A robot and a little monster faced off, their inorganic electronic eyes locking onto scarlet beast pupils, like two wild cats meeting on a narrow path, fur bristled and hissing, ready to throw down.
Gunpowder smoke hung thick in the air, a great battle on the verge of erupting.
Meanwhile, our true little kitty—the newly minted water-carrying master Li Ao—still had teardrops clinging to his face as he intuitively unlocked a new skill.
Patting this one, patting that one, finishing with this and moving on to that.
The crimson hue deepened further, heralding the arrival of the Ice Snow Ruler’s moment.
The robot, its circuit board neatly straightened, spoke reservedly: “Li Ao, you should go to sleep.”
Before the words even settled, the kid turned back into a little cat.
The torn thermal suit lost its auto-regulation function. Li Ao poked his head out, shivering as he huddled against the equally naked little monster.
Alpha-13 scooped up both with one hand and ducked into the tent, lighting the stove.
“Were you the one who wanted to turn back into a cat?” The robot stuffed the cat into a sleeping bag and made him a hot water bottle.
The emotional rollercoaster and the strain of transformation left Li Ao drowsy. He instinctively hugged the hot water bottle to his chest, all four paws propped on top as he mumbled sleepily: “I don’t know…”
In truth, Li Ao hadn’t even realized he’d turned human. Xun slipped into the sleeping bag and snuggled up to the little cat. Exhausted, the two little ones were soon snoring away.
Alpha-13 patted the little cat’s rising and falling belly through the sleeping bag. Only after a long while did it rise to clean up the mess outside.
Its database held inherited memories spanning thousands of years up and down. After repeatedly scanning the data and confirming that cubs couldn’t control transformations in their early stages as normal, the tension in its program eased somewhat.
The kid’s jet-black hair starkly contrasted the little cat’s calico fur, but those eyes—clear as seawater, sparkling familiarly. Milky-white skin and classic East Asian features; his soul clearly originated from ancient Eastern civilization. But this body?
The little cat’s shell—or rather, his genes—where did they come from?
The Builder wasn’t the base’s owner. A century ago, Yi Xiangjin had been hired by someone and sent to Aurilion to nurture experimental eggs and perform genetic modifications. Those eggs had genes from all sorts of sources, fused with countless unknown bloodlines. So whose genes did the little cat’s come from?
The biting cold froze the stench in place. Alpha-13 withdrew its thoughts, dragging the monster’s severed limbs toward the cliff.
Just as the robot pondered how to protect the little cat while getting him safely back to Earth, the entire interstellar realm was gripped by fear over the emergence of unknown organisms.
[OMG, did you see the news? Something even fiercer than Zerg has appeared!]
[I have a relative traveling on a fringe planet under Federation control. Several monsters suddenly showed up there, already causing thousands of casualties.]
[This isn’t just a remote area problem—even the Dawn League arena got hit. For safety this year, they specially picked a low-risk neighboring star system. Terrifying. The central district won’t get these things too, right?]
Three monsters had appeared across the entire 01 arena. All competitors were ordered back to the safe zone to await rescue from Overseers and the military.
“PJ, you okay?” The high ponytail girl slung the boy’s arm over her shoulder. He’d just blocked a hit for her, half his chest soaked in blood.
“I’m fine.” Seeing PJ’s breathing weak but steady, the medics quickly bandaged him and rushed to the next.
[ Frontline of the Safe Zone ]
“Someone! Someone!”
“What the hell is this thing? It has some kind of energy field— all high-speed attacks are getting blocked!”
All fear stems from insufficient firepower. But what do you do when thermal weapons can’t even get close?
Qin Mian strode forward toward the frontline. Her reply to her superiors came distorted amid the helicopter’s whirring roar: “Troops have been mobilized. I’m heading to the scene for support.”
After the bloody lesson from the last league, their crisis protocols ran swiftly this time. As the three monsters closed in on the safe zone, the assembled troops shouted: “Set up the laser cannons! Blast through that energy field!”
“Target locked—ignition, 3, 2, 1—”
The laser cannons entered startup sequence. The three monsters pressed on indifferently, encircling them.
Something was very wrong.
Qin Mian boarded the helicopter, eyes glued to the screen showing the about-to-fire laser cannon. Her expression turned to horror. “Stop!”
She shot to her feet, only to be yanked back by the seatbelt.
“Overseer 01, order the troops to cease fire!”
But it was too late.
Amid her furious shout, the laser cannon’s tail erupted in blazing firelight, instantly striking one of the distant monsters.
“Boom—”
The laser clashed with the energy field, triggering a massive explosion. The shockwave, from tens of thousands of meters away, rattled the helicopter cabin.
Qin Mian’s ears rang. Her vision blurred. Heart pounding, the violent shaking left her dazed for a moment.
“Ma’am! Are you alright?” Her subordinate’s panicked voice cut through.
Qin Mian steadied her breathing and gritted out: “Emergency notice to all sectors: No thermal weapons in combat.”
Yes, it was only after the explosion that people horrifyingly realized the fleshy membrane wrapping these newborn monsters wasn’t just disgusting—it had a far more terrifying effect.
When gunfire’s high-velocity attacks collided with the membrane’s energy field, it produced a nuclear-explosion-like destructive reaction.
The attacked monster died for sure—but so did hundreds of troops.
