This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Something wasn’t adding up.

Kain kept his stance steady, one foot pivoted slightly behind the other as he circled Kyria’s position. Across the field, her five contracts moved with sharp, measured precision. The Mirrorhorn Elk was the most dangerous, its spiraled antlers flickering faintly as they repelled mental probes from Bea and reflected spiritual attacks from the Vespids, Aegis, and occasionally even Vauleth.

The Shellvine Sprite clung to the Elk’s flank, casting protective metal spore-like molecules across the team. Meanwhile, the obsidian beetle and that unsettling tortoise-tiger-rabbit hybrid prowled the edges, boxing him in.

And yet, something felt wrong.

He wasn’t losing. If anything, he had the advantage—his combination of Aegis, Bea, and the still-hidden Chewy had slowly begun to force gaps in her coordination. Bea was already inside the Shellvine Sprite’s mind, poking around its mental terrain like a burglar evaluating a house before a heist. Aegis had even started gaining ground against the Mirrorhorn Elk, anticipating its reflective counters just long enough for the massive golem to land a grazing blow.

So why were his instincts screaming?

It wasn’t fear. It was a different kind of dread—an anticipatory tension that hummed at the base of his spine. Like standing too close to a fault line that hadn’t shifted yet but would.

In the relic, Kyria hadn’t even truly summoned her contracts. It was her clone who fought using contracts and used her full potential, and the real Kyria had fought her bare-fisted. Passive. He thought at the time that her contracts were perhaps badly injured in the previous trials, and so she didn’t summon them. But now?

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

She was stronger than she should be. Faster. Her contracts moved in tighter synchronization than the average beast tamer could command without years of focused mental discipline. Even her coordination—how she layered her Sprite’s spores with the Elk’s beams and the beetle’s concussive charges—felt oddly refined.

Honestly, she reminded him more of the experienced members of the Order, particularly in the military division, who had gone through numerous life-or-death battles. Honestly, she felt like she had more battle experience than Kain, but considering all of his life-or-death experiences, you’d expect it to be the exact opposite.

Bea’s voice pulsed in his mind, low and curious.

“I found something.”

Kain blinked. “Already?”

“No,” Bea replied. “Just now. Her Elk was too well defended mentally. But the Sprite? Weak-minded. A few thoughts were tucked away. And one… describes why she suddenly increased in strength.”

Kain narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

“I didn’t get everything,” Bea said, “but she seems to have stumbled across something over a year ago while either training or completing a mission in the wilderness. A cave that appeared to be inhabited a long time ago. Small, hidden. Old. Very old.”

Kain’s breath hitched. “Where?”

“Somewhere remote. Inside were a variety of things that could be roughly considered to be a small inheritance. Based on the memories I read, the cave likely belonged to an eight-star beast tamer who had entered the cave to break through to 9-stars in seclusion, but ended up failing and dying. They are long dead…likely centuries have passed since their time. Which would explain why even the reinforced skeleton of the 8-star tamer had decayed and there was just a dusty pile of robes on a meditation mat in the corner of the room.”

Suddenly, the rumours didn’t sound like rumours anymore.

Kyria had gotten an inheritance. Not from the College-sanctioned relic. Not from a recognized trial. But something unknown. Unmonitored. And one of the thoughts Bea had plucked from the Sprite’s mind was clear:

“It woke when she arrived.”

“What did?” Kain asked aloud before realizing Bea had already pulled away.

The answer arrived seconds later.

Kyria finally stopped attacking Aegis directly and retreated back to her side of the arena…along with her contracts, who also all stopped attacking and retreated with her.

“I suppose that’s enough,” she said softly.

The ground vibrated as her five contracts returned to her side.

“You’re not yielding,” he said flatly.

Kyria smiled faintly. “Of course not.”

Then, without any fanfare, she lifted her hand—and a sixth contract appeared suddenly.

Kain’s eyes narrowed instantly.

It wasn’t just that she had six. It was how the creature appeared. There was no spiritual power, no resonance he could sense with her star space. One moment, the space beside her was empty. Next, it was filled.

The spiritual creature that now hovered beside Kyria floated just above the ground, its spherical body encased in a lattice of crystalized plating, black with veins of molten gold snaking through it. Long, spindly limbs flickered in and out of phase with reality, never fully attached, like the creature’s body couldn’t decide what shape it wanted to be.

Its aura was quiet. Cold. Ancient.

But undeniable.

Blue-grade.

Kain stepped back involuntarily. A chill running down his spine was screaming that this wasn’t an ordinary blue-grade spiritual creature.

Bea commented. “That… was what I saw in the Sprite’s mind. It was frozen in time in the cave. And it reawakened when Kyria stepped into that cave.”

“Why didn’t she use it before? This contract wasn’t even revealed during the re-ranking matches,” Kain whispered.

“She probably couldn’t. She had just bonded with it, and it may not even listen to her. It’s more like a sentient weapon than a normal contract. The notes in the Sprite’s mind also said that the spiritual skills in the inheritance and bonding with this contract would change her physique slightly and make her incompatible with other spiritual skills. Fortunately, the spiritual skills contained in that cave were already very impressive, so she didn’t lament not being able to use others.”

So this was her secret. The source of her leap in strength. The reason why she likely intentionally failed the final trial in the relic. Sensing that the trial was testing them for something she may not have wanted to bother continuing, especially if it was dangerous and she wouldn’t be able to use whatever spiritual skills were inherited from the relic.

But despite the ominous aura this creature emitted, Kain was still confident that he could beat it.

This thing wasn’t a contract she trained. It wasn’t nurtured. It wasn’t even supposed to be alive anymore.

It was inherited not long ago and may not even fully like or trust her.

That would be his opening.