Chapter 3: Monster

It looked utterly bizarre, like a puddle of rotten mud covered in tentacles. Beneath its pitch-black shell, some kind of shimmering rainbow light spots faintly flowed, expanding and contracting like veins in an eerie manner. Those massive scarlet vertical pupils didn’t resemble eyes at all, but rather unfathomable abysses—damp, dark, sticky, indescribable.

The moment their gazes met, Li Ao’s four paws stiffened. His entire cat body sprang up like a coiled spring, leaping straight into a full circle without even bending his legs before landing with his back to that bizarre lump.

Don’t see me, don’t see me.

He closed his eyes in self-deception, crawling forward on his belly like a little turtle for a few steps.

His heartbeat pounded against his eardrums. This indescribable sensory assault made Li Ao feel like his head was spinning.

Grandma! This kitty must’ve drunk fake booze again!!

He’d once picked up a bottle of soda from a trash heap, chugged a mouthful after opening it, got dizzy and stumbled home. Then Grandma took him to the clinic, teasing that he’d drunk fake booze.

The sand under his paws felt like cotton now. The Ground-hugging Supercar flailed around for ages but couldn’t crawl even a single centimeter. He sheepishly opened his eyes to find the world pitch black—no blue sky, no yellow sand. Beneath him was a deep chasm that made his head spin just to glance at.

Just like the black hole that monster locked Dong Xixi into.

He couldn’t crawl out, so he had no choice but to turn back.

Little man with big courage—he bared his teeth fiercely. Fierce Cat’s momentum +1. He strained to lift his gaze and glare at it. “Was it you who locked me up? What do you want? I’m telling you, I learned some three-legged cat kung fu from Dong Xixi. Mess with me and you’ll end up on the cat scratcher!”

Something felt off about those words, but right now, he had no brainpower left to nitpick. All his effort went into controlling those legs shaking like a sieve.

That black lump swelled larger, nearly filling the entire space. Li Ao watched its massive body twitch, rainbow-colored light and shadows flickering amid abnormally rapid breathing sounds that boomed through his mind like a spinning lantern show.

No need to understand or comprehend—Li Ao just knew: it was very weak, and it was about to die.

This instinctive knowledge quickly restored calm to his little cat brain. He stopped shaking too, looking at the mountain-sized blob of flesh with some confusion.

As their gazes met again, Li Ao saw the terrifying indescribable horror in its vertical pupils fade away, replaced by endless agony.

With each inhale and exhale of its flesh, blood oozed from all over its body. Or maybe it wasn’t blood—colored liquid surged from the gaps in its flesh, spreading like a galaxy to Li Ao’s paws. Eerie, yet filled with a strange beauty.

Li Ao’s already small brain short-circuited. He wanted to turn tail and run, but looking into those eyes full of sorrow, he hesitated.

He tentatively took two steps forward. The sticky liquid didn’t feel great underfoot. He reached its side and hesitantly raised one paw, touching it.

He was so tiny, the touch negligible, but it sensed it.

The scarlet pupils dilated instantly, from vertical slits to round rings. The moment he touched it, the pain eased. This abyss-born Xenoid didn’t understand what “like” was, but it instinctively felt its existence.

Unlike the pervasive chill of the Abyss, unlike the pain from slaughtering its own kind—this was a temperature it had never experienced since birth.

[Like]

Mimicking his voice, it let out a meow.

Li Ao froze at the weird, mismatched cat call, unsure if it came from the massive monster before him.

He straightened up, planting both front paws on its flesh and pressing his ear against it to listen.

What was this sensation surging from the point of contact?

So warm—it couldn’t describe it.

“mǎo ~” It mimicked the sound of Li Ao’s meow it had heard in the void. That voice was so pleasant, so it had activated its domain to pull him in.

Now Li Ao was sure—it was definitely that sound. The little cat hesitantly patted it. “Are you in pain?”

In that instant, the colors in its veins blazed brightly, and it let out an even softer, more cat-like cry.

“mǎo áo ~”

Yet from this awkward call, Li Ao sensed its closeness. This trust and dependence made him feel needed, instantly classifying this unknown creature that could make weird cat calls as one of his own.

“Are you going to die?” He even started feeling sad.

” “

Meanwhile, Alpha-13 watched the digital clock tick second by second.

That short-legged kitten had been out for most of the day. Soon it’d be high noon.

…Maybe it wouldn’t need to wait for the midday heat to drop. It had probably already run into bugs and died in the desert.

No, the desert had an energy field—normal Zerg couldn’t get close.

But what if? What if an A-Rank or higher Xenoid approached? This planet had an A-Rank Xenoid, which was exactly why humans had to evacuate.

What if it spotted the kitten and ate it?

No way… He was so tiny, legs shorter than a Xenoid’s teeth. Not worth the effort to bite.

It endlessly calculated the kitten’s survival odds against various dangers. In a century of isolation, Alpha-13 had rigidly followed fixed protocols—never run so many useless programs like today.

