This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 859: Chapter 859: Serpent Stempede

Serena spun around. “Kain!”

Kain gritted his teeth, looking down. A black serpent, its scales glistening like oil, had buried its fangs deep into his leg. Its eyes glowed faint crimson—an Abyssal.

“Damn it—!” Kain hissed, drawing a dagger from his space ring in a flash. He slashed down once, cleanly severing the creature’s head. The body writhed and twitched before dissolving into black vapor.

But the wound burned. A crawling sensation spread through his veins, like icy fire moving through his bloodstream.

The Abyss.

Serena moved to his side, one hand already glowing with violet light. “Hold still.”

Serena was now on the fifth layer of her inheritance and the personal poison had evolved again. Now, although not the type that could purify abyssal energy cleanly or spread amongst abyssals like a contaminant, it made her extremely resistant to abyssal contamination—strong enough to burn the corruption outright.

In theory, she could burn the infection from Kain’s leg… but it would hurt. Badly.

Kain quickly shook his head and sidestepped her glowing hand. “No need.” He took a steadying breath and summoned Aegis. A faint hum echoed through the ruined street as the massive golem resembling a mecha manifested. Its presence washed over the area, and the creeping black veins along Kain’s leg began to recede, devoured by Aegis.

The Vespid guard that had been struck flailed weakly on the ground, its chitin splitting where corruption had tried to take root. Aegis turned its gaze toward it, releasing black tendrils made of metal that swept forward and absorbed the abyssal energy. Healed, the guard relaxed, its cries fading into silence.

Kain exhaled and tested his leg. The pain was gone. Queen fluttered nearby, healing the remaining superficial injury with a faint shimmer.

“Low-grade spiritual beast,” Serena muttered, looking at the snake’s remains as they evaporated. “Corrupted. Probably not the only one around.”

“Yeah,” Kain said grimly. “If it’s not abyssal by birth, but corrupted by something else, there must be a source nearby.”

He glanced toward the southern road, where the footprints led. “Whatever happened here, the people didn’t die—they fled. And if we follow these tracks, we’ll find out what they were running from.”

Serena looked at Kain. “You’re thinking of following them.”

“Of course.”

“Even though you just got bitten by a literal abyss snake.”

Kain smirked. “Hey, I’m fine now. Aegis cleaned it up perfectly. And if this is what the outskirts look like, I want to see the heart of the problem.”

Serena rolled her shoulders, her eyes glinting. “Good. I was thinking the same thing. I’m releaved that the bite didn’t scare you off.”

“Impossible,” he replied with a grin.

They mounted their Vespids again, the swarm lifting into the smoky air. Below, the burned town receded into haze. Ahead, the footprints stretched onward—toward whatever waited deeper in the southern portion of the Eastern Continent.

Though neither said it aloud, they both knew: the silence here wasn’t peace.

It was the breath drawn before a scream.

They had only just taken off, flying low on the Vespids—barely a few feet above the ground—when the earth below began to tremble, softly at first, then violently, as if something massive slithered deep beneath the forest floor. Since they were airborne, neither noticed at first until the trees around them began to shake, leaves and branches cascading down.

Serena’s expression hardened. “That can’t be—”

The ground split open with a deafening crack, earth and roots tearing apart.

From the gash erupted dozens—no, hundreds—of black serpents. Their scales gleamed like polished obsidian, eyes glowing with molten red light. As they surged upward, the air filled with a hissing chorus that made the whole forrest feel like it was vibrating. From their open mouths spilled a black mist that rolled over the ground like smoke, warping the air and eating away at the stone. Clearly, it had corrosive properties in addition to the contamination properties of abyssals.

“Shit—get ready!” Kain barked.

The snakes moved like living rivers of shadow, weaving over one another in a tide of teeth and scales. The corruption they carried was palpable—like acid on the skin, despair turned tangible. Each movement left streaks of oily residue on the ground that pulsed faintly with red veins.

Serena’s hand flared with violet light as she grabbed one of the small snakes lunging at her. Upon making contact with the poisonous light coating her hand, the snake’s red eyes bulged, its flesh dissolving from the point of touch. ONe can only imagine how powerful the Thar’ameth poisonous light was if these poisonous snakes were so susceptible to it.

