This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Kain's ears still rang from the explosion, his vision blurred as he struggled to his feet. His body ached, every movement sending sharp jolts of pain through his limbs, but he forced himself to focus. He had to find Aegis.

"Aegis!" Kain shouted, his voice hoarse and desperate. He stumbled forward, his boots crunching over shattered stone and twisted metal. The crater left by the behemoth's destruction was massive, its edges jagged and smouldering. The ground was littered with fragments of the machine, some still glowing faintly with residual abyssal energy.

Kain's heart pounded as he scanned the area, his eyes darting over the wreckage. Aegis had been right there, latched onto the machine when it exploded. Where was he? The golem's obsidian-like body was durable, but even Aegis had his limits. The sheer force of the blast could have shattered him into pieces.

"Aegis!" Kain called again, his voice cracking. He dropped to his knees, sifting through the debris with trembling hands. The faint connection of their contract tugged at the edge of his consciousness, a fragile thread that led him deeper into the crater. It was weak, almost imperceptible, but it was there. Aegis was alive—somewhere.

Around him, the battlefield was descending into chaos. With Aegis gone, the abyssal creatures grew bolder, their corrupted forms surging forward with renewed ferocity. The defenders, already battered and exhausted, were struggling to hold the line. The absence of Aegis' abilities to drain and re-use the corrupted abyssal energy was keenly felt; the corruption spread unchecked, like a virus that suddenly grew wings and was liberated, turning allies into enemies with terrifying speed.@@novelbin@@

Kain barely registered the screams of the wounded or the guttural roars of the abyssals. His focus was singular, his mind consumed by the need to find Aegis. He followed the faint pull of their bond, his hands bleeding as he dug through sharp fragments of metal and stone. The connection grew stronger, guiding him toward a small, unassuming black pebble nestled in the debris.

Kain's breath hitched as he picked it up, his fingers trembling. The pebble was smooth and cold, its surface faintly shimmering with a familiar energy. He could feel it—Aegis' microscopic core, barely clinging to life. The average-sized core of a golem would have been dozens to hundreds of times greater, meaning that this explosion would have spelled certain doom for them. Thankfully, Aegis was much harder to kill.

Relief washed over him, so intense it made his knees buckle.

"You're alive," Kain whispered, his voice barely audible. He cradled the pebble in his hands, his chest tightening with a mix of gratitude and guilt. Aegis had sacrificed himself to destroy the machine, and now he was reduced to this. But he was alive. That was all that mattered.

Kain quickly retrieved Aegis into his star space, the pebble disappearing into the safety of his spiritual storage. He exhaled shakily, his shoulders slumping as the weight of the moment settled over him. But there was no time to rest. The battle was far from over.

The absence of Aegis' presence was already taking its toll. The defenders were being overwhelmed, their ranks thinning as more and more fell to corruption. The abyssal creatures, no longer hindered by Aegis' draining aura, were tearing through the city's defences with terrifying speed. The walls, already collapsed in several areas by the earlier attacks of the war machines, were easily penetrated and crumbling even further under the relentless assault.

Kain's stomach churned as he saw the first abyssals breach the city. They moved with predatory grace, their glowing eyes fixed on the quiet homes of civilians that had whole families huddled in them. The screams of the innocent echoed through the air, a haunting reminder of what was at stake.

"We need to fall back!" Nadia's voice cut through the chaos, her tone sharp with urgency. She was on her feet now, though her movements were stiff and pained. Her remaining contracts circled her protectively, their forms battered but still fighting. "If we don't regroup, the city could fall at any moment!"

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Bea had never felt so frustrated. Her splits had long spread throughout the chaotic battlefield, but their limitations pressed down on her like a weight she couldn't shake off.

It was one thing for her to struggle against indigo-grade creatures—after all, the difference in power was substantial. But here, even creatures that should have been within her grasp were resisting her control.

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The abyssal and corrupted creatures, twisted and malformed by the energy that birthed them, were stubborn beyond reason. It took her an immense amount of effort just to fully control even the weakest among them, and those of similar strength to her required everything she had just to slow them down. It was inefficient, exhausting, and infuriating.

But Bea did not give up.

She was a being of adaptation, of evolution. If something wasn't working, then she would find a way to make it work.

Not to mention, when she realized she'd had her memories manipulated along side Kain's when they first entered she hadn't been upset. In fact, she'd enthusiastically felt as though she had a great deal to learn from this relic.

And that faint feeling that this battle presented an opportunity for improvement was only stronger now. Amidst the struggle, something tugged at the edges of her awareness—a strange familiarity, between herself and the abyssal energy that permeated the battlefield. It was almost as if she recognized it. She could instinctively sense that it was something she could understand. Something she could use. She just needed to figure out how.

With renewed focus, Bea pushed deeper, stretching her consciousness to probe the abyssal energy within her controlled victims. It wasn't merely corrupting them—it was rewriting them, reshaping them from within to follow a new will. That process intrigued her, and she wanted to grasp it, dissect it, and make it hers.

Bea was extremely competitive. And even though she could sense the difference between herself and whatever created the abyssals was like the difference between heaven and earth, she hadn't given up hope of learning from and, eventually, beating it.