The devastated streets were a mess of wreckage, strewn with severed limbs, suspicious bloodstains, and shambling monsters whose rotting flesh reeked of decay.
[Huazhi, behind you! Behind you!]
“I see it!”
In her rabbit form, Huazhi sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her, a tailless zombie cat hot on her heels. From a distance, she moved so quickly she looked like a tumbling snowball.
A low wall blocked her path ahead. Just before crashing into it, she executed a flawless backflip off the surface, effortlessly reversing direction to kick off the zombie cat’s head with a powerful thrust.
Unable to stop in time, the pursuing creature slammed hard into the masonry.
A shrill screech pierced the air as the wall collapsed under the impact.
[Energy storage progress: 0.00000……00001%]
The system’s voice lagged like a spinning loading icon on a 404 page.
A second later, the zombie cat, which had just been baring its fangs to pounce again, suddenly went limp and collapsed heavily to the ground, knocked out cold.
[That’s way too little energy…] the system couldn’t help but complain. The zombie cat had seemed formidable enough, yet the energy it yielded wasn’t even enough to power a few extra sentences.
Huazhi thought it was very little too, but it was still a great start.
“It’s okay,” she said cheerfully. “Every little bit counts. We’ll take it step by step!”
As she spoke, several more hideous zombie cats crept into view with stiff, jerky steps. Their backs arched, fur standing entirely on end, and cloudy yellow slit pupils locked onto Huazhi. Low, menacing hisses rumbled in their throats, as if they would pounce and tear her to shreds at any second.
Unidentifiable rotten meat clung to their sharp fangs, and drool pooled on the ground beneath them as they stared at her. Clean, living rabbit meat held an irresistible appeal for them.
“The others are surrounding us too.” Her white rabbit ears twitched as she dropped back into a ready stance. Her voice trembled slightly from the recent sprint. “Don’t worry, I can do this.”
Her heart was still pounding fast.
Pressing her three-part lips tight, Huazhi surveyed her surroundings carefully. They had formed a tight, multi-layered encirclement; no matter which direction she broke toward, they could intercept her in the shortest distance possible. On top of that, dozens more cats were still gathering in the distance, heading their way.
In her rabbit form, Huazhi was no bigger than a palm. Standing there, she looked like a soft, sweet puff of cotton candy—tiny and adorable enough that anyone would feel the urge to protect her.
Trapped inside the circle of zombie cats, she seemed like fish on a chopping block, entirely at their mercy.
Yet she didn’t hesitate for a second and charged straight ahead.
The massive cats lunged at her one after another. Each of her dodges was heart-stopping, making it look as though she would be torn to shreds by their fangs the very next instant. Instead, moving with breathtaking speed and springing from unpredictable angles, she used their own bodies as stepping stones to narrowly evade their strikes, before making a sharp turn and vanishing around the corner.
It all unfolded in the blink of an eye. Driven into a frenzy, the zombie cats spun around to pursue her, only to collapse to the ground one after another a second later.
Not far away, Qi Chaoyang watched in stunned disbelief, his jaw practically hanging open.
“Jing Huai, did you just see that?”
He looked down at his own palm, his voice thick with shock. “That was a rabbit, right? A little white rabbit! It was barely the size of my hand, looking completely harmless and frail, yet it just wiped out all those cats!”
Those zombie cats were no joke. Attacking together, they could easily tear a chunk of flesh off a First-Grade Ability user. Yet that little white rabbit had dealt with them effortlessly.
Especially just now—when the rabbit looked like it was about to slam straight into the wall, he thought he was about to witness that ancient fable of the hare crashing into the tree. Who could have guessed it would kick off the brick, pull off a backflip, and take down the cat instead?
Cute, yet ridiculously strong. What kind of precious treasure was this?
Feng Jinghuai casually swung his Tang dao, beheading a zombie that lunged at him from the front.
“Don’t waste time,” he said. “If you’re done watching, go gather supplies.”
His strike was as clean and effortless as slicing a watermelon. The severed head went flying, and foul, rank blood sprayed everywhere, only to deflect the instant it neared his body—as if an invisible barrier shielded him.
Qi Chaoyang eyed the spotless white shirt, consumed with pure envy. “Wind-type abilities really are convenient.”
Abilities couldn’t be used indefinitely. Shrouding one’s entire body in power just to keep a shirt clean was a luxury only a freak like Feng Jinghuai could afford.
“Can we go look for that rabbit after we finish gathering supplies?” Qi Chaoyang asked as he slashed at another incoming zombie, his curiosity burning. “When it was running earlier, its fur looked so soft, drifting in the breeze—all glossy and smooth. It must feel amazing to pet!”
Since the apocalypse began, mutated animals had grown thick hides and bristly fur sharp enough to impale someone straight through. None of them were remotely small anymore. A tiny, soft, snow-white rabbit that packed such a lethal punch was practically a once-in-a-century miracle.
Once the nearby zombies were finally cleared, Feng Jinghuai cast a cool glance at Qi Chaoyang, blood still dripping from the tip of his blade.
