Chương 69: Chapter 11: The Shadow Cat and the Cornered Beast

Raindrops mingled with faint neon light, shattering against the potholed, unmaintained pavement of Scrap Iron Street. Grey-black boots splashed through a puddle in a hurried stride. Stepping into the corridor and turning toward the iron door of his rented room, Rowan noticed the cheap synthetic cigarette smell was gone. In its place, a nauseating sickly-sweet metallic tang—and a pungent reek of rotten eggs and rotting meat, the kind of stench you only found in the deepest, most squalid pits of the underhive.

"The stench of those sewer beasts!" Rowan's pupils contracted slightly, and he consciously suppressed the frequency of his heartbeat. Having consumed the meat of the Tier 1 Armored Rhino, his slightly enhanced muscle fibers now pulled taut like a fully drawn bowstring. Rowan halted his steps. He unzipped his hoodie, his right hand tightly gripping the newly purchased black-steel short-sword, while his left hand rested on the safety pin of the EM mana-grenade at his waist.

Instead of taking the front door, he silently circled around to the back alley of his tenement. Here, ventilation ducts crisscrossed in the dim, chaotic light. The moment Rowan stepped into the shadows, his sharp right ear caught a faint sound—the friction of fleshy pads pressing against rusted sheet metal.

"Above!" The instincts honed from years of surviving in the bottom of the hive saved his life. Without even looking up to confirm, Rowan threw himself into a violent forward roll, reflexes firing before thought. Swish—! Almost simultaneously, a massive dark silhouette plummeted from the ventilation duct directly above him, carrying a suffocating, putrid stench. The instant the creature landed, its four razor-sharp claws plowed four deep trenches into the concrete, sending sparks flying.

Half-crouched three meters away, illuminated by the faint neon light, Rowan finally got a clear look at the monster. It was a "Shadow Cat," roughly the size of a full-grown cheetah. But it had long since lost the elegance of a feline. Its fur had completely fallen out, exposing dark red, flayed-looking muscle tissue. A row of bone spikes emitting a faint, spectral glow protruded from its spine. Worst of all, its fangs jutted past its lips, and its razor-like claws dripped with corrosive, dark green venom.

"A D-Rank Mutant Beast..." Rowan's heart sank. Monsters of this caliber usually only prowled the abandoned mining zones at the absolute bottom of the Seventh Abyssal Hive. Something had definitely lured it here. Rowan instantly thought of the search warrant. Julian!! Roar—Hiss! The Shadow Cat gave Rowan no time to breathe. The mutated muscles in its hind legs coiled tight, and its entire body blurred into an afterimage as it pounced at Rowan again. Too fast! With no time to dodge, Rowan let out a furious roar.

Gripping the black-steel short-sword with both hands, he slashed upward to meet the beast's incoming claws. Clang!! The deafening crash of metal against claw exploded in the narrow alley. A terrifying force traveled down the hilt, instantly splitting the webbing of his hands and drawing blood. The black-steel blade caught the fatal strike, but the raw kinetic impact sent Rowan flying backward, slamming him hard against the brick wall.

"Gah..." Rowan muffled a groan. Had it not been for the impact-resistance runes in his newly bought tactical chest rig dispersing the brunt of the force, that strike would have shattered several of his ribs. Having missed its lethal blow, the Shadow Cat nimbly kicked off the wall, twisting mid-air to whip its venom-laced tail at Rowan's face.

"Activate!" In the blink of an eye, Rowan forcefully triggered the Aether Core in his left arm. Mana surged violently within the core. Blue light coalesced in the palm of Rowan's left hand—the Military Top-Secret Spell, Minimalist Water Blade.

"Die!" A spectral blue, supercritical water blade shot out with an ear-piercing shriek. However, in this life-and-death fraction of a second, the fatal flaw of the cybernetic "cheat" spell was brutally exposed. Neural command, mana extraction, magitech circuit compression—the whole chain ran on a physical latency of a few tenths of a second. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Against ordinary street thugs, that lag was negligible.

Against a Shadow Cat with hyper-mutated reflexes, it was the line between life and death. The Shadow Cat contorted its body at an impossible angle in mid-air. Squelch! The water blade, originally aimed perfectly at its skull, only grazed the beast's left forelimb. The high-pressure stream instantly severed the lower half of its leg, spraying a fountain of foul, stinking blood. Aooo—!!! The agonizing pain drove the Shadow Cat into a state of absolute frenzy.

Ignoring its severed limb, it pushed off violently with its remaining three legs. Like a berserk bulldozer, it opened its reeking, bloody maw and snapped its jaws furiously toward Rowan's throat.

"Fucking latency!" Rowan gritted his teeth. His Aether Core was now on cooldown; there would be no second water blade. He threw himself into a desperate roll, narrowly avoiding the lethal bite. But the Shadow Cat's wildly flailing claws still slashed across Rowan's right calf at a vicious angle. Riiiip— The stab-proof liner tore like wet paper before the mutated bone claws. Three deep gashes, cutting straight to the bone, instantly appeared on Rowan's leg.

There was no agonizing pain—only a bone-chilling, terrifying numbness.

"Damn it, I'm poisoned!" Rowan's face darkened. He could clearly feel an icy, virulent toxin racing frantically up his bloodstream. In five minutes at most, his entire right leg would go numb. I have to end this now! Having landed a successful strike, the Shadow Cat stared at its poisoned prey with murky green slit-pupils. It arched its mangled body, the spikes on its back standing on end, preparing to deliver the final, killing blow. Rowan leaned against the cold wall.

