[RECALLED ARCHIVES: STARVING SPECTER PROFILE]
The knowledge erupted in Ethan's mind like a dam bursting - Lucian Cross's meticulously compiled Compendium of Spectral Entities unfolding its grim pages through synaptic fire. Every detail burned itself into his consciousness with clinical precision:
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Designation: Starving Specter (Class-D Wraith)
Etiology: Conglomerate manifestation of souls who perished from extreme starvation
Behavioral Patterns:
▸ Phase-Shifting Intangibility (Physical Immunity)
▸ Compulsive Consumption (Host Body Degradation)
▸ Critical Vulnerability: Elemental-Based Attacks Only
A muscle twitched in Ethan's jaw. "Complications."
His entire combat methodology - optimized for flesh-and-blood engagements - suddenly became obsolete. No pyrokinetic abilities to immolate it. No electrokinesis to disrupt its spectral form. Just the Straw Effigy Transformation and Mark of Malediction - neither guaranteed effective against non-corporeal entities.
Across the rain-slicked rooftop, the Specter's host corpse convulsed. What remained of the bureaucrat's body - now more marionette than man - lurched forward on ruined limbs, its grotesquely distended abdomen sloshing with half-digested... organic matter. The stench of stomach acid and rotting meat hung thick in the air.
"Fooooood..."
The words vibrated from its exposed ribcage rather than its ruined throat, each syllable dripping with centuries of accumulated hunger.
Stage One: Elimination of Host Vessel
Ethan's straw-reinforced legs coiled like tempered steel springs, golden fibers whispering against each other with ominous promise.
The Specter-propelled corpse launched itself across the rooftop with terrifying elasticity -
only to meet twin scythes of razor-edged straw where Ethan's forearms should be.
SHIIING!
Moonlight glinted off the honed edges as the host body separated into three anatomically precise sections:
Cranial Unit: Spun through the air in a lazy arc, the face frozen in borrowed surprise
Thoracic Cavity: Collapsed like a deflated air mattress, spilling bile and unrecognizable chyme
Locomotor System: Knees buckled with a sound like fresh celery snapping
A luminous ectoplasmic mist seeped from the severed cervical vertebrae - coalescing into the Specter's true form:
Emaciated limbs resembling sun-bleached driftwood
A distended abdomen webbed with translucent, vein-laced skin
Eyes that held too much human awareness, glittering with the memory of a thousand starvation deaths
"Need... sustenance..." It whirled toward Ethan with the single-minded focus of a predator sensing wounded prey.
Stage Two: Curse Efficacy Verification
Ethan's flesh reknit in real-time - straw fibers retreating to his extremities like soldiers falling back to fortified positions. He stood motionless as the Specter dove through his sternum -
and howled.
The Mark of Malediction flared arterial crimson across its spectral forehead. Simultaneously, Ethan's own neck rotated 720 degrees, straw tendons shrieking in protest. The Specter mirrored the motion perfectly, its intangible form contorting as if caught in some invisible torture device.
{{Hypothesis confirmed: Spiritual curses bypass physical immunity parameters.}}
Ethan grinned through the white-hot agony, teeth grinding loud enough to echo.
Stage Three: Tactical Autocardiectomy
The wounded Specter fled, streaking toward the neon-lit cityscape like a dying comet.
"Miscalculation."
Ethan's hands became surgical instruments, plunging into his own chest cavity. Straw-reinforced musculature parted with a sound like ancient parchment tearing. His heart - now a pulsating knot of golden phytomorphic fibers - convulsed once in his palm before -
KER-RACK.
The pain transcended language. His visual cortex short-circuited as every nociceptor in his body fired simultaneously. Yet the Straw Effigy Transformation held - barely - maintaining systemic functionality through sheer inhuman willpower.
Eight hundred meters away, the Specter experienced catastrophic existence failure.
Its death scream split the night as the curse translated Ethan's sacrifice into pure ontological trauma. Spectral viscera rained down across Beihai City's financial district, evaporating before touching pavement - leaving only the faint scent of spoiled milk and despair.
Post-Engagement Analysis
Ethan collapsed to one knee, his thoracic cavity already reconstructing itself through complex phytokinesis. The suffering... the suffering had been instructive.
Somewhere in this city of hungry ghosts, another Specter would eventually coalesce from the souls of the starved dead. But tonight's lesson was carved into his bones:
Even the intangible could be made to bleed.