The clearing was a chaotic tempest of blinding plasma fire and shattering ice.

Trapped in the center of a massive, blasted crater, the Winter Wolf fought with every last ounce of her failing strength. She was a majestic, terrifying force of nature, her massive, glowing white frame weaving desperately through the crossfire. She snapped her jaws, unleashing a concentrated beam of absolute-zero energy that instantly froze the ground in a thirty-foot radius, trying to catch her attackers in the expanding glacier.

But the five EVA agents were ruthlessly efficient. They didn’t panic. They operated with flawless, militaristic synchronization, moving like a single, deadly organism.

"Spread the perimeter! Keep her boxed in!" the squad leader barked, his voice amplified through his sleek black helmet. "Vanguard Two, flank right! Keep the suppression fire heavy, don’t let her channel her core!"

Two agents strafed to the right, their heavy energy rifles whining as they unleashed a relentless barrage of superheated red plasma. The searing bolts slammed into the Winter Wolf’s hastily erected ice shields, instantly boiling the frozen barriers into thick clouds of steam.

The wolf roared in defiance, lunging through the vapor. She swiped her massive, razor-sharp claws, sending a volley of jagged ice spears tearing through the air. One of the agents narrowly dove beneath the projectiles, while another raised a hard-light energy shield from his gauntlet, the ice shattering harmlessly against the glowing blue barrier.

"Now! Hit her legs!" the leader commanded.

Before the Winter Wolf could recover her stance, the remaining three agents fired in unison. A volley of concussive energy blasts struck her hindquarters and flanks. The sheer kinetic impact was devastating. The wolf let out a pained, guttural yelp, her massive legs buckling beneath her.

Normally, a squad of five field agents wouldn’t stand a chance against a B-Rank anomaly. But the Winter Wolf’s internal core was violently fluctuating, her energy completely depleted by the agonizing process of her Universal Evolution. Her ice breath, usually capable of freezing a city block, was reduced to localized bursts, and her movements were sluggish.

She hit the dirt hard, her chest heaving violently. Deep scorch marks marred her pristine white fur. She tried to push herself back up, her icy blue eyes burning with an unyielding, feral pride, but her front paws gave out. She collapsed into the ash and snow, utterly exhausted.

The five EVA agents slowly advanced, their rifles raised, the glowing muzzles aimed squarely at her head.

"Target is incapacitated," the leader stated coldly. "Prepare for execution."

But before a single trigger could be pulled, a low, rumbling chorus of guttural growls echoed from the dense brush surrounding the crater.

The agents paused, their tactical HUDs suddenly flashing with multiple hostile heat signatures. The underbrush snapped and hissed.

"Contact!" one of the agents yelled.

Suddenly, the tree line exploded. Over two dozen feral beasts—massive Howlers, razor-backed boars, and Wolverine Stalkers—charged out from every side of the clearing in a coordinated, suicidal frenzy.

The agents were momentarily stunned by the sheer, unprovoked barrage, but their elite training instantly kicked in.

"Defensive formation! Circle up!" the leader roared, pivoting his rifle.

The five operatives slammed their backs together, forming an impenetrable 360-degree firing squad, and unleashed hell. Plasma fire tore into the charging horde, dropping the first wave of beasts in a shower of sparks and blood. But the animals didn’t retreat; they threw themselves blindly at the agents, gnashing teeth and tearing at the hard-light shields, entirely occupying the EVA squad.

High above the chaos, crouched on the thick branch of an ancient oak tree, Jayden watched the bloodbath unfold, a dark grin spreading beneath his mask.

A few minutes earlier, when he had first decided to save the Winter Wolf, he knew a direct assault was tactical suicide. Fighting five elite EVA agents head-on was unnecessary and incredibly risky. A strike team like this was merely the vanguard; if they were engaged by a hostile anomaly, they would instantly broadcast a distress signal to orbital command. Within minutes, the forest would be swarming with heavily armed gunships and reinforcements.

Jayden decided to make his primary objective a stealthy extraction: get the Winter Wolf out of the forest entirely without the EVA realizing she was gone until it was too late.

While calculating a diversion, Jayden’s enhanced senses had picked up a small gathering of beasts hiding in a thicket just fifty yards from the crater. There were about ten of them, watching the battle with contemplative, fearful expressions. They could clearly sense their Alpha being beaten to death, but they lacked the courage and the loyalty to intervene against the terrifying humans.

Jayden scoffed. If they needed a little motivation from a superior predator, he was more than happy to oblige.

He dropped from the canopy, waltzing directly into the center of the hidden pack. The beasts didn’t even register his arrival. All they felt was a sudden, violent gust of wind.

A second later, two of the largest Howlers in the pack suddenly collapsed, their severed heads resting casually in Jayden’s bare hands.

Jayden stood in the dead center of the terrified pack, blood dripping from the severed heads, his golden eyes glowing through his mask. The remaining beasts froze in absolute, paralyzed shock.

Jayden casually tossed the heads into the dirt. He didn’t say a word. He simply expanded his aura, unleashing the full, suffocating, dominant weight of his Lycan bloodline, pressing it down onto the pack like physical gravity.

He projected his intent clearly into their primal minds: "You will do as I say. Or you will all die."

The terrifying display of raw strength and his suffocating aura was absolute. Every single beast in the thicket immediately whined, tucking their tails and pressing their bellies submissively into the dirt. Jayden didn’t even need to tame them; fear was a universal language. One they understood clearly.

