This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 741: Chapter 741: Encroaching Cold

Thankfully, Serena’s father hadn’t teleported to the hotel to dismember him.

He’d simply stayed on the call.

Silent.

Unmoving.

Staring.

For five agonizing minutes, Lord Storm—8-star beast tamer, high-ranking military official, and doting father—watched Kain with a gaze that could peel bark off trees. He’d only relaxed slightly once Serena explained the situation in full, complete with context, technical details, and Kain’s need for an escort.

To Kain’s immense relief, Lord Storm had even admitted that he’d watched their match against Starfire and was “mildly curious” about the armour’s origin. He agreed to accompany Serena and Kain during the meeting.

Kain only regained the ability to breathe again after the call ended with an ominous “See you soon, Newman.”

And then promptly left the room in total silence, eyes still wide and heart pounding, internally vowing to never again set foot in Serena’s hotel room unsupervised—which was certainly her father’s intention.

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Two Days Later – Tournament Arena

Two days had passed since the attention-grabbing match against Starfire. Since then, the match against Lunaris Vale the day before was, by all accounts, a stomp.

Their team had shown promise, but promise wasn’t enough.

Not against Serena.

Kain hadn’t even needed to fight. Serena had taken the 1v1 in under 3 minutes, using only two of her contracts: the evolved Prismarin and her Elemental Guardian.

Most Lunaris Vale students have some type of plant-type or earth-attribute contract. The result? Completely overrun by Serena.

The multi-element nature of the Elemental Guardian, in particular, practically restricted them at every turn. The fire-attribute form would burn them. The earth-element form would harden the earth and manipulate the earth to restrict their ability to use it or dig their roots into it. The wind and water-attribute forms either blew or washed away the odd attack that did try to reach the positions of Serena’s contracts.

In the 3v3, Dwayne, Soren, and Kairos cleaned house.

Dwayne’s Noxious Cloudling smothered the field while his Tidebreaker Leviathan flooded the terrain. Soren’s dragons cut through weakened targets, and Kairos’ cursed constructs made sure no one got back up again.

It was clean. Efficient. Almost boring.

But it was their next match today that had everyone buzzing.

Frozen Sun College.

Frozen Sun stood out as a dark horse amongst the top 5 due to their recent method of pouring immense resources into nurturing their younger students. What began three years ago as a quiet investment in education, training, and contract development had turned into one of the most impressive generational shifts the tournament circuit had ever seen.

Now, it was paying off.

Their first-years were currently undefeated. They’d already taken wins against both First Celestial and Dark Moon’s freshman teams, and currently sat at Rank 1 in their year group. And considering no other first-year team was likely to beat them, they would likely finish in first—leaving Dark Moon and First Celestial’s first-years to fight over second place.

Their second-years had only lost one match so far—against First Celestial—and even that had required the full 3 matches and had lasted over an hour.

Their third-years? They’d beaten First Celestial outright and pushed Dark Moon to the edge before finally losing.

Only their fourth-years lagged behind, having not received that boost in investment upon entering the college like their underclassmen, and were currently ranked fourth in their year. Thankfully for the other colleges, due to seniority and higher cultivation, the Frozen Sun Top 5—those selected for Phase Two—was still mostly composed of these less talented older students.

That would change next year.

Everyone knew it.

Once Frozen Sun’s invested prodigies filled out all year groups… they would be a threat to everyone.

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Backstage, Pre-Match Discussion

“Alright,” a professor said, arms crossed. “We’ve reviewed footage. As is typical of Frozen Sun and most colleges in the Northern province, their students primarily use either water or ice-attributed contracts. So we have decided to leave this match to Kain.”

“Why?!” Soren yelled out indignantly. With his dragons having either wind, water/ice, or lightning attributes, they would perform well against Frozen Sun. Serena, too, has an ice-attribute contract now—that rabbit— as well as the Elemental Guardian and shouldn’t be too affected by any extremely strong ice-attributed skills.

“Well, we need ot take into consideration the following matches. You’ve got ice-resistant contracts, sure. But we’ll need you, Serena, and Dwayne to team up during the 3v3. Considering that you all have water and ice attribute contracts, they’d be not only resistant to the opponents, but also have great synergy.”

Kain nodded. “Makes sense.”

Kairos, from where he sat fiddling with a cursed dagger, looked up. “And me?”

“You will only be participating in the 5v5, if it comes to that. Prioritize acting as support, particularly using your cursed book.”

Kain smirked slightly, “No offence, but I don’t think you will get to play today, Kairos. Sorry to disappoint.” Kain wasn’t looking down on Frozen Sun. How could he based on their prior performances? But he still felt extremely confident. Moreover, he felt extremely eager for this battle.

He had already selected his lineup.

Aegis, for his absurd defensive capabilities and natural resistance to elemental extremes—including ice.

Chewy, because any prolonged fight meant energy depletion, and Kain secretly refused to repeat the spore’s tantrum from last time, it didn’t get to participate and absorb some energy during the match.

And finally—Vauleth. The newly blue-grade dragon would be making his tournament debut as the key offensive player during this match. And Kain was eager to see who would win between Vauleth’s fire and the opponent’s ice.

Fire and ice had a strange relationship.

Unlike the classic fire-beats-plant or water-beats-fire logic, fire and ice existed in mutual restriction.

If the ice were stronger, it could freeze fire, seal heat, and sap energy.

If the fire was stronger, it melted the ice, broke open defenses, and countered freeze mechanics with thermal disruption.

Which side held the advantage came down to how far extreme the temperatures on either end could go.

And Vauleth?

Although Vauleth had just broken through, it was due to the continuous purification of his bloodline. His fire was far hotter and denser with the same energy output now than previously.

And currently, he may be Kain’s most offensively powerful contract.

If Frozen Sun’s second-year was hoping to coast through with an average ice contract—

They were in for a rude awakening.

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