Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 397: Chapter 14: The Cat-Petting Hero

Many times, there are things that people don’t postpone to the next opportunity because they want to, but because they believe they can accomplish them next time; in reality, they already cannot.

"Cats," as the most powerful beings, have seen many humans and their wisdom has also made them aware of many rules that only humans would encounter.

Such as the negative attribute that occurs every four hours, or the strange dishes that humans can use to suddenly disappear.

Another night passed.

Ultimately, the cat still didn’t make it this time; Wu Jiu, holding the cat while fighting covered in blood, found it somewhat amusing.

Perhaps, to understand this feeling better, to find out the reason... the cat thought about whether to watch for a while longer.

In any case, it was undecided again this time.

As the night passed, this human actually survived another attack from the Insect Race; the starving human even tore off a leg from one of the insects and started to roast it over a fire.

Moths also tried to join the fray, with huge Human-faced Moths circling in the air; after Evil Fallen Transformation, these Human-faced Moths had acquired certain intelligence.

Light and heat attracted them, but the scent of some Insect Race corpses made them fearful.

Altogether, these Human-faced Moths didn’t dare to lay a hand on Wu Jiu.

Wu Jiu slowly ate the roasted, crispy-chicken-flavored giant cicada leg, and while eating, he didn’t forget to mutter to himself.

The cat probably knew that this human had been affected by some attribute. How pitiful, humans are such weak creatures.

Its expression was probably one of a cat’s mockery and teasing, like a very plump cat, squinting its eyes and curling its whiskers in self-satisfaction, looking at the owner’s empty fish tank as if to say: Look what, the fish was eaten by me.

However, Wu Jiu’s Heart Net couldn’t capture such subtlety, so he didn’t know the cat had shown a rather insolent expression.

The atmosphere at this moment somehow felt quite comfortable to the cat... And so, quickly... it was no longer happy.

Because Wu Jiu’s hands suddenly started to tremble violently, his breath turning to frost, the instinct to survive made Wu Jiu want to curl up his body.

A negative attribute descended, extreme cold.

The cat estimated the time and was sure a new negative attribute had befallen this fragile human.

So weak, meow. This time, he must not be able to hold on, right? Mhm, I’ll kill him this time!

The cat thought so but was once again baffled by Wu Jiu’s actions.

Wu Jiu wanted to curl up to keep warm, exactly what humans would do in a state of extreme cold, trying to expose as little of themselves to the cold as possible.

It was the body’s instinct to survive.

But at this moment... Wu Jiu didn’t act according to his survival instincts. He just held the cat and started walking into the night.

The cat could distinctly feel Wu Jiu’s body temperature dropping rapidly.

He even wondered if soon, the blood of this human would freeze.

In such a condition, why isn’t he using that plate? Why isn’t he returning to the High Tower?

The cat could not understand.

Wu Jiu just kept walking with the cat, returning the way he came.

Along the way, there were corpses of the Insect Race everywhere; these were the results of Wu Jiu’s battles over the past several days.

The cat was somewhat surprised; was this human really fighting in such a near-death state all the time?

Is he truly insane?

Of course, Wu Jiu was not insane. His face, somewhat stern, stern to the point of being a bit fierce, had a gentle nature at heart.

The cat quickly witnessed this gentleness.

While listening to the human incessantly murmuring some unintelligible whisper, the cat saw in the human’s eyes... there was still light.

He was about to freeze to death, yet his consciousness remained clear...

He was not going mad, it seemed more like he was trying to do something.

After a while, the cat felt the cold seeping through its fur, and one could imagine that at this moment, describing this human as a walking ice sculpture wouldn’t be an overstatement.

In the state of extreme cold, relying on his exceptional physical condition and even more astonishing will, he forcefully endured the lengthy journey.

He arrived at... the edge of the fungal mat.

At last, Wu Jiu put the cat down and said,

"Run... run away..."

The man’s teeth were chattering, and the temperature around him seemed to be dropping as well.

"No... don’t come back here... It’s, dangerous..."

Thump.

The man with a stern face fell to the ground.

He couldn’t hold on any longer.

The cat was puzzled...

He actually came all this way just to send me away? He’s not crazy... he’s a fool.

Wu Jiu’s body curled involuntarily, his consciousness already muddled.

He had already faced numerous interferences with his consciousness, negative attributes that eroded his cognition, but he had overcome each one with his personal will.

If it weren’t for cheats like Bai Wu, Wu Jiu would have definitely set a human survival record.

The first time he set a 24-day survival record, he thought it was a fluke.

If Nie Chongshan had decided to kill him on a whim back then... perhaps he would have died within a few days.

But this time, Wu Jiu proved that it was no fluke.

Being able to hold on despite so many negative attributes, that in itself spoke volumes about his courage, his resilience.

The cat felt a strange sensation within, very strange.

"Outrageous."

As Wu Jiu lay on the ground, his consciousness half-faded yet still muttering unintelligible words, the cat suddenly began to speak human language.

The voice was that of a woman.

"I suddenly feel like observing you a bit more."

The cat ran over to Wu Jiu, who was now lying on the ground, curled up in pain.

His blue uniform was stiff due to the moisture and the cold.

The cat’s right front paw rested on Wu Jiu’s forehead.

"Human, survive, I’m not done playing with you."

If before it had seemed lacking in seriousness, now it was like an arrogant and majestic queen.

