Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution
Chapter 58: Smart Play

Chapter 58: Smart Play

Smart Play

"Wha- Sir look at this!" The Handler overseeing the energy signatures of beasts suddenly exclaimed. But this time, it was an exclamation of excitement.

Major Thompson paused after giving his latest orders and turned to the Handler who was looking between him and his computer with barely restrained excitement. Curious, the Major decided to get off the central area and approached the Handler.

"What’s got you so excited?" He asked as he looked at the screen, then he immediately frowned.

How the energy detection worked was that the construct that they used to observe the battle from above had different viewing modes, one of which enabled it to see the overall energy a creature had in the form of dots. Red for enemies, Blue for allies. So from this computer’s point of view, the ground was gray with numerous red dots running across it, some brighter than others.

Farther back was a red dot that was considerably brighter than the rest and was moving around quite fast, which was the beast that was currently assaulting the Beast Tamers at the front lines.

But what had caught his attention wasn’t that, but the blue dot that was similarly bright on their side of the equation.

’An Expert level beast on our side? That’d mean an Expert-level beast tamer. But from where? Everyone else is accounted for, or else?’ His eyes widened at the possibility.

’A newly promoted Expert Rank, but how? All our Adept ranks are accounted for, and none have shown any signs of breaking through. Unless, a spontaneous breakthrough perhaps? It’s not uncommon for beasts to rank up due to extreme pressure in a battle, but those on the Frontline have barely gotten any action. Or are they an unregistered Beast Tamer? But that’s also impossible, everyone joining the battle was screened before being allowed to do so. Hm... No, I’m thinking about the wrong things.’ He had these thoughts in but a moment before he said.

"Ascertain the identity of whoever this is. After that, make their protection a priority, as nice as it is, we cannot afford to lose a newly promoted Expert Rank beast tamer. Get to it!" He ordered and there was a chorus of affirmations.

___

’Come out, Hydro.’ As soon as Fredrick gave the command and Hydro emerged, he instantly felt a gaze land on him, but this time, it wasn’t his general direction, it was HIM.

’Guess I caught its attention.’ As soon as he said that, one of the Octopus’ arms lashed out and smacked away one of the bone projectiles that had been moving straight for his head.

’If this thing was smart, it would have been aiming at the turrets on the ground. Then again, I’m probably more of a threat.’ He thought as he sent a command to Hydro while adjusting the vision of his helmet.

It was like putting on binoculars, as his vision suddenly zoomed into the direction where he felt the gaze, and it did not take him long to make eye contact with his target.

The beast looked like a scorpion, but its carapace was made of bone, and its stinger which was raised high was opening up like a flower, a spiked bone about to be shot out once more. Keep in mind, the creature hadn’t stopped moving since it began its attack, and even now that it and Fredrick made eye contact, it was still moving around with the same speed, making itself difficult to pin down.

’How irritating.’ He thought as he glanced at Hydro who had eight of his arms stretched out and twist to make what looked like a circle, the center of this circle containing a ball of highly condensed water that was glowing slightly.

"Fire." He commanded and the ball immediately shot out into a thin, and extremely sharp beam of water.

One must remember, on earth, water was seen as one of, if not the sharpest thing in the world. With enough pressure, water could cut through anything, even diamonds, and that was with mundane technology that had no Mana infusing it.

So imagine what would happen if Mana was added to the equation.

The stream of water moved in a slicing motion as it shot out across the battlefield and into the forest, moving even faster than the

At first, it looked like nothing hadt happened, but a moment later, several beast suddenly tumbled, and as they tumbled, their upper halves slid clean off. Moreover, several trees suddenly tilted and fell over as they had been cut through cleanly.

As for the Scoepion beast, well, Hydro wasn’t able to deal a serious wound, sadly. The thing had as goof of a reaction time as its speed.

As such, he’d only managed to cut somewhat deeply into one of its legs, not completely cutting it off, but getting deep enough into that bone armor to slow it for a moment.

But Fredrick wasn’t annoyed, in fact, he was satisfied, as that is exactky what he’d wanted to do, slow it down.

Several shots from the snipers went into the forest and smashed into the Scorpion, the bullets doing meager damage as the bone armor stopped the bullets from doing too much, onky getting some cracks here and there. But one of those bullets was a bit special.

Instead of being deflected or destroyed on impact, it stuck to the Scorpion’s body, and before it could react, the bullet suddenly released a powerful electric charge into its body, causing its muscles to seize up as it froze for a brief moment. It was onky a moment as the bones on its body weren’tvery conductive and it was only the Mana infused into the bullet that ensured the current actually pass through properly. The Mana in its body quickly acted to remove the external energy acting on it, but that moment was all it took for a bolt of the rail gun to smash into the creature.

The soldiers observed once more how a massive explosion of electricity rose above the trees.

However, the Scorpion wasn’t dead yet, as while the attack was devastating, its bones once again mitigated quite a bit of the electricity, lessening the damage from what it could have truly been.

However, it did still take quite a substantial but of damage as its carapace was cracked in several places and a few of its legs were missing. Moreover, its muscles had once more seized up as a result of the current, causing it to be stunned for an even longer period this time.

A period which gave Fredrick and the snipers the time to start pelting it with attacks.

A few bullets and another stream of water later, the creature finally fell.

Fredrick exhaled as he gently patted Hydro’s side, to which the Octopus made a strange squirming noise he translated as satisfaction.

’Well that went well.’ He thought as he looked to his side where the heavily injured soldier and dead beast tamer was being taken behind the wall. He felt a bit of pity for the soldier, but he would be fine as long as he got treated in time, beasts with healing abilities could also regrow the arm.

As for the guy who died, Fredrick felt a sense of morbid satisfaction as his corpse was dragged away, the reason being that he was one of the people who was sent to kill him during this battle.

’Thank you Scorpion.’ He thought as he turned his attention back to the battle going on. The Flamethrower turrests had appeared once more to clean up the battlefield a bit, and something told him that after this latest cleanup, the difficulty was going to ramp up significantly.

___

"Fredrick Jameson huh? The illegitimate son of the Williams family." Major Thompson mumbled as he read through the file and couldn’t help but be amused.

He’d heard of the boy before, quite frankly, he was the type of person who just wanted to do his own thing. If he remembered correctly, he had gotten two Adept rank beasts and decided to move away from the family to settle with his mother as he wanted nothing to do with the Williams family. However, an ’accident’ had left one of his beasts dead and the other crippled.

There were rumors of him frequenting the black market, but he never seemed to find what he was looking for, so he remained at the mercy of the family. Yet something seemed to have happened, and now he’d made his debut as the 12th Expert rank Beast Tamer in their Citadel.

’Smart kid.’ Thompson thought as he put down the tablet. He could only guess that Fredrick managed to evolve his beast in the black market which allowed it to not only recover from its wounds, but also have its breakthrough to the next rank.

As for why he was suddenly revealing this fact now while knowing that doing so would make him a huge threat in the eyes of the Williams family to be taken down?

’He wants everyone, including myself, to see his worth, and essentially gain the protection enjoyed by all Expert Rank Beast Tamers in the Citadel, making him, and by extension, his Mother, untouchable.’