Cat-Faced Ghost: All right~ Let's eat meat!

"Meow~!"

At the sound, everyone who had been closing in on the two college students froze.

Then a cat with an old person's face crawled out of the supply bag in the old man's hands.

Its face wore a smile, while the cat's tail swishing behind it was made of infant arms joined end to end.

One of those arms was stained with crimson blood that slowly dripped onto the ground-the old man's blood.

As the tail swayed, its bloodstained length brushed across the ghost cat's aged human face, leaving a smear of blood that made it look even more hideous and utterly terrifying.

But even without that smear of blood, everyone's eyes would already have been filled with fear.

Because they knew what this thing was.

And they knew just how terrifying it was.

"A... a ghost! It's a ghost!"

Someone cried out. Farther away, the fat man and his two companions didn't dare linger, even though their legs had gone weak with fear.

The fat man still scrambled toward his vehicle, a motorized tricycle.

The moment he climbed aboard, he prepared to flee.

But when he looked toward the convoy, he got a nasty shock.

Ahead of them, someone on a bicycle was already making his escape.

And that person was none other than Fan Shang.

One minute earlier.

Just as the male college student brought the supply bag back.

Like the other survivors, Fan Shang had initially thought there was no danger.

Then a startled hiss suddenly sounded beside his ear.

"Hss!!"

He looked down and saw Little Black hissing at the male student.

No, rather than the male student, it was the supply bag he was carrying.

A bad feeling immediately struck Fan Shang, and he decisively fled...

Sure enough, mere moments later, the old man's voice vanished, replaced by a corpse with a hole through its head.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

At that sight, he couldn't spare another glance. He pedaled his bicycle like mad!

After all, although Fan Shang's physique had already surpassed the limits of an ordinary human, facing a ghost still meant certain death.

The fat man behind him reacted much the same way, sprinting straight for his vehicle the instant he saw the ghost.

As soon as he climbed aboard, he twisted the throttle all the way and chased after Fan Shang, his face filled with terror.

The others, meanwhile, were scared witless.

They stood rooted to the spot.

Until...

The grandson of the grandmother-and-grandson pair, still waiting for meat to reach his mouth, entered phase two.

"Meat, meat, meat! Grandma, I want meat! I'm hungry! I want meat!!!"

He began throwing a tantrum, and only then did everyone snap out of it and race toward their vehicles like mad.

The male and female college students were no exception.

Seizing the opportunity, the two sprinted toward their electric scooter.

The scooter was small, with just enough room for two. A bag of supplies hung from the handlebars, and a depleted battery sat below.

The young woman kicked the battery off, ready to flee.

Seeing everyone trying to escape, a look of malice and mockery flashed across the Cat-Faced Ghost's face, and it was about to give chase.

But the clamoring in its ears irritated the Cat-Faced Ghost.

"Waaah! Meat! I want meat!"

Hearing that voice, the Cat-Faced Ghost's aged, deeply wrinkled human face broke into a kindly smile.

Then a hoarse, eerie old person's voice rang out.

"All right, let's eat meat!"

As the words fell, the tail made of infant arms gouged out the boy's eyes. Cruelty flashed in the ghost's eyes, and then, ignoring the boy's agonized screams, its tail crushed his skull.

The gruesome, horrifying sight left both college students stunned with fear.

"Babe, hurry! Go faster! That ghost is coming after us!"

The young man urged her frantically.

But with the throttle already twisted all the way, how could the young woman not want to go faster?

This was as fast as the scooter could go. They had already thrown off everything unnecessary, so how could she make it go any faster?

Looking in the rearview mirror at the frantic man behind her, she couldn't help feeling a surge of resentment.

If it hadn't been for him, if he hadn't completely ignored her warnings, if he hadn't listened to that old bastard and let himself be used...

They would never have disturbed the ghost. At the very least, they wouldn't be in mortal danger now.

As she thought about it, the young woman figured it out.

Wasn't there still one unnecessary thing on the scooter?

"Babe, hurry! Think of something!"

Seeing the ghost drawing closer behind them, the young man was nearly frantic.

"Okay, I... I've got an idea. Babe, quick, get the thing in the storage compartment for me."

Was there something in the storage compartment?

Without suspecting a thing, the young man let go to reach for it, but the next instant, the scooter suddenly swerved violently.

Caught off guard, he was thrown off.

He hit the ground face-first and rolled several times from the momentum. When he raised his head again, a large patch of skin had been scraped from his face, and his nose was crooked.

But he had no time to register the pain in his body, because his fear of the ghost behind him, his fear of death, had already reached its limit.

"Babe, wait for me! Wait... wait... for me..."

He called out, hoping the young woman riding ahead would stop for him, but all he got was her speeding up without even looking back.

At that sight, he was utterly dumbfounded.

Then he realized.

He... seemed to have been abandoned...

Confusion filled his eyes, along with resentment.

"Why..."

He wanted to demand an answer, wanted to say something, but before the words could leave his mouth.

An infant's arm appeared before his eyes. Then, under his terrified gaze, the little hand swayed and reached toward his eye.

There was a wet puncturing sound.

The "tail" pierced straight through his eye and forehead, drawing out a gush of red-and-yellow fluid.

He was dead.

"Meow~!"

The Cat-Faced Ghost licked the fluid from its tail and gave a cheerful cry.

Then it looked at the survivors fleeing madly, mockery and malice flashing in its eyes, and followed them again.

But before the Cat-Faced Ghost could act, a crawling figure behind it moved faster.

"Die! I want you dead! I want you dead! It's all your fault! You're the one who got me killed..."

In the blink of an eye, it overtook the Cat-Faced Ghost.

The curious Cat-Faced Ghost looked toward the thing and discovered that it was a human head.

"Hahaha! It's all your fault! All your fault! You deserved it! If you hadn't ignored me, how could any of this have happened..."

The young woman said this, perhaps to ease her guilt over getting the young man killed.

She cursed as she rode, as though saying these things could prove she hadn't caused his death.

The good news was that, without the unnecessary burden of the young man, her scooter quickly picked up speed, and she soon overtook five survivors in one go.

Before long, those five survivors were killed.

But because those five had bought them time, everyone else eventually managed to shake off the Cat-Faced Ghost.

As for the convoy, there was only one road through this wilderness, and it wasn't moving very fast.

Fan Shang eventually caught up with the slower members of the convoy.

The Sequence Transcendents, meanwhile, were still farther ahead.