The numbness in his right leg made even standing difficult. Yet, his eyes resembling those of a cornered lone wolf, there wasn't a shred of fear of death—only crazed, ruthless ferocity. He slid the black-steel short-sword back into his waistband and swiftly drew the 2, 500-credit [Overloaded Electromagnetic Mana-Grenade] with his left hand.

"You want my life? Let's see who's harder to kill!" Rowan stared dead at the Shadow Cat, his brain frantically calculating the distance. This grenade had a maximum lethal radius of just half a meter. If he missed, he would have absolutely no means left to fight back. Hiss—Roar! The Shadow Cat's hind legs tensed, turning into a blur of black lightning as it lunged once more. Three meters. Two meters. One meter!

Just as the beast's rotting, gaping maw closed in—so close Rowan could count its drool-covered fangs—he yanked the safety pin and shoved the grenade straight into the Shadow Cat's open jaws, throwing his own body awkwardly to the left in the same instant. Beep— BZZZT!!! There was no deafening boom of gunpowder. Instead, there was a piercing shriek of violently agitated mana. A blinding, spectral blue electromagnetic pulse detonated within the narrow alley, instantly illuminating the night sky.

Berserk lightning mana, like countless miniature electrical snakes, surged down the Shadow Cat's throat, blasting directly through its brain and guts. Aooo— The Shadow Cat couldn't even finish its dying wail. Half of its head was instantly roasted black by the overloaded blast, which possessed the power of a near Tier 1 Lightning spell. Its massive body went rigid in mid-air before crashing heavily at Rowan's feet, emitting a thick, nauseating stench of charred meat.

The shockwave of the EMP swept over Rowan, causing his already numb right leg to convulse violently. His AR retina display erupted with a cascade of red warning pop-ups. Huff... Huff... Rowan collapsed into the muddy puddle, gasping for air. Rainwater mixed with cold sweat flowed into his eyes, stinging fiercely. He had won. He had bought his own life for the price of 2, 500 credits. Rowan struggled to sit up. His very first action was to tear open the pant leg over his right calf.

In the dim light, he saw that the flesh surrounding the three gashes had already begun to turn black, oozing a bizarre, dark green blood. The toxin was spreading much faster than he had anticipated. He glanced at his surroundings. Hoping for someone to save him was impossible; there were basically no residents within 300 meters. In this putrid slum, everyone fended for themselves. Rowan picked up the black-steel short-sword.

Without a second of hesitation, he dug the blade into the blackened edges of the wound and forcefully carved out a chunk of rotting flesh.

"Gahhh—" He bit down on his lip so hard it bled, veins bulging on his forehead. He needed to get his hands on an alchemical healing potion immediately, or this leg would suffer permanent nerve damage. Fighting through the excruciating pain and dizziness, Rowan shifted his gaze to the charred corpse of the Shadow Cat at his feet. Even with its head blown half off, a Tier 4 mutant like this absolutely possessed a mana crystal in its heart. He used his short-sword to brutally carve open the charred chest.

Fumbling through the stinking viscera, he pulled out a murky crystal, barely the size of a fingernail, radiating a nauseating, dark purple halo. [Low-Grade Polluted Mana Crystal. Contains highly lethal mutagenic radiation.]"Piece of trash..." Looking at this mana crystal, heavily saturated with underhive pollution, Rowan couldn't help but recall the earth-element crystal he had dug out of the lowest-tier rabbit in the alternate world—a crystal so pure it looked like a work of art.

This stark contrast made him feel even more strongly that Terra's environment was nothing but a colossal septic tank. Even a fly's leg is still meat. Although a mage couldn't absorb the mana from this polluted crystal, selling it to unlicensed apothecaries on the black market who refined industrial toxins could net him at least 500 credits—just enough to buy a life-saving potion. Rowan pocketed the crystal tightly.

He used a strip of torn cloth to tie a harsh tourniquet above the wound on his right leg, slowing the spread of the toxin. Leaning against the wall, he didn't get up immediately. Instead, an abrupt, low chuckle escaped his lips. In the silent, rainy night, the laughter sounded hoarse, icy, and laced with mockery.

"Julian, oh, Julian..." Rowan stared at the headless corpse of the Shadow Cat, the cold sneer on his lips widening.

"You're the prince of the Aether Consortium. A week ago, you would never have stooped to using such gutter tactics to deal with a 'bug' like me.

"Cutting off my coolant quota was meant to force me to commit suicide. Now, you're sending mutant monsters after me. It seems you're really panicking." When a hunter holding an absolute advantage in resources begins to resort to dirty, desperate tricks... it only proves one thing. He is afraid. He is terrified of losing to a rat like Rowan on a stage where only pure physical and mental prowess matters.

The more frantic Julian became, the more it proved that deep down, he genuinely believed Rowan had the potential to flip the board and crush him in this exam!

"Since you're so scared..." Rowan planted his blood- and mud-stained hands on the ground and pushed himself up, keeping his weight off his right leg. He looked down at the left side of his chest, where his heart beat, his eyes burning with unprecedented fanaticism and resolve.

"... Then I'm going to make absolutely sure you watch me walk through the gates of Terra First Magitech University." Dragging a bleeding, gradually blackening right leg, Rowan melted his silhouette back into the curtain of the dark rain. He had to return to the black market immediately. Detoxify. And then... Etch. Become a true formal Mage!