This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

After the unsettling scene, Kain glanced back outside the wall, where the battle continued unaffected by the devastating blow to the guard. Despite the many that died, their numbers still seemed endless.

Even if the defenders still had spiritual power, Kain could tell that everyone was becoming mentally exhausted from having to maintain their vigilance against attacks to themselves, their contracts, and even their peers for hours without rest.

"How long do you think this will last?" Kain asked, his voice tinged with exhaustion.

Jade sighed, the day's events likely taking a toll even on her as her usually annoyingly loud personality had been greatly dampened.

"It's hard to say. We'll know once some of the blue-grade spiritual creatures decide to appear. They'll usually appear when the tide is reaching its end and they're about to announce the withdrawal of the attacking spiritual creatures."

Bam

Suddenly an intense blaze instantly killed all of the spiritual creatures and scorched the earth for miles outside of the city walls. Kain could see that the very ground had turned into a molten lava like substance that would be challenging to cross for majority of the spiritual creatures below yellow-grade.

Seeing that they no longer had the cover of the low-level cannon fodder, there was a momentary halt in the attacks of the beast-tide as they waited for the land to cool.

One of the high-level beast tamers in the city must have taken action after seeing them all exhausted.

"You have 30 minutes to take a break." A disembodied voice sounded over the entire city. "Tend to the wounded and rest until the beast tide recommences."

Kain took the opportunity to catch his breath and assess the situation. His body ached from moving about all day.

As he sipped on a flask of water, Oliver approached him, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You handling it alright?" For once have the demeanor of a thoughtful senior.

"Yeah," Kain replied, wiping the sweat from his brow and retrieving a snack from his space ring to refuel. "It's just…very intense"

"Yeah, the hardest part about a beast-tide is not running out of physical endurance and spiritual power, but the mental strength to keep focused. That's what weeded a lot of even the strongest entrants out in my year. They were too mentally weak."

Kain looked at Oliver with renewed admiration. He had forgotten that the notorious beast-tide entrance exam that Bridget, who was in her second year at the time and would now be a third-year, had told him about would have been for Oliver's year.

Kain was already a beast-tamer for several months, as well as many of the seniors and guards appeared to be getting mentally drained. He couldn't imagine having to face a horde like this as a newly awakened student fresh out of high school. Even if the examinees wouldn't have been placed at such a busy area as the main gate, the other areas are still only slightly better.

BAM! BAM BAM!

Suddenly, simultaneously, dozens of spiritual creatures were attacked by a hidden enemy. A couple of the guards' contracts instantly died in the attack and the soul wrenching screams of their contractors rang across the wall as they suffered from the backlash.

Kain also instantly lost one of his Vespirae Guards, but thankfully unlike the others who lost a contract he suffered no real consequence from the loss except for a temporary reduction in troops he could deploy.

However, one of Alexei's contracts, a yellow-grade deep red spider, was hit heavily and the injury may even be fatal if not treated in time.

Immediately, Dmitri sent his contracts, a small flying humanoid creature that resembled a fairy but with bat wings instead and a deep red hulking beast with a demonic aura, to drag Alexei's contract to safety.

Immediately Alexei's spider was sent to one of the healers at the foot of the wall to be treated. It's life likely won't be in any danger since there were now several healers to care for it, but 3 of its legs had been torn off and it had a large hole in its abdomen that was continuously leaking blood. Therefore, the spider will likely be out of commission for the remainder of the beast tide.

After the attack from the unknown enemy, there was a momentary lull in the human camp as everyone was too scared to continue sending their contracts outside the wall to kill. What if their own contract was also instantly killed like some of the guards' contracts.

Instead, contracts that had long-range skills continued to attack from on top of the wall, while those with only close-combat skills stayed next to them as a guard.

"D-Did anyone see what attacked us? Or maybe know a way to guard against it?" Ranya asked with a trembling voice.

Nobody was able to answer her. It seemed as though multiple contracts were attacked by an invisible opponent within milliseconds of each other. Not to mention that the form of the attack seemed to resemble an explosion that occurred next to the contract without any warning. It was practically impossible to guard against.

"Did anyone see anything that may be useful for determining what it is or when it attacks?"

Serena opened her mouth, which was the first time many had heard her speak since the beast tide even began. "It wasn't a long-range attack. It was instantly appearing next to the target before launching an attack and jumping to the next target."

Everyone looked at her in confusion and doubt. Nobody had been able to even see an attacker so they'd assumed it was some ability that triggered explosions from a long distance. Now she was claiming that the "explosions" were actually a physical attack?

"How can you be so sure?" Theo questioned. Seeing that he wasn't refuting her words, that likely meant that what she was saying was the truth, or at least what she strongly believe to be the case.

"Because whatever it is meets the conditions of my affinity. I was able to vaguely sense its movements. It's stopped now. It's probably around 15 miles in that direction" She said pointing in a direction.

Everyone turned in the direction that she pointed to try and see if they could spot the perpetrator, but Kain was more preoccupied by something else mentioned by the person he considered his biggest competition.