The kitchen staff scattered the moment I stepped in.
I didn't chase them. I looked like something dragged out of a slaughterhouse pen, and the hunger rolling off me felt like standing next to a blast furnace. An old cook dropped her iron pot and bolted, muttering sutras under her breath.
I let her go.
Then I ate.
Rice by the fistful. Whole dried fish. Pickled radish. Raw eggs cracked straight into my mouth. I didn't cook, didn't chew—just shoved it all into the furnace. Twenty minutes and enough food for half a squad later, the cramping finally eased.
I slid down against a sake barrel, breathing hard, blood crusting on my torn jacket.
[Rapid Movement] coiled in my legs like a living thing. One thought and I could be anywhere. But every thought carried a price tag. The hunger after the Wind Blade had been a monster compared to the Wild Ghost. If I kept burning like this, normal food wouldn't cut it much longer.
I needed to master the ability before it mastered me.
The kitchen was almost dark—just one guttering lamp. Perfect.
I picked a spot ten meters away, beside the far counter. Closed my eyes. Pictured it. Triggered [Rapid Movement].
The world smeared.
I arrived half a meter past the mark. My shoulder clipped a stack of bowls; they crashed like gunshots.
Too fast for my own eyes to track. I'd been moving blind inside the blur.
Again.
This time I landed a full meter wide, shoulder-checking the doorframe.
Same problem. The Specter had flown straight lines because it couldn't see either. But I had [Night Vision].
I stood still, forced both abilities to the surface at once. Night Vision flared first, turning every shadow razor-sharp. Then I layered [Rapid Movement] on top, like sliding a blade into a sheath that was already moving.
Fifteen meters. The kitchen doorway.
I triggered them together.
For one impossible heartbeat I saw the displacement—every dust mote streaking past, every grain in the floorboards, the air itself warping around me.
Then I was exactly where I'd pictured. No overshoot. No crash.
Perfect.
The hunger punched me so hard I staggered, but I was grinning like a madman.
That was it. Tactical fusion. Not permanent, not yet, but I could ride Night Vision's sight inside Rapid Movement's speed. The Specter had been fast. I would be precise.
I drilled it for twenty minutes—short bursts, sharp angles, instant stops. Each repetition carved the motion deeper into muscle memory. By the end I could flick from one corner of the kitchen to the other and arrive with my hand already raised to catch a falling spoon before it hit the ground.
The cost was brutal. After the twelfth jump the hunger came back roaring. I tore open another sack of rice and ate it dry while my brain kept turning.
Resource game. Solo abilities were cheap. Fused abilities were artillery—devastating, but they drank energy like a drunk drinks sake. Against trash mobs I'd stay conservative. Against anything like tonight, I'd fuse, kill in seconds, and pray I still had legs afterward.
"Ryan."
Oda's voice.
I moved before I thought. One instant beside the barrel—next instant three meters away, facing him, hand half-raised to strike.
He didn't flinch. Only his pupils blew wide for a fraction of a second.
"Twenty minutes ago you were overshooting by a meter," he said calmly. "Now you react before the word leaves my mouth."
He'd been watching the whole time.
"What do you want, Captain?"
"To keep my promise." He stepped inside, palms open, deliberately away from his sword. "The dead are counted. The wall is being patched. My men are terrified of you." A pause. "They're also alive because of you."
"Alive because I ate your monster," I corrected.
"Exactly." His eyes never left mine. "A man who can devour specters and wear their powers is either the blade that ends this nightmare… or the nightmare itself. I need to know which one you are."
The Ghost Stomach stirred, amused. It would only take one fused step to cross the room and end the conversation forever.
I forced the urge down.
"I'm not a weapon for hire," I said. "And I'm not your enemy. I'll kill specters because they keep trying to kill me. My terms. Clear?"
Oda studied me the way a swordsman studies an unfamiliar blade—wary, respectful, already calculating reach and balance.
"Clear," he said at last. "Though the world won't make it that simple."
He sat at the low table, gestured for me to join him.
I did.
"The things you've met so far? Wild Ghost. Wind Blade. Cannon fodder. The real enemy—the mind sending them—hasn't even shown its face."
He leaned forward.
"And when it does, Ryan the foreigner… you'll wish the worst thing hunting you was just fast."
Outside, hammers rang against fresh timber. Inside, the single lamp flickered between us like it was afraid to burn too bright.
I felt the Ghost Stomach settle, patient and eager.
Somewhere beyond the walls, something bigger was already moving.
And for the first time since I fell through that artifact, the hunger didn't feel like a curse.
It felt like a promise.