Chapter 26: The Ingratitude of the Zombie Cat

The third‑floor safety corridor door was pushed open for the first time since the apocalypse struck—and for the first time, this floor, long reduced to a living hell, revealed itself to Yazī. As soon as he swung open the door, an overwhelmingly pungent stench of blood and death assaulted his nostrils.

The entire corridor lay littered with corpses—both human and zombie—each death scene grotesquely tragic. Heads had been violently smashed open like watermelons; a mixture of blood and congealed brain matter cascaded across the floor and splattered on the walls.

Moreover, because this was an office area, the entire third‑floor had been carpeted with heavy blankets. Now, those once‑soft blankets were stained with severed limbs and dismembered body parts. Almost the entire wall was coated in congealed blood, with only a few patches hinting at its original white surface. Scattered among the carnage were stray organs—brain tissue, teeth, eyeballs—each one a testament to unspeakable violence.

A single glance at this human‑hell scene would have shattered the courage of even the stoutest soul—but Yazī felt nothing. He had witnessed horrors a thousand times worse. Still, he stayed on alert.

This was not what he had expected. Although intel had promised a silver‑chest somewhere here, he hadn't imagined such carnage. Ordinary zombies rarely cause a scene like this; they typically bite a few times and then wait for their victims to turn. Only when frenzied might they devour their prey and suck out brains.

To see human and zombie corpses dismembered so casually—blood, brains, and entrails strewn everywhere—could only mean one of two things: either a zombie BOSS was involved, one whose raw power far exceeded that of normal undead (and who relished treating humans as food even resorting to cannibalism), or a zombified animal had taken on a horrific form. (While animal zombification is rare, the stronger the animal, the higher the chance.) Experienced as he was, Yazī quickly deduced the culprit behind this grisly scene.

It was the Zombie Cat!

Through claw marks on the walls, wounds on the corpses, and the jagged cuts on severed limbs, Yazī was certain that all of this carnage was caused by a zombie cat—a creature he despised more than any other.

Taking a step forward, he left the safety corridor and truly entered the hall. His Windrunner Boots, once soft on carpet, now met not gentle fabric but a squelchy, muddy surface—the carpet was soaked with blood and meat slurry. Yazī paused. The zombie cat, with its razor‑sharp senses, must already know he was there. Would it choose to ambush him or confront him head‑on?

Not to disappoint him, the mindless yet dangerous zombie cat stepped straight into view. A piercing, mournful mewl echoed as, from the far end of the corridor, a creature emerged from a storage room—a zombie cat about the size of a leopard.

Though you could still discern feline contours, every part of its body was grotesquely altered. Its eyes were a deep, blood‑red, and those once‑soft, furry paws now ended in three glistening, lethal claws. Even a gentle brush against the carpet would leave a deep scratch in the underlying floor.

Yazī's face remained impassive as he checked the creature's stats. (When a zombie's level exceeds yours by five or more, the system only shows its name—but luckily this cat's level was low enough for full details to be revealed.)

  [Clawed Zombie Cat] (Bronze‑Grade BOSS)  Level: 9  Base Attributes – Strength: 21, Spirit: 10, Constitution: 9, Agility: 20  Talent: Claws – When inflicting damage, the wound remains torn; healing speed drops by 40% while bleeding increases by 40%.  Skills:   • Phantom Pounce: Instantly boosts speed by 30% and charges at the enemy for 120% of Strength damage; during the pounce, damage taken is reduced by 50%.   • Cat's Gaze: Can pull the enemy into a terrifying illusion induced by the cat-eye, causing "fear" that reduces all their attributes by 20% and disrupts their combat rhythm.

Powerful indeed! A zombie animal with a prefix is always a BOSS. Its claw talent was fearsome—slowing healing and ramping up bleeding so that any wounded area would hardly mend during battle. In strength and agility, this zombie cat even surpassed Yazī. Truly, it was born as a BOSS.

Yet no matter how high its stats or how formidable its skills, Yazī's expression never wavered. He was confident he could kill the zombie cat. Even if it had a slight attribute edge, his decades of battle experience would crush it.

A system prompt then flashed:  "Detected player 'Yazī' has encountered Bronze‑Grade BOSS 'Clawed Zombie Cat' – Task 'Revenge of the Betrayed Cat' triggered."

[Revenge of the Betrayed Cat]•Task Description: A stray cat with a special talent was once a regular visitor to the sports center's third floor. Before the apocalypse, cat lovers would bring it tasty cat food. But once the apocalypse struck, infected by the zombie virus, the cat began its slaughter. Its claws tore through the bodies of those who had once cared for it, leaving death in its wake.•Task Requirement: Kill the Zombie Cat•Task Reward: 100 Reputation Points, 200 Coins, 100 XP, one Bronze‑Grade item•Time Limit: 8 hours•Task Penalty: Lose one level and permanently subtract one point from each attribute (abandoning the task is equivalent to failure)

"Ding, the Cheat System is optimizing task parameters…" the system droned.