Chapter 62: Battle Against Mutated Rats

**2:30 AM**

After driving through the storm, the Cube and the girl finally reached the fork in the road. Exhausted and feverish from her ordeal, the girl slumped in her seat while the Cube ventured into the rain to find medicine.

It located a ransacked pharmacy at a crossroads. Shelves were overturned, pills scattered like confetti. As the Cube rummaged for antibiotics, a pair of glowing red eyes emerged from a hole behind a cabinet—a cat-sized rat lunged with fangs bared!

*Clang!* The rodent pinned the Cube, its reinforced teeth gnawing sparks from its right arm. Energy levels plummeted as joints screeched. Desperate, the Cube's left claw stabbed into the rat's eye, transforming into a spinning drill within the socket. *Rat-tat-tat!* Bullets shredded the creature's skull from the inside, painting the walls with gore.

Scans revealed unsettling details: the rat's brain had shifted backward, its bones thickened—an evolutionary response to the apocalypse. "Even animals adapt…" the Cube muttered, concocting a toxic cocktail from pharmacy chemicals. It implanted a glass vial of corrosive fluid into the rat's corpse, a "gift" for any scavenging zombies.

Dawn approached as Zhang Xiaowen's convoy navigated debris-strewn roads. Feng Zhiwen's husky, Xiao Er, nuzzled Wang Nan's giggling baby while the group chatted.

"Your remote helicopter's gone?" Wang Nan asked.

"It's… helping someone," Xiaowen replied evasively.

Feng interjected: "Those 'Four Evils' cats at camp—are they really that bad?"

Xiaowen grinned. "They're menaces. But since they arrived, not a single mouse dares show its face."

The Cube, now a scarred toy car dragging medical supplies, limped toward the rendezvous point. Its energy reserves flickered red, but the mission wasn't over—not while survivors still needed weapons, medicine, and a sliver of hope in this twisted new world.