Jayden also swept through the adjacent woods, gathering fourteen more stragglers with the same brutal intimidation tactics, before ordering the entire horde to launch a suicide charge against the EVA squad.

Now, his ultimate diversion was in full effect.

The agents were completely bogged down, desperately fighting off the rabid horde of lesser beasts. The Winter Wolf was temporarily forgotten, lying defenseless at the bottom of the crater.

Jayden didn’t waste another second. He dropped from the high branch, plummeting silently into the crater, and landed in a crouch directly beside the massive, panting wolf.

The Winter Wolf felt the sudden shift in air pressure. She forced her heavy head up, her icy blue eyes locking onto the dark, masked figure. Despite her utter exhaustion, she bared her fangs, a low, menacing growl vibrating in her chest.

Jayden slowly reached up to his mask. He tapped the mechanism on the side of his jaw. The nanotech faceplate smoothly retracted, revealing his young, familiar face.

"Hey," Jayden said softly, keeping his voice perfectly calm. "It’s me."

The Winter Wolf blinked, her feral gaze softening just a fraction. She inhaled deeply, her advanced olfactory senses instantly recognizing his face. It was the boy who spared her life when they had a duel. The one who had fought beside her against the Sabertooth Flare.

But she was a creature of the wild. She still didn’t entirely trust him. She still bared her fangs.

Jayden slowly raised both of his hands, showing his empty palms. "I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to help."

The Winter Wolf stared into his golden eyes, calculating the intent behind them. The plasma fire roaring just thirty yards away was a stark reminder of her reality. It wasn’t like she had a choice. With a slow, exhausted movement, she lowered her head, giving him a faint, reluctant nod.

"Okay," Jayden whispered. "Let’s get you out of here."

He tapped his collar, the faceplate snapping back over his features. Reaching into his spatial inventory, he pulled out a sleek, metallic device that resembled a high-tech ankle monitor. He had purchased it from the System Shop a while ago, intending to use it for this operation.

He moved toward her massive hind leg. The wolf flinched, eyeing the metal band warily.

"It’s okay," Jayden assured her quietly, securing the device around her thick ankle with a solid click. "This will conceal your energy signature completely so they won’t be able to track you down."

The Winter Wolf let out a soft huff, calming down as she felt the device actively suppress the wild, fluctuating energy leaking from her core.

Jayden stepped to her side, sliding his arms beneath her massive torso. She weighed thousands of pounds—far too massive for a normal human to carry. But Jayden simply activated his Size Manipulation ability, targeting only the musculature of his arms. His biceps and forearms instantly expanded, rippling with enhanced, hyper-dense muscle, allowing him to easily cradle her immense weight against his chest.

"Hold on," Jayden warned.

Just then, one of the EVA agents had just blasted a Wolverine Stalker into the dirt when he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. He glanced down into the crater.

His eyes widened behind his visor.

"Sir! We’ve got an unknown intruder by the target!"

The squad leader whipped his head around, firing a blind burst of plasma into the horde as he looked down into the depression.

His face twisted into a frown as he saw the masked figure. "Who the hell is that?" He demanded.

"It’s the vigilante!" Another agent yelled over the gunfire. "What is he doing?!"

Jayden slowly turned his head, his glowing white eye-slits locking directly onto the squad leader. The look was entirely silent, but it conveyed absolute, mocking defiance.

The leader’s blood ran cold. "Shit! He’s trying to rescue the beast! Concentrate fire on the vigilante now! Stop him!"

But it was too late.

Jayden’s legs coiled like massive steel springs. He kicked off the bottom of the crater with enough explosive force to shatter the earth beneath him. Carrying the massive Winter Wolf, he bolted into the tree line at Mach 1. He didn’t just run; he vanished. Within two seconds, he had entirely cleared the forest boundary and was already a mile away, accelerating rapidly toward Emerald City.

Back in the clearing, it took the EVA squad another furious minute to completely eradicate the last of the suicide horde.

When the final beast fell, silence returned to the scorched, cratered forest. The five agents stood amid a graveyard of charred carcasses, their weapons smoking.

But the one carcass they were sent to retrieve was gone. It wasn’t even dead yet.

The leader marched down into the center of the crater, staring at the empty depression in the dirt where the B-Rank anomaly had just been lying.

"Scan the perimeter," the leader barked. "Get me a tracking vector on her core."

One of the agents jogged over, frantically tapping the holographic interface of his data pad. "Sir, I’ve done that already. But... I got nothing. The beast’s energy signature just flatlined. It’s been completely concealed somehow. She’s off the grid."

The leader stood up slowly, letting out a long, heavy exhale that fogged the inside of his visor. "We failed the mission. Command is not going to like this." He looked at the direction the vigilante had vanished. "If that Winter Wolf manages to survive and regain her strength... she will become incredibly hard to kill. And if she eventually hits A-Rank? It will be a disaster for the entire continent."

"But it doesn’t make any sense," one of the younger agents said, lowering his rifle. "Why would the vigilante go out of his way to save a monstrous anomaly? What does he possibly gain by doing that?"

The leader narrowed his eyes, his tactical mind spinning. "He probably wants to kill the beast himself and harvest the B-Rank crystal. Or perhaps he intends to keep it as a pet. But I doubt that. It’s impossible to tame a beast."

He tapped the comms unit on his wrist, establishing a secure uplink. "Either way, we have to report back to headquarters immediately. The Director must be informed of what happened here tonight."