The Psychopathic Beast Emperor-Chapter 122: Ren Completes the Core Formation

Bahamut and Sel watched in awe at the scene unfolding in front of them. What they were experiencing was a true Tier 2 breakthrough, and the one who was causing it was a five-foot-tall bunny, Ren.

His marks glowed with an incomprehensible light. They couldn’t see their colors, but they could tell that the marks were glowing. Ren squirmed on the ground as pain, hunger, strength, and a variety of emotions and sensations overwhelmed him. His body convulsed violently on the ground.

The logs around him trembled as dust lifted into the air. Even the other disciples had long since retreated, unable to withstand the pressure that was building around the small, writhing bunny.

It had happened all of a sudden. They were busily teasing Bahamut when he suddenly fell over and started convulsing as if he’d been poisoned. But the system had prompted Bahamut quickly about what Ren was going through, which had made them stop moving close to him. His element... was dangerous.

Inside his consciousness, he saw the formation of something small yet massive. There was nothing. No ground, no sky, and no light. Just an endless, shifting void, and in that void, something stirred. At first, it was small and so insignificant that it could have been ignored, but it wasn’t. Because it couldn’t be ignored. That speck contained everything.

It pulsed once, then again. Each pulse sent ripples through the void, distorting space itself. The darkness twisted, stretched, collapsed, and reformed in unnatural patterns, as if reality itself had lost its rules.

Ren "stood" before it, though standing had no meaning here. His red eyes glowed faintly as he stared at the forming existence.

"...So this is it..." His voice echoed within the void. The speck began to grow in presence. It was still small, yet it felt massive. The moment Ren reached out toward it, the void exploded.

Fire erupted, only to freeze into ice mid-burst. Lightning cracked, then bent into spirals of water. Stone formed, then shattered into wind. Every element appeared and collapsed into one another. Over and over. Creation, destruction, fusion, rejection... It was madness.

Pure, unfiltered madness. Ren’s eyes widened slightly.

"...Chaos," he whispered. The moment he named it, the "speck" reacted. It pulsed violently, drawing everything toward it. All the conflicting forces, all the broken elements, all the twisted laws... they converged, crashing into the core.

They fused, rejected one another, then fused again. It was unstable and should have collapsed. It should have destroyed itself, but instead, it adapted. It accepted contradiction and embraced instability. And slowly... the core began to take shape.

It appeared as a sphere, small, dense, and endlessly shifting. Its surface wasn’t fixed, but it flowed like liquid, yet cracked like stone, sparked like lightning, burned like fire, and dissolved like mist all at once, and none at all.

Ren’s breath hitched. He could feel it. That core... was him. It was unpredictable, unrestrained, and free.

The core pulsed again. This time, it answered him. A surge of energy rushed through his consciousness, wild, untamed. beautiful, and dangerous.

Ren grinned.

"...I like it."

He reached out and grabbed it. The moment his hand touched the core, everything shattered.

...

Outside.

Ren’s body arched violently.

"GRRAAAAHHH!!"

A shockwave exploded from him, sending logs flying and cracking the ground beneath him. Bahamut raised an arm to shield himself, his eyes wide. Sel’s expression had lost its calm entirely.

"...This is insane..."

Ren’s marks flared, no longer just glowing, but burning. They burned with something deeper, something that distorted the air around them. The ground beneath Ren fractured, splitting outward as energy surged through his body.

His fur bristled as his form expanded, five feet, and ended at a whooping six. His limbs elongated slightly, muscles tightening and refining. His body didn’t bulk; it became perfect, lean, explosive, and terrifyingly efficient.

His ears twitched sharply as a deep, low pressure spread across the area. Then, his eyes snapped open. They were still red, but now, something had changed. black seeped into them.

The red irises now held a dark, swirling black hue, split by a sharp, bestial slit that seemed to cut through reality itself.

Bahamut felt a chill run down his spine.

"...Those eyes..."

Sel didn’t speak, because something else... something far worse, had appeared.

Ren’s shadow.

It stretched unnaturally beneath him. At first, it followed his form, but then it changed. The shadow rose, slowly, twisting, and growing. It was taking the shape, not of a bunny nor even of a beast, but of something... humanoid, tall, and looming.

Its outline was jagged and broken, like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Multiple limbs flickered in and out of existence. Its head tilted, as if it were alive.

It was watching... hungry. The air turned cold. Bahamut instinctively stepped forward. Sel raised his dagger slightly, but Ren simply exhaled.

The pressure vanished, and the shadow dropped back down, snapping into place beneath him as it had never moved.

There was silence, heavy and thick. Ren blinked once, then twice. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"...Huh," he said.

His voice was the same. Casual, and almost bored. He looked down at himself and flexed his fingers. Then he glanced at Bahamut and Sel.

"I feel... weird," he admitted.

Bahamut stared at him.

"...You think?"

Sel exhaled slowly, lowering his dagger.

"...You broke through," he said. "Tier 2."

Ren nodded.

"Yeah."

He stretched his arms, making his body shift and shrink back into his smaller, harmless bunny form. He hopped once as if nothing had happened.

"...But I can still do this," he added casually.

In a flash, he expanded again, now six feet tall. His felt presence was heavier, sharper, and more dangerous. Then he shrank again.

There was silence again...

Bahamut dragged a hand down his face.

"...Of course you can."

Sel looked at Ren’s shadow again. It was normal now, still, black, and harmless.

"...That thing..." Sel muttered.

Ren followed his gaze, then smiled... a slow, knowing smile.

"...Oh," he said. "That?"

His red-and-black eyes glinted.

"Don’t worry about it."