Realm Walker

The dungeon notification chime rang in Zhang Yuanqing's ears.

【You have been afflicted by a curse.】

Oh, a curse? And here I thought I'd just accidentally swallowed some Parkinson's brand cat hair... He clung to the dark humor like a life raft.

Instinctively, he tried to activate a skill, only to find that every ability had vanished. His connection to his Inventory was gone, too. The transformation into a cat had stripped him of everything.

If this was a curse, it had to be the result of a Hex Master-class ability. Yin Yang Town was a PvP dungeon, so the presence of Evil class elements made sense. But when had he been struck by the curse? He hadn't sensed a thing.

Was it the tea? No, that didn't track. Queen and Li Chunfeng hadn't drunk any.

He turned his gaze to his six companions. Fire Virtue's fur was standing on end. Lotus Eater and Li Chunfeng, who had both been transformed into orange tabbies, swiveled their heads left and right, yowling nonstop, clearly still reeling from the shock of becoming cats.

Grass Upon the Plains, on the other hand, examined his own feline body with open curiosity. His expression was grave, but he didn't seem particularly bothered by the change.

Queen crouched on the ground, surrounded by a scatter of clothes and shoes. Two silver hoop earrings dangled from the tips of her pointed ears, and she pawed at them frantically, mewing in distress.

Were her earrings an item? They seemed to be unusable now, which meant that even items retrieved from the Inventory beforehand were still sealed away by the curse.

Zhang Yuanqing shifted his attention to Guan Ya. Of all of them, Guan Ya was the calmest. The moment Granny Wang had called out "my son," she had begun padding backward on all four legs, retreating in silence.

"My son, come on out!" Granny reiterated. "Mama's brought you two pretty girls. Finally, some women to keep you company. You and that uncontrollable lust of yours, that's what landed you in this mess in the first place. These two girls have such soft skin, such lovely faces. What are you waiting for, son?"

Granny Wang's voice was ancient and ragged, each cry scraping through the air like a summoning chant.

Across the skywell, the sealed door swung open with a long, shuddering creak. Every cat craned its neck to look.

Through the gap, they could see a coffin propped up on two wooden stools in the center of the room. The coffin was lacquered a vivid, bloody red. Tangles of red cord and a purple talisman were scattered across the floor. The cord and talisman had clearly been restraints, binding whatever was inside. Granny Wang must have removed them when she entered the room. Guan Ya, the Scout, had deduced it immediately.

Scritch. Scritch.

From inside the coffin came the sound of nails raking against wood, slow and deliberate. The noise was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

Then the coffin lid burst open, tumbling end over end before clanging against the floor.

A hideous male face rose from within. The features had a feline slant, but were still unmistakably human, which made it grotesquely ugly and deeply unsettling.

As the thing climbed out, the newly-transformed cats were slowly introduced to the full horror of the creature. They beheld its form in full: a massive cat, stripped of its skin, with raw red muscle exposed to the open air.

The creature was roughly a meter long. Its blood-red tail swayed lazily behind it, tipped with jagged bone spurs. Its face was twisted with ferocity, and in its eyes flickered a savage light, equal parts bloodlust and carnal hunger.

A chill raced down Zhang Yuanqing's spine. Something primal, something coded deep within his genes, screamed danger. His back arched involuntarily as he bared his teeth, a hiss spilling from his throat.

Every one of his companions reacted the same way.

The human-faced cat advanced with light, predatory steps, its vicious gaze locking onto the seven smaller cats in the hall.

Zhang Yuanqing tried his best to communicate. "Meow, meow, meow..." (We've triggered a storyline event. We have to kill this monster cat to get out of here.)

Six pairs of feline eyes stared at him blankly.

They were all cats, for sure, but it seemed none of them could understand cat.

At that moment, Guan Ya, who had never taken her eyes off the blood red creature, let out a sharp, clear yowl of warning.

"Meow!" (Watch out!)

The skinless cat exploded forward in a crimson blur, hurtling toward Li Chunfeng, who looked the weakest of them all.

Li Chunfeng, true to his new nature, demonstrated sharp feline reflexes. His tail shot straight up, and he darted sideways like an arrow. But the creature was faster. It closed the gap in an instant, pouncing and clamping its jaws around Li Chunfeng's neck before shaking its head violently.

Li Chunfeng let out a piercing shriek.

Fire Virtue, in the form of a black cat, launched himself into the air with a high-pitched battle cry, jaws aimed at the creature. But the creature's bone-spurred tail whipped around like a lash, crashing against the black furball with a sharp crack and swatting it out of the air. Fire Virtue hit the ground and convulsed.

