Chapter 67: Blue-shining Scales
Terrence was completely unharmed despite the most concentrated attack Lucas’s beast had prepared.
Earlier, Lucas had secretly commanded his beast to move far behind his back and concentrate as much energy as it could possibly contain before releasing it all at once.
Lucas had served as the perfect physical cover for that surprise attack. At the exact right millisecond, he dropped flat on the ground, ensuring Terrence would take the full impact of the beam.
He had gambled everything on that single moment, burning through almost 80 percent of his beast’s total energy for the day. Even with the massive risk of Terrence’s beast pursuing his tiger during the setup, he took the chance just for that one fatal strike.
But how was he still standing?!
"Terrence!"
Lucas bit his lower lip in raw, uncontrollable rage, a wave of bitter disappointment in himself washing over him.
’It was such a simple task, yet we still haven’t put him down... How tough is his beast that it managed to endure all that concentrated energy?!’
In truth, Lucas’s beast couldn’t properly harm any shadow-related creature because its power originated from pure light. Shadow exists where there is light; shadow is not the mere absence of light.
He had never faced a beast where he held such a severe natural disadvantage, mainly because shadow-element beasts were extremely rare—almost bordering on extinction—because they couldn’t properly multiply inside or outside the dungeon rifts.
Terrence coughed softly as he fanned away the thick dust particles floating before him. His hand briefly covered his mouth and nose as he took a firm step forward out of the crater.
"That was a clever way to attack, but you missed something very important, Lucas. Your beast might be exceptionally powerful, but not against mine. Although my hound took some heavy damage and a portion of that beam slipped past him, you still missed a critical detail."
As Terrence revealed what had actually protected his body, everyone’s eyes inside the VIP watch room widened in absolute disbelief. Minds went completely blank as mouths agape in a volatile mix of surprise, awe, disappointment, shock, and genuine fear.
Every single spectator leaned forward off their luxurious couches. Their previously relaxed, comfortable postures instantly shifted into dead-serious stances.
Everyone present from the Lee Family and their selected associate families couldn’t pull their eyes away from the main display screen as it revealed the true depth of Terrence’s potential.
"How is that even possible?! Lucas can make his contracted beasts far more powerful using his special affinity! Even with a basic B-Rank affinity, his unique passive trait enhances any beast he forms a contract with—which is exactly how he managed to secure an A-Rank tiger in the first place!" an uncle muttered in disbelief, his voice heavy with complete denial.
"That can’t be real! Terrence only awakened his tamer abilities recently! It should be physically impossible for him to overpower Lucas like this!" an aunt shouted, shaking her head aggressively.
"Patriarch... were we completely wrong in our original decision?" another aunt asked, her voice carrying the solemn weight of a senior elder in the family hierarchy.
The patriarch, watching silently from behind the dark VIP curtains, offered no reply. An icy silence enveloped his presence while everyone else remained utterly fixated on the screen’s revelation.
Terrence’s Shadow Hound hadn’t just intercepted the energy beam; even when a portion of the fatal light slipped past its defense, it still wasn’t enough to take Terrence down.
...
Slowly, the watching relatives regained their composure bit by bit, completely altering their internal judgment of Terrence.
Some elders were already secretly considering bringing him back into the main household, preparing to offer him cultivation resources and benefits far greater than those given to the family’s current generation of geniuses.
Terrence genuinely deserved it! That was the line of thinking the more reasonable elders wanted to push, realizing Terrence was a natural genius whose awakening had simply been delayed.
All members of the Lee Family were expected to be geniuses or well above average. So why on earth had they given up on Terrence’s potential so early on?
Two years was far too short a window to definitively declare Terrence useless.
That rushed past decision was coming back to bite them. This duel was a loud, humiliating slap directly across their faces—a cold reality they couldn’t easily reverse.
"If Terrence returns to the family fold, our influence over the next generation will explode," an elder voiced aloud, igniting a heated debate of mixed opinions across the watch room. "I heard he made quite a few contacts in the former barren slum. We could make him the regional manager there or even the head director overseeing their operations. We can use his presence as a strategic springboard before expanding our reach into surrounding cities."
However, that grand idea was fiercely despised by the younger generation—Terrence’s peers. They had already secured their high positions and promised futures inside the family structure.
They had brought tangible benefits and prestige to the household. Bringing Terrence back into the fold meant dividing the precious cultivation resources that belonged to them.
This was especially true for Nerissa, who was Lucas’s direct rival within the family branch. Despite hating the fact that her rival was currently being outmatched, she still desperately wanted Lucas to win today because of a troubling rumor she had heard about Terrence ever since his awakening.
Despite her young age, Nerissa maintained an extensive personal intelligence network. Based on the reports she had gathered, there was a dangerously high possibility that Terrence could be officially reinstated into the core family now that his potential vastly outshone his former reputation.
’I absolutely hate that idea...’ she thought, her nails digging deep into her palms.
Yet, what happened next was about to send an even greater shockwave through the room. As Terrence took another step outside the scorched diameter where the golden laser beam had finally dissipated, another creature emerged right beside him.
"Wait... is that a flying beast?! Terrence possesses a flying beast?!"
A small, cub-sized dragon hovered calmly right in front of Terrence. It possessed brilliant, blue-shining scales, a chubby baby-like body roughly the size of a human toddler, two leathery reptilian wings on its back, and a face that looked like a strange fusion between a human and a lizard.
None of the family members even knew what a true dragon was. But they knew one undeniable truth: finding a functional flying-type beast was supposed to be completely impossible.