The entire competition zone descended into chaos. Competitors unused to life-and-death stared blankly, too horrified to face it.
“What do we do…?” The greenhouse flowers began to weep. “I said I didn’t want to compete, but Dad insisted the venue only had C-Rank Xenoids at worst, with Overseers protecting us. No way anything could go wrong.”
Even if something did, as long as you didn’t die, severed limbs could be regrown with current medical tech.
In the chaos, PJ found an Overseer: “I’m a contestant from Delphi. Our Highness and his partner just took down one of the same monsters. That might be worth referencing.”
Meanwhile, the little cat being used as reference slept soundly—until he woke up needing to pee.
The robot was gone from the tent. Li Ao flailed his paws and rolled out of the sleeping bag, sending Xun tumbling aside with a gurgle.
“Xun…” The little cat stamped anxiously. “I… I need to pee…”
Pee if you need to pee—why call the little dog? Fierce Cat would never admit he was scared. Legs clamped, barely holding it, he shivered and stamped: “You pee too, okay? W-we’ll go out together.”
The little monster, not yet grown the relevant parts, blinked and obediently trailed behind Fierce Cat as they slipped out of the tent.
Without the thermal suit for protection, the cold wind made the little cat’s legs tremble on the spot. He found a spot, wobbled over, and took care of business.
He sighed in relief, no longer sleepy. Back in the tent, he dug out new thermal suits for himself and Xun, put them on, and headed out to find the robot.
Crimson light flickered faintly. Detecting target activity, the surveillance device reactivated and followed.
“Alpha? Where are you?” Li Ao called out, tugging the little dog along.
Alpha-13 had meant to toss the corpse off the cliff, but it discovered something and paused to study it.
Hearing the voice, it replied: “Here.”
The inorganic electronic voice put the little cat’s heart at ease. He puffed up his cheeks and ran toward the sound. “Why are you wandering around?”
The robot turned. Seeing the dummy cat smart enough to wear a thermal suit, it felt a bit relieved, then said: “Look at this.”
“Look at what?” Li Ao tottered over. “I don’t wanna look at gross stuff.”
Not scared—it’s just too ugly! Fierce Cat huffed inwardly.
The robot lifted the cat by one hand, holding him up to see the corpse’s head: “Familiar?”
The little cat blanked, paw half-raised to scratch his head. “7?”
The monster’s indistinct head had a sticker numbered 7 affixed to it.
“This… this is Mantis Monster No. 7?”
The robot set him down, confirming its suspicions—this monster had mutated from one of the little cat’s “soccer team” Xenoids.
“Mantis Monster No. 7?” Eager to check if he recognized it, Li Ao forgot his fear and poked the cold remains. “Mantis Monster No. 7, what happened to you…”
How’d you turn bad and die?
“Xun, this is Mantis Monster No. 7?” The little cat turned to Xun for confirmation.
Xun hopped over, eyed the low-rank Xenoid he’d once dominated. His scarlet pupils flickered slightly as he said to the little cat: “Li Ao.”
“How could this be?” Li Ao looked like he’d heard impossible news. “Was it those threads that turned it like this?”
From the little cat’s words, Alpha-13 glimpsed a sliver of truth. It glanced at the surveillance device tailing the little cat, altered its directive, and recorded its own voice: “These monsters come from Xenoids corrupted by infection. Invisible threads humans can’t see are tainting them. At the final stage, the threads turn into a fleshy membrane enveloping the host. Then the Xenoid dies, becoming a Xenoid Variant.”
Li Ao stared blankly at the sticker. “But I already pulled the threads off it… Why, why did it still turn like this? Was it because Li Ao got lazy and didn’t pull them all clean, so that’s why…”
By the end of the conversation, the little cat was already choking up a bit. He was too kind-hearted, convinced that it was his own failure which had caused the Mantis Monster to turn bad.
“Li Ao.” Xun nuzzled the little cat and stuck out his tongue to lick the corner of his eye.
“Isn’t that right?” Li Ao asked. “Was it infected by the virus again?”
The voices of the little cat and the small monster were both blocked by the Machine. It translated their words: “This contamination is a virus infection.”
【What? It’s actually a virus?】
Li Ao’s livestream chat now had not only league spectators but also countless Overseers and researchers flooding in.
【What virus can infect the Zerg? Can we use the virus to wipe out the Zerg?】
【Wipe them out how? Didn’t you hear the Machine say Xenoids turn into even more terrifying Xenoid Variants after they die?】
The Machine hadn’t expected to learn the true nature of the virus from the mouths of these two little ones. After all, a brainless little cat and an inhuman little monster—how could they possibly know what it was?
Yet it heard a certain word come from the little cat’s mouth.
“That virus is called Doom, right?”
Doom Virus.
The genetic virus that had plagued humanity for life, with no cure—like something a god had specifically created to stifle human development.
It only infected humans. Yet now, this virus was infecting the Zerg.
It was almost as if, between the mutually opposed races of humans and Zerg, a common enemy had suddenly emerged.
And this cat—he could comb the silk threads for Xenoids, delaying or even clearing away the contamination. Could he do the same for humanity’s Doom disease?
The Xenoids would revere a little cat with such abilities as a god. But humans?
Human nature was far too complex. They absolutely could not—absolutely could not—be allowed to find out.
