MASG chapter 109

 

“Ah, it’s just a little kitten.” Lao Gui relaxed a bit. “This time, no one can say I’m a jinx.”

“Do you think the cats in Yukun City are normal?” Silver Fang didn’t think so. “Even the buildings in this place have come alive. How could cats possibly be normal?”

Mi Dou quietly raised his gun and switched to the B trajectory of the secondary gun. At critical moments, it could fire tranquilizers. “Should we capture it alive? Study it?”

“I don’t think we can capture it alive.” Mo An pressed Mi Dou’s gun barrel down with his own. “Silver Fang is right. Any creature that can survive in Yukun City can’t be completely harmless. Right now, we should…”

“Tsksktsk, tsksktsk.” Unexpectedly, Talos squatted down and rubbed his fingertips together while making clicking sounds.

The group looked at him strangely.

“It’s pretty fun, hahaha! Actually, I’m a cat slave,” Talos laughed loudly. “And didn’t Mo An already say that? We need to use the perspective of the observed object to understand everything here.”

“Is your brain broken? You tsk tsk to call dogs over,” Lao Gui said as he squatted down.

Talos put away his smile. “Before we give you permission, please shut up.”

“You need to go meow meow meow.” Lao Gui ignored him and started rubbing his fingertips. “Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, kitty… I’m communicating with it right now. Little kitty, can you move that road aside? Let us pass? We’re in a hurry to save someone. After we save them, we’ll play with you… hey hey hey… don’t come over… don’t come over!”

The little white cat had originally been watching from afar, but Lao Gui’s “meow meow meow” was like a trap lure, calling it directly over. It was small and looked about three months old—a fluffy ball with baby fur. Its blue eyes dilated from time to time, giving it a cunning look.

Although it was very cute, its approach was definitely not a good thing!

Lao Gui didn’t know when he had become someone who attracted cats. As the kitten approached, he and his companions retreated step by step, maintaining a safe distance. But right after that, the kitten pounced twice, jumping straight in front of them and leaving only half a meter of space.

This was bad. They had called the cat over—how were they supposed to send it away now? Lao Gui looked at Mo An.

Should they kill it outright? Mo An looked at Silver Fang.

Silver Fang was covered in weapons. Since its safety couldn’t be confirmed, they should kill it. Just before he could act, Talos waved his hand at them. He carefully squatted down and looked into the cat’s eyes.

“It really is a mutant species. It has double-layered pupils,” Talos observed. “And it can sense who I am.”

“It knows you’re a gargoyle?” Mo An took two steps toward them. “Then does it know I’m a mermaid?”

Talos stopped Mo An in time. “Don’t come over. Although it’s a mutant species, it still belongs to the feline category. You’re a fish. You’re on its food list. This isn’t the ocean—it’s paradise for land creatures.”

Mo An was a little unconvinced at first, but when he considered Xia Yu’s safety, he didn’t move any closer. Mi Dou took a can out of his bag. “Ask it. If we leave the can behind, will it let us go?”

“You need to change your way of thinking.” Talos adopted the plan Mo An had proposed yesterday. “Normally, humans feed cats. But in this place, it feeds us.”

“Then…you’re not saying it should eat Mo An, are you?” Lao Gui stood in front of Mo An.

Mo An silently punched him.

“We can ask it. Let’s try.” Talos looked at the little white cat again. When he touched its head again, his eyeballs turned to stone. “Find us something to eat.”

After he finished speaking, Talos’s eyes returned to normal, looking no different from those of an ordinary person. The little white cat sat upright in front of them, its two small paws pressed together. It occasionally tilted its head and twitched its ears. Then, right in front of them, the cat began to… wash its face.

Mi Dou let out a sigh of relief. It was no different from a normal kitten.

Suddenly, the kitten dashed out and ran into the abandoned building. From the outside, it was clear that the building had once been residential, with a small balcony on each floor. Because the infection in Yukun City had come so suddenly, the evacuated residents hadn’t had time to pack. There were still clothes and flower pots on the small balconies.

The glass behind the flower pots was partly shattered and partly intact.

As the little white cat charged in, astonishing roars erupted from inside the building. The sound was neither human nor cat-like, but rather a tone between human and mechanical with a metallic texture. Riot-like vibrations were transmitted through the glass, and soon, blood splattered out.

Mo An couldn’t help but raise his gun. This thing had quite a strong killing power! Good thing they hadn’t let it go fishing!

More and more blood increased. Countless windows were stained red. When the cats left the building, more than twenty little white cats ran out at once. The one that had communicated with Talos strode at the very front, full of vigor.

Each little white cat had a person being dragged in its mouth. Or rather, a corpse.

It was so eerie. Mo An examined the corpses. They showed severe signs of inorganic fusion. The rot on their skin resembled festering sores, and their ears were the areas hardest hit by infection.

“Wait, why do their clothes look so familiar?” Mo An muttered. At first, he thought he was mistaken, but the familiar clothes wouldn’t leave his mind. In an instant, inspiration struck.

“They’re sea slaves!” he blurted out. “ The Tide!”

“What? Are these people from the Tide?” Silver Fang asked, who had boarded the ship with them back then. “Are you sure?”

“That’s right. It’s them,” Mo An said. The little white cats completely ignored them. Like humans feeding stray cats, they dropped the corpses and left. They were imitating human behavior, feeding the “stray people.” Mo An quickly stepped forward to check. The throats of these sea slaves had already been torn open by the cats. They were completely devoid of life.

“What are sea slaves?” Mi Dou asked when he didn’t understand.

