This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Bea’s confirmation echoed faintly in Kain’s mind.

Kain’s hand drifted to the edge of his coat, lightly tapping twice. Bea stirred invisibly beneath the fabric, Chewy pulsing faintly from somewhere near his inner sleeve. Both were already summoned and hidden

Now came the others.

The referee stepped to the midpoint and raised a hand. “Standard match. First to yield, incapacitate, or full contract recall loses. Beast-tamers are not off-limits. Begin when ready.”

The match had officially begun.

Kyria didn’t rush. She didn’t flinch. She simply stepped forward with confidence like someone who had walked into dozens of battles and walked out of most, if not all, victoriously. Her fingers twitched slightly, and the faint glimmer beneath her bare feet pulsed again. The material was buried just deep enough not to be immediately obvious, but he could still sense the distortion in the surrounding energy field.

Something metallic.

Likely a high-quality metal with elemental properties. What, exactly? He didn’t know.

Bea let her Pale Thought Field unfurl completely, coating the battlefield. He didn’t bother holding back—it was a challenge match against one of the strongest in the school. Hiding power would only give her an opening.

Kyria smiled faintly. “You’re not wasting time.”

“But you are,” he replied coolly.

She didn’t summon a contract immediately. She waited.

Perhaps she wanted to test him first. Or maybe it was due to her pride. Afterall, it couldn’t feel good to be challenged knowing that it is likely because you are viewed as the weakest amongst the 6-star beast-tamers. Her pride is probably making her act more proud than usual.

Stupid. But fine.

With a flick of his wrist, a wave of summoning light flared behind him.

Aegis emerged first, landing heavily with a dull thud. The dirt-like floor of the outdoor arena sank slightly under his stone frame.

Vespid guards followed, a dozen of them bursting from a burst of light in tight formation.

Then Vauleth appeared, his eyes already glowing a bright amber and flames flickering off of his scales. Hiw wings beat furiously against the sudden heat he brought with him fanning it towards the watching crowd. All of the first years exclaimed loudly and rapidly moved back at the sudden heat wave. The others though didn’t budge out of pride. After all, how pathetic would it be for them to flinch back due to a casual gust of air from a contract that wasn’t even Kain’s strongest.

No! That could never happen!

At that moment the thoughts of the second, third, and fourth years had never been more cohesive. It seems as though Kain was unintentionally bringing his peers closer together.

Kyria raised a single hand and snapped her fingers.

Summoning light followed. Three flashes—rapid and controlled.

Her Mirrorhorn Elk appeared first, its prismatic metallic antlers flickering with unstable refracted light. Then the Shellvine Sprite—it looked like a humanoid sprite carved out of silver and adorned with leaves made out of metal for clothing. Third, the obsidian-plated beetle—the one that had supposedly undergone multiple new forms—appeared behind her with a sharp clicking hum, its legs puncturing into the arena floor to stabilize. Fourth and fifth were two green-grade creatures that Kain hadn’t seen before—she hadn’t yet summoned them during training. One was a giant golem-like spiritual creature seemingly made of clay. The other unfamiliar spiritual creature was even more unusual. It was the body and shell of a green tortoise with a metallic sheen, striped legs that resembled a tiger’s, and the head of a rabbit. Kain had never seen a spiritual creature that looked so much like a science experiment gone wrong.

Kain scanned them.

One blue-grade. Four green.

That was it.

And yet…

He didn’t relax.

Kyria adjusted her gloves slightly and whispered something to her beetle. Its carapace rippled in response. The Shellvine Sprite flexed, readying defensive vines along the edges of the field.

Kain had no intention of going easy.

He gave a mental cue.

Aegis charged forward, fists up in a boxer ready pose. The Mirrorhorn Elk intercepted, antlers clashing against the passive barrier around him. The spiritual pressure from both cracked the ground between them.

Vespids flooded the space, clashing midair with the Sprite’s metallic protective vines and the beetle’s swarming micro-shards.

Vauleth unleashed a sweep of flames, which the tortoise-tiger-rabbit hybrid dodged with an unnatural twist of its limbs—bones momentarily bending in ways that shouldn’t be possible when limited by a massive tortoise shell.

The golem next to it didn’t even bother trying to dodge the flames. Instead, it embraced them, and soon Kain understood why.

Like clay being fired in a furnace, Vauleth’s flames made the orange, more malleable clay golem turn a pale off-white that was as hard as stone. Vauleth’s flames only served to increase its defence. Kain could only hope the change was temporary while he directed Vauleth to no longer fight against that golem and instead focus on the turtle-tiger monstrosity.

Bea began her work, invisible thoughts spreading toward Kyria’s contracts.

But Kain felt it almost immediately.

Blockage.

She’d fortified their minds. Not just with simple mental shields—there was resistance woven in deep. But considering that Kyria’s strength was defense. Rather than offense, Kain wasn’t surprised. Nor was Bea. The amoeba quickly got to work on wearing the defenses down.

Meanwhile, Kyria’s strongest contract, her blue-grade Elk pushed back hard against Aegis, slamming its front hooves down in an attempt to disrupt his footing. The Mirrorhorns glowed, refracting light and spiritual energy in all directions. Aegis blocked one of the beams, but two others slipped past his frame and clipped a pair of Vespids mid-flight.

Kain sent a jolt of intent to Chewy.

The little spore pulsed once and began absorbing the residual energy scattered across the arena. Tiny tendrils siphoned heat, kinetic vibration, stray particles of spiritual pressure.

Energy was collected. Then redistributed.

One pulse to Aegis.

Another toward Bea.

And a third, barely enough to be noticed, toward Vauleth.

Kyria must have noticed the stabilization. Her eyebrow twitched. Only slightly.

Then—she finally moved. She joined the battlefield like any other spiritual creature

Her body glowed faintly at the joints—her knees, elbows, shoulders—and with each movement, her motions grew smoother, stronger.

Kyria suddenly disappeared. And Kain’s guard raised up to the highest level, afraid that she’d attack him directly.

But she didn’t really disappear. Rather the speed of her footwork tripled in an instant. And thankfully Kain wasn’t her target. The arena cracked beneath her steps as she spun behind Aegis, driving her fist into his lower back.

His passive shield formed to block the attack, but Kain could see its instability. One could only imagine how powerful that fist was—she had surpassed the physical strength of most green-grade contracts.

Kain gritted his teeth. “Aegis, don’t follow her directly. Track the distortion left behind.”

She was accelerating faster than his visual tracking could handle.

And he was sure of it now. This increase in physical fitness was likely due to her Gift.

She had absorbed at least two separate materials.

Possibly three.

She had the ability to stack effects.

He filed that away.

As Vauleth clashed with the hybrid in a sizzling fury of elemental bursts, and Vespids wove through the vines trying to pin them down, Kain watched Kyria closely.

He had an ominous feeling. Something wasn’t quite adding up.