This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 765: Chapter 765: Prelude to Reed vs Isolde

The air in the arena had shifted.

Even the crowd could feel it. The stage where Serena had been carried off moments ago still smelled faintly of ozone and scorched cloth. Yet, when Reed Venn stepped onto the platform, it was as though the tension had been muffled. Blurred.

In fact just focusing on the arena became challenging and, as if hypnotized, nearly everyone in the arena—from the audience, to the announcers, to the cameramen—seemed to have been struck by a severe case of ADHD as they became distracted by any and everything outside of the Dark Moon corner of the stage.

Even Isolde, who’d somehow managed to reduce the effect of Balens’ wishes wasn’t immune to Reed’s gift, but she still didn’t completely ignore him.

Isolde Blacheart stood across from him, framed in molten crimson light from her phoenix’s wings as it hovered silently behind her. Her face was unreadable—as if her thoughts were tucked away in a box even she no longer remembered how to open.

But Reed Venn? He radiated nothing. That was the problem.

The crowd was hushed as they finally collectively managed to refocus on the stage with some prompting from the referee and the announcers.

Refocused, many were now leaning forward, squinting at the boy in the modest uniform, trying to remember why they didn’t remember him. Why had they never really noticed him until now?

It was the same reason his own classmates rarely remembered to invite him to team meetings unless reminded. It was why opposing tamers often forgot to target him until they were down to their last contract.

It was his Gift.

The referee didn’t waste time. “Begin.”

And like that, it was on.

Isolde’s six contracts were already on the field from her match with Serena, casting the entire arena in a hellish glow. All blue-grade. All having appeared last year. But unlike last year, when they had likely just broken through to blue-grade, all of these contracts were now far more seasoned and skilled at using their abilities.

The Burning Abyssal Phoenix hovered overhead like an omen of destruction, each flap of its massive wings casting sparks of flame into the air. Twin trails of fire trailed behind it, like comet tails swirling with heat.

Beside it glided the Demonwing Harpy, a humanoid predator with elongated limbs and ember-veined wings that resembled molten glass stretched taut. Her talons flexed mid-air, obsidian black and glinting with infernal energy. Her smoky-black hair flowed behind her like writhing flame, framing a sharp-toothed grin that dripped with malice.

Crouched like a grotesque gargoyle on her left was the Infernal Sentinel Gargoyle, appearing like a statue made of volcanic rock. Its body radiated waves of heat from the glowing cracks that ran like molten veins beneath its rock hard skin. Its claws looked like blades straight from the forge.

To the right stood the Dreadclaw Demon, a towering gorilla-like monster cloaked in soot-stained fur. Its muscles bulged unnaturally beneath the surface, and every step it took scorched the stone beneath. Its claws dripped with a corrosive liquid, and its eyes looked both angry and hungry at the same time.

Partially veiled in shifting shadows behind the frontline was the humanoid Soulreaver Incubus, a predator of the mind and soul. Its sleek obsidian body gleamed like oil in moonlight, with wings that folded like a shroud around it. Its expression was serene, but its aura buzzed with quiet, insidious threat—its smile promising oblivion to any who met its gaze too long.

And finally, flanking the rear like a coiled nightmare, was the Infernal Manticore. Its lion-like form rippled with muscle, its burning-red mane billowing in the heat. Its tail, segmented and tipped with a venom-dripping stinger, twitched like a whip hungry to lash out.

Across from them, Reed Venn finally raised his hand.

And for the first time this tournament—he called forth all six of his contracts.

The Sinkmaw Tortoise materialized first, a titanic leviathan cloaked in jagged, rock-like plates that shimmered faintly with embedded geodes. Faint gravitational ripples distorted the air around it, warping light and sound as it lumbered forward. Its shell was coated with a mineral veins and its mere presence tugged at loose debris, drawing pebbles and dust into orbit around it.

Then came the Veltrake Serpent, its elongated body coiling with restrained power. Each scale was a mirror-like disc, polished to a cold gleam, and along its spine ran jagged ridges that twisted in response to gravitational currents. Its head—angular and pointed—tasted the air with a forked tongue that left trails of inverted light in its wake, as if it were undoing the very space it passed through.

The Gravity Wyrmling emerged next, a sleek and compact dragonling with polished obsidian scales that shimmered like liquid metal. Along its spine ran a set of crystalline ridges that pulsed with gravitational force, each breath it took sending subtle ripples through the air. Its wings, when unfurled, revealed shimmering patterns reminiscent of warped starfields—patches of compressed gravity dancing across their membrane like constellations bending in real time.

Then came the Aetherfang Myriapod, a sinuous centipede-like creature with low-slung segments that clattered gently as it moved across the stone. Its matte exoskeleton shimmered with muted shades of tarnished bronze and graphite grey, absorbing rather than reflecting the light around it. A pale gland near its thorax pulsed softly, releasing waves of gravitational pressure that bent the floor tiles beneath its feet. When it flexed, faint distortions rippled outward from its joints, and each slow movement gave the impression that the surrounding air itself was being dragged slightly off course.

There was also his only green-grade contract, the Stellarthread Weaver, a small, looking like a crab-spider hybrid roughly the size of a closed fist. Extremely small for a green-grade spiritual creature. But no less deadly. Though not strong in frontal combat, it specialized in weaving delicate gravity-based filaments around the battlefield—trip lines and motion snares that subtly redirected enemy movement and disrupted coordination. It wasn’t a fighter, but it was a trap-layer, a battlefield manipulator, and an essential part of Reed’s control strategy.

And finally, Reed summoned his last contract—the one he had kept hidden until now.

Nestled on his forearm, like a gaudy ornament on a king’s robe, sat the Nullhalo Beetle.

This final contract, and his fifth blue-grade one, was new. The only one to have never appeared on stage before.

Roughly the size of a dinner plate, its shell shimmered with deep violet and gunmetal swirls. Two circular silver rings of an unknown purpose rotated slowly around it, each inscribed with shifting sigils. After processing where it was, on stage, it lifted into the air with a cheerful, delighted whirr.

It was clearly extremely happy.

It twirled. It spun. It buzzed and beeped and emitted a war-happy chirp. It had been waiting for this. Waiting to fight.

Reed—face unreadable as always—rubbed his temple.

Of course this was how it would act. It always did. And every time, some small, bitter part of him felt guilty for rarely using it for his own selfish reasons.

Because no matter how much strength the Nullhalo Beetle offered—no matter how it practiced and trained to be of better use to him—he still rarely used it. Not because it was too strong or too weak. But because its presence ensured that no one, no one, would remember him. Not even his allies.

And yet, it was happy. So unbearably happy to be here, chirping and spinning like a child on festival day.

Reed exhaled through his nose, a quiet huff of air.

He hadn’t summoned it until now because—truthfully? He wanted to be remembered.

And though Reed tried to pretend it didn’t matter, a part of him still wished—foolishly—that someone might notice him. Just once. Just long enough to remember his name.

But with the Nullhalo Beetle fully active?

That wish became impossible.

And it was what made Reed dangerous.

Nobody noticed that the moment this beetle was summoned

Reed himself had disappeared entirely from everyone’s perception. Even to the 8-star ref overseeing the battle.