"Meow!"
"Hey? How did a cat get in here?"
After finishing his daily training, Jian Jingyu walked out and spotted a long-haired black cat crouching on the other side of the iron railing atop the back wall of the camp.
To ensure their safety, the fences above the camp walls were all equipped with plasma arc barriers. Not even a mosquito could fly in, let alone a cat!
It had probably just been zapped by the high-voltage current, which was why it had yowled like that.
Looking around, where was its owner?
"Meow~"
The black cat sat down directly across from Jian Jingyu, licked its paw, and let out a well-behaved mew. Its golden vertical pupils darted around, utterly adorable.
"Oh~"
Jian Jingyu felt his heart nearly melt. After a moment, he said,
"But no can do. Without scanning and decontamination, I can't let you in. Don't hang around here—go find your owner!"
Without another glance at the cat, he turned and strode toward the dormitory.
No room for softness. He was drenched in sweat. He needed to shower quickly, then head to mental strength training. After that, Sister Ma was waiting for him!
Time was never enough… As a soldier, he was just too outstanding!
"Grrr—Hiss! Meow!"
Behind him, the black cat angrily swiped its paws in the air, accidentally brushing against the arc barrier near the railing.
"OW!"
It yanked its paw back in pain.
Damn it. That human hadn't been fooled by its appearance? And he'd left so quickly, standing so far away with the arc barrier in between—there was no chance to latch onto him!
Didn't humans love these furry four-legged creatures? Weren't they supposed to be unable to walk away once they saw one? Why didn't that curly-haired guy care at all?
"Kitty, what are you doing here?"
Wu Pingzhuo, who had also just finished training, spotted the cat as he came out.
The black cat's golden eyes instantly turned harmless. It tilted its head, showing the student its cutest side, trying to get him to turn off the arc barrier and let it inside.
"Meow~"
Wu Pingzhuo was stunned for a second, then his face twisted into a complicated expression.
"I saw you hissing and cursing like crazy when you hit that electric arc just now…"
"…"
"What's up? Wu Pingzhuo, why are you standing there?"
Fu Xingyuan came out right behind him. Wu Pingzhuo immediately called out to his friend,
"Bro, come quick! I just met an actor cat!"
"An actor cat?"
Fu Xingyuan followed Wu Pingzhuo's pointing finger and saw a long-haired black cat pacing away outside the railing. Its back seemed to radiate a certain indignation.
"Let me tell you—it was hissing and snarling after getting shocked, and then when it saw me…"
Wu Pingzhuo spilled every detail. Fu Xingyuan frowned,
"Why would a cat be near the camp?"
"No idea. Must have wandered in from somewhere. Its owner is probably worried sick."
With that shiny long fur, it clearly wasn't a stray.
"Hmm… To be safe, if you see it again, let the committee know. We'd better not let it in."
"Of course! There are so many of us in the camp—I don't dare risk anything bad happening!"
The black cat walked alone along the long street for quite a while. Its golden eyes glimmered with an unusual intelligence.
The Federation's controls were ridiculously strict. No matter where you went, you had to undergo scanning and decontamination.
Parasitizing humans was too easy to detect—you'd get hauled off for quarantine. So many of their kind had already been locked away in sunless places.
But it was smart enough to think of parasitizing animals instead. That way, it wouldn't draw attention, and it could do more for the Overlord!
"Dun-dun! Dun-dun! How did you get over here!?"
A little boy ran up from a distance and scooped the black cat off the ground.
"You scared me! I thought I'd lost you! You've been so naughty today—I'm taking away one of your cat treats!"
"Meow."
The black cat licked its injured paw, unconcerned.
The only downside was that it had to occasionally "sell" its own "cuteness."
But those two humans just now didn't fall for it? It made it furious!
"Dun-dun! What happened to your paw? How did you get so careless? Come on, I'll take you home so Mom can look at it!"
The little boy carried the black cat and ran "pat-pat-pat" toward home, never noticing how the cat kept scanning the streets from his shoulder.
Still, this trip wasn't a complete waste. Now it knew where the competition camp was, and it had seen a few students. It just hadn't spotted that black-and-white-haired mech pilot the Overlord had mentioned. It would try its luck again next time.
In the basement of the Quarantine Control Center.
Workers injected sedatives into soldiers who had been parasitized by alien bugs, then remotely guided the hospital beds—one by one—into the top-secret quarantine area where "Qi Chengyan" was being held.
The beds stopped outside the third glass isolation zone. A loudspeaker in the room suddenly boomed,
"Please extract the host bug from this soldier's brain."
"Qi Chengyan," seated in the center of the glass enclosure, lifted his eyes and glanced at the soldier on the bed.
The man was gaunt, hollow-faced—virtually no flesh left on him. Already drained to the limit. Even soaking in a medical pod every day, he probably wouldn't survive more than a few years.
"Even if I extract the host bug, this man won't live long. Are you sure you still want to save him?"
A moment later, a voice tinged with suppressed rage answered from the speaker,
"That's none of your concern. Just do what you're told!"
"Qi Chengyan" raised his eyebrows high, stood up, and leaned on the glass. Do what he was told?
Kill every last one of you humans and use your bodies as breeding grounds for his subjects.
He mobilized his psychic energy to resonate with the host bug inside the soldier's brain.
"Ugh…"
The soldier, despite having been sedated, let out a pained moan.
The blanket covering him soon became tangled. His body, strapped down with restraints, writhed and twisted as if trying to shrink away—signs of extreme agony.
"Alpha Gold Crown! What have you done to him?"
The people in the control room were both shocked and enraged.
"Qi Chengyan" snorted coldly,
"Hah, Commander. Didn't you tell me to extract the host bug from his brain?"
"…"
"This guy's been parasitized so long that the bug is nearly fused with him. I'm doing my absolute best not to damage his nerves. You can't expect me to stop his pain too, can you?"
The commander in the control room gritted his back teeth so hard they creaked.
That man on the bed used to be his comrade in arms! In just one year, he'd been reduced to this state… And this Alpha Gold Crown had the gall to mock them?!
"Commander Sun, be careful not to let it get under your skin," another person in the room reminded him. No one knew if the Alpha Gold Crown was deliberately trying to provoke them.
Only after taking several deep breaths to suppress his fury did Sun Rong speak into the microphone,
"…Continue."
