Chapter 86: All Must Die
It was too late. With a loud RATTLE, the rolling shutter door was pulled up.
A group of people wielding kitchen knives and fire axes swarmed the entrance like madmen, shouting, "Charge! There are supplies inside!"
Its owner was instantly cut down, and blood pooled on the floor.
The White Cat remembered. Back then, only three or four of its friends had awakened their abilities. Some could spray water, others could fling dirt, but they were no match for the sheer number of people. Overwhelmed and terrified by the chaos, they were all hacked to death by those bastards in a matter of moments.
The scene before it sent a chill through its body. Its companions’ corpses lay scattered about. Its owner, covered in blood, lay on the ground, eyes wide with shock, breathless.
The mob paid no mind to the bloody scene, concerned only with rushing madly into the house.
It too was scared out of its wits. It scrambled up to the suspended ceiling, not daring to breathe, and crouched there, staring down. Only one thought remained in its mind: ’Wait. Wait for them to let their guard down. I will have my revenge!’
The people acted like a pack of ravenous pigs, shouting excitedly, "We’ve hit the jackpot! With all these supplies, we’re rich!"
The mob crazily ran up to the second floor, rummaged through all the supplies, and spread them out on a table, beginning to feast and drink.
They chattered while they ate, "This owner was a real idiot. Hoarding so much stuff just for us to take."
Up on the suspended ceiling, the White Cat trembled with rage. Those supplies were things its owner had scrimped and saved, never willing to eat them.
’These demons don’t even deserve to touch them.’
What was even more despicable was that they skinned and gutted its dead companions, setting up a large pot as if they intended to stew and eat them.
In the end, for some unknown reason, they sighed and didn’t dare to touch their chopsticks.
Throughout the whole ordeal, the group talked and laughed as if they had done something incredibly glorious.
The little boy, especially, was beside himself with glee. Those bastards even kept praising him, calling him "capable" and "smart."
The White Cat crouched on the ceiling, waiting from day until the dead of night. It finally saw its chance when the group, full of food and drink, was lying about in disarray. Some were even snoring, their guard completely down.
’Now’s the time!’
The next second, the White Cat leaped down from the ceiling. Its body instantly expanded with a WHOOSH, becoming like a full-grown white tiger, exuding a terrifying, murderous aura.
"AWOO!"
A low growl shattered the night’s silence.
The drunken people were shocked sober by the growl and the sudden appearance of the beast. Just as one was about to scream, the White Cat lunged, biting down on his neck. With a sickening CRACK, he stopped breathing.
"Help! There’s a monster!"
"Run! It’s a tiger!"
Screams, the sounds of tearing flesh, and low growls instantly pierced the quiet night.
The White Cat’s eyes turned red. It spewed a gout of flame, instantly setting the entire house ablaze. Severed limbs were strewn everywhere as the fire roared, reaching for the sky.
A few of the luckier ones, wreathed in flames, managed to rush out of the house. They rolled in the snow, screaming and begging for their lives, but why would the White Cat give them that chance?
It pursued them, taking them down one by one. In moments, the bastards were all silenced. All that remained in the snow was a large patch of blood and charred corpses.
After that, it never wanted to get close to humans again. Anyone who dared to break into the cat cafe never came out alive.
「...」
Around six in the morning, the sky began to lighten. The great fire at the athletic field had long since died out, and the temperature had dropped.
The group, who had been resting briefly in the villa, immediately got up, grabbed knives and bags, and split into two teams.
Luna Dawson took Rollo, Kevin Keane, and Evan Olson to the athletic field to collect Crystal Cores.
The other team was tasked with digging out the Crystal Cores from all the cockroaches and stray zombies near the buildings and on the road.
Bull and Tilly Lane had wanted to come down and help, but Luna Dawson turned them down. The two could only wave goodbye to Luna and the others.
Rollo and Evan Olson used their wind superpowers to blow away the ash on the athletic field in small sections. Because their superpower levels were still very low, they could only clear it patch by patch. They even had to absorb several Crystal Cores during the process to finish the job.
Kevin Keane and Evan Olson were struck by how cute Rollo looked as it absorbed the Crystal Cores, sitting on them like a hen brooding over eggs.
Luna Dawson and Kevin Keane didn’t waste any time. While the others blew away the ash, the two of them used large brooms and dustpans to shovel the remaining debris, along with the Crystal Cores, into large buckets. There was no time to sort or count them carefully.
No one dared to slack off. They raced against time to collect the Crystal Cores, afraid the military would arrive to clean up the zombies and find them.
Before long, they had collected most of the Crystal Cores at the athletic field. The group carried the large buckets and hurried to meet up with the other team. After regrouping, they put their heads down and got back to the grunt work of digging out cockroach Crystal Cores.
"My god, there are so many cockroaches!" Miles Dawson wailed while prying a Crystal Core from a cockroach’s head. "I feel like I’m going to get tendonitis from all this digging. My hands are about to fall off!"
Beside him, Aaron Palmer’s dagger was moving so fast it left afterimages. "Stop whining. What a humblebrag!"
The group worked until past nine in the morning before Luna Dawson stored the several buckets of Crystal Cores in her space. They then boarded their vehicles and hurried back toward the villa district.
As she got into the car, Luna Dawson glanced at the charred-black cat cafe and gave a small wave.
Watching the vehicles drive away, the White Cat leaped a few times and followed from a safe distance.
After the group left, Bull and Tilly Lane immediately went to move the pre-packaged supplies from the nearby office buildings.
Around noon, several helicopters streaked across the sky.
Official personnel had come to survey the number of zombies and assess the situation in the area, but as soon as they flew over the University of Media Arts, the entire crew was stunned.
Inside the cabin, reports came in one after another over the communicator, their tones filled with disbelief. "Reporting to the Colonel! No trace of any zombies found within the University of Media Arts perimeter!"
Another voice followed immediately. "Report! All mutated cockroaches on the ground are dead. No survivors found!"
Listening to the reports, Francis Grant gave a slight nod.
The man looked to be in his early thirties. He was tall and straight-backed with sharp, chiseled features, and he exuded the distinct, masculine aura of a soldier. His presence was both calm and formidable.
He raised his binoculars, his brow slightly furrowed. Leaning toward the cabin window, he and the soldier beside him stared intently at the scene below, their eyes filled with inquiry.
In the view of the binoculars, a dense sea of cockroach corpses radiated outward from a residential building, stretching as far as the eye could see.
’It seems the team that wiped out the cockroach swarm last night did it here.’
He slowly turned his binoculars, shifting his gaze to the distant athletic field.
The sight there was even more shocking. A ring of scorched, abandoned cars around the perimeter was particularly striking. Their frames were twisted and deformed, and they still radiated a faint warmth.
Next to the vehicles lay scattered, partially burned zombie remains, blackened and embedded in the ground, hinting at the ferocity of the battle that had taken place.
The scene made Francis Grant’s heart skip a beat. The report from Eric Yancey, the captain of the First Reconnaissance Team, flashed through his mind.
Not long ago, Eric Yancey had reported that someone had used abandoned cars to encircle and hunt a horde of nearly ten thousand zombies in the city square.
He recalled joking with Eric Yancey during a casual chat, telling him he was exaggerating.
In the current situation, most Superpower Users were so scared their legs would turn to jelly just facing a single zombie. Who would have the guts to hunt down a horde of ten thousand?
But now, the scene he was witnessing with his own eyes matched Eric Yancey’s description perfectly, without the slightest deviation.
His earlier skepticism vanished in an instant, replaced by utter shock and bewilderment. He gripped the binoculars tightly, his heart pounding.
’Just who could be this powerful?!’