In the midst of the cold, Wu Jiu was suddenly engulfed by a huge surge of warmth.

His consciousness had been trapped in an ice glacier, but suddenly, a warm wind as if from a tropical region began to blow...

The glaciers melted, the sea water boiled!

In a white expanse of steaming vapor, Wu Jiu seemed to hear a command capable of changing the rules...

An authoritative voice emerged in his consciousness... creating a soundless echo.

Human, survive.

...

...

The next afternoon, Wu Jiu woke up.

For the first time in dozens of days, Wu Jiu, who hadn’t truly slept, fell asleep. His spirit and vigor were greatly restored thanks to that sleep.

The afternoon sun was warm, a rarity in the fungal mats.

Because swarms of insects obscured the sky, sometimes you think there’s a dark cloud overhead, but in reality, it’s not a cloud at all but a dark horde of insects clustered together.

Wu Jiu habitually muttered to himself, then looked around. The bodies of insects from the Insect Race were everywhere, even the corpses of some giant insects.

Most of these insects were of level 7 mutations, level 8 mutations... even level 9 mutations, but now they were all chopped into many pieces.

"Did I kill them? I don’t remember... It should have been difficult for me back then to kill such powerful members of the Insect Race..."

Wu Jiu found it strange.

But it was perfectly normal not to remember; half a month ago, he was in a state even more drowsy and confused than Zheng Yue, halfway between sleep and wakefulness.

Many monsters killed purely by instinct, using that kind of pure muscle memory, not even knowing how they killed; when the enemy appeared, they were dispatched without a second thought.

"I actually... really fell asleep?"

Wu Jiu did not ponder how those giant Insect Race corpses came to be, but very soon he thought of something else... he indeed had fallen asleep.

Soundly asleep.

It could be said that ever since he became infected with the condition that would kill him if he didn’t speak, this was the first time he had slept.

But after falling asleep, he wouldn’t be able to talk; he should have died.

Wu Jiu had tested the speaking-or-dying assumption; once he stopped speaking, his lifeforce would rapidly decline, and he wouldn’t even feel pain, just the sensation of life withering away and the shadow of death looming over him.

He couldn’t understand how he could still be alive after falling soundly asleep without speaking...

"Yesterday... I seemed to feel a very cold breath..."

"Right, I was infected by extreme cold... but why don’t I feel cold anymore?"

Wu Jiu tried and found that other negative attributes were still present in his body, and if he did not speak now, he would still feel his lifeforce dropping precipitously. Moreover, his senses were still insulated, only able to sense through the Heart Net.

But why was the cold no longer there?

And how did he manage to survive while sleeping?

Were these giant creatures truly killed by him in that near-death state?

Could it be that he had awakened some sort of Sequence?

He had not.

Wu Jiu felt that his Innate Force had indeed improved, but as far as the Sequence was concerned, he only had the Heart Net up to now.

A few minutes later, Wu Jiu stopped pondering these questions that had no answers.

His continuous survival time had not been interrupted, and his energy had been greatly restored from sleeping.

Now... he felt he could keep going.

So, Wu Jiu began to make his way deeper into the mushroom mat.

But not long into his journey, Wu Jiu suddenly paused, then swiftly used Instant Shadow and drew his sword! fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

A cold white flash of his blade, and a caterpillar with hundreds of eyes was slain by him, spraying out countless streams of green bodily fluid.

After flashing through the giant caterpillar’s body, Wu Jiu held a cat in his arms.

The cat’s ears were mangled, the pointed tips as if bitten off, and its tail was also broken.

Wu Jiu was greatly surprised:

"Didn’t I... send you away?"

Wait... thinking it over, did I really send it away? Or was that just an illusion of mine?

The cat was indeed the one known as the Meow Star Cat.

Wu Jiu was marked by it with a very hot brand, which was strong enough to make a creature’s blood boil. With this countering the invasion of extreme cold, Wu Jiu merely felt slightly feverish, and that intense cold sensation had completely faded away.

As for last night, this man could have held on, not falling asleep by sheer Will.

But the cat had still allowed him to sleep.

It wanted to find out why this human being kept muttering certain syllables relentlessly, and soon the cat discovered... the human’s lifeforce began to drop precipitously.

It suddenly realized that this person would indeed die if he didn’t speak. How pitiful; humans are such fragile creatures.

So, when Wu Jiu’s lifeforce was draining away, the cat bestowed upon him strong lifeforce through its own blood.

It was still the method of counteracting one force with another.

A drop of "cat blood" was not enough for Wu Jiu to constantly combat the "must speak or die" condition, but it was enough to keep him going for one night.

Power follows rules, but if within a rule’s domain a certain power is too strong, it can defy the rules.

And the cat possessed such power.

Those giant creatures had also been killed by this cat.

Wu Jiu’s memory had been in disarray for dozens of days now, and he could not tell if he was the one who had killed.

Now, Wu Jiu and the cat met once again.

The cat’s ears were mangled, its tail severed, utterly hideous.

The little cat’s thoughts were simple—

Humans had once been ruled by the Meow Star Cats, but those were attractive cats. By making myself so ugly now, he should start to loathe me.

That’s what it thought, so it allowed its ears to be disfigured and its tail to be chopped off.

At this moment, the cat looked at Wu Jiu, and Wu Jiu looked back at the cat.

The cat’s heart said, come on, hideous human, show me that ugly side of your heart!

For such a powