This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

The split ancient orb was halfway across the battlefield to refuse with its other half when it happened.

Chewy moved.

It didn’t launch with grandeur or warning. There was no dramatic aura, no building energy. One second it was nestled in Kain’s sleeve, steadily absorbing errant energy. The next—it was gone. A blur of soft grayish-purple, low to the ground and disturbingly fast, sprinting toward the half-orb with unmistakable hunger radiating from its pulsing form. Thankfully, although its target had a head start, it was no longer at full strength, the Chewy bursting at full speed was able to catch up just as it was returning to its other half.

“Chewy?!” Kain barked, spinning mid-dodge as Kyria’s fist grazed his side. “Get back here!”

The spore ignored him.

Chewy had never shown aggression in any battle before. He absorbed energy. And then he sent energy into others like a mobile spiritual battery. But this time, something inside him had snapped—no, awakened. Like the long repressed hunting instincts of domesticated cat resurfacing when faced with a suitable prey.

The half-orb was too damaged to react. It had been fleeing across the cratered field to rejoin its twin. It had nearly reached it when Chewy launched upward like a spring-loaded parasite and latched on.

There was no explosion. No screech.

Only a quiet shhhhlick as dozens of fine, tiny tendrils extended from the spore’s surface in an instinctive behaviour and stabbed into the orb.

It quivered.

Then, before anyone could intervene, the two halves merged.

Chewy still clung to its surface.

The orb fused back into a single whole—but its glow was off. Instead of a bright star-like glow, it pulsed irregularly. Darker. Flickering as though its spiritual structure had cracked.

A low, vibrating hum echoed across the battlefield as the newly merged orb hovered—twitching violently, trying to shake Chewy off. But the spore refused to budge. His tiny body clung tighter, his tendrils siphoning energy at a rate that bordered on suicidal.

Kain’s heart slammed in his chest. “Chewy, stop! You can’t handle that thing!”

Chewy didn’t even flinch. If anything, he dug deeper. Never before had he been able to gorge himself on such delicious energy to his heart’s content.

Then Aegis moved.

The golem had been watching quietly—biding his time ever since the orb had split. Now, seeing the unstable merge, he pressed a hand to the ground and sent out a thin pulse of Abyssal energy. It flowed like ink through the dirt, invisible to most, but very real to the orb.

Once it reached beneath the orb, it discretely erupted from the earth and entered its body

The effect was immediate.

The orb darkened.

Veins of shadow spread across its latticework surface, mixing with Chewy’s energy-drain and creating a sickly, mottled aura of gold, black, and gray. It spasmed in mid-air, phasing in and out as if trying to reject both intrusions simultaneously.

Then—silence.

The orb dropped.

Not shattered. Not destroyed.

Just… inert.

It landed like a rock. Rolled once. And didn’t move.

Discretely, Aegis easily re-absorbed the Abyssal energy in the orb through the ground it was now on.

The entire arena froze.

No one moved. No one spoke.

And then, almost as one, the crowd turned to look at the thing still latched to its side.

Chewy.

The yellow-grade spore puffed out a tiny plume of mist of energy and gave a satisfied gulp—tendrils withdrawing from the orb’s body as it pulsed once in contentment.

The silence broke all at once.

A flurry of murmurs swept through the stands.

“That thing’s… yellow-grade?!”

“But it just took down a blue-grade spiritual creature…”

“Was that what I was sensing during our match?” Dmitri said from the stands, voice low. “The fifth presence I couldn’t pin down?”

Alexei Sanguine narrowed his eyes. “It doesn’t look strong at all. What is it?.”

A professor nearby activated a cloaked spiritual scanner, mouth tight as data flooded in. Another jotted a note, looking at Chewy with visible wonder at this tiny ‘monster’ capable of taking down something 2 grades higher.

It seemed that , incorrectly, everyone was attributing the sudden darkening and collapse of the orb to Chewy rather than Aegis, giving the tiny cotton an air of intimidation and mystery to all watching.

Only Serena looked calm.

She simply leaned forward, arms crossed, and muttered, “So that’s the little glutton Kain mentioned.”

But the battlefield wasn’t done.

Across the arena, Kyria’s Mirrorhorn Elk was still fighting Vauleth—but now Queen and Aegis turned to assist. The Elk, sensing the shift, flared its horns and tried to retreat, but it was too late.

Aegis hit first—barreling into its flank like a siege weapon.

Queen launched a burst of light by condensing life-attribute energy to disorient it. It was a trick she had recently grown fond of using despite not having an official skill for it and instead relying on pure elemental control—and thus being more taxing than an actual skill to perform.

The Elk fought back, but alone, it couldn’t win.

In less than a minute, it dropped to one knee and vanished into light—recalled before it could collapse.

Kyria was alone.

She didn’t panic.

Her breathing was calm. Measured. Her limbs gleamed faintly, enhanced by her Gift. Her stance adjusted smoothly, as if preparing for one last stand.

Then Queen sent a signal.

The Vespids darted toward Kyria in a loose spiral formation—an illusion of aggression meant to distract her. Predictably, her eyes twitched toward them. Then she closed her eyes for a half-second, afraid that another stinger was headed toward her eyes

But, considering how tough her defenses were, Kain was not trying to take her down physically.

A single disruptive split of Bea slipped through Kyria’s mental wall and settled into the sensory-motor interface of her mind. Not to control. Not even to paralyze.

Just to confuse.

Just enough to misfire a signal, misalign a limb.

Kain could see it instantly. Her balance shifted half a beat late. Her next breath stuttered.

Aegis moved.

One moment, he was beside Queen. The next, he was across the field—his body cloaked in reinforced spirit energy, both fists drawn back.

Kyria raised her arms to block—

Too slow.

Bea’s disruption had done its job.

Aegis slammed into her chest with the force of an army tank.

Kyria flew.

She hit the wall of the building next to the outdoor training arenas hard enough to crack the stone.

And stayed down.

For five long seconds, no one moved.

Then her spiritual pressure ebbed.

The referee stepped forward to check her condition before declaring, “Match concluded. Winner: Kain Newman.”

The arena erupted in noise.

Some roared. Some cursed. Others just gaped at the tiny spore now lazily making its way back toward Kain, looking bloated, smug and sleepy.

Kain exhaled, shoulders sagging.

He knelt as Chewy climbed back up his leg and settled in his sleeve again, humming.

“You’re an absolute menace,” Kain muttered in a half-hearted reprimand, “But you did well.”

He just stood, eyes sweeping across the field. Kyria hadn’t moved yet. She was breathing. Conscious. But she made no effort to get up.

He nodded once in respect.

That had been a tough battle.

And now… he should be in the overall Top 5, right?