward.
The total output was a grand spell stronger than the fragment of Keraunos infused with divine power.
As the wave of destruction swept across the ground, lava boiled furiously and sparks flew in every direction.
A single graze had painted a vision of hell upon the training grounds.
“Jinho. Are you trying to kill Mr. Onama?”
“He’s not the kind of guy who dies from something like this.”
“How can you be so sure when you’ve only just met him!”
The First Monarch wouldn’t die from a single spell.
With an inexplicable faith I couldn’t explain to Ellen, I poured out the grand magic.
As a final act of conscience, I refrained from using Echo.
The instant the Inferno Blast reached point-blank range, light returned to Victor’s previously dazed eyes.
“Gather!”
Wall of Exorcism
The phantom of a bear shimmered over Victor’s body before transforming into a blue shield that received the lightning strike.
The smooth surface of the shield effortlessly deflected the lightning that carried terrifying power.
KWAAAAAANG!
The training ground was obliterated as if struck by a bombing run.
Only Victor and his monsters, standing at the center of the crimson lightning wave, retained their original forms.
“Wow. He actually endured that.”
“You could do the same.”
“But Mr. Onama is a Tamer.”
Ellen mulled over her own words, then tilted her head. “Wait… how did a Tamer use the Wall of Exorcism?”
The Wall of Exorcism was a skill exclusive to tank-type classes.
It required masterful deployment of aura blades; even Golden Circle tankers could barely pull it off.
To share not only stats but even skills by surpassing the limits of Synchro set by the System…
Did that mean he had already taken one step into the realm of transcendence?
The wave of lightning had swept the front, yet it could not breach the blue shield.
“Huuuuh…”
Victor let out a deep sigh and dropped to one knee.
He had clearly taken considerable impact.
“Grrrrrr!”
“Hiiiii!”
That’s right.
The real fight starts now.
A Tamer’s true strength does not lie in his own combat ability.
The moment Victor sacrificed his body to receive the lightning strike, his monsters had been preparing their counterattack.
The Runic Bear kicked off the ground, leaping high and soaring over Victor.
A bear drawing a parabola through the air.
Destruction Beast Transformation
The bear, originally the size of a three-story building, swelled to more than three times its original mass.
Its height reached roughly thirty meters.
Its pure length was slightly shorter than a Bone Drake, yet its thick body made it feel far more massive.
The King Sabel Tiger and Elder Rapid Dash also closed in from the flanks.
“That bear looks like it wouldn’t lose to me in a contest of strength?”
Ellen muttered in a stunned voice.
Whoa.
I hadn’t expected him to have already learned Destruction Beast Transformation at this stage.
An ultimate Tamer skill that allowed one to gigantify like the kaiju from tokusatsu films.
Since he wasn’t using it on the others, it seemed at this point he could only apply it to a single entity.
Fine.
A contest of strength sounds good.
Dragon Form
Two horns sprouted from my forehead.
A thrilling sensation surged through me along with a rush of power.
Dragon Transformation, which sacrificed some of the buff’s potency in exchange for longer duration.
Even so, the feeling of my stats rising was still excellent.
I clenched my fist and swung at the Runic Bear charging straight at me.
Giant’s Arm
Superhuman Strength
Aura Blade
My swollen arm smashed into the bear’s foreleg.
CLAAAAANG!
The gigantified Runic Bear couldn’t withstand the recoil, staggered violently, and was sent flying backward.
Its large movements had left its openings completely exposed.
“Grrrrr!”
The King Sabel Tiger slipped into the bear’s soft flank and opened its maw wide.
Though not as large as the bear, it was still far bigger than an ordinary tiger.
If I stood still, I’d probably lose half my body, not just my side.
From the opposite side, the Elder Rapid Dash twisted its body at the last moment before impact, having rapidly accelerated.
It was clearly trying to maximize the surface area of collision.
“Oh my god! He deliberately slowed down at first, then accelerated at the very end.”
Listen to that commentary.
It was proof that the tamed monsters had practiced their coordination countless times.
To move so fluidly without a single command—truly impressive.
It was the kind of skill that made him worthy of becoming the First Monarch before my regression.
However.
“One step short.”
I’m a veteran rookie, you see.
To the eyes of a second-round player, every flaw in the attack was clearly visible.
You think there are no gaps because the attacks are timed with perfect intervals?
Well.
We’ll see about that.
Dark Shield
I shoved a black shield into the King Sabel Tiger’s wide-open maw.
CRAAAAACK!
It bit down with ferocious force, as if to say it could swallow me in one bite.
But its fangs shattered with a crisp crack.
The Dark Shield really is quite hard.
Still, unlike with the Lesser Drake, I had exhausted every last drop of Polar Night energy used to create the shield.
“Even better.”
Dark Shield
Attacks timed so they wouldn’t collide with each other.
That minuscule gap was more than enough time to reconstruct the Dark Shield.
CLAAAAAANG!
The Dark Shield received the Elder Rapid Dash’s body slam.
