The next afternoon,

Jayden returned to the forest. He found the Ghost-Lynx in the same general area of the forest as the day before. Not because it had stayed put. Because the trail of drained beast corpses had continued. It had moved through the night, feeding, and he’d tracked it through the pattern of its kills the same way he’d found it the first time... following the absence of crystals through the tree line until the absence resolved into a direction.

The lynx was moving when he caught up to it. Hunting, not resting. Its paws cleared the ground by a centimeter and its fur shifted through its static cycle in slow, continuous waves. It passed through a stand of undergrowth without slowing, the branches registering nothing on the other side of where it had passed.

Jayden paralleled it for a moment from a distance, staying downwind, watching its movement pattern. The cat’s awareness was comprehensive. it processed its environment in that particular way apex predators did, where everything in a radius was catalogued and categorized and responded to without any perceptible delay. It knew he was there.

It turned its head and looked directly at him.

Jayden stepped out from the trees and into the open.

The temperature in the clearing suddenly dropped.

The cat watched him. Its violet eyes narrowed, instantly recognizing the prey that had mysteriously vanished the day before. The white-noise texture of its coat settled fractionally, something focusing behind its eyes.

Then it launched itself forward.

Jayden met the charge. He engaged his agility, pushing his speed to the absolute limit. He ducked under a lethal, intangible swipe, countered with a blazing fire-infused kick that passed harmlessly through the beast’s torso, and immediately rolled away to avoid a solid tail whip that shattered the tree behind him.

The fight was a deadly, high-speed dance. Jayden threw punches and fire blasts, forcing the beast to constantly switch between its physical and phased states. He wasn’t trying to win with brute force; he was building momentum, drawing the beast into a rhythm, making it hungry for the kill.

After five minutes of intense, adrenaline-fueled evasion, Jayden knew it was time.

He intentionally planted his foot wrong, staggering backward as if he had run out of stamina. He let his guard drop, leaving his chest wide open.

"Come on," Jayden thought, staring the beast down.

The Ghost-Lynx didn’t hesitate. Seeing its prey vulnerable, the beast lunged. Its body blurred into total intangibility, its violent static form closing the distance in a fraction of a second. Jayden stood completely still.

He felt the sickening, freezing sensation of the beast’s intangible paw passing through his sternum, slipping between his ribs, reaching deep into his chest cavity for his heart.

With his left hand, Jayden flicked his wrist and reached into his inventory, pulling out the seismic pulse emitter... a small black remote that materialized into his palm smoothly.

Without hesitation, Jayden pushed the button.

Whrum!! BOOM!!

An invisible, high-pitched frequency wave violently erupted from the device. The air around them warped and shattered like glass.

The Ghost-Lynx shrieked as its atomic structure was brutally slammed back into the physical spectrum. And the paw inside Jayden’s chest instantly turned solid.

Agony exploded in Jayden’s torso, blood spilling from his chest as the foreign matter violently displaced his own, but the Lynx was trapped, its arm anchored inside his ribcage.

With a roar of pain and fury, Jayden unleashed his knuckle claws. He drove the steel blades deep into the beast’s throat and chest, flooding the wounds with his deadliest, fast-acting poison.

The beast thrashed wildly. Panicking, it tried to clench its fist inside Jayden’s chest to crush his heart, but the poison was already ravaging its nervous system. Its muscles spasmed, its violent struggles growing weaker by the second.

Jayden held his ground, gritting his teeth against the sheer torture of it, twisting his claws deeper.

Finally, with a wet, gurgling gasp, the beast went limp. It passed out, dying seconds later, its lifeless arm still buried deep in Jayden’s chest.

[D-Rank beast defeated]

[+40 Exp]

The System notification chimed in his mind, but Jayden barely heard it.

He retracted his knuckle claws from the Ghost-lynx corpse, his breathing ragged and shallow. Then he grabbed the dead beast’s shoulder and pulled. Slowly, agonizingly, he extracted the beast’s paw from his chest cavity. Flesh tore and blood spilled onto the grass, but he gritted his teeth and laid the heavy corpse gently on the ground.

Jayden collapsed onto his rear, clutching his chest. His Lycan healing factor immediately kicked into overdrive. Steam rose from the massive, bloody hole as muscle fibers aggressively knit back together, stitching flesh and closing the wound at an accelerated rate.

He sat on the ground for a long time, taking deep breaths, letting the adrenaline fade as he reflected on the sheer insanity and intensity of the battle. After several minutes, his chest had healed completely, leaving no scar—only a massive, ragged tear in his blood-soaked shirt.

He let himself sit there a bit longer. The fight had been satisfying in a specific way... not clean or easy, but complete. He’d identified the problem, designed the solution, then executed it. The improvised nature of using himself as bait was a little unhinged in retrospect, but it had worked.

He finally looked at the glowing System notification hovering in his periphery.

[D-Rank Beast Defeated]

[Requirements has been met]

[Analysing compatibility...]

[Host is compatible with available beast energy]

[Would you like to absorb the D-Rank Ghost-Lynx’s energy?] 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

[Yes] / [No]

Without wasting time, Jayden placed his hand on the corpse and selected Yes.

The acquisition process was brief. Violet energy flooded from the corpse into his body. He felt it as he always did... a current moving through him, deep and systemic, like being briefly rewired at a level below conscious experience. Then it settled, and the notification confirmed completion.

[Energy Acquisition was Successful]

[Congratulations, you have the genes of a Ghost-Lynx (D-Rank)]

[You have acquired the Ability: Intangibility]