This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Capítulo 918: Chapter 918: Cornered

The abyssal demigod—bleeding violet light, scales shedding like falling leaves, cracks gouged across the boy’s skin from the inside out—was forcing power into a body that couldn’t contain it. Every surge made the vessel break faster, but the creature kept pushing anyway, intent on using what remained before the body collapsed entirely. Forcing more power, more corruption, more of itself into a vessel that could barely stand. Every heartbeat pushed the body closer to destruction… but before that destruction came, it intended to annihilate everything before it.

And so the slaughter began.

The Vespids fell first.

The abyssal’s figure blurred.

A single sweep of its arm—an arm cracking open to reveal flesh along the elbow where too much power strained the bone—cut through three Vespids at once. Carapaces split. Bodies slammed to the ground…or at least what remained of them did. One mutated Vespid with twin stingers tried to flank, only for a violet arc of energy to slice it cleanly in half.

They screeched, regrouped, and tried to counterattack.

To no avail.

The abyssal moved through their ranks like a storm, swatting one into a spatial fissure that shredded it instantly; another was punched so hard the impact left a crater in the ground where it landed. A four‑winged variant, usually too fast to catch, darted around to dodge—only to be seized by the throat and snapped with a sound like crumpling metal.

One by one, they fell.

By the time the last handful retreated to Kain’s side, only three remained—battered, wings torn, a blood-like liquid dripping down their armor. Although alive and their combat ability could be restored by Queen given time, they could likely not re-enter the fray within the next couple of minutes…and even if they did rejoin they’d hardly be able to turn things around.

The demigod didn’t even look winded from the slaughter.

Cracks climbed its jaw as its smile from a successful hunt widened.

Next was Bea.

Bea had rarely, if ever, been targeted by an enemy. Most of the time, they weren’t even aware of her existence.

However, due to the unique relationship between Abyssals and their ‘Mother’, sensing microscopic organisms like Bea came with ease.

Until this point, she had stayed concealed, attacking the opponent’s minds to just barely distract it at key moments. But the abyssal was done tolerating her.

Its eyes—glowing brighter now—snapped toward Kain. But he had a feeling that it wasn’t looking at him.

With a snarl, it reached into an invisible lattice only it could see—threads, spheres, thoughts and more surrounding every living thing.

Among the intricate network a certain sphere was tiny, delicate, glimmering like a soap bubble in the dark.

The abyssal focused on it, an object that represented her mental equilibrium. It twisted it and drove its will into the sphere and the resulting shockwave struck her mind like a physical blow, warping her thoughts and inclining her luck toward failure and forcing her consciousness to recoil in agony.

Likewise, the fractures along its body also widened as it clicked its tongue in annoyance. Clearly, it could only perform a skill once that it used to be able to perform with ease.

But once was all it needed to get one of the most annoying ‘bugs’ off of the field.

Kain felt it only as a pressure drop, a pop in his ears.

Bea felt everything.

Her scream tore through his mind.

“K‑Kain—!”

And then her presence vanished—snuffed out of his awareness so abruptly he froze.

‘Bea!’

But she didn’t answer his calls, not even a flicker of response. As his first contract, her silence struck with a weight that hollowed his chest.

But despite the panic clawing at him, he forced himself to calm down. At the very least, he knew she wasn’t dead. There was no soul‑deep backlash from the broken contract, no tearing agony. Just forced into hiding, unconscious or trapped somewhere…

‘Calm down, she isn’t dead’ But if things continued as they were, he or another of his contracts might be.

The abyssals were pretty much down.

Bea was gone.

And the abyssal had not even slowed…

It turned its gaze to the next closest target…Kain.

Aegis stepped forward to intercept the attack.

The stone guardian didn’t roar. Didn’t hesitate. He simply placed himself between Kain and death with the quiet stoicism of a mountain.

He summoned several pitch black walls made of earth between himself and the attacker.

The abyssal charged, leaving a humanoid hole in each wall as they did little to block him, and then slammed into Aegis.

Their impact shook the ground..

Aegis braced, absorbing a blow that would have erased a less defensively focused high-grade creature. His automatic defensive shield around his body rippled, then cracked, then burst outward in a shockwave that briefly staggered the demigod.

Aegis used the moment.