“Fine, fine. Let’s gather supplies first,” Qi Chaoyang muttered, scurrying into the pharmacy.
Feng Jinghuai glanced back toward the direction the rabbit had fled, casually sending a gust of wind into the air with a flick of his hand. The breeze swirled through the air before sweeping around the corner.
Meanwhile, Huazhi relied on her absurd bouncing power and petite frame to scale a wall, slipping right through a vent into an adjacent courtyard.
Overgrown with weeds, the place seemed long abandoned. Dust danced in the air, tickling her nose until she sneezed. She sniffled, dampening her tiny pink nose, relieved that she could finally rest.
I’m sorry, Huazhi. I didn’t realize the energy deficit would be this bad.
Inside her mind, a little gray rabbit hopped around anxiously, its voice tinged with guilt.
It hadn’t had much energy left to begin with, but it had assumed there would be just enough. Instead, the teleportation to this world had nearly drained it completely, leaving only enough to keep Huazhi in rabbit form.
The moment they landed, a pack of drooling, vicious cats had set their sights on them.
“It’s fine. We’re safe now,” Huazhi said, in high spirits. Her tail twitched contentedly, and her white, floppy ears drooped over the sides of her head, tinged with a soft pink.
“See? I’m pretty capable! We’ll definitely gather enough energy to go home together!”
Huazhi was originally a rabbit spirit who had cultivated in the mountains for centuries. Just as she had finally attained human form, a bolt of heavenly lightning struck her down. She thought her life was over, only to wake up inside a mysterious space created by the Little Gray Rabbit.
According to the Little Gray Rabbit, it had pulled her away just before the lightning could kill her.
It explained that it lacked the energy to return home or send her back. But if she helped it gather enough power, it could go home and return her to a point in time after the lightning strike, allowing her to escape that deadly fate.
Huazhi figured it was probably something like the magical treasures used by the celestial immortals. Besides, it was a fellow rabbit—even if it was gray—and kin ought to help kin!
Infected by Huazhi’s good mood, Little Gray Rabbit’s fighting spirit instantly rekindled.
[Don’t worry, I’ll save up energy so you can turn back into human form first!] Besides, something had caught its eye just moments ago. [Huazhi, the person we passed earlier had an incredible amount of energy!]
It had only caught a brief glimpse in its rush to deal with the zombie cats, but the radiant halo surrounding that man proved how abundant his energy truly was.
[Huazhi, is there any way you can get close to him? If we can just get near, I can absorb a little energy and turn you back into a human!]
Little Gray Rabbit shared a snapshot of that fleeting glimpse.
The image showed a glowing figure, as dazzling as the sun in the sky.
The man was tall and straight-backed with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, looking remarkably handsome and refined in a crisp white shirt. He was spotless all over, save for the blade in his hand, which was stained with dark greenish-black blood from slaying zombies. With his eyes cast downward, he carried an air of detached coldness.
Huazhi hesitated. “Will he die like those cats just did?”
[No, not at all! His energy is different from those zombies. I’m just basking in the light he emits, so it won’t harm him. Once you can take on human form, we’ll go absorb energy from the monsters.]
Huazhi was relieved. If she had to steal a human’s soul, she would never be able to become a Fairy Rabbit.
Suddenly, a loud thudding echoed from outside as something battered the building. Under the relentless assault of the zombies, the glass finally shattered with a deafening crash, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.
A moment later, a dog’s head with twisted, grotesque features squeezed through the opening.
Huazhi sprang to her feet. “Let’s go find him right now!”
Staying in the shape of a rabbit was far too dangerous in this world.
***
Inside the pharmacy.
Their current mission was to gather all the medicines inside and bring them back to the squad.
Qi Chaoyang swept fever and cold medications off the shelves and into his bag, muttering under his breath the entire time.
“That rabbit looked so fluffy. It’d probably feel so soft your hand would just sink right in.”
“Snow-white all over, too. It must be really clean.”
“It’s only the size of a palm—not even enough to fill the gap between those zombie cats’ teeth. What if it runs out of stamina and gets chewed to pieces?”
Feng Jinghuai tossed the backpack to him. “It’s stronger than you.”
Qi Chaoyang gave him an exaggerated wink. “How would you know?” Then his eyes widened in sudden realization. “You’ve already caught up with the little rabbit, haven’t you?”
Pleased with himself, Qi Chaoyang sped up his scavenging. Though the pharmacy looked small from the outside, its shelves and backroom storage were remarkably well-stocked. Most of the medicines were long expired, but that did nothing to dampen his high spirits.
Ever since the apocalypse began, two-thirds of the world’s living creatures had transformed into these mindless monsters, driven only by an insatiable hunger for human flesh and devoid of any pain. Over the past three years, both humans and zombies had steadily evolved. Low-level zombies that could be taken down with a single strike had become rare.
“Jiang Xu really is a genius,” Qi Chaoyang remarked. “Three years into the apocalypse, and he still manages to find a place loaded with supplies and weak zombies.”
A faint, mocking smile touched Feng Jinghuai’s lips. “Is that so?”
A chilling glint surfaced in his dark eyes.
“We’re surrounded.”