Total Annihilation

After the fierce battle.

Three black cats returned victorious from the Chapel.

One carried a thick, bloody arm in its jaws. A playing-card tattoo marked the arm, its biceps rivaled a professional bodybuilder's, and brass knuckles still adorned its fingers.

A Pastor dedicated to healing had been hiding a close-combat trump card.

The Pastor had used that trick to catch plenty of opponents off guard. Enemies who charged the back line expecting an easy-to-kill healer were devastated when they found a hulking brute waiting for them.

But against the monsters' overwhelming strength, such tricks were a joke.

Bang!

A gunshot struck the black cat carrying the arm between the eyes, blowing its head apart.

It was Captain Wu.

Never abandoning a teammate was his creed. The moment he heard the Pastor call for help, he rushed over from his hiding place in the haystacks at the Training Ground.

But he was still too late.

"You damned beasts!"

The sight of the Pastor's remains made Captain Wu's eyes blaze with fury. He raised the Judgment and shot dead all three black cats that had killed him.

But the gunshots drew the Castle's other black cats.

Hiss!

Hissing rose all around him like rattlesnakes. Captain Wu brushed straw from his hair and knew he was unlikely to get out unscathed.

Whatever happened, he had to buy the others enough time.

Reload. Fire. Reload. Fire.

Captain Wu shot down each black cat that rushed him. But by then, the first three he had killed had already revived.

Lin He saw it all clearly from above. "No wonder he's a Class B Agent. Even with how fast those black cats move, he never misses. Too bad the monsters can revive. Captain Wu won't hold out much longer."

As soon as Lin He spoke, the one-eyed black cat rushed Captain Wu while he was reloading and tore his belly open with a single swipe.

He could kill his enemies again and again, and they would revive. One hit was enough to kill him.

If this were a game...

Wouldn't it be a little too unfair?

Captain Wu knew he was finished, but he refused to go down like this.

He would make those beasts pay.

He pulled a grenade from his jacket and roared, "Damn you! Have a taste of this!"

He pulled the pin and threw it.

A thunderous blast shook the entire area. A powerful force swept through it, shredding the three black cats at its center into bloody scraps.

"A Psionic Grenade. So that was Captain Wu's trump card."

"Those three black cats vanished. Looks like they're dead for good."

Watching the captain blow himself apart like a firecracker, Lin He wasted no time mourning him. He began calculating his options instead.

"Fifteen minutes have passed, and there are three fewer monsters."

"But three players are dead too. Apart from the two brothers in the Basement and Xiao Hu, who's nowhere to be found, I'm running out of people to divert the monsters toward."

What he feared most happened next.

While Lin He was thinking, the one-eyed black cat tried climbing up again.

"Damn it, what did I ever do to you? Why won't you leave me alone?"

"I have no choice, Chengcheng."

Lin He did not want to sacrifice Meng Chengcheng, but his own life mattered more.

There were plenty of other women in the world.

Hardening his heart, Lin He fired a third sword beam toward the Cattery.

This time, he miscalculated.

On its third climb, the one-eyed black cat ignored the noise and kept going.

How could this happen?

Lin He's heart lurched. "The rules said cats are as smart as people."

"If I were a cat and heard a noise every time I climbed up, what would I think?"

"Someone's trying to stop me from going upstairs. Which means someone's up there!"

Run! Run!

The moment he worked that out, Lin He used Cloud Ladder Leap without hesitation and jumped down.

He was careful, but the one-eyed black cat still caught the faint sound.

"Hiss!"

At the sound, despair swept over Lin He.

"It found me. I'll have to fight."

The black cat was too fast. If he spent his strength running, it would toy with him until he died like some vagrant. Fighting was his only chance.

Lin He drew the Coin Sword and tried the same trick again, firing a sword beam at the black cat's eyes.

"From what happened before, you can only get your sight back by reviving."

"This time I'll just blind you. I won't kill you. Let's see what you do then, beast."

Desperation had a way of sharpening the mind.

Sure enough, the black cat let out a pained yowl, covered its eyes, and rolled on the ground.

Did it work?

Delighted, Lin He was about to flee when three more black cats, drawn by the noise, blocked his path.

Damn it!

They got here fast!

Lin He cursed his luck. If they came one at a time, he could blind them all. Three at once, though, and he was done for.

"My cultivation is too shallow. Two sword beams are already my limit."

"Six at once, and every one of them has to hit an eye? That's asking the impossible!"

But if he did not try, he would die.

Lin He steeled himself, bit the tip of his tongue, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the Coin Sword.

In the magical arts, blood was a substance of pure yang. Chicken blood was commonly used to amplify Magic Power during spellcasting, but in this crisis, Lin He had no time to get any. He had to use his own.

That blood was nothing to scoff at. As a Taoist who had never slept with anyone, Lin He had blood far more potent than a chicken's.

The moment it touched the Coin Sword, the whole weapon seemed to come alive, glowing crimson in the dark.

Kill!

Lin He channeled his Magic Power. Six sword beams shot out at once, and with a string of wet impacts, all three black cats before him were blinded.

It worked! It worked!

Seeing the black cats collapse, Lin He was overjoyed. If his tongue had not been injured, he would have laughed aloud.

I broke through in the middle of battle!

Something that only happened to novel protagonists had happened to him!

"I can control six sword beams at my age. When I get back, Master will surely devote himself to training me."

"He might even teach me thunder arts!"

"Once I've learned thunder arts and inherited the Taoist temple, I can..."

Lin He could already see his glorious future.

Then came a swish.

A claw shattered his dream.

Why?

Lin He looked down at his body, severed in an instant, then at the one-eyed black cat before him. He could not understand it. He had blinded both its eyes, so how had it struck him so precisely?

Had it used its hearing?

Or sensed him with its whiskers?

But when he met its bright eyes, he understood. "It killed itself, then revived to restore its sight!"

"It really is as smart as a person."

"Ah... If I'd faced them alongside the captain and the others, would things have turned out differently?"

By the usual rules of a story, a last-minute breakthrough meant the crisis should be over.

But Lin He died as easily as a stray dog by the roadside.

That was Cihang City.

A place where the starting area alone could kill hundreds of transmigrators.

Meanwhile, in the Cattery.

Meng Chengcheng had broken down completely.

She had heard the Pastor's dying roar, the captain's grenade, and the sound of Lin He's flesh being torn apart.

The Pastor was dead. The captain was dead. Lin He was dead too.

Only Xiao Hu and I are left. And I don't know where he is. He might be dead too.

Nausea rose in Meng Chengcheng without warning. Her heart pounded. She wanted to vomit, but nothing would come up. She wanted to cry, but she did not dare make a sound.

Fear washed over her like a tide.

Then something worse happened.

With a sharp, drawn-out creak, a black cat returned to the Cattery. A white scar crossed one of its eyes. It was the "one-eyed" cat that had killed the Pastor, the captain, and Lin He!