This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Aegis met Starweaver once again.

This time, the tables were reversed.

Every slash Starweaver threw was countered. Every teleport dodge is anticipated. Aegis, pulsing with Source-fed energy, moved with unnatural clarity.

Meanwhile, the Vespid guards circled Prismarin. With Bea’s hold weakened, it was more dangerous than before—not to mention that their coordination had decreased after the spiritual skill Serena used. It was only a matter of time before they all were eliminated. Queen applied a buff to all of her remaining children, a green glow covering them all, but it still wasn’t enough to allow them to dominate the fight.

And then—

A roar echoed across the arena.

Vauleth faced the tri-elemental Guardian.

His flames twisted sideways as wind disrupted their path. Stone blasts shattered some of his scales, and blood was seeping through—angering him and wounding his pride as a ‘True Dragon’.

But despite the injury, Vauleth didn’t retreat. He was still a True Dragon at heart, and Galadriel had hammered it into him for as long as he could remember that dragons never fled. Especially not from a lesser species (which included everyone and everything that was not a dragon).

He began adapting.

Using terrain. Using a flame to launch himself instead of simply attacking. Weaving around the Guardian’s attacks like a snake of fire, showcasing a flexibility that was rarely displayed in the past.

The Guardian’s head snapped its mouth in anger, but Vauleth only grinned wider.

So what if this fusion was now the combination of 3 forms. It still wasn’t a dragon.

And Bea—

Bea saw a crack to enter the mind.

It was small.

Located at the nexus of a memory Balens had tried to seal.

Something related to Serena…

Bea didn’t understand the memory.

She didn’t care.

She surged forward.

Inside Balens’ mind, the black particles condensed into a piercing thread—and struck.

The plates of the scale trembled.

The first fracture appeared.

Serena’s eyes flared.

She drew a deep breath.

Her final attack was coming.

Kain narrowed his eyes. Like Soren, he was certain that she didn’t have access to only those 2 spiritual skills—those probably weren’t even close to being her strongest ones. They were probably just the easiest ones she could use, the ones she had the highest proficiency in, and/or the ones that didn’t have any adverse side-effects.

The moment Serena moved, the air changed.

She raised her hand, and the sky above the arena darkened, not with clouds, but with raw spiritual energy. Runes flared around her body, climbing like stars up her arms and down her spine.

This was it.

Kain watched closely, heart hammering. If he miscalculated even once, it was over.

She wasn’t using a single spiritual skill—she was layering three. A benefit and technique that can be employed by a Storm descendant with limitless spiritual power.

Even Kain was aware, that no matter how talented he was, he likely could not activate 2 spiritual skills at the exact same time and even have them amplify one another if they match well—that seems to be an exclusive skill of the Storms.

One was a finishing move from her family’s legacy—a bow-shaped construct of spiritual light that would rain a cascade of arrows down on her enemies.

Another was from Thar’Ameththat complimented it perfectly: a cursed binding field that locked down movement within a radius, suppressing evasion. Unfortunately, it didn’t distinguish between friend and foe and would impact her own contracts as well.

The third was again from her family, and was meant to stabilize and amplify the use of 2 or more skills being used at once. A gift-powered surge of infinite energy that sustained the other two without faltering.

The crowd held its breath.

On the battlefield, everything slowed.

Vespid guards were scattered. Aegis planted his shield but couldn’t move. Vauleth, mid-pounce, was frozen in midair. Prismarin shimmered violently, its illusions snapping in and out of existence as the spiritual interference overloaded their structure.

And in the middle of it all stood Serena.

Practically in the center of a cyclone of spiritual power caused by her massive expenditure, within the last couple of minutes, she’d probably used up more spiritual power than the max capacity of several beast-tamers of the same rank put together.

She pointed toward specifically toward Kain and his contracts. Even if her own contracts were unable to move, that didn’t mean the first skill would strike them.

