This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Kain's mind raced as he assessed the battlefield as the battle raged on.

The green-grade spiritual creature of the opponent lay dead after being bombarded continuously for several minutes by stingers, a small victory amidst the chaos.

But the four remaining blue-grade contracts, with their enhanced bodies and mechanical augmentations, were much harder to eliminate.

The beetle was currently deadlocked with Aegis, who was proving surprisingly difficult to deal with despite the level difference between them. Although Kain's contracts were also unable to harm the beetle, while focusing all of its energy on defence, Aegis seemed to be able to hold out for a little longer. However, the drain from warding off an enemy 2 levels higher was great and Kain already had to use one of the instant refills provided by his equipment to also provide a boost to Aegis after Bea. Once the enhancement provided by the spiritual skill wore off, then it'd only be a matter of time before Aegis' defences were breached.

They needed to quickly eliminate the other opponents.

However, considering that all of the opponents had extremely tough defences, Kain chose to learn from the opponent and instead target the opposing beast-tamer.

Clang

One of the Vespids' stingers struck the arm of the dodging figure in white, but instead of a cry of pain or the splash of blood, instead it sounded as though the stinger that landed struck a metal plate.

Kain looked closer to see that the covering resembling skin had peeled off where he was hit, revealing that his arm was completely made of metal—clearly the Doctor didn't spare even himself from undergoing experimental modifications.

'Looks like we'll have to target him from the inside' Kain thought before, before directing Bea to encircle the opponent with threads to ensure that he was infected by a split. However, upon infection it became clear that he'd also likely undergone some kind of modification to make himself resistant to mental invasions. It'll be difficult for Bea's splits to influence him in any great capacity.

While Kain focused on the surprisingly tough beast-tamer, Serena dealt with the other 3 blue-grade spiritual creatures.

The Elemental Guardian shifted into its fire-attribute form resembling a blazing phoenix. It screeched as it dove at the Mantis-Locust hybrid, flames licking at its mechanical legs. Serena followed closely behind, her twin swords now glowing to activate the sigils embedded within them.

The locust hissed, its wings buzzing furiously as it tried to gain altitude to escape the flames. Serena anticipated its movement, leaping into the air with an agility that belied her human frame. Her blades met its sword-like forelimbs mid-air, sending sparks and embers flying.

However, after the activation of the sigils on her swords, they seemed to have increased greatly in sharpness, leading to the metal scythe-like arms of the hybrid to crack.

Kain saw a shocked expression on the face of the beast-tamer he was focused on. The Doctor knew better than anyone just how hard those mantis blades were to damage. They were modified by him using a special allow blend of different metals and were extremely difficult to damage for even the strongest blue-grade spiritual creatures. It should require at least a high-level spiritual creature at indigo-grade or higher to begin to see damage, and yet a mere 4-star beast tamer managed to create cracks in it?!

Meanwhile, the modified spider-scorpion hybrid that was spitting corrosive silk was being preoccupied by the Vespids working hard to distract it—although by their point there were already several casualties and Kain only had 8 guards left in addition to the 12 guarding the children. Therefore, he was forced to summon 6 more away from the containers to help him distract the spider. They weren't being too much help to Aegis anyway.

They also weren't able to cause too much damage to the spider, but their main role was to distract it, while the real heavy-hitter was the Starweaver.

The familiar constellation resembling a bow lit up on its wings as a streak of light landed hard on the spider-hybrid's abdomen.

For the first time since they started fighting, a heavy blow was landed on one of the opponent's blue-grade spiritual creatures. Unfortunately, it also seemed to have extremely powerful regenerative abilities, and the deep win that was leaking a thick green liquid quickly closed.

Realizing that the flesh regenerated quickly, the Starweaver chose to target one of the mechanical joints in its next strike—it'd also serve to slow the speedy spider down. Although with its great speed, even landing a strike on one of its mechanical legs proved challenging.

Suddenly an inconspicuous ringlet on the Starweaver's header began to glow as its sigils were activated, a glowing ring then appeared around one of the Starweaver's eyes and a red ring also appeared on one of the legs of the spider at a key joint like a bullseye.

The next strike didn't miss.

The arrow streaked through the air and struck perfectly on the red bullseye, severing one of its mechanical limbs in a shower of sparks and acidic fluid.

"Good shot!" Kain called, briefly glancing toward her.

"Focus on the beast-tamer!" Serena snapped back, not unkindly.

After coughing embarrassedly at being caught getting distracted in the middle of battle, he used his remaining instant refill for spiritual power provided by his equipment to provide another boost to Bea since the previous one had long worn off.

It was still difficult to control him completely, but Bea was able to slow him down quite a bit and his movements became much less smooth, allowing for more of the attacks from Kain and his contracts to land.

The final opponent—the fly-mosquito hybrid—was being targeted by Serena's Emanascion, and this was the first time Kain was getting to see it use its skills for battle.

Balins' ability wasn't a direct attack. A faint, translucent barrier formed around the area, cutting off the creature's path of retreat.

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Kain noted that Balins also was entrapped within the field, likely a method it developed to more predictably offset the price of its equivalent exchange skill by choosing to make wishes that would also impact itself as well as the opponent.