This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 862: 862: Looking at Death
Chapter 862: Chapter 862: Looking at Death
Kain and Serena burst through the undergrowth, lungs burning from smoke. The forest behind them was a wall of fire. Branches snapped, heat waves chasing them like a living thing.
“Keep going!” Kain yelled, voice rough from the lingering smoke in the surroundings. The pursuer’s presence could be clearly felt again, in hot pursuit of them, burning everything in its path.
Kain raised his hand and two Vespid Guards materialized. The creatures buzzed furiously, wings kicking up gusts strong enough to obliterate the burning branches around them.
“Get on!” he ordered. Serena jumped on one, grabbing its shell. Kain vaulted onto the other.
The Vespids took off, slicing through the rising smoke. The heat thickened, glowing red like molten glass, but they pressed forward. Kain’s mind raced as he thought back to Bai Lian’s map. Closing his eyes to better visualize it, he mentally traced the contours of the land, searching and trying to estimate their current location after running for so long.
‘If we were around here…and then ran in this direction…then there should be a river nearby… about two miles north. Hopefully big enough to drown out even that thing’s fire or at least reluctant to continue its chase.’
He pointed forward. “Head North!”
The Vespids banked hard, wings slicing through the night. Behind them, the treeline exploded. A lance of fire carved through the forest, igniting everything it touched. The sound was deafening—like the sky itself screaming.
Minutes later, the flames gave way to the shimmer of water. The river stretched before them, wide and wild. Its current snarled like a living beast and looked like it would engulf anything that came near.
Serena glanced down, eyes wide. “In there?!”
Kain’s jaw tightened, before speaking with a forced casualness. “It’s either crushed by waves or obliterated by flames. Personally, I pick the waves. Never liked the heat.”
Not giving her time to continue thinking, he gave the command. The Vespids dove, cutting sharp arcs before dissolving into motes of light as he dismissed them mid-fall. They hit the water like stones, the icy shock ripping the breath from their lungs. The world went silent except for the muffled roar above—fire meeting water in a storm of steam.
The river seized them, dragging them through currents that slammed against rock and root. Serena flailed around before Kain grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward a dark silhouette beneath the water. He yanked her down beside him into a narrow alcove, lit only by the dull red glow refracted through flames across the water above. Finally they were relieved from the buffering of the uncontrolled current.
‘We lost him?’ Serena sent through their telepathic connection.
Kain shook his head, eyes fixed on the trembling light overhead. ‘Not yet.’
His pulse quickened. He could feel it, the enemy’s power pressing down like a furnace.
‘Serena,’ he said, voice low, ‘your elemental guardian. Can it hold off heat while letting us breathe?’
She hesitated, then nodded, closing her eyes. Soon, a serpent made of water appeared, but unlike usual its body was woven with ribbons of air that formed translucent wings. It was Serena’s elemental guardian in the fused water-air form.
The creature coiled around them, its wings fanning to create a dome. Water and wind merged, hardening into a shimmering bubble that wrapped them in a protective sphere.
Kain inhaled, surprised to find the air inside room temp and breathable. The sound of rushing water dulled to a distant hum.
They waited, every heartbeat stretching into eternity. The glow above grew brighter, no longer just orange but white, the light warping through the rippling surface like molten sunlight. Unfortunately, the distortion due to the water made it too difficult to tell what was happening on the surface so he channelled spiritual power into his gaze to see better.
Kain saw the shadow first, a figure emerging from the burning treeline, wreathed in living fire. Even from underwater, its heat pressed down like a second gravity. The water around them hissed.
Serena clutched his arm, eyes glowing to clearly watch the same scene. “What is that?”
“Not something we can fight,” Kain muttered. “Just hold steady—”
But then the sky split.
A fireball bloomed miles above, vast as a city, turning the late afternoon sky into day. It pulsed once, then stabilized into a perfect sphere of compressed flame, so hot that even through the river, Kain could feel his skin prickle. The surface began to boil.
“We’re not deep enough,” Kain hissed.
He seized Serena’s hand and kicked downward. The bubble followed, descending through the river’s depths. But instead of cooling, the water grew warmer, then scalding.
Serena gasped. “The whole river’s heating up!”
Kain cursed under his breath. The pursuer was heating the entire body of water. The riverbed glowed faintly red beneath the murk, like magma veins awakening.
Above them, the colossal fireball descended, lowering toward the surface of the river like an inevitable ball of death. The pressure built until even the water seemed to tremble in anticipation.
Kain turned to Serena, eyes grim. “Stay close.”
He pulled her close, wrapping his body protectively around hers. With a single thought and a flash of light, Aegis appeared under the water.
The guardian materialized instantly, black metal rippling out from its own body as if he were liquefying into molten steel. He commanded Aegis to terraform itself around them, reshaping his own body into a solid sphere of dark alloy that sealed Serena and him within. The metal hardened with a resonant hum, enclosing them completely. Only a narrow seam remained, just enough for Kain to glimpse what came was coming next.
Through that gap, the fireball filled the sky, a descending sun, its core throbbing with the breath of annihilation. The surface water vaporized into clouds of steam, the shockwave racing ahead of it. Kain gritted his teeth, muscles locking as Serena buried her face against his chest.
Then the world turned white.
Bubbles burst upward, steam exploding in plumes. The entire world was around them chaos—boiling water, searing light, and the deafening roar of destruction.
The ball of flame hadn’t even hit the water yet, and he could feel the heat and strain on Aegis.
Despite being his most trusty shield, it didn’t look like the golem could hold.
‘Will we die here?’ Kain thought, while clutching the figure in his arms tighter.
