We moved at night.
Kasumi's decision. Fewer eyes, fewer questions. The Ghost Slayer headquarters would send trackers once they realized we hadn't returned with a standard mission report.
"How long do we have?" I asked.
"Twelve hours. Maybe less." She was setting a brutal pace through the forest, moving with the efficiency of someone who'd spent years on patrol. "Once they realize we're not bringing you in for containment, they'll classify us as rogue operatives."
"Containment." I tasted the word. "That's what they'd call killing me?"
"That's what they'd call studying you until they understood how the Ghost Stomach works. Then killing you." Master Yamada didn't look back. "The Shogunate doesn't tolerate unknowns. Especially unknowns that consume spiritual essence."
Fair assessment.
The Ghost Stomach pulsed with low-level hunger. The emergency rations had barely made a dent. [Flame Breath] burned through energy reserves faster than any other ability I'd integrated.
"We need to find you another Specter," Takeshi said from the rear position. "Something substantial. Your aura is destabilizing."
"My what?"
"Your spiritual signature." Master Yamada gestured vaguely at me. "Every living thing produces one. Humans have small, stable auras. Specters have large, volatile ones. You..." He frowned. "You're producing a hybrid signature. It's attracting attention."
"What kind of attention?"
As if in answer, the forest went silent.
No insects. No birds. No wind rustling through leaves.
Complete, absolute stillness.
Kasumi's hand went to her sword. "Defensive formation."
We formed up automatically—me at center, Kasumi forward, Master Yamada and Takeshi flanking. The four of us moved like a single unit despite having worked together for less than a day.
Professional instinct.
"What is it?" I asked, activating [Night Vision]. The darkness peeled back, revealing details. Trees. Undergrowth. Nothing obviously threatening.
"Ancient presence," Master Yamada said quietly. His hands moved through preparatory seals. "Very old. Very angry."
The temperature dropped.
Not gradually. Instantly. My breath misted in the air. Frost crept across the ground, spreading outward from a single point ahead of us.
Then I saw it.
A woman.
Or what had been a woman, centuries ago.
She floated above the frozen ground, her body translucent, her kimono tattered and ancient. Her face was beautiful—perfectly preserved by death and hatred. But her eyes...
Her eyes were black voids. Empty of everything except rage.
"Vengeful Spirit," Kasumi breathed. "Ancient-class."
The woman's mouth opened. No sound came out, but I heard her voice directly in my mind.
Betrayed. Murdered. Left to rot while he lived in glory.
The words carried weight—not just meaning but experience. I felt her death. Felt the knife sliding between her ribs. Felt her body dumped in a shallow grave while her killer returned to his estate, his reputation intact.
"She's attacking psychically," Master Yamada warned. "Don't engage—"
Too late.
You carry their stench. The killers. The liars. The ones who take and take and never pay.
Her gaze fixed on me specifically.
You devour. You consume. You are worse than them. You are everything I hate.
The psychic assault intensified. Not guilt like the Grudge Spirit had used—this was pure, concentrated hatred. Four hundred years of accumulated resentment compressed into a single point and driven straight into my consciousness.
I felt my knees buckle.
The Ghost Stomach tried to shield me, but this wasn't a physical attack it could intercept. This was mind-to-mind contact, spirit attacking spirit.
And she was so much older. So much stronger.
I will show you, the Vengeful Spirit hissed. Show you what it means to suffer.
Visions flooded my brain:
Her wedding day. Beautiful. Perfect. Then discovering her husband was already married. Already had children. She was the secret. The shame. The mistake.
Confronting him. His face twisting from false kindness to real hatred.
"You'll ruin everything," he says. The knife appears from nowhere.
Pain. Blood. Darkness.
Waking as a spirit. Bound to the site of her murder. Watching him live his life. Watching him die peacefully, surrounded by family, honored and respected.
Four centuries of rage. Building. Accumulating. Becoming something beyond human emotion.
I screamed.
Couldn't help it. The intensity was overwhelming. Every nerve in my body fired simultaneously. My vision went white, then black, then fractured into kaleidoscope patterns.
"Ryan!" Kasumi's voice sounded distant. Underwater.
The Vengeful Spirit moved closer. Her spectral hand reached toward my face.
You will join me. Your essence will feed my hatred. Together we will—
The Ghost Stomach erupted.
Not with hunger. With fury.
Something in the Vengeful Spirit's attack had triggered a defensive response. The Ghost Stomach wasn't just an ability—it was a living system with its own survival instinct.
And right now, it recognized a threat.
My jaw unhinged. The devouring force exploded outward, but this time it felt different. More focused. More intelligent.
The Vengeful Spirit shrieked—actual sound this time, not mental projection. She tried to pull back, to disperse into mist and escape.
The Ghost Stomach didn't let her.
It latched onto her essence like a bear trap. Pulled her toward me with irresistible force.
No! I am eternal! I am vengeance! You cannot—
I grabbed her wrist.
Solid contact. Spirit flesh against living flesh. Impossible by normal physics, but the Ghost Stomach made it possible.