The gap in strength was staggering. Before this creature, the seven cats were no more threatening than mice.

Just as Li Chunfeng's neck was about to snap, Zhang Yuanqing shot forward, angling his approach around the lethal sweep of the tail, and threw himself onto the creature's neck. He sank his fangs into its ear and bit down hard.

The creature yowled in agony. Its jaws loosened, and Li Chunfeng tumbled free. Blood matted the fur around his neck as he scrambled toward the wall in terror. When he reached it, the adrenaline flooding his system drained away. He collapsed on his side, his eyes growing glassy, and a faint whimper escaping his throat.

After just one exchange, one teammate was already at death's door.

The human-faced cat shook its head twice, but was unable to dislodge Zhang Yuanqing. It ducked low, extended its claws from their fleshy pads, and raked upward viciously.

The claws tore bloody furrows across Zhang Yuanqing's back, and crimson blood welled up instantly. He had no choice but to let go, dropping down from the creature's head and scrambling away on all fours.

The creature's ear dripped blood. Enraged, it gave chase, only to feel a sudden stab of pain in its tail. Lotus Eater had latched on and was biting down with everything he had.

With another ear-piercing yowl, the creature whipped around and closed its jaws on Lotus Eater's neck. But he was a chunky orange tabby, thick skinned and sturdy, and the razor-sharp teeth did not immediately break through.

The creature raised its head to shake its prey around again. In that instant, Zhang Yuanqing came haring back, launching himself at the creature's spine, while Queen and Guan Ya attacked it from the left and Fire Virtue and Grass Upon the Plains charged in from the right.

Every healthy cat swarmed in at once. There was no retreat. This thing had nearly killed Li Chunfeng in a single exchange. Any hesitation, any cowardice, and the entire team would be wiped out.

The human-faced cat tightened its jaws around the fat orange tabby, reared up on its hind legs, extended its claws, and slammed one forepaw down on Queen and the other on Grass Upon the Plains.

Crack!

It whipped its tail about fiercely, and Zhang Yuanqing, caught mid-leap, was swatted aside like a tennis ball and slammed into the wall. He crumpled to the ground, blood seeping from his nose and mouth. Several puncture wounds dotted his chest and belly, each one bubbling red.

Guan Ya, the only one untouched, carved bloody streaks across the creature's exposed flesh with her claws, while Fire Virtue sank his teeth into its belly and tore away a chunk of meat.

The creature shrieked, whirling its body about and lashing its tail to send the black cat flying. Then it lunged at Guan Ya, jaws snapping. But Guan Ya was nimble. Tail held high, she sprang backward, dodging those terrible teeth by a hair's breadth.

The creature pulled back. It spat out the half-dead orange tabby, snatched up Grass Upon the Plains from beneath its right paw, and whipped its head sideways.

Crack.

The snap of Grass Upon the Plains' neck echoed through the room.

Every cat's heart clenched.

The creature tossed the limp body aside like garbage. Grass Upon the Plains lay crumpled on the ground, limbs twitching, belly heaving with shallow breaths. He had minutes, at most.

Zhang Yuanqing, slumped against the wall, felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach. Li Chunfeng was already more dead than alive. Grass Upon the Plains had a broken neck and would die even sooner. Fire Virtue had taken two hits from that bone-spurred tail, and was too battered to fight, and his own condition wasn't much better.

The only ones uninjured were Guan Ya and Queen, but Queen was still pinned under one of the creature's paws. That left Guan Ya alone.

The way things were going, it would be a full team wipe.

***

After snapping the neck of Grass Upon the Plains, the human-faced cat did not press its attack on Guan Ya. Instead, it lowered its head toward Queen's body, sniffing her over and over, nostrils flaring.

What was it doing?

A sick feeling twisted through Zhang Yuanqing's gut. The next second, his worst fear was confirmed. As the creature continued its sniffing, something stirred beneath the swollen pouch on its lower belly, and a dark red organ began to emerge. The revolting creature was in heat.

Queen seemed to sense what was happening. She thrashed wildly, screaming in shrill, desperate yowls.

Fire Virtue, the injured black cat, struggled to rise, but both pain and blood loss kept him pinned to the ground. All he could manage were howls of rage and helplessness.

Granny Wang, watching from beneath the skywell, smiled. "Don't fight it, dear. My son has been stuck in this godforsaken place for years. He's lonely. Do a kind thing and keep him company. He won't kill you. These others are all going to die, but you don't have to."

Queen's screams grew more piercing, her eyes brimming with helplessness and despair.

