This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 598

Chapter 598: Chapter 598: Familiar Opponents
The runes carved into the walls detonated, shattering into thousands of razor-sharp fragments that rained down like shrapnel.

Kain barely had time to summon Aegis before the obsidian golem’s bulk shielded him, the fragments pinging harmlessly off a black, see-through barrier that appeared instantaneously.

At the sight, Kain was reminded of Aegis’ new passive skill:

X – Abyssal Foundation (Passive): The Executioner passively generates a protective mantle of crystallized abyssal stone over time. This shell is invisible unless struck.

Seeing that Aegis was able to block the attack without even having to exert any effort, Kain was in awe at the benefits of passive skills.

Meanwhile, the others dealt with the sudden attack using their own methods.

Serena ducked behind a barrier composed of starlight crafted by her Starweaver.

Kyria’s skin took on a stone-like appearance identical to the ground below. Impressively, the shrapnel pinged off of her now hard skin that seemed to have been due to her integration with the stone floor. She remained completely unharmed, although she did look slightly tired after—clearly the gift draining on her.

Jade simply laughed, and let the shards hit her since she had no contract released currently that could protect her in time.

Kain was once again reminded of the horror of Jade’s gift of regeneration—a gift that could even be seamlessly transferred to her contracts.

He couldn’t help flinching at the eerie sight of a shard the length of his palm lodging into her right eye-socket and causing a disgusting mix of white eye mush and blood to drip down her cheek, all the while the smile on Jade’s face didn’t even slightly change.

Still chuckling slightly like a madperson, she used her intact hand—since the other was practically blown to smithereens by shrapnel—and began to pull out the lodged objects from various areas of her body with an almost clinical detachment…including her eye.

Once all the foreign objects were removed, after a brief shudder her body began to perfectly restore itself.

Muscles and flesh regrew, bones clicked back into place, and her new eye rolled around, creepily out of sync with the other, as if readjusting to the socket. After repeatedly blinking, it was restored to its normal appearance and moved in tandem with its twin. Within seconds, she was whole again.

“Regeneration is such a boring gift,” she sighed, stretching her freshly restored limbs. “No suspense of whether I’ll die or not. Makes life so boring, you know?”

Kain ignored her. From his privileged vantage point behind the reliable Aegis, he paid the most attention to the unfamiliar first-year, curious about what the relic could have seen in him to select him over an actual member of the top 5 first-years.

The kid hadn’t summoned a contract. Hadn’t activated a gift that Kain could obviously see. He’d just… stood there.

A piece of shrapnel darted straight toward his neck—

—and vanished.

Not deflected. Not dodged. It just disappeared mid-air, less than an inch from his throat, winking out of existence like it was never there.

Kain’s eyes narrowed. “What…?”

It wasn’t an illusion, the same thing happened again. More fragments came for him, and again, they vanished just before making contact.

“A space attribute ability? Or something else?” Kain pondered. He didn’t notice any distortions in the space, like one would typically sense from a space-attribute ability. It was strange.

Even Aegis cocked its head in confusion, as if sensing something unnatural.

The boy’s nervous, trembling appearance had grown worse. Blood leaked from one nostril, and the veins around his eyes bulged slightly, dark and spiderwebbed.

It had a cost.

“Overclocked, unstable, or both,” Serena murmured beside Kain, stepping forward cautiously. Her voice had taken on that rare note of interest that came out when something truly intrigued her. “He’s likely not strong currently—although he has potential. He’s not within the top 5 of his year after all. But considering that ‘talent’ was one of the assessment criteria and not ‘strength’ then it could explain why he was chosen.”

Kain nodded in agreement. “But if the gift was just limited to this, then he’s not necessarily more talented than Elias’ teleportation.” Kain said while thinking about his gloomy-looking friend, whose gift had the unfortunate limitation of not teleporting him with his clothing still on. “Likely, there’s more to it that just making things disappear. Something that even the relic couldn’t ignore.”

Rumble

Before everyone could catch their breath, or revel in the fact that they all managed to survive largely uninjured, the floor beneath them began to change.

The floor rippled like liquid, its obsidian surface warping unnaturally. From its center, five humanoid figures rose—perfect mirror images of each chosen, their features identical down to the smallest detail, save for their eyes, which burned with an eerie violet glow.

Kain’s breath caught as his doppelganger summoned a perfect copy of Aegis as well as Kain’s other contracts.

Even worse, it managed to summon a perfectly intact Vauleth, while the real thing was still very much injured—”That is so unfair,” he murmured disgruntledly at the numerical disadvantage.

The others also didn’t seem thrilled at the sight of their ‘twins,’ especially since, unlike themselves, these copies were completely intact.

Jade’s double moved first—a blur of green hair and crazed smile. The real Jade barely had time to widen her eyes before her copy’s fist shattered her jaw, sending teeth and blood spraying.

“Oh, fuck—!” she slurred, stumbling back as her regeneration kicked in.

Aegis lunged forward, obsidian fists swinging—but the double’s Aegis moved faster, seemingly fully adjusted to its new strength, its identical passive skill flaring as it intercepted the blow. The two golems clashed, their strikes sending shockwaves through the arena.

Likewise, a familiar wave of energy headed in Kain’s direction, making his hair stand on end. But whereas that presence had always been comforting in the past, now it only gave him a feeling of dread at the unseen enemy.

‘Bea.’

Never did Kain imagine he’d need to face his first and closest contract as an enemy.