After killing the only particularly threatening yellow-grade spiritual creature, all of the remaining spiritual creatures that attacked were able to be handled either alone or within their smaller group of 3.
However, as the average strength level of the attackers began to climb, the shaking of the city walls also became stronger.
“All first and second years have your contracts retreat back to the city walls!” Ezra yelled.
Kain was puzzled but did as directed. However, his confusion did not last for long when one of his guards, coincidently the same one that managed to survive the ambush from the yellow-grade cat-like creature, froze into an ice sculpture within milliseconds.
Kain’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the main character of his most recent nightmares, the Glacial Leviathan marching towards the city walls. Along with it were hundreds of other green-grade spiritual creatures.
Immediately, the contracts of the third and fourth-year students, as well as most of the professors who had not been actively participating in the battle except at critical moments to save lives, intercepted them.
Kain, nor the other students, dared to send their contracts too far out. Instead, they made sure to keep themselves and their contracts by the city walls to ward off one of the weaker spiritual creatures that squeezed through and managed to get to the walls.
At the same time, Kain also kept an eye on his seniors, curious about the level of strength of individuals who have represented the college for years. Particularly the captain.
Kain already knew that the captain had a space-attribute affinity and creatures that fit that criteria are extremely rare. Therefore, he was curious about the abilities of Ezra’s contracts, even if he couldn’t identify them.
He revealed 5 contracts, although he had apparently broken through to 6-stars over the summer break. Whether he hadn’t yet found a suitable contract or it wasn’t yet strong enough to make a difference in the current level of battle, he had never revealed a sixth contract.
For the majority of the beast tide, he’d been using three of his contracts. The first one Kain could identify. It was a blue-grade Void Lynx, and apparently the captain’s first-ever contract—although it was initially an Ethereal Lynx and had evolved. The Void Lynx isn’t the most powerful in terms of frontal combat ability, but its support abilities are among the best at its level.
It is extremely skillful in its ability to manipulate space allowing it to teleport, hide within the void, and transport attacks so that a ball of fire several meters away from the target will appear right before the target in the next second. And those were the only abilities Kain was able to observe after glancing at it over the past few days.
The second contract, Kain did not know the name of but it was a green-grade snake with scales that shimmered and warped as it moved. Its fangs appear to be able to render space apart, making any defence before it useless. Additionally, it seems to be able to freely adjust its size to ensnare creatures of varying sizes.
The third contract, also green-grade appeared to be a small dragon, a drake. Kain saw it tear apart holes into the space to cause an almost black hole effect that sucked in much weaker spiritual creatures. And similar to the fangs of the second contract, its claws also seem to ignore all defensive measures.
Now Kain was getting to see the remaining two contracts for the face of their school.
One had a semi-transparent appearance and was humanoid in shape. Its body was a deep, cosmic blue that shimmered like the night sky. Its eyes were a mesmerizing mixture of silver and azure that seemed to draw in anyone who dared to stare for too long.
The air surrounding it seemed to pulsate, therefore Kain guessed that it also had the ability to teleport and/or shift space. Kain wasn’t 100% sure about its identity, but he guessed that it was some kind of Djinn, a rare type of spiritual creature that resembles the stories about genies back on Earth, although they don’t grant wishes.
Based on the pressure it gave off, Kain guessed that it was at blue-grade, although it hadn’t yet made a move for him to see the colour of its spiritual power.
The final contract revealed also was likely at blue-grade. It had an incredibly fearsome appearance and its head looked like the combination of a tiger and dragon. Its face had large bulging eyes, and a gaping mouth filled with large fangs and tusks. The rest of its body was muscular and covered in a thick fur, while its powerful legs ended with incredibly large claws.
It had a long, serpentine-like tail tipped with a sharp spike. Kain had never seen anything that resembled it in a textbook here, nor could he think of any mythical stories back on Earth that described a creature like this.
However, once it took action, Kain had a guess about what it was when all of the weaker spiritual creatures surrounding it appeared to be picked up by an invisible force, shrunk, and then swallowed in one bite.
‘A taotie?!’
As the unending waves of green-grade spiritual creatures continued without end, many blue-grade spiritual creatures were also beginning to appear. The professors, who hadn’t taken much action until now except at critical moments to save lives, also stepped in.
Suddenly, a roar that shook the very ground around them signalled the arrival of an indigo-grade spiritual creature. Kain’s heart sank as he saw it—a massive, shadowy entity with eyes that glowed like molten lava. It exuded an aura of palpable menace, its very presence causing the defenders to falter.
The pressure from its mere presence on the battlefield almost caused Kain and the rest of the first-years to collapse to their knees.
“H-hey Oliver!” Kairos called out to the one responsible for their group. “Do you recall creatures at this level appearing in the beast-tide you were in previously? I thought the max attacker was supposed to be at blue-grade!”
Oliver’s eyebrows were also bunched together in confusion, the current events completely went against how things were historically. What happened to the unspoken understanding between man and beast that the purpose of the beast-tide was just to cull their numbers, not actually break in?!
Before Oliver could open his mouth to reply a sudden explosion rocked the city. The blast was so violent that it knocked Kain off his feet, sending him sprawling onto the ground. The shockwave sent debris flying, and a cloud of dust and smoke enveloped the area.
“What the hell was that?!” Soren shouted, struggling to get back up.
Kain barely managed to regain his footing when he heard a panicked shout from a nearby guard. “The southern gate! It’s been breached!”