This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Lucas was bound to a spiritual creature that resembled a snake, but it could also be a wyrm due to the two curved horns coming out of its head, although its scales and face were definitely more snake-like. The spiritual creature had black scales that shimmer with violet undertones. Its two black horns flashed and crackled with electricity, and its eyes glowed an eerie, electric blue.

So far Lucas, like Serena and Soren, was the only one within the top 8 to only reveal one contract. Surprisingly, facing Serena he still chose to only release one contract.

'Is it overconfidence, is his other contract too low level to make a difference, or is it some other reason…'

The arena was charged with tension and the whole arena seemed to collectively hold its breath at the first battle between two top students of their year. Finally, they will get to see what a battle between those at the peak of strength in their age-group looked like.

Lucas and Serena's contracts stood facing each other. Serena's Elemental Guardian was starting off in its sturdy earth golem form.

The second the match was signalled to start, Lucas' contract surged forward, unleashing a volley of black lightning that shot through the air like a twisted spear.

The golem summoned a sturdy shield composed of the earth element, however the unusually coloured lightning seemed to penetrate the shield easily. The golem was forced to raise its massive arms just in time to absorb the brunt of the attack.

However, the black lightning didn't lose much of its momentum going through the shield and shattered the rocky exterior of the golem's arms, sending debris flying. The destructive nature of Lucas's lightning was evident, as it tore through the extremely sturdy earth element like paper.

Observing the black lightning, Kain eventually concluded that it was far more dangerous than ordinary lightning and seems to have a strong destruction or decay property added to it.

Not content with remaining on the defensive, Serena's contract transformed into a blazing, phoenix-like entity. Waves of molten lava cascaded from its wings as it soared toward Lucas. The heat radiated through the arena, forcing Lucas to shield his face.

However, this form definitely had a much weaker defense and didn't dare to face the black lightning head-on. But it had much greater agility and focused on dodging the snake's attacks. For a moment the battle was at a standstill as they exchanged long-distance attacks.

The entire battle had now exceeded 20 seconds, far surpassing the length of time anyone else had lasted against Serena. However, Kain could sense that while Lucas was extremely focused on the battle, Serena wasn't yet taking things seriously.

The elemental Guardian transformed again into an ethereal wind fairy, as Lucas' contract eadied another bolt of black lightning, Serena commanded her wind fairy to create a barrier of swirling air. The winds picked up the debris previously created and sent it spiraling toward Lucas and his contract, momentarily obscuring their view.

A gust of wind far stronger than one would expect to be produced by an orange-grade spiritual creature then redirected the oncoming lightning. The wind shield shifted, causing Lucas' contracts own attack to instead spiral toward his vulnerable body. And, due to having his vision obstructed, he wouldn't even be able to dodge.

Serena chose the more efficient method of taking care of the contractor before the spiritual creature.

'So ruthless…that lightning may very well kill him.' Likely having the same thoughts as him, Kain could see Professor Flint shifting closer to the stage preparing to jump in. However, once he did so the match would be declared over and Serena would be granted the win.

However, fortunately it seems as though Lucas received a signal from his contract and managed to dodge in time. The lightning instead struck the ground right next to him causing a massive crater of damage to form on the stage.

Serena's contract at some point had shifted back into the earth golem form and slammed its fists into the ground, sending shockwaves toward Lucas, who struggled to regain his footing amidst the chaos.

Lucas' unsteady body then fell from the stage with barely any injuries. The battle was over in a surprisingly anti-climactic manner.

Despite the seemingly ruthless tactic half-way through the battle, she had been surprisingly gentle in how she chose finish things.

'Did she anticipate that he'd dodge the lightning? Or did she truly not care that he'd be seriously injured? But if she didn't care why choose to end things as she did? She could have just bombarded him and his contract to exhaustion or serious injury. After all, he'd personally witnessed her seemingly limitless supply of spiritual power.

The battle was over within 30 seconds, but it was riveting nonetheless.

With it over, Kain turned to focus on Addison and Aiden's battle as some professors with earth-attribute contracts were responsible for repairing the stage. It'd probably take a few minutes to perfectly repair, so he had a little more time before he'd have to go down and prepare to fight Hailey.

Addison and Aiden were currently evenly matched. Addison and Aiden's fire and wind sprites respectively were extremely familiar with one another and perfectly restrained each other.

Aiden's second contract was an orange-grade Tempest Pterix that he'd gotten in his first mission with Kain. He must have spent a ton of resources and effort to get a spiritual creature that hatched less than three months ago up to orange-grade.

Bridge's Princess was slightly older and yet had just barely managed to break through before the re-ranking.

As for Addison, this was the first time that Kain was seeing her second contract. It was a fire-type butterfly spiritual creature, with wings that flickered and danced like living flames. Each wing was a colourful gradient of deep crimson at the base, that transition to bright orange and finally to a golden yellow at the edges, resembling a fiery sunset. It was as beautiful as it was deadly.

Unfortunately, their battle still wasn't complete by the time Kain was called up to the now repaired stage. It was time for his first match of Phase 2.