This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

The battle had already escalated beyond an ordinary first-year match, with Serena's contracts and Tobias' infernal creatures clashing in an overwhelming display of power for their age.

Although, with the addition of the summon, Serena was at a numerical disadvantage and seemed to be the weaker party.

The atmosphere with the watching Dark Moon students and staff became solemn. Although they knew this battle would be tough, they never thought that Serena would lose.

The Slenderman-like summon moved towards her. But strangely it did not walk, nor did it step like a normal being. It glided, its limbs twisting and elongating unnaturally as it slid across the ground, leaving behind an unsettling trail of dark smoke that curled into the air.

Every shadow in the arena seemed to bend toward the creature, drawn to it as if it were a gravitational force as it moved its hands forward towards Serena's Starweaver.

Summoning an armor of starlight closely around itself, the resistance from the Echo seemed to somewhat reduce.

The Starweaver flew back into the air with all its might, despite the tugging influence of the shadow that seemed to fight against its every movement. The Abyssal Echo mirrored it closely, but the starlight surrounding the Starweaver continued to flicker defiantly.

Tobias' creatures were relentless in their pursuit, and the Slenderman-like creature was not only a physical threat—it radiated a psychic pressure that seemed to reach directly into Serena's mind, forcing her to focus on defending not just her body, but also her thoughts.

But Serena's expression remained calm as her Elemental Guardian shifted forms, the massive golem-like figure crumbling into a serpent-like form composed of water in order to keep the Scorchwing demon focused on it at bay.

However, the mysterious rotting contract seemed to have a curse-like ability as the elemental guardian was incapable of moving beyond a small black square that appeared on the floor beneath it. Therefore, much of its energy had to be focused on repelling the two approaching contracts while it itself could not move.

The air filled with the sharp hiss of steam as the heat from the Scorchwing Demon and the overwhelming presence of the summoned creature combined to raise the temperature to unbearable levels.

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Serena no longer hid one of her greatest trump cards. She made a signal to the Starweaver, calling forth a brilliant glow of light from the Starweaver's wings. This was another constellation that Kain had never seen before either in person or inside of the Training Arena. However, if he knew the effect of this constellation he'd understand why it would be useless to the one in the arena.

The constellation appeared like 2 identical stick figures holding hands, and was one of the few constellations he'd seen that somewhat resembled one from earth. Although there were slight differences, it looked incredibly similar to the Gemini twins.

Once the "twin constellation" was called upon, a pulse of energy shot through the arena, allowing the Starweaver's ability to activate. The surge of energy all shot towards the Elemental Guardian. Then, before everyone's eyes, the two forms of the Elemental Guardian—water and earth—merged into a single hybrid form.

Based on the two fused forms, the upper-half of the creature was a massive, golem-like structure, built from rough, dark stone, with jagged edges and sharp, angular pieces of stone, resembling a colossus of rock. Its arms were thick with layers of cracked rock, but the surface of the stone seemed to breathe with water seeping through the cracks, flowing like streams or rivers between the stones.

All of these thin streams connected to a thick river of water that ran along its spine, constantly flowing with swirling, frothing currents down to its "leg" that was completely composed of water. Its bottom half was composed of a singular serpentine "leg" composed of water.

With its rock humanoid upper-half and water serpentine lower half, it looked similar to the legendary Naga.

However, what was even more shocking was the intense energy that it gave off. For the first time in possibly the history of the National Tournament, a contract emanating the aura of a green-grade spiritual creature was seen on a first-year stage.

It was already impressive for a first year to have a contract reach yellow-grade. And typically only students within the top 5 colleges would have more than one yellow-grade contract in their first year. Many of the lowest-ranked colleges' students have most of their contracts still at the red-grade, and their strongest at orange.

Serena's contract now jumping to green-grade after 2 of its forms were combined, was like a high-level player appearing in the newbie village—it disrupted the whole ecosystem.

Even the opponents that were previously arrogant due to their numerical advantage unconsciously began to slowly back away due to the pressure of a creature at a higher life level.

Of course it's not unheard of for a group of yellow-grade creatures to hunt a green-grade one, but that's usually a wild one that isn't as strong or intelligent as one supported by a beast-tamer. Not to mention, with the support of Serena's gift and the powerful Starweaver, they'd all have to focus on only the Elemental Guardian to beat it and hope that the Starweaver and Serena wouldn't interfere—which is

extremely

unlikely to happen.

To prevent the Starweaver from being targeted as the weaker threat, she directed it to fly higher while summoning a shield and armor made of starlight.

However, despite having his initial thoughts to get rid of the Starweaver seen through, Tobias remained composed, and showed no sign of faltering. He directed the hesitating Abyssal Echo to try and restrain the movements of the hybrid.

A new, stronger curse also fell upon the Elemental Guardian from his other contract, the rotting corpse-like spiritual creature.

Together, they barely managed to slow down its movements, but it wasn't nearly as great a restriction as previously.

The Slenderman-like entity began to move again, its limbs stretching impossibly long, reaching out toward Serena's guardian with an eerie swiftness. Its fingers were like daggers of shadow. Its limbs slithered through the air, casting the arena into deeper darkness.

At the same time, the Scorchwing Demon bared its molten teeth, roaring as it launched itself forward, flames dancing around its wings.

However, the Elemental Guardian was hardly fighting alone. The Starweaver, circling above like a constellation come to life, sent out a pulse of light that severed the shadows around it.

The moment the creature recoiled, the hybrid Elemental Guardian moved in. Its stone arms grabbed the Slenderman-like summon by its thin, skeletal body, the jagged rocks digging into the dark tendrils of shadow. The creature shrieked, but it was drowned out by the sound of stone grinding against shadow. With a violent twist, the Guardian ripped the creature apart, flinging its shredded form into the air as the shadows evaporated in a burst of light from the Starweaver above. Since it wasn't a real contract of Tobias, she wouldn't have any reservations about killing it.

Tobias did recoil slightly upon its death, indicating that its death wasn't without consequence to him, but it shouldn't be anything more than a temporary headache.

Meanwhile, the Scorchwing Demon that was trying to approach from its blindspot and sent jets of fire toward the Guardian, wasn't as much of a threat to the strengthened Guardian.

The Guardian easily absorbed the heat while its water leg swept across the stage like a whip, knocking the Scorchwing Demon to the ground and dousing it in a crashing wave of liquid fury.

The demon's molten red skin sizzled and steamed, but it was too slow to dodge.

The water constricted around its limbs, rendering it immobile as the stone fists of the Guardian came crashing down, breaking most of its bones in a single, crushing blow.

The Scorchwing Demon's wings crumpled beneath the force, its body battered and doused in a torrent of water that put out all of its flames. It collapsed completely into unconsciousness.

Within moments, two of Tobias' contracts were neutralized.