This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Despite the Eye being back in the relic, it didn't seem to help.

With a tired sigh and a flick of its wrist, the hand simply returned the Eye to its main body.

The chamber began to shake as if the entire world inside the relic recoiled the moment the abyssal dragon's soul tore free of its chains.

The spectral beast hovered in the air, translucent flesh congealing into something denser, more whole with each slow inhale. Its wings unfurled, widening in a deliberate stretch, and the air around it collapsed inward as if bowing to a new center of gravity.

Kain felt the shift with a sick heaviness in his chest.

But he knew that this was only the prelude to something worse.

Cracks spidered in the air like frost on glass. The floor dipped and rolled underfoot. Abyssal contamination seeped up from the widening fractures, the darkness spreading like mould blooming on the floor.

And the dragon, now freed, seemed to drink all of it in.

Its eyes gradually brightened with a dawning, razor-edged awareness as it turned toward the hand.

A vicious, triumphant grin spread on its face as it came to the understanding that the hand before it was only a fragment or projection, not the full demigod.

It was far weaker than a true demigod.

It had been stronger than it was before, when it was confined into that human's body, but not anymore.

In that moment, the dragon realized the truth: it was no longer the trapped prey inside this relic.

It was the predator, and the hand was now going to be its first 'celebratory' meal upon achieving freedom.

Its body fully solidified, and its newly formed scales gleamed with a wet, oil-slick sheen. The glow in its eyes sharpened, focusing on the hand that had dared to drag it from its host body.

A low rumble shook the space. Kain realized with a jolt—

The dragon was about to strike again.

The disembodied hand—still seemingly suspending the dragon in space, although such restriction was now useless—lifted defensively, fingers splayed like a shield. Its voice thundered through the relic:

"HEY heeyyy—perhaps we can talk this over! Do NOT—"

Too slow.

The dragon lunged with terrifying fluidity, ramming its gaping mouth of half-solid, half-spectral energy toward the hand. Instead of a physical bite, the strike aimed straight at the hand's essence, tearing into the demigod's manifested will like a starving predator ripping into exposed spirit.

The hand jerked back, trailing sparks of distorted light.

"HEY! That is—HEY! Bad dragon! BAD! Don't eat what's not yours!"

A portion of the wrist flickered violently where the dragon had scraped it, the whole projection glitching as if parts of its coding had been ripped out.

Kain would've laughed if survival didn't depend on breathing quietly and not drawing attention.

The hand recoiled again, fingers shaking.

"Okay—enough. I'm calling him. I am NOT doing this alone."

Kain blinked.

'Calling who?'

The answer came as the air ripped open behind the hand—this time not in the chaotic, jagged tears the hand had created before, but in a controlled widening breach, smooth and deliberate.

And from the other side, a voice answered the call:

"Hmm? How can you possibly have an issue? Don't bring shame to me as your main body! No matter, the Eye is gone. Finally. Which should mean that the seal's open. I'll handle this."

The hand muttered irritably, "Fantastic, glad the seal's open—GET. IN. HERE. BEFORE HE TAKES ANOTHER BITE!"

The portal widened further, its presence warping the relic around it. The moment the spatial layer shifted, Kain felt it—something with an enormous presence outside, something powerful enough to press against the sealed world of the relic. Something human, but far beyond mortal scale.

A demigod. The real one, and not just a projection of one of its limbs.

But before its true body could enter, the relic gave a violent shudder.

A wave of abyssal corruption erupted like a bursting organ.

Black sludge bubbled up through the floor. The polished stone turned soft, then porous. The corrupted trees, originally part of the relic, peeled into strips of ash. The living creatures that were originally part of the 'security system' here, dissolved. Air rippled from pockets of void forming overhead.

Kain staggered backward, shielding Queen and Chewy, his only remaining contracts, with his body, prepared to withdraw them at any time.

He knew this sensation.

This was the beginning of a relic's collapse due to insufficient energy. Similar to the time the relic he'd entered in the far South as part of the Black Order also began to crumble due to insufficient source energy. Once it started, escape was all one could try to do.