Guan Ya arched her back, coiling to pounce. The creature bared its fangs at her in warning, arching its own back while its hindquarters shifted toward Queen.

Guan Ya feinted another lunge. The creature stopped, snarling at her again.

It was a standoff.

Guan Ya's eyes kept flicking toward Zhang Yuanqing. If she charged in, the creature might simply redirect its intentions onto her instead. In terms of size, speed, and raw power, the human-faced cat was unbeatable in their current state.

Zhang Yuanqing understood what she was doing. She was stalling, buying him time to think. His thoughts raced, churning through possibilities, but nothing came.

His items were sealed. Otherwise, he could have used the Demon-subduing Awl's purification to break the curse. Engaging in a physical fight was hopeless, and the dungeon notification had not included a timer, which meant the curse did not have a duration after which it would expire. It would last indefinitely.

Think. Think, damn it! Panic clawed at his chest, but the harder he pushed, the blanker his mind became.

Just then, Zhang Yuanqing noticed movement across the room. Li Chunfeng, barely clinging to life against the far wall, was straining to turn his head. He lifted his chin, directing Zhang Yuanqing's gaze upward, toward the skinned cat carcasses hanging from the rafters.

The cat carcasses?

Inspiration struck like a lightning bolt. What was the source of the curse? The strategy guides for Yin Yang Town had mentioned nothing about a cat transformation curse. Whatever was afflicting wasn't some legacy of the Yin Yang Hermit's descendants, as Granny Wang claimed.

So what was the medium for the curse? The teammates who hadn't touched the tea had still been transformed, so it wasn't the tea. It had to be the cat carcasses on the rafters. They formed a curse array.

Fighting through pain and exhaustion, Zhang Yuanqing forced himself upright. He raced toward the nearest pillar on unsteady legs, extended his claws, and began to climb.

Granny Wang's face drained of color. "Son! Quick! Kill him!"

The human-faced cat snapped its gaze upward, spotted Zhang Yuanqing scaling the pillar, and immediately abandoned Queen. With one casual push of its legs, it launched itself toward the pillar, closing the distance fast.

"Meow!" (Shit!)

Zhang Yuanqing's scalp tingled. The proximity of death sent adrenaline flooding through him, and he leaped. The instant he left the surface of the pillar, the creature landed where he'd been.

Zhang Yuanqing spread out all four limbs in midair, claws outstretched. They caught the body of a skinned cat carcass, barely stopping his fall. He scrambled up the dangling corpse, opened his jaws wide, and bit down.

With a snap, the hemp rope was severed. Cat and carcass plummeted together.

As the corpse struck the floor, something invisible shattered. An unseen formation broke apart, and a gust of spectral, bone chilling wind swept through the room.

The human-faced cat let out a tremendous yowl and tumbled from the pillar, writhing in agony on the ground. Its human face warped and twisted, becoming entirely feline, completing its transformation into a true monster.

What little reason had remained in those eyes was swallowed by madness and bloodlust. Bone spurs erupted across its body in dense, bristling clusters. In seconds, it had become something even more grotesque and even more terrifying. It rose slowly, shook its head, and a low, rumbling growl built in its throat.

Granny Wang's face went white, and she hobbled forward on trembling legs. "Son! Quick, get back in the coffin—"

The creature, no longer anything resembling her son, snapped its head toward the sound. It lunged, pinning Granny Wang to the ground, and clamped its jaws around her throat.

Her neck snapped with a sickening crack, and bright arterial blood sprayed across the floor. The creature pressed its paws against her body and tore into her with savage abandon. Granny Wang's limbs spasmed once, twice, and went still.

***

Zhang Yuanqing heard his own bones popping. Fur retreated back into his pores, and his paw pads softened as his stubby cat legs began to lengthen.

Guan Ya snatched up her clothes in her teeth and bolted. Halfway across the skywell, she glanced back and saw Queen still curled up on the ground, frozen in shock. Guan Ya doubled back, dropped the clothes, and swatted Queen across the face with one paw.

That snapped her out of it. Sensing her body beginning to revert, Queen grabbed her own clothes in her teeth and raced after Guan Ya. The two of them dashed across the skywell and disappeared into one of the rooms.

It was finally over.

Zhang Yuanqing watched the two female teammates retreat, his gaze lingering perhaps a moment longer than necessary. A dozen seconds later, his limbs elongated completely as toes and fingers emerged, and he stood upright again in human form.

The curse had lifted.

One by one his companions reverted to their human forms—Li Chunfeng, against the wall, Grass Upon the Plains by the stairwell, and Fire Virtue near the table. One by one they reverted, each one stark naked.

