Chapter Sixteen: The Appearance of the Beast of Mourning

A cruel smile appeared on Scarface’s lips. He could tell that Gu Sha was no ordinary man. After all, the aura surrounding Gu Sha was nothing like that of someone merely struggling to survive in the apocalypse. Every move he made exuded a sense of lethal efficiency and composure.

Moreover, the fact that Gu Sha had immediately seen through the tampered food was further proof that he was not just anyone.

But Scarface held a gun. That alone made him supremely confident.

No matter how strong one was, could they be stronger than a gun?

Seeing Gu Sha’s hand settle on the hilt of his Tang sword, Scarface chuckled softly and said, “Brother, times have changed, you—ah!”

One moment, Scarface was about to deliver a victor’s speech, full of smugness. The next, a scream burst from his throat.

The wrist holding his pistol suddenly exploded in a spray of blood, and the gun crashed to the floor.

The icy blade of the Tang sword pressed against Scarface’s throat.

Pale and sweating, Scarface gritted his teeth against the pain. “Little brother, don’t be impulsive, you—”

“Boss!” “Boss!”

At that moment, several bedroom doors burst open. Seven or eight burly men surged out, two of them armed with pistols, immediately aiming to gun down Gu Sha.

Gu Sha reacted without hesitation. He flung his Tang sword like lightning. The blade pierced straight through the chest of one gunman, the tremendous force carrying the man’s body backward and pinning him to the wall.

With a muffled whistle, the second gunman fired at Gu Sha, his silenced pistol making only the faintest pop.

But the bullet missed, tearing through the sofa instead.

To those watching, Gu Sha became a mere blur. In the next instant, he was already in front of the gunman, hand darting out to seize the man by the throat. There was a sickening crunch as the man’s neck shattered, the pistol slipping from lifeless fingers.

Gu Sha caught the falling gun, sneered, and said coldly, “You don’t know how to use a gun.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he flicked his wrist and pressed the pistol to another burly man’s forehead, pulling the trigger. With a dull thud, a bloody hole appeared in the man’s skull.

Then, grabbing the man’s axe, Gu Sha hurled it at another attacker, the blade embedding itself deep in his neck. He fired several more shots in rapid succession.

When the echoes of gunfire faded, only Scarface and Gu Sha remained in the hall. Scarface was bent double, reaching for his pistol with a trembling hand, his face ashen. The rest were already corpses.

Scarface had just begun to stoop, his hand still hovering above his weapon, when the warm muzzle of a gun pressed against his forehead.

“B-boss…” Scarface forgot the agony of his severed tendons. Cold sweat streamed down his brow as he collapsed to his knees with a thud, pleading desperately, “I was wrong! Pretend I’m nothing, spare me, I was wrong…”

Gu Sha gestured with the pistol toward the gun on the floor, his tone flat. “Pick it up.”

“Ah?” Scarface flinched in terror. “No, no, boss, I was wrong, I shouldn’t have been blinded by greed, I—”

“I told you to pick it up.” Gu Sha’s voice was calm, unyielding.

Scarface shuddered all over, reaching out with his uninjured hand to grasp the gun.

A shot rang out. Gu Sha fired without hesitation, shattering Scarface’s wrist in a spray of blood.

Scarface howled in pain, but Gu Sha shoved the barrel into his mouth and said coldly, “Make another sound and I’ll blow your head off.”

Scarface dared not utter another word.

Gu Sha set the pistol on the table, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, and took a slow drag, releasing a ring of smoke.

During his scavenging, he had always grabbed a pack or two of cigarettes. It was a habit from his previous life, carried into this one.

Cigarettes were a rare luxury in the apocalypse, so precious they were worth a fortune.

Gu Sha took another draw, then asked quietly, “Why aren’t there any zombies here?”

Scarface hesitated, then replied, “We… we killed them…”

Gu Sha shot him a glance, slowly turned the pistol on the table until its barrel pointed at Scarface. “I’ll ask just once more. If you don’t tell the truth, I’ll blow your head off.”

Scarface swallowed hard. “It’s… it’s because there’s a big cat in this building… a really big cat, bigger than a tiger… It could be one of those mutant beasts they mentioned on the radio!”

Mutant beasts—Gu Sha was all too familiar with the term.

When humans were infected by the Crimson Plague, they became zombies. When animals were infected, they became mutant beasts.

Strictly speaking, mutant beasts were an even greater threat in the apocalypse than zombies.

Animals that mutated were often far more dangerous than humans. Tigers, lions, elephants—these creatures were already formidable before mutating, stronger than most human warriors even without evolving further. And then there were birds and fish, occupying their own domains—birds could fly naturally, and once evolved, their terror was unimaginable.

Humanity’s only advantage lay in technology. But relying solely on technology was ultimately cumbersome; often, people could only defend, unable to mount an offense, for most heavy weapons were not available at all times.

Thus, in the aftermath, faced with the mutant beast crisis, humans were always on the back foot. Even among humans, the emergence of many super-strong individuals couldn’t change this disadvantage.

However, during the first outbreak of the Crimson Plague, there were few mutant beasts in the cities, and truly powerful ones were even rarer. Most had gathered in the wilderness.

Gu Sha frowned slightly at Scarface’s account.

If Scarface wasn’t lying, and there really was a cat bigger than a tiger in this building, then it wasn’t an ordinary mutant beast. Mutant beasts infected by the Crimson Plague, like zombies, merely lost their minds and became a bit stronger physically, but couldn’t possibly grow to such size.

Unless… unless that beast had consumed a source pearl and evolved, reaching the ranking system of mutant beasts. For a cat to become larger than a tiger, it might already be at tier two.

How many source pearls had that cat devoured?

For a mutant beast to reach such a level so soon after the initial outbreak, there should have been a record—surely it would have caused a stir.

“Besides its size, does the cat have any other distinguishing features?” Gu Sha asked.

“It’s a blue cat,” Scarface stammered, “and it likes to eat people… Oh, and it can breathe fire! All those burned things outside were set alight by it, to kill zombies!”

A strange light flickered in Gu Sha’s eyes.

Suddenly, a memory surfaced in his mind—a blue cat the size of a small pavilion, leaving devastation in its wake, draining lakes dry, shrugging off hundreds of artillery shells as it strolled out of Tung City unscathed—a king-class mutant beast, the Fire Cat King!

Could it really be that one?