“The Abyss lies in the cosmic rift, a domain humans can’t approach. Probes detected faint signals from light-years away. Ineffable, formless— one second of listening drives humans to willingly end themselves… Zerg are born from the Abyss… The Doom Virus that pollutes human mental domains and hinders their development also originates from the Abyss…”

“It’s a hell even Delphi’s royal Regalis couldn’t conquer—the humans’ greatest terror…”

The big screen played a robot-sourced explainer video. If that short-legged cat survived and returned, it would teach him this basic knowledge: don’t be so brave or reckless facing the unknown.

He was just a cub. He had the right to demand it go find him food.

…If he could come back alive.

*

Li Ao found a bit of fun in winding the yarn, even a way to slack off.

He balled up a small clump first, then kicked it with a paw. The colorful yarn ball would roll and grow bigger. He amused himself chasing it around wildly. Getting carried away, he turned back to the unknown creature’s body and scratched ku ku ku!

As he scratched, he remembered this was someone’s flesh… He guiltily stopped, glancing up.

Good—its body was super tough, not a mark left! Fierce Cat satisfied, Fierce Cat lowered his head for more ku ku ku scratches!

After scratching, he rolled the yarn ball some more. Tired out, he leaned against it to sit, staring at his paws dyed with colored liquid as he muttered to himself, “I’m hungry. My little pack got left outside. You should’ve brought my little pack in too—that had food in it.”

He was clearly complaining, but to it, it sounded wonderful.

The little cat leaning on it—it didn’t know what “cute” was, but it felt all soft and warm.

[Like]

The weird meow made Li Ao shake with laughter. “Hehe, your meows are so weird! Whose kitten meows like that? You should do it like this—” He stood to demonstrate proper meowing, but as a half-baked cat himself: “Miao miao miao.”

From its ignorant birth, all it could feel was pain. Its mental domain ravaged by the virus, constantly tearing and pulling.

The agony drove it to devour its kin nonstop, growing stronger—but this power only worsened the collapse, never easing it.

It hurt so much it wanted to end itself, but it couldn’t. This instinct etched in its genes trapped it in endless torment. Devour, devour everything—even itself. No one could save it, no one dared.

Pain, so much pain.

Before it could even perceive the world, there was only this despairing agony.

So when it heard a beautiful sound, the monster huddled in the Abyss, tormented by pain, felt comfort for the first time. It craved it desperately, heedless of the danger of a foreign entity invading its mental domain. It pulled him inside.

[Like]

[Really like]

It wanted to make him happy, but its experiences were limited. It clumsily mimicked every sound it’d heard to amuse him.

Li Ao rolled his yarn ball, unaware his body was glowing.

Warm, bright light like a sun falling into darkness. As he ran around its crumbling mental domain, inch by inch lit up wherever he went.

Until he had wrapped all the threads neatly, Li Ao collapsed onto the ground from exhaustion.

Mimicking the words spoken by people on the TV, he feebly shouted, “My lil’ cat can’t do it anymore, can’t work anymore.” He was so sleepy, unaware that this was the side effect of depleting too much Spiritual Power.

In the darkness-collapsed mental domain, strange glows gradually emerged. These lights swelled and flowed across the monster’s indescribable body, filled with order and chaos beyond human comprehension. The entire space was ignited by this brilliance, like a violently burning star that tore the void to shreds.

Humans couldn’t even soothe their own mental domains, only relying on drugs to mildly delay their headaches, let alone making contact with the Zerg’s mental domain.

No—for centuries, they hadn’t even known that the Zerg possessed mental domains just like humans.

Nothing in the world could sort out the Zerg’s rampaging mental domain. It had always been that way, yet this tiny cat before them, with legs only 5 centimeters long, had managed to do it.

The mud-like body began to break down, disintegrating bit by bit into ashes. Li Ao sensed it and opened his drowsy eyes, watching as it vanished little by little.

“What happened to you?” He crawled to his feet, staggered, and fell onto its body.

It was falling apart, its scarlet vertical pupils decomposing rapidly as well.

“Don’t die!” An inexplicable panic surged into Li Ao’s heart as he frantically rolled the melting furball. “I’ll help you tidy up again, just don’t die…”

In such a short time, he had first left his grandma and Earth, then the robot, and now even this strange creature was leaving him. Everyone was abandoning him, leaving him all alone, trembling in the corner as he overheard his parents telling others that he was nothing but a baggage hauler.

“Don’t abandon me.”

Li Ao slowly lowered his head. A faint, shallow sob escaped him, accompanied by a single teardrop falling to the ground.

“I’m so scared.”

“Dong Xixi, I don’t want to be left alone in the closet again.”

In the boundless darkness, he was the only source of light—a small, lonely clump glowing all by itself.

All alone.

“I know they don’t want me anymore. Mom has a new baby now, and Dad will have a new kid too… Grandma said they’re not my parents, so th-then, who are they if not…? Grandma… will Grandma abandon me too?”

By this point, his voice was trembling so much it was almost inaudible. “I want to go home…”

He was utterly heartbroken, with no idea what to do.

“Mào!”

What sound was that?

Through his tear-blurred vision, Li Ao looked over. The monster’s massive body had vanished, replaced by a pitch-black furball with two red eyes.