The hand noticed too. It let out a strangled, exasperated noise and shouted over its shoulder:

"You! Kid! Yes, YOU—the one standing there like a deer caught in headlights!"

Kain's eyes widened.

The hand pointed at him while trying to remove one of the dragon's teeth that broke off and got embedded in its wrist.

"If you can walk, WALK. Preferably away from the giant dragon trying to make a snack out of us all!"

Chewy peeked out from Kain's collar.

"Squee…?"

The hand flung an exasperated gesture.

"And TAKE your annoying puff ball! It keeps screaming 'my energy my energy' in my mind—UGHHH—just GO!"

Kain didn't need to be told twice.

He had Queen try to heal the 3 remaining limp Vespid guards, focusing on restoring their flight abilities rather than fight. He recalled all of his other contracts, thankfully sensing Bea's return faintly, although he still was getting no response from her, and quickly slung the boy's barely recognizable body over one shoulder.

But before he could board a Vespid guard and start running—

The dragon moved again.

And this time, it wasn't aiming at the hand.

Its gaze snapped to Kain.

The abyssal corruption curling off its body sharpened, angling toward him like tendrils responding to a call.

Kain felt a sinking chill.

'It's targeting… me?'

A moment later, he understood.

The dragon wasn't chasing him out of revenge or rage. He was too weak to be worthy of such strong emotions like the demigod was.

It was hunting him because—

Kain's body was built from pure source energy, like his own body.

A pristine reservoir. A perfect replenishment. Exactly what the dragon needed to restore itself completely and give the human demigod trying to enter the relic a beatdown.

The dragon lunged, half spectral jaws opening wider.

Kain braced, teeth gritted, because he knew he couldn't outrun this.

Thankfully, the hand projected into this relic by the demigod, who was still trying to enter, blocked the attack. Although it did suffer a severe injury in exchange.

And the dragon simply just reabsorbed the scattered source energy released when it was injured to heal again.

Kain's mind raced desperately—and then snapped into clarity.

Earlier, when the dragon hit him, the wound hadn't healed even with his source body's regeneration.

That meant—

Source energy could wound source energy-based body.

Unfortunately, the difference in strength between the two sides was too great to even give Kain a chance to begin wounding him.

At least under normal circumstances…

He was weaker, yes. But the dragon was partially formed, unstable, freshly freed, and bleeding abyssal energy.

That gave him a chance.

A tiny one. But a real one.

Kain inhaled sharply.

Then he pulled a shard of pure source energy from Pangea—something he'd avoided doing until this moment.

He forced the energy to condense in his hand.

When the dragon bypassed the injured hand, jaws stretching for his head—

Kain thrust the abundant source energy directly into its open mouth.

The resulting sound was not a scream. It was more like glass shattering inside a deep well.

The dragon's soul-form convulsed, a patch of its translucent jaw collapsing inward like a cavity punched straight through its essence. The wound refused to re-knit, flickering at the edges like a glitching hologram.

The hand froze mid-motion.

"…Kid. What the hell was THAT? No—wait—ignore my earlier words. You no longer need to leave. Keep hurting him!"

Kain didn't answer. His stomach churned. Blood filled his mouth. The backlash crawled up his rib cage in white-hot streaks, threatening to pull apart the careful balance of his body.

He barely stayed upright.

In order to ensure he could injure the opponent, he'd taken far more energy from Pangea than usual. He didn't even want to begin thinking of the natural disaster level damage that was probably afflicting the planet right now.

But for all. This blow cost him, the dragon, however, recoiled only for a moment before rage overtook pain. Its aura spiked, the chamber groaning under the pressure.

And then—

the portal fully opened.

Light—pure gold, blinding—blazed through the breach as a silhouette began to step through. Not a projection. The real body. The true demigod. A power heavy enough to bow the floor outward around every footfall.

The hand fragment darted to its side like a guilty assistant.

"FINALLY! Took you long enough!"