"You want to show me suffering?" My voice came out distorted, layered with the Ghost Stomach's influence. "Let me show you what I do with suffering."
I pulled.
The Vengeful Spirit's essence tore free from her anchor point. Four hundred years of accumulated rage, compressed into pure spiritual matter, flowing toward my open mouth.
She fought. God, she fought.
Psychic attacks hammered my consciousness. Visions of death and betrayal. Memories of injustice. The weight of centuries of hatred trying to crush my mind flat.
But I had something she didn't.
Modern context. Modern psychology. Modern understanding that trauma, however valid, didn't justify eternal rage.
You suffered, I thought back at her. I acknowledge that. But you're hurting people who had nothing to do with your death. You're perpetuating the cycle.
They deserve—
Nobody deserves what you're doing.
The Ghost Stomach processed her essence relentlessly. Breaking down the rage, extracting the useful components, discarding the pure malice.
[GHOST STOMACH SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[ANCIENT VENGEFUL SPIRIT CONSUMED]
[WARNING: EXTREME PSYCHIC CONTAMINATION]
[INITIATING ADVANCED PURIFICATION]
[ANALYZING ESSENCE...]
The process hurt worse than anything I'd experienced. The Vengeful Spirit's hatred was refined. Perfected. Four centuries of practice had made her psychic attacks devastatingly efficient.
But I held on.
Because I could feel something underneath the rage. Something the Ghost Stomach was isolating and extracting.
Defense mechanisms. Psychic armor. The techniques she'd developed to protect her consciousness from exorcism attempts.
[ABILITY EXTRACTED: MIND BARRIER]
[ENHANCEMENT DETECTED]
[EXISTING ABILITY UPGRADED: MIND BARRIER → PSYCHIC DEFENSE]
Wait. Upgraded?
[INTEGRATION COMPLETE]
The Vengeful Spirit's essence dissolved completely. Her final scream echoed in my mind, then faded to nothing.
I collapsed.
Kasumi caught me before I hit the ground. "Ryan. Status."
"Alive." I managed. "I think. Hard to tell."
Master Yamada was there immediately, hands glowing with diagnostic seals. "His spiritual pressure just spiked by an order of magnitude. And his aura..." He stared. "It's stabilized. The hybrid signature is consolidating into something coherent."
"Meaning?" Takeshi asked.
"Meaning he just absorbed an Ancient-class Specter and survived with his consciousness intact." The old man looked at me with something approaching awe. "That shouldn't be possible. Ancient-class entities have enough spiritual mass to overwhelm a human mind completely. He should be a gibbering wreck right now."
"I feel like a gibbering wreck," I muttered.
But I didn't. Not really.
The Ghost Stomach had done something different this time. Instead of just processing the Vengeful Spirit's power, it had learned from her techniques. Incorporated her defensive methods into my existing [Mind Barrier], creating something more sophisticated.
[PSYCHIC DEFENSE]: Active resistance to mental attacks, illusions, and spiritual manipulation. Can detect hostile intent directed at consciousness.
I tested it carefully. Pushed a small amount of awareness outward.
The world shifted.
I could feel minds now. Not read thoughts—nothing that invasive—but sense presence and intent. Kasumi's sharp focus. Takeshi's concerned wariness. Master Yamada's analytical fascination.
And further out...
Hostility. Multiple sources. Moving through the forest toward us.
"We have company," I said. "Six signatures. Maybe seven. All hostile."
Kasumi's expression went cold. "Ghost Slayer trackers. They found us faster than expected."
"They're tracking my aura," Master Yamada said. "I'm the most recognizable. They know I wouldn't abandon a mission without reason."
"Can we fight them?" Takeshi asked.
"Not advisable." Kasumi was already scanning for escape routes. "If they've sent trackers, they've sent containment specialists. People trained specifically for rogue Specter-humans."
"People trained to fight me," I corrected.
She didn't deny it.
The Ghost Stomach stirred with anticipation. It had just consumed an Ancient-class Specter. It was stronger now. More capable.
But I was also exhausted. My energy reserves were dangerously low. [Flame Breath] and [Psychic Defense] both demanded constant fuel.
"We run," I decided. "Find somewhere defensible. I need time to recover."
"Agreed." Kasumi pointed northeast. "There's an abandoned shrine three miles from here. Old fortification. We can hold it for a few hours."
"Then what?"
"Then we figure out how to survive being hunted by the entire Ghost Slayer organization." She smiled grimly. "Should be interesting."
We moved.
Fast. Silent. Professional.
Behind us, I felt the hostile signatures close in. Following our trail with disturbing accuracy.
The Ghost Stomach pulsed with hunger.
Soon, it seemed to whisper. Soon we'll feed again.
And I realized with cold certainty:
This wasn't going to end peacefully.
The Ghost Slayers wanted me contained or dead.
I wanted to stop Grand Master Kurosawa's conspiracy.
Those objectives were going to collide violently.
The only question was: how many people would die in the process?