My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

The dirt road was shredded into jagged furrows, red dust lingering in the hot afternoon air.

Gareth stood in the center of the destruction, his posture pristine. He didn’t carry the raw, wild aggression of a warrior, nor the heavy, lumbering malice of Balthazar. As Duke Owen’s personal right hand, Gareth’s swordplay was a masterclass in lethal efficiency.

SWISH—BANG!

Gareth moved so fast he seemed to displace the very air around him. His longsword flashed, a line of dense, concentrated blue aura shearing cleanly through Vetra’s bare-handed guard.

Vetra swung a vicious left hook, but Gareth effortlessly leaned beneath the arc, his longsword spinning in his palm. The heel of his boot caught Vetra square in the sternum, sending her flying backward through two pine trees before crashing heavily against the stone embankment.

"Out of my way dragon" Gareth asked quietly, stepping through the splintered wood. His blade hung low, untainted by dirt, though a faint sheen of sweat lined his brow. "You swing with anger. But anger without structure is just wasted energy."

Vetra spat a mouthful of dark, crimson blood onto the dirt, pushing herself up with trembling arms.

"U done talking?"

Gareth was on her in an instant.

CLANG! CLANG! SLASH!

In three lightning-fast exchanges, Gareth systematically disassembled her defenses. He bypassed her obsidian claws, sliced through the thick scales lining her forearms, and drove a brutal aura-infused knee directly into her ribs.

Vetra hit the knee hard, gasping as blood spilled over her chin. Gareth stood over her, pinning her right shoulder down with the flat of his boot, the tip of his longsword resting precisely against the soft flesh of her throat.

"Rin and Balthazar were fools since they were killed by the lot of you," Gareth said, his voice cold and devoid of pity. "Your kind were always told in stories as fearsome tough beasts. Guess those are false...you should have stayed out of this."

Pinned to the earth, covered in her own thick, dark blood, Vetra didn’t plead. She didn’t rage.

Instead, a raspy, low chuckling began to vibrate in her throat.

"You’re fast, I admit..." Vetra wheezed, her slit pupils dilating until her eyes were almost entirely dark. "Really fast..."

Deep within her chest, beneath the cracked sternum and torn muscle, something ancient thrummed. Ever since she had left the peaks of Mount Ignis following Vince, even before Thier initial meeting, her dragon-kin mana core had been fractured, dormant, slowly piecing itself back together in the quiet hours. It had remained incomplete through every skirmish, every march—even Vince had never seen her fight with a whole core.

And right now, pushed to the absolute precipice of death, the final shattered fragment of her core slammed into place.

THUMP.

It sounded like a heavy war drum echoing from deep inside her ribs.

Vetra closed her eyes for a brief fraction of a second, feeling the sudden, overwhelming warmth flooding her veins. If that core completion had been a single second late... she thought to herself, a cold smirk touching her bloody lips, I’d be having a flashback right now.

BOOM!

A shockwave of crushing, crimson mana exploded outward from Vetra’s chest, blasting Gareth’s boot off her shoulder and forcing Gareth to leap backward ten paces, his cloak snapping in the sudden violent gust.

"What...?" Gareth’s eyes narrowed as he landed, his longsword rising into a high guard.

Vetra stood up.

The physical shift was immediate and terrifying. Dark, iridescent dragon scales rippled rapidly outward from her forearms, creeping up her neck, across her jawline, and setting over her cheekbones like polished obsidian armor. The horns at the side of her head receded and from beneath her hairline, two thick, jagged, obsidian dragon horns erupted upward, curving back toward the crown of her head. Her eyes ignited into a burning, molten crimson.

She took a single step forward, and the ground beneath her boot cracked under a sudden, staggering increase in raw, physical weight.

"Now," Vetra rumbled, her voice no longer fully human—layered with a deep, echoing dragon resonance that vibrated the air. "Let’s try that again."

CRACK!

Vetra vanished.

Gareth’s instincts screamed. He brought his longsword up to parry, but the force that hit his blade was no longer manageable.

BOOM!

Vetra’s bare fist slammed into the flat of Gareth’s blade. The blue physical aura protecting his sword shattered like glass. The staggering kinetic impact drove Gareth backward, his boots carving deep trenches fifty yards down the road as he struggled to keep his footing.

Before he could reset his stance, Vetra was already in his face. She threw a barrage of bare-handed, wild strikes—every claw swipe tearing through the air with the force of a falling anvil, shattering the stone road around them and forcing Gareth into a desperate, purely defensive stance. His longsword hummed violently under the stress, his arms numbing under her peak dragon-kin strength.

BANG!

A sweeping tail-strike from Vetra caught Gareth in the ribs, sending him skipping across the dirt before he slammed hard against a massive boulder at the base of the ridge.

Dust settled over the road.

Vetra stood thirty paces away, breathing heavily, smoke drifting gently from her nostrils. Her new dragon scales gleamed under the sunlight, her crimson eyes locked onto the rubble.

From the dust cloud, Gareth slowly straightened his spine. His coat was torn, blood trickled from the side of his mouth, and his left arm hung slightly limp—but his face remained disturbingly calm.

He didn’t panic. He didn’t reach for a healing potion.

Gareth reached up with his functioning right hand, casually unbuckling the iron clasp at his collar. He reached behind his back, resting his palm against the heavy, iron spatial-suppression rods locked across his spine.

A dangerous, quiet smile touched the corner of Gareth’s mouth. He had been pushed, yes... but the iron rods on his back hadn’t even begun to unseal. He held an unplayed hand, completely unbothered by the monster standing before him.

Vetra glared at him, her claws flexing, sensing the dormant, monstrous reservoir still locked deep within the blademaster. But she didn’t re-engage. She turned her head, leaped straight over the ridge, instinctively keeping considerable distance.

"Running are we?" Gareth said calmly.

---

In the shade of the pine grove just outside Oakhaven’s western gate, Vince sat against a tree trunk, his eyes closed.

Suddenly, Vince opened his eyes and looked squarely toward the western road.

He didn’t need core-sight to feel it. The dense, violent spike in physical mana that had just erupted behind the ridge was entirely different from the suppressed signal Vetra had carried since Mount Ignis.

A moment later, a heavy thud shook the ground as Vetra landed inside the pine grove.

Lyrielle gasped, drawing back slightly at the sight of Vetra’s transformed appearance—the jagged obsidian horns, the dark scales covering her face, and the molten crimson glow burning in her eyes.

Vetra wiped a trail of blood from her scaled jaw, her chest heaving as she let out a long breath. She looked at Vince, her sharp teeth bared in a quiet, tired grin.

Vince looked her up and down, taking in the horns, the reinforced scales, and the fully awakened core humming inside her chest.

He didn’t ask what happened on the road. Vince simply offered her a quiet, knowing nod of respect.

"Glad you made it," Vince said softly, standing up and pulling his leather coat straight. He turned his attention back to the massive oak gates of Oakhaven. "Its ti—"

Feeling the instant change in mana pressure of Gareth Vince held lyrielle’s hand pulling her behind him.

"Goo..." Vetra yelled "... he’s tough but I can handle it I’ll meet you guys once I’m finished up he—"

KANG!

Gareth steel clashed with vetras scaled fore arm, the ground beneath them forming a small crater under the pressure.

I’ve never felt this type of mana energy from Vetra. Was she hiding her true power??. Vince thought

"Let’s go Elle"

She concurred with a nod as they blurred away.

"You’ll regret not asking for Thier help" Gareth said as sparks flew from the clash.

"There’s no regret in battle just the realisation of one’s own strength and limits!!."

She pushed him back both parties regaining thier stance.

" Enough talk"

SWISH.