This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 432

Chapter 432: Chapter 432: The Battle to Defend the City

The first wave hit like a crashing tide, an endless swarm of grotesque forms clawing their way toward the city walls. The air filled with the deafening screeches of the abyssal creatures, their twisted bodies shifting and writhing as they advanced. Some bore jagged, bladed limbs, others had grotesquely elongated arms ending in serrated claws that snapped hungrily at the guards above.

Their hungry red eyes glowed terrifyingly as they stared at the city, while the few high-grade ones among them, marked by their golden eyes, observed the battlefield with a terrifying calm. Kain and the others were certain that they must be plotting something bigger.

Kain stood at the front lines, hundreds to thousands of Bea’s threads of mental energy were lashing out like whips, but instead of slicing through the abyssal creatures as they surged forward, they seemed to just harmlessly touch the approaching creatures.

Unfortunately, the abyssal creatures seemed to be extremely resistant to her control, but she was able to break up the rhythm of the approaching army. Some of the abyssal creatures she managed to briefly stall at the front were quickly heartlessly trampled by their comrades.

Aegis had already raised a stone wall to slow their approach, but the creatures climbed over it with unnatural agility, their hunger for destruction driving them forward.

The Vespid guards tried their best to destroy the never ending tide of abyssal creatures, and would occasionally block attacks for the other guards using well-placed ejected stinger or their own bodies—after all, their Queen was healing them as a support from behind. Queen was also healing other wounded, but by far the effectiveness of her healing was greatest on her own guards.

“Keep them off the barricades!” Nadia’s voice rang out as her contracts unleashed a barrage of star-attribute infused attacks. The star-attribute was incredibly rare and previously the only star-attribute spiritual creature Kain had seen, either in person or in video, was Serena’s Starweaver. However, Nadia’s affinity seemed to be exclusively for creatures of that attribute.

Her main contract, the indigo-grade griffin, unlike most griffins that only had the wind-attribute, Nadia’s was dual attributed and had the star attribute—was it a mutant? Or a species Kain had never heard of?

Nadia’s other contracts were also either suspected mutants or star-attributed species Kain had either never heard of or only heard about in rumours.

Each blast from these star-attributed creatures seemed to be coated with the brilliance of starlight, carving through the abyssal army, but for every creature that fell, another one took its place.

Benji summoned 4 more of his contracts Kain had never seen before. Since Aura was incapacitated and his more recent contract was too low in level to be of use, he only had 4 to use.

Interestingly, like Aura that seemed to possess a secondary time-attribute, so did all of his other contracts. Kain wasn’t sure if it was his choice to have spiritual creatures that didn’t specialize in the time-attribute, but rather had it as a weaker secondary attribute to power a couple very unique skills, or a limitation of his affinity.

One of his contracts, was likely capable of warping time subtlety as it travelled. Its blurred figure was cleaving through the abyssal creatures with precision, its sword like arm was crackling with energy. Its strikes sent limbs and black abyssal ‘blood’ flying, but the abyssal creatures did not falter. One lunged at it from the side, its bladed arm moving toward its neck. Before it could land the blow, Clara’s contract, a light-attribute fox, intercepted with a sweeping strike, severing its head from its body.

“Watch your flanks!” she warned as she drove her own weapon into another creature’s chest.

Then came the first screams.

A soldier fell, his leg mangled beyond recognition by the serrated jaws of an abyssal creature. The black corruption spread from the wound, consuming flesh and bone. His screams soon turned into guttural, inhuman growls as his body darkened with thick black smoke pouring from his body. His comrades hesitated, horror-stricken as he rose to his feet—his eyes now a bright, soulless red. A newly turned Corrupted.

“Damn it!” Claudia cursed, severing the creature’s head before it could attack, but more followed. Each injured defender twisted and contorted, their bodies warping into nightmarish forms, their souls lost to the abyss.

The corruption spread faster than expected. Every slash, every bite, every drop of abyssal blood splattered onto human flesh risked turning another ally.

And despite being physically weaker in the same level than the born abyssal creatures, in a way the corrupted were even worse than the abyssal creatures—their attacks carried an overwhelming taint of corruption that spread on contact much faster than the corruptive abilities of abyssal creatures.

A high-grade abyssal creature stepped forward, its golden eyes gleaming with malice. Unlike its mindless kin, this one observed, analyzed. Then, with terrifying speed, it moved. A single sweep of its bladed arm cleaved through three warriors, the abyssal energy in their wounds consuming them almost instantly. It turned toward Kain and his teammates on the wall, tilting its head in eerie amusement.

“You think you can stop us?” It spoke, its voice like a chorus of overlapping tones, each more grating than the last. “You will join us. It is inevitable.”

“Like hell we will,” Kain spat, Bea’s threads headed toward the high-grade abyssal creature, as did the contracts of most of his allies. Since this high-grade abyssal had taken the lead of approaching the city in order to intimidate them, they may as well not allow it to return.

The abyssal lord deflected them effortlessly, countering with a brutal strike—toward Kain who he perceived to be the weakest. Kain barely managed to evade, the force of the attack shattering the section of the wall where he had stood moments ago.

The battlefield erupted into chaos as the golden-eyed ones joined the fray, their superior intellect making them deadlier than the mindless corrupted pawns they were using as meat shields.

Everyone defending quickly used their strongest skills and a myriad of abilities rained down on the approaching creatures like divine judgement.

But still, the tide did not slow.

One by one, warriors fell. One by one, their allies turned. Eventually, the city defenders were not just fighting an army, they were fighting against their own increasing feelings of hopelessness and desires to flee—the fear that any wound, any misstep, would lead to their own conversion into the enemy was impacting many of them mentally, making their attacks less sharp.

The battle, both the physical and mental one, was just beginningr.