But their injuries hadn't healed. They were still barely alive.

A low growl filled the room as the creature sensed the change behind it. It turned away from Granny Wang's corpse, muzzle dripping red, and spotted Zhang Yuanqing getting to his feet.

Its lips peeled back instantly. Bone-white fangs, now stained crimson and dotted with shreds of flesh, gleamed in the dim light. The creature abandoned the corpse and launched itself at him in a crimson blur.

From this vantage point, the creature seemed almost pitifully weak. Zhang Yuanqing stepped forward, seized the creature by the throat with one hand, and summoned the Bloodthirsty Blade with the other.

But just as he raised the blade to drive it into the monster's skull, Demon Lord's words flashed through his mind. "If I can resist beauty and slaughter, I might be able to trigger a hidden mission..."

Beauty, he understood. But what did resisting slaughter mean? Could one even clear this kind of dungeon without killing? It surely didn't mean that Lawful and Evil Walkers had to refrain from killing each other. After all, Demon Lord had survived those encounters and still cleared Yin Yang Town.

Could it mean sparing the dungeon's monsters?

Instead of stabbing it, Zhang Yuanqing swung the creature overhead and slammed it into the ground. It went limp immediately, slipping into a daze, although its chest still rose and fell.

By then, Guan Ya and Queen had emerged from their private room fully dressed. Both spared a brief glance at Zhang Yuanqing's naked form before looking away. Guan Ya walked briskly past him, heading straight for Li Chunfeng.

She knelt beside the dying man. In her hand was a syringe filled with a pale golden liquid. She inserted the needle into Li Chunfeng's jugular vein and injected half of the contents in. Then she divided the remaining half between Fire Virtue and Lotus Eater.

"Why didn't you heal him?" Zhang Yuanqing asked as he looked toward Grass Upon the Plains.

The young Wood Specter groaned, opened his eyes, and sat up. "I don't need it. I have a recovery skill. When a Wood Specter is on the brink of death, they are automatically revived. It can happen once a day."

He rolled his neck from side to side, vertebrae cracking. "I already revived a while ago. Sorry about that. I was playing dead."

By then, Li Chunfeng, Fire Virtue, and Lotus Eater were all getting to their feet.

Li Chunfeng's eyes went wide. "Essence of Life. You actually have Essence of Life? It's diluted, but still. That's a strategic resource of the Five Elements Alliance."

He clasped his hands in front of his chest. "Thank you. Truly."

This woman surely commands considerable rank within the official organization, Zhang Yuanqing mused.

"That was way too close. I nearly died back there. Is this what an A-rank dungeon is like? Then how insane is an S-rank one?" Fire Virtue didn't bother with subtlety, cursing under his breath before turning to Guan Ya and offering a rough nod. "I owe you my life. I'll pay it back."

Guan Ya surveyed the room full of naked men and grinned. "Are you all going to stand around like that? Put some clothes on. Nobody wants to see a bunch of little worms on parade."

"..."

Once everyone was dressed, Queen let out a long breath and approached Zhang Yuanqing. She kept her voice low.

"Thank you. If you hadn't broken the curse, I don't even want to imagine what would have happened to me."

As long as you don't develop a lasting fear of men from this.

Zhang Yuanqing didn't take credit for the victory. "Li Chunfeng gave me the hint."

Li Chunfeng nodded. "The curse medium was the cat carcasses. They formed a curse array. I figured it out early on, but you were all busy fighting the creature and no one was paying attention."

He glanced at the unconscious monster on the floor. "Speaking of which, why are you keeping that thing alive? Just kill it."

"I'm keeping it alive for now. I want to run an experiment." Zhang Yuanqing looked around the room. "So far, I haven't received a single dungeon notification. Any of you?"

His teammates shook their heads.

"Then we probably won't be getting any," he said with a sigh. "That's the most troublesome type of dungeon."

Guan Ya pulled something from her pocket and held it up. "We found this in the room."

It was a small effigy woven from straw, crudely made, its body bristling with thin needles. A strip of paper was pasted to the front, bearing a name: Xu Xiu'er.

Zhang Yuanqing considered the doll for a moment before speaking.

"In the first S-rank Spirit Realm I ever entered, information about the dungeon had to be deduced and deciphered by the Walkers themselves. This Yin Yang Town seems to work the same way.

"Fortunately, Granny Wang already gave us plenty of information. Let's review everything we know." He paused, then hoisted the half dead creature by the scruff. "But first, let me run that experiment."

He carried the limp monster toward the room on the opposite side of the skywell.

What was he up to? The others exchanged puzzled looks and hurried after him.