It seemed less powerful than the tiger’s bite, as it wasn’t completely exhausted.
I recovered the remaining Polar Night energy and moved both my wings and tail at the same time.
Aura Blade
Hundred Beasts Emperor Martial Arts – 18th Form
Giraffe Strike
The internal energy I poured into my drooping tail sparked violently as it sliced through the air.
At the same time, I infused my two wings with aura blades and flapped them forward.
The moment I detonated the aura blades, the King Sabel Tiger’s body was blasted backward.
Quite sturdy.
Now, what about the horse?
“Hiiiiiiing!”
The Giraffe Strike was specialized for penetration.
During my training of the Hundred Beasts Emperor Martial Arts, I had modified a portion of the forms so they could be executed with my tail.
Surprisingly, altering the forms had been easy.
Perhaps because the art itself was created by mimicking the movements of beasts and divine beasts.
By simply adjusting the flow of internal energy, the strike became quite fierce.
SWIIIIISH!
Call Friend
The Elder Rapid Dash vanished in a flash of light.
The horse that reappeared beside Victor let out a relieved whinny.
“I thought I could neutralize at least one of them.”
“That is my family. If it had been hit, it would have died.”
“Training should be conducted like real combat.”
I was holding back, you know.
Victor let out a short groan, then clenched both fists.
This couldn’t be everything he had.
Show me more. Show me your true ability.
BANG! BOOM! BOOM!
The sound of highly compressed air exploding rattled the eardrums.
It wasn’t a skill.
It was merely the aftershock created when two overwhelming forces collided.
‘The King of the World… He truly is incredible.’
Victor broke out in cold sweat.
Having climbed all the way to Diamond, he had tasted every kind of curse and debuff imaginable.
Yet none of the curses he had experienced before could compare to the one he had just received.
And what about the powerful magic that had followed immediately after?
Even after using the Runic Bear’s ability, he had barely managed to block it.
It would take several seconds to recover from the accumulated shock to his body.
His ‘family,’ connected to him through spirit links, had launched a fierce coordinated assault, yet every strike had been deflected on the spot.
If he had been even a little slower to use his skill, Shiny would have been in danger.
Too strong.
They had only exchanged a single exchange of blows, yet Victor instinctively understood that Jinho had not used his full power.
‘It is a shame that I cannot show my full strength.’
He had only registered three of his family members so they could be summoned anywhere.
The other two had been left behind in Uganda.
Even if he called all five, he didn’t believe he could win.
He simply wondered what it would have been like to fight with his complete force.
‘Enough idle thoughts.’
His opponent was not someone he could afford to lose focus against.
Grooming
The Runic Bear’s arm had been left in tatters after receiving the reverse-scale strike.
One gentle stroke was enough to smooth out the torn fur and stop the bleeding.
The Runic Bear swung its now glossy arm a few times and let out a satisfied roar.
“KUUUUOOOOO!”
A skill that restored damaged body parts to a combat-ready state.
It even granted a temporary stat increase.
‘I can’t drag this out.’
Grooming was not a healing skill.
It was literally just ‘grooming’—it only made the pain temporarily forgotten.
It was nothing more than emergency first aid.
The body would become even more vulnerable to shock, and once the buff ended, the pain would return with a vengeance.
“The vanguard and I will take the big one. The two of you, I’m counting on you.”
“Grrrrr.”
“Don’t worry. We can endure at least one hit.”
After stroking the King Sabel Tiger’s head, Victor used Grooming once more.
He couldn’t give them any more time.
That crimson lightning was far too dangerous a spell.
He had somehow managed to deflect the first one.
A second time would be impossible.
Alone, he might be able to endure thanks to his smaller surface area.
But his family could not.
The larger the body, the greater the danger.
“Let’s begin.”
The four of them spread out widely.
Jinho’s eyes moved rapidly.
One to two seconds.
In that brief window, they displayed near-perfect coordination in their newly formed formation.
It was only possible because he treated his tamed monsters not as tools but as true family, communicating with them from the heart.
“Seventy out of one hundred points.”
It was a formation that would have worked against most opponents.
Therefore.
I gave it a harsh score.
“It is the textbook method for many to face few, but…”
He had already demonstrated overwhelming ability in both magic and close combat.
And yet he still insisted on using such a standard approach.
Earth Dragon Out of Water
A dragon burst from the ground and bit down on the King Sabel Tiger.
Dark Spear
A spear of Polar Night stretched out and chased after the Elder Rapid Dash.
Fatal Charge
The Runic Bear, further enlarged by Destruction Beast Transformation, was frozen solid by the guaranteed stun effect of the charge.
The instant all three monsters were rendered immobile, I struck without mercy.
“You also need to consider the possibility of being defeated one by one.”
When I stunned the Runic Bear, my tail—hanging beneath my hips—brushed near the nape of Victor’s neck.
Before he could show any more, Victor had no choice but to raise both hands in a gesture of surrender.