Spikes of earth erupted from his arms—dozens—aimed at joints, tendons, weak points.

The abyssal didn’t dodge.

It let them hit.

The stone spikes sank in only shallowly, barely scratching the armor of the abyssal. But the demigod grabbed Aegis’s arm before he could withdraw and squeezed.

For a moment, Kain thought the guardian might hold.

Then—

CRACK

Aegis’s stone body shattered along the elbow. Half his forearm crumbled to dust.

The guardian didn’t retreat.

He surged forward, body reforming mid‑motion, tackling the abyssal into a wall hard enough to rupture the stone.

The demigod snarled… then drove a knee into Aegis’s torso. Cracks burst across the guardian’s surface like breaking glass.

One more blow.

Two.

Three.

Aegis’s entire body exploded into rubble.

Fortunately, his core—microscopic and managing to evade the previous blows—was recalled by Kain, preserving his final embers of life.

He’d managed to barely survive the attack, but he was out of commission now, and it’d take quite a while for Kain to help him rebuild his body.

Now Kain stood alone with only Vauleth and Chewy.

The red dragon, enraged at being on the losing side against another dragon-kind, descended with fury.

The red dragon hit the ground like a meteor, fused flames spiralling in its mouth—fire and lightning, red and blue, intertwined into a single devastating breath.

But this time, after the demigod stopped caring about the well-being of its possessed body and unleashed more power, the injury from Vauleth was minimal.

The fused flame struck its side—a clean hit—but aside from some slight discolouration on the scales, there was no effect.

In the blink of an eye, the abyssal disappeared from its current location and appeared in the air right above the hovering Vauleth.

The abyssal caught him by the horn.

And, with an overshoulder throw like a professional wrestler, slammed him into the ground.

Then, back on the ground, the abyssal proceeded to grab the dragon by the tail and whack him like a club onto the floor.

Bam

Once.

Bam

Twice.

Bam

A third time, sending cracks radiating through the stone floor.

Vauleth roared in pain, wings flailing, breath sputtering as the cracked porcelain vessel holding the demigod glowed brighter—brighter—brighter—

Until sparks of abyssal power burst from the boy’s hands, scorching Vauleth’s scales.

“Vauleth!” Kain shouted.

The dragon staggered away, wings battered, flame sputtering. He wasn’t dead—but he was no longer able to stand between Kain and danger.

Only one creature remained at Kain’s side, and its tiny frame didn’t exactly instill much confidence…

Chewy.

The tiny spore sat in a remote corner, shivering like a terrified dumpling.

Barely the size of Kain’s fingertip.

The tiny spore trembled in the corner—small, helpless, and the only thing still conscious besides Kain.

It was Kain’s newest contract, and the weakest. It was also Kain’s only contract not yet at blue-grade.

Chewy was like the baby of the family amongst them—naive, playful and often teased by the others. But it looked up to them as powerful ‘older siblings’.

It was constantly bullied by Vauleth during training. The dragon never meant lasting harm, but his bad temper meant Chewy was often chased, roasted, or swatted aside for being slow, noisy, or ‘farting’ too often.

In contrast, Aegis treated the tiny spore like a dependable older brother: steady, calm, and always there to scoop Chewy out of danger when Vauleth went too far.

Bea, meanwhile, was the quiet leader Chewy never dared to cross—a being so unfathomably intelligent yet vindictive that even the dragon behaved around her.

Seeing them fall one by one felt like his entire world was collapsing. For the first time, Chewy felt truly alone…and terrified.

The abyssal faced Kain fully now. It raised one ruined hand, claws jagged, scales dropping like burnt ash. Even half‑destroyed, it was strong enough to finish him.

Kain steadied his breath. He had almost nothing left—except a thin thread of source energy flickering in his core that he began to mobilize as a last ditch defence and a tiny spore.

A faint movement caught his eye.

The orb. It drifted—barely a foot—but unmistakably toward him. And the hand hunting it lunged after, tearing the air open in its wake.

Kain’s pulse jumped. ‘Perhaps…It’s drawn to source energy.’

The orb wanted him. The hand wanted the orb.

His gaze slid to Chewy—his last contract still standing.

“Chewy,” he murmured.

The tiny spore hiccuped, wide‑eyed.

A plan formed—reckless, dangerous, but the only one that might save the boy and his contracts.