The next second, with 5 flashes of light, her contracts also appeared behind her.

The Elemental Guardian appeared first, now in its fire phoenix form. It immediately took to summoning a ring of fire around Kain and Serena to burn the approaching serpents.

The Star Weaver unfurled from a cocoon of starlight, its form a difficult-to-look-at humanoid figure woven from pure starlight. Ethereal wings extended from its back, inscribed with faint constellations that shimmered and shifted. When its skills are activated, corresponding constellations flared to life along those wings. A constellation resembling a bow appeared and arrows of light descended from the skies, striking the serpents and turning them into golden statues…another hit from a certain passing hare caused the statues to crumble into dust.

The evolved Prismarin, now the Lustral Veil Hare, seemed to be playing more than fighting as it, and its various splits, knocked over the gold statues.

Balens, the Emanascion, took the form of a polished antique scale with a faint, face set into its central beam; as it made a wish the scales began to tip, and a group of approaching snakes ran as if blind into a skewer of earth made by Aegis.

Crack

Kain, without even looking, just calmly took 5 steps to his right. Balens’ unbalanced scales returned to a neutral position as a massive tree snapped in half and fell directly where Kain had been standing.

‘Sigh…why does the consequence for those wishes fall on me half the time?!’

By this point Kain wasn’t even fazed. But what did faze Kain was the appearance of Serena’s fifth contract which he’d never seen before —Kain’s eyes widened as the Thar’Ameth Totem Tree emerged.

The totem erupted from the earth like a living monolith. Silver-green bark glowed with veins of venomous light. Leaves shimmered like liquid moonlight, dripping translucent poison that purified as much as it killed. Even Kain felt its holy venomous aura shiver through the battlefield.

Kain released his own contracts. Vauleth, the red dragon, erupted in a pillar of scarlet fire, its scales rippling with molten light as wings unfurled like living storms. Each beat of its wings churned the air into rolling flame, heat waves distorting the space around it.

A torrent of crimson fire at Vauleth’s appearance incinerated a swath of serpents. Their ashes swirled and fused, birthing smaller ones from smoke.

“Persistent bastards,” Kain growled.

Serena lifted her hand. “Totem—Purification Bloom!”

The eucalyptus leaves glowed, releasing a cascade of shimmering mist. Wherever it touched, corruption hissed and vanished. Snakes shrieked, bodies cracking into dust. Even Kain felt his spirit lighten.

Tendrils erupted from the Earth and sucked up the black mist of lingering abyssal energy like the nozzles of vacuum cleaners.

Aegis.

The giant mecha-like golem was following the path of destruction of Vauleth and sucking up remnant contamination, striding forth like a divine war machine. But it wasn’t a passive cleaner.

It constructed barriers of earth to impede the advance of enemies while also making spears of black metal erupt from the ground at irregular intervals.

A faint ripple in the air signaled Bea’s activation. Though invisible, Kain immediately sensed her Pale Thought Field expanding—a vast mental pressure blooming across the battlefield. In an instant, the oncoming serpents’ movements slowed, their minds caught in invisible snares as Bea began wrestling for control over them.

The hum of her consciousness deepened, numerous splits spontaneously formed in each of their minds. It was precise, mechanical, invasive; every serpent’s location and intent unfurled in his awareness as though time itself had stumbled. Kain could feel her struggle—the clash of will between her divided awareness and the Abyssal minds.

His lips twitched faintly. The field felt heavier than before, more structured, its layers folding into one another to create a more stable field that, with enough progress, may be able to be sustained independently of Bea’s energy supplies.

He hoped this meant progress—that Bea, after months under the Lotus of Silent Law, was approaching the threshold of forming a pseudo-domain. Even if her attributes weren’t suited to it, her Pale Thought Field had always been the closest thing to a domain-like skill among his contracts.

Above them, the Vespid Guards assembled with mechanical precision, their armor plates humming in resonance with Queen’s emergence. When Kain released her, a low buzz rang through the swarm—Queen’s slimmer, more regal form radiated command, synchronizing the entire brood.

Chewy, his final contract to reach green grade (its progress ridiculously fast in comparison to the others’), expanded gleefully, already devouring the surrounding energy released by the serpents upon their deaths or from the launched attacks.