Kain’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the first glowing arrow form in the shimmering massive bow made of starlight above. But he was helpless to do anything while it aimed at the immobile Vauleth

But just at that moment, Bea’s mental voice echoed in his mind.

‘I’m in.’

Balens’ body, trembling in disgust, went still. The particles still clinging to its surface surged inward—Bea’s control fully sinking in. In their attempts to enter Balens, hundreds of her splits had died, once again triggering her passive skill Empty Throne Effect, and allowing her true body to seamlessly enter the antique scale.

And within Balens, Bea spotted a black glowing orb that filled her with disgust. It was small, about the size of Chewy, but it filled her with such a strong sense of aversion.

Not wanting this gross black ball to be in her new ‘home,’ Bea controlled Balens to eject it out of its body. By coincidence, the barely noticeable ‘black ball’ struck Serena, who was in the middle of launching her fusion of 3 skills…And Serena soon learned what it was like to be cursed with bad luck.

Just as Serena’s skill sequence was about to launch, the glimmer of bad luck, barely perceptible, turned the seamless into the unstable.

A momentary lapse. The wrong twist of a finger. The stabilizing skill between the two spiritual techniques wavered, not entirely breaking, but faltering just long enough to let chaos bleed in.

The first starlight arrow above twisted slightly off course.

Serena didn’t notice—until it was too late.

Instead of launching at Kain or Vauleth, the shimmering arrow veered left and impaled Prismarin.

The creature shimmered violently, its illusions collapsing entirely. Then it exploded in a burst of glittering shards—rendered unconscious before it could blink.

Serena flinched, visibly.

And in that instant of disruption, the cursed field faltered just enough.

Kain’s contracts moved.

Not fast. Not completely. But enough.

Vauleth, fury in his narrowed eyes, pounced with every ounce of remaining strength. He slammed into the tri-elemental Guardian just as it tried to unleash a spiralling fusion skill—a torrent of wind-fueled fire spun through a spear of stone.

They collided in mid-air, the attack half-fired, both creatures spiralling downward in a massive explosion of heat and debris.

When the dust cleared, neither moved.

At the same time, Aegis burst forward.

Starweaver tried to move—but the flickering remnants of the binding field made it stutter.

Too slow.

Aegis’ fist crashed through the remaining space and sent Starweaver skidding across the tiles, where it remained, unmoving.

In less than a second, Serena’s final offensive play was gone—each of her contracts either unconscious or out of her control.

And she hadn’t even gotten to showcase the full power of her fusion of the 3 skills.

Shocked silence fell at the sudden dramatic turn of events.

Then—

Serena groaned.

She sat up from where she had been knocked back by the backlash of the collapsed fusion.

Her hair was messy. Her sleeve was torn. A far cry from her usual put-together appearance. But her eyes were sharp as they stared at Kain. For one beat. Then two.

She smiled faintly.

“I yield.”

The arena exploded.

Names were shouted.

A voice from above screamed, “Woooooo!!! Gimme my money!!!!”

Even the ref was unprepared for the many twists and turns of the battle and sputtered, “Serena Storm versus Kain Newman. Winner Kain Newman!”

Kain didn’t react at first.

He was still staring at Serena.

She stood up fully and brushed her hair back before walking toward him.

“Congratulations,” she said calmly.

“You almost had me,” Kain said. “That last combo… was insane.”

She smirked, “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to use it fully before I was rudely interrupted.”

Kain smiled embarrassingly “Well…there’s always the National Tournament.”

They stood in silence for a beat.

Then she extended a hand.

Kain took it.

The crowd lost it again.

Behind them, Chewy made a burbling noise of triumph and promptly rolled over, exhausted.

Bea didn’t say anything.

She was asleep. The collectively high mental defence of Serena’s contracts made this one of her toughest fights ever.

And Kain—

Kain finally smiled.

He had done it.

He had won.

Rank One was finally his.

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