CHAPTER 144: TRICERATOP

The trip took less than fifty minutes.

Jayden touched down just outside Ruby City’s limits, the hoverbike’s engines cycling down with a muted hum. The forest loomed ahead, an impenetrable wall of ancient trees and tangled undergrowth. The air here was different.. thicker, heavier, laced with the scent of damp earth and something wilder. Something predatory.

He dismissed the bike with a flick of his wrist, the machine dissolving into particles of light which flowed back into the glove. Then he proceeded into the woods.

The forest welcomed him with silence.

Jayden stepped past the tree line, his boots sinking slightly into the soft earth. The canopy above was dense, filtering the weak morning light into fractured beams that danced across the forest floor. Around him, the undergrowth rustled... beasts, small and skittish, scattering at his approach. Their instincts were sharp; they could sense his powerful aura even when it was dormant.

But not all of them fled.

A low growl rumbled from the shadows to his left. Jayden didn’t pause, didn’t even turn his head. He kept walking, his pace steady.

The beast lunged.

Jayden’s hand shot out, his fingers closing around the throat of an E-Rank Howler mid-leap. The creature’s yellow eyes widened in shock, its claws scrabbling uselessly at his arm. Without breaking stride, Jayden slammed it into the nearest tree, the impact cracking bark and bone alike. The Howler slumped, lifeless, as he released it.

He didn’t stop.

Another Howler, this one larger, dropped from the branches above, its jaws snapping for his skull. Jayden ducked,pivoting on his heel as his claws unsheathed with a wet schlick. A single, brutal uppercut carved through the beast’s underside, splitting it from groin to throat. Hot blood splashed across the forest floor as the corpse hit the ground.

Jayden flicked the gore from his claws and kept moving.

The deeper he went, the bolder the beasts became. A group of E-Rank Razorbacks charged him... four in number, their spined hides bristling. Jayden moved, his body a blur as he weaved between them, his claws finding throats, hearts, spines. They fell like wheat before a scythe.

A D-Rank Lesser Wolverine Stalker emerged from the brush, its massive frame blocking his path. It roared, the sound shaking the trees, before charging. Jayden met it head-on, his fist crashing into its skull with enough force to stagger the beast. It swung a paw the size of a dinner plate.. Jayden caught it, his fingers digging into fur and flesh, and wrenched.

The bear’s arm snapped with a sickening crack.

It howled in pain, but Jayden was already behind it, his claws plunging into its spine. The beast collapsed, its massive body twitching before going still.

Jayden exhaled, shaking the blood from his hands as he absorbed the Wolverine Stalker’s crystal.

He walked forward, frustration visible in his voice. "Where the hell is it?"

An hour passed. Then another. The forest seemed endless, the Chthonix was nowhere to be found. Frustration simmered in his veins, his patience wearing thin.

He began to assume whether the documentary guy was a phony... or someone already hunted down the Chthonix.

Then... movement.

A rustle in the undergrowth behind him. A Tremor Gator emerged and lunged towards Jayden.

Jayden didn’t turn, didn’t react. He let the beast come.

The E-Rank Tremor Gator exploded from the foliage, its massive jaws gaping wide enough to swallow his head whole.

Jayden moved.

His hands shot up, clamping around the gator’s upper and lower jaws mid-chomp. The beast’s momentum carried it forward, but Jayden held, his muscles straining as he gritted his teeth.

"This is really annoying." he snarled.

Then... he pulled.

The gator’s jaw split with a wet rip, tendons and bone giving way as Jayden tore its mouth clean in half. The beast thrashed, its death throes spraying blood across the leaves, but Jayden didn’t stop. He wrenched again, his arms bulging with effort as he kept tearing, and the gator’s body separated down the middle, its spine snapping like kindling as it’s entire body was torn apart.

He dropped the two halves of the corpse, ignoring the system’s notification as it flickered in his vision.

"Waste of time." he thought.

He was about to keep walking when...

BOOM!!

The explosion rocked the forest, the sound echoing through the trees like thunder. Birds took flight, their panicked cries filling the air. Jayden’s head snapped toward the east, his instincts screaming.

BOOM!

ROOAAAAR!

Another explosion. Followed by a roar. Deep, guttural and primal.

Jayden didn’t hesitate.

He sprinted, his body a blur as he crashed through the underbrush. Branches whipped at his face, thorns tore at his clothes, but he didn’t slow. He leapt, his enhanced muscles propelling him onto the lower branches of a massive oak, then to the next, and the next, moving through the canopy like a specter.

Jayden skidded to a stop as he approached the source of the chaos. Then he saw it.

A clearing, torn apart by battle. Trees uprooted, the earth scarred by deep fissures. And in the center stood a massive, formidable creature that could only be described as a miniature triceratop.

Jayden’s breath caught.

The beast was massive... eight feet tall at the shoulder, its body a living sculpture of hardened earth and stone. Its hide was the color of wet clay, rippling with unnatural movement as if the very ground beneath it were alive. Thick, armored plates covered its knees and shoulders, the material darker, denser than the rest of its body.. almost like obsidian.

Its head was a nightmare... a broad, wedge-shaped skull crowned with three curved horns, two above its eyes and one jutting from its snout. Its mouth was lined with jagged, stone-like teeth, each one as sharp as a dagger. But the most terrifying feature was its tail.. a thick, muscular appendage ending in a massive, spiked orb of compressed earth, the surface pitted and rough.

This was the Chthonix.

But Jayden was a bit too late. Someone had beat him to it.

Two hunters, clad in advanced beast-combat gear, circled the creature. One wielded a plasma whip, the crackling energy lashing at the Chthonix’s hide, while the other fired concentrated sonic pulses from a rifle-like device.

The Chthonix roared, the sound vibrating through Jayden’s bones, before slamming its tail into the ground. The earth heaved, spikes of rock erupting in a deadly wave toward the hunters. They dodged, but barely... one was clipped, his armor crumpling under the impact as he was sent flying.

Jayden’s lips curled into a grim smile.

He wasn’t the one who started the fight. But he could be the one to end it.