Old Man Scrappy had woken up earlier than usual and assembled two other tamers for their morning scouting.
Everything was going as usual—until Mark's owl returned. It reported a horde of fast-approaching beasts.
"A beast siege, and now of all times?" he muttered, then ordered, "I want every tamer here in the next five minutes, and tell everyone else to stay locked up in their houses."
"Yes, sir!" one of the tamers scouting with him said before rushing back toward the Scrapyard.
"How many are we facing, and how long do we have?" Scrappy turned to Mark and asked.
"We have twenty minutes at most, and there's at least two hundred of them," Mark answered, keeping his eyes forward.
Scrappy could only sigh and lightly touch his mechanical arm.
"You ready for this, boy?" he asked Raio, who was standing by his side.
"Growl," it growled in affirmation.
A few minutes later, the tamer returned, and with him were seven others—three of which were Alex, Tommy, and Timmy.
Scrappy sighed in relief, seeing that Reid wasn't among them.
'The kid has a knack for putting himself in dangerous situations,' he thought.
The others were quickly filled in on the situation, causing them to tense up.
Five minutes later, Scrappy turned around and spotted Reid walking toward them.
'I knew he would come,' he thought with a frown.
"Reid? Why are you here?" Scrappy asked, already knowing the answer.
"I'm here to help," Reid replied with a firm tone.
After a little back and forth, Scrappy gave up and allowed Reid to stay.
The battle with the beasts soon started, and although he told Reid he wouldn't, Scrappy was keeping a close eye on him.
He was impressed with how easily Reid was taking down the beasts on his own—even without forged beasts.
Scrappy grew a bit worried when Reid faced the [Spikeback Mole], a Bronze-tier beast, but Reid surprised him again by taking it down without much struggle.
The old man was about to turn back to Raio, who was tearing through most of the siege, when he suddenly saw an ant-type beast leap at Reid from behind, its mandibles open wide around the boy's neck.
Scrappy rushed toward him with Raio, but he knew he wouldn't be fast enough—when suddenly, he stopped.
Like someone pressing a pause button, everything froze.
Even the ant about to bite off Reid's head hung motionless mid-air.
Reid closed his eyes, waiting for the pain—but it never came.
[Evolution complete:
Rusty has successfully evolved into a Silver-tier Time Mouse.
Nyx has successfully evolved into a Silver-tier Void Moth.]
[Active Mission: Evolution 01 has been completed.
Bond Stat has been unlocked.]
A bunch of tabs suddenly popped up, causing him to open his eyes.
He slowly turned around to see everything paused—even the entire beast siege.
His attacker, the ant-like beast, was frozen mid-air. He gulped and carefully stepped back, avoiding its razor-sharp mandibles.
"What's going on, Evo?" he asked.
[Your forged beasts have successfully evolved. Sensing the danger you were in, Rusty somehow managed to use its ability from within the Forge Lab,] Evo explained, sounding just as surprised.
"Is that even possible?" Reid asked.
[No, it's not… Well—it's not supposed to be,] she said. [But whatever you're going to do, I suggest you do it now, since this ability won't last long.]
"Right. Bring Rusty and Nyx out of the Lab," Reid said.
Both his forged beasts appeared—Rusty looking entirely different, and Nyx slightly larger than before.
Rusty now resembled a large wolf, similar to Raio but with bigger ears. It wagged its tail, clearly happy to see Reid.
"I'm happy to see you guys too, but we're in a bit of a situation, so we'll save that for later," Reid said, focusing back on the frozen beasts.
"Alright, Rusty, Nyx—we need to end this quickly. Are you two ready?"
Rusty barked in reply.
"Rusty, do you think you can hold them for a while?" he asked.
Rusty barked softly, tilting its head as if processing the question or checking its energy reserves. Then it barked again, in confirmation.
"Good. Keep them like that for now," Reid instructed. "We'll target the Bronze-tier ones before Rusty's ability ends."
He rushed at the frozen beasts with Rusty and Nyx. Swinging his bat, he crushed the ant beast's head.
[Congratulations on killing a Bronze-tier Blade Jaw Ant. You've gained a Bronze-tier core.]
[10 seconds before Rusty's ability [Pause] wears off,] Evo informed.
Reid turned to see how well his beasts were faring—and what he saw stunned him.
Rusty was teleporting in rapid succession, biting off the heads of Bronze-tier beasts one after another.
Nyx, on the other hand, didn't get close; instead, every beast it focused on simply popped like a balloon.
Kill notifications were coming in so quickly that Reid had to ask Evo to shut them off for now.
Old Man Scrappy watched from afar. Although the time-stop ability had also frozen him, he saw everything that happened.
'What the hell is this kid?' he thought. He had seen Reid summon beasts—beasts that neither he nor anyone else in the Scrapyard knew Reid possessed—out of thin air.
That was only possible with inventory tech, and as far as Scrappy knew, Reid didn't have one.
Time suddenly resumed, and all the beasts slain by Reid and his team fell to the ground like flies.
The others were shocked. One moment, they were fighting for their lives—and the next, the beasts just dropped dead.
They simply assumed it was Old Man Scrappy's doing, since his beast was faster than the eye could track, and went back to fighting.
But four people on the battlefield had their eyes locked on Reid.
Alex and the twins were stunned by the sudden appearance of forged beasts helping him, while Scrappy was wondering where Reid got them from.
The beasts were quickly culled, leaving only a few stragglers.
The tamers were already celebrating in their minds, assuming the beast siege was about to end.
Suddenly, a heavy pressure descended on them, and a deep, guttural roar echoed across the field.
"There you are, you bastard," Reid said, the pressure not even phasing him.
Hello, dear readers!
I have some exciting news to share—The Scrap Tamer (this book) has officially been contracted! 🎉
This means you can now support my book with gifts and Golden Tickets! Your continued support and enthusiasm mean the world to me—it motivates me to write more. Thank you for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoy the chapters to come.
Happy reading!