This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 865: Chapter 865: Kain’s ’selfless help’

Kain stared at that wound—the deep, jagged cut radiating orange light, conflicting with azure-green light like a scar that refused to close.

His heartbeat quickened. His spiritual power thrummed beneath his skin, hungry, restless. The same dreadful temptation he’d once felt during the Southern Relic mission returned with a vengeance. The orange energy’s taste—metallic, electric, intoxicating—made his instincts flare with dangerous hunger.

Serena noticed the look on his face and faint purple ring around his pupils. “Kain… what are you thinking?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the wound. “That I can help it.”

Her expression darkened. “Help it? By doing what? Losing control again?” She leaned closer, her voice low. “Don’t tell me you plan to absorb that thing. You nearly attacked me last time you—”

“I know,” Kain cut in, tone calm but firm. “That was different. I didn’t have proper control back then. Now I do.”

“You think you do,” Serena shot back, before looking at the purple ring around his eyes with some skepticism. “You can’t know that for sure. Look at it, Kain—whatever that is, it’s not normal spiritual energy.”

He didn’t argue. She was right. The energy wasn’t just potent—it was refined, purposeful, almost intelligent. But he could also tell it was incomplete, unstable, corroding the turtle’s own domain from within. And deep in that chaos, he could feel threads of pure Source energy woven through it, raw and condensed to a terrifying degree.

Kain placed a hand on Aegis’s cooled armor and, thankfully, due to the bubble made by Serena’s Elemental Guardian, was able to speak. “Senior,” he called, his voice contained in the bubble but seemingly still audible to the other. “I can feel the energy lodged in your shell. I believe I can absorb it—remove the worst of its bite.”

The water quivered as the turtle stirred. One of its massive eyes cracked open, the blue-green glow shifting to a deep, almost suspicious light green. The voice that followed shook the riverbed itself.

“You?

” The word resonated with disbelief and a hint of humour. “A mortal child dares claim to do what I—a Demigod of the Deep Currents—cannot?” The surrounding water trembled as if in sarcastic laughter, a wave of spiritual pressure washing over them. “Should you fail, my restraint will falter. The energy remaining from my enemy will surge. This river, and I with it, may shatter.“

Kain stood his ground, though the pressure pressed against his chest like a physical weight. “Then I’ll make sure I don’t fail.”

The turtle let out a low rumble that might’ve been a laugh—or a growl. “Bravery… or arrogance. The two often taste the same.”

The turtle rumbled deeply, the sound echoing through the water. One great eye blinked slowly, as though its patience had thinned. “No. Enough of your childish boasting. You cannot even comprehend the weight of the power that festers in my wound.” It shifted slightly, sending a tremor through the current that almost knocked Kain off balance. “Begone from my sight, small one. I have endured this pain longer than any of your human civilizations have existed on this continent. If you value your life, do not test my restraint further.” The eye began to dim, lids closing as though dismissing them entirely.

But Kain didn’t want to give up so easily with such a delicious meal—ahem, opportunity to repay their benefactor, before them. Kain reached into his storage ring and pulled out a chunk of dull, metallic stone—one of the Source-rich ores from Pangea, faintly glowing with violet energy. He held it up so the turtle could sense it through the water. “Then tell me this, Senior. What do you think of the energy in this?”

The turtle’s eye focused, its pupil contracting as it reached out with its spiritual sense. The river itself seemed to still, attuning to its awareness.

After a moment, the creature spoke, its tone slower and more measured. “Strange… The energy is calm. Gentle even. It does not corrode. Yet… it is stronger. Higher in order than the energy lingering from my enemy, my own domain—or even the corrosive energy of the Abyss. Its law… appears older. The only word I can think to describe it with is ’pure’. As if it were the origin of all this world’s laws and rules. Yet never in my long life have I seen such an energy before…”

Kain smiled faintly. “It’s Source energy. Or at least that’s what I call it, because all of the world’s energies are derived from it. It should be even harder to absorb and control than the energy festering in your wound. Watch.”

He placed the ore against his palm and focused. The spiritual power circuits in his body glowed faintly, becoming visible beneath his skin and giving it an eerie glow. The light from the ore dimmed rapidly, the glow travelling along his arm until, with a faint hiss, the original vibrant violent stone crumbled into gray dust and drifted apart. The energy that had filled it vanished—drawn into him, absorbed, refined, stabilized.