“You were unconscious in the emergency room, so you didn’t know what happened on the Tide. To carry out Rijianmei’s orders, the Tide captured mermaids. They caught a Black Siren, but later, due to extreme hunger, they ate the Black Siren. There have always been rumors that eating mermaid flesh can grant immortality. In fact, mermaid flesh only drives people mad.” Mo An squatted down to examine the wounds on the sea slaves. “Sea slaves can only live in the ocean. You can imagine them as zombies of the sea. They are extremely hostile toward humans and often attack those who enter the sea. But how did they end up here?”

Right, they couldn’t even go ashore. So why were they here?

“It seems that Yukun City is the key to everything,” Silver Fang finally said. “The crew of the Tide is here. Yehuai’s larvae and eggs might be here too. Xia Yu is here, too. The Death Knight and the War Knight are probably here as well. We need to stay alert at every step!”

“Maybe Yukun City itself is Nuwa’s trap for us,” Lao Gui shrugged. “It knows we can’t abandon Xia Yu. As long as we sense his existence, even with just a tiny bit of hope, we’ll come save him. So it waits for us to come and die.”

“Yes, maybe the entire city is just a chess piece on the board, laid out back when we were on the Tide, waiting for us,” said Mo An, standing up. “Let’s go. Maintain a V formation.”

The group set off once again, even more tense than the day before, to the point that they were startled by every little thing. This time, however, a group of little white cats followed them. They seemed to experience unprecedented joy and novelty in feeding wandering humans, following them from place to place. Sometimes, the cats even helped clear obstacles ahead by catching mutant species and parasitic people in advance and using corpses to “feed” the humans.

Mo An guessed this was all thanks to Talos. They had developed a curiosity toward the gargoyle.

After three days of moving and stopping, they finally reached the central area of Yukun City.

“Where do we go next?” Talos was already holding a cat in his arms.

Mo An raised Little Blue again and tapped the glass bottle. “Hey, little boy, which way do we go?”

This time, Little Blue didn’t glow. Instead, it spun around inside the bottle. The pink diamonds accumulated at the bottom of the bottle were its warm bed. It extended its tentacles deep into the gaps between the diamonds and lifted one up, repeatedly poking at the inner wall of the bottle.

“What is it doing?” Silver Fang asked.

“It’s searching and imitating me. It’s too smart,” Mo An said. “It spent a whole day and night learning how to tap the bottle. Maybe in a few months, it’ll arrange letters with its tentacles to communicate with us.”

At that moment, Little Blue’s tentacles stopped and pointed in one direction.

Mo An asked happily, “Over there?”

Little Blue lit up again, all its tentacles waving together as if delighted. Mo An looked in that direction. There was only one building, estimated to be around fifty floors. Little Blue meant for them to go inside—Xia Yu should be in there.

“Thank you. Let’s go! Now, we’re going to bring him home!” Mo An took out the energy bar he had saved in his pack, crushed it, and sprinkled the pieces into the bottle. Little Blue ate with wild, excited movements. In the end, it pressed itself against the inner wall of the glass, its jellyfish head tightly pressed against it. It was as if it really had eyes and could clearly see everything around it.

Ling Shi: [Time report again. Current time is 17:23:12 in the afternoon.]

“Thanks.” Mo An synchronized the time with everyone else’s and checked their weapons again. Over the past few days, they had avoided enclosed environments whenever possible. This was the first time they were fully entering one.

There used to be a security system at the entrance of the building. Now, all protective devices had collapsed, and entry was smooth. The first floor was a lobby. The floor tiles were completely cracked, and enormous footprints could occasionally be seen. The elevators were like dented cardboard boxes, deformed by unknown creatures playing with them.

The deformed elevator doors were wide open. Through the gaps, bones of victims could be seen.

Mi Dou made a “rest in peace” gesture. It was hard to imagine what had happened here on the day the infection spread. The entire city received warnings at the same time, and people fled their homes and workplaces. However, very few actually escaped.

“Let’s take the stairs,” said Silver Fang, looking at the emergency exit door.

“This is the only way. Besides, even if you asked me to take the elevator now, I wouldn’t. Who knows what’s inside?”
Talos put the kitten down. “Alright, alright. Daddy is going to save someone now. You behave yourselves.”

Dozens of little white cats ignored him completely, brushing against his pant legs and scampering up the stairs.

“All right, they’re totally not taking me seriously,” Talos sighed.

“Just treat them as the advance unit,” said Silver Fang. He didn’t mind mutant species walking in front. As long as they didn’t attack, any mutant species was a friend. But at that moment, the life-detection device on his body began to sound an alarm. He looked at the screen. On the fan-shaped scanning map, countless light spots suddenly appeared and began moving toward them.

“Something’s coming to welcome us!” Silver Fang was the first to aim his gun at the emergency exit. “Firepower sweep authorized. Everyone, pay attention!”

The V formation instantly changed into a straight line, with all gun barrels pointing in one direction. Since they could be detected, these light spots must be organic, not inorganic, mutant species. Their numbers were huge, estimated to be several hundred. However, judging from the size of the light spots, the creatures shouldn’t be very large.

Not large was good.

Just as Silver Fang was about to fire, the light spots broke through the boundary of the fan-shaped map. This meant the creatures could now be seen with the naked eye. However, the stairwell entrance was deathly silent.

“What’s going on?” Silver Fang checked the device again.

Mo An paused for a moment, then opened fire on the ceiling. “They’re above!”

In an instant, gunfire erupted everywhere, and shell casings flew!

 

 

 

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Acargoreng: Missed yesterday’s update—sorry about that 💕I’ll make it up with two chapters today. Thank you for reading!