The turtle’s eye widened slightly, an emotion somewhere between astonishment and disbelief flickering in its ancient gaze.

“Impossible,” it murmured. “How could you absorb it. No corrosion… no backlash…”

“I can handle it,” Kain said simply. “If you restrain the orange energy while I absorb it, I might be able to absorb some, if not all, of it. It won’t heal the wound completely, but it’ll stop you from needing another thousand years to barely make any progress healing.”

For a long time, the turtle said nothing. The only sound was the whisper of the current and the faint, wounded throb of the ravine.

Finally, it rumbled again. “Very well, human child. I will loosen my hold—but do not misunderstand. I lack the clarity and presence to protect you should the energy lash out. My focus must remain inward to restrain its chaos. If your will falters, and you prove unable to absorb it, I will make no move to protect you.”

Kain nodded once. “Fair enough.”

Serena looked between them, horrified. “You’re actually doing this…”

He turned to her, meeting her gaze, schooling his features into noble determination even as his stomach growled softly and his mouth watered. “If it works, Senior’s suffering ends,” he said, gesturing toward the wound, “and a good deed’s done.” He didn’t mention the way his pulse quickened at the thought of the energy’s taste, or how his eyes lingered on the ravine like a starving man eyeing a banquet. Even the turtle, fooled by his earnest tone, rumbled approvingly, touched by the human’s apparent selflessness.

But Serena, now extremely familiar with Kain, wasn’t buying it.

“…And if something goes wrong?” she asked quietly.

He gave a thin smile. “Then I’m counting on you to drag what’s left of me out.”

The turtle’s eyes glowed brighter. The water shifted, threads of orange light pulsing through the ravine like blood being drawn from an open vein.

“Shall we begin?” It said eagerly

Kain’s body was pulled closer to the turtle’s shell, still surrounded by Aegis who had abandoned Serena in favour of its contractor.

The energy of the ancient Demigod enfolded him, wrapping around his limbs like a living tide. Serena’s voice echoed faintly behind him, muffled by the water and the pressure, but he didn’t turn back. His focus was locked on the wound.

Up close, it was far more terrifying. The orange light wasn’t just bright—it writhed with what seemed to be sentience, each throb of power so intense that Kain’s bones vibrated. Even restrained by the turtle’s own energy, the orange lights radiated an instinctive violence, sharp enough to slice through lesser beings without effort.

He stopped less than ten meters from the ravine. His skin prickled; every instinct screamed to back away, he could feel the sheer destructive intent trapped inside that wound. The energy wasn’t chaotic like Abyssal power—it was clean, deliberate, devastating.

“Senior,” Kain said, forcing his voice to stay calm, “who did this to you?”

For a long moment, there was only the deep hum of the current. Then the turtle’s voice reverberated through the river. “A human. Long ago. He wielded a sword that burned with the sun’s light and cut through the laws of water itself. I do not know his name. Only that his strike shattered my pride.”

Kain froze. A human? His mind struggled to grasp it. Even nine-star beast tamers rarely fought head-on against demigod-level spiritual creatures—they relied on their contracts. To match a being like this turtle with a sword alone was unthinkable.

Serena’s expression mirrored his shock. “Humans can fight like that? Without contracts?”

The turtle’s massive head turned slightly toward them. “Once. Perhaps still. His kind wielded gifts that were not bound to beasts.”

Kain thought of the neighbour to the Celestial Empire that primarily fought using gifts as well. But even they, from what he’d heard, had nobody so powerful.

Putting the culprit behind the wound to the back of his mind, Kain stared into the glowing ravine again.

Then his stomach growled.

The turtle’s eyes narrowed slightly, and the current thickened. “Brace yourself, human child,” it rumbled, its voice both warning and command. “I will release some of the restraint. The energy will not wait for you—it will attack.”

Kain’s pulse spiked. He drew in a deep breath, “I’m ready.”

The orange light flared.

With a sound like shattering glass, the restrained energy surged free, tearing through the water in a torrent of colour and pressure. It howled like a storm, slamming into the metal barrier surrounding Kain with enough force to crush stone. Aegis’s armour shimmered faintly around him, but even it groaned under the strain.

Kain gritted his teeth, spiritual circuits blazing to life. “Come on,” he hissed, extending both arms. “Let’s see how you taste.”

The energy hit him full-on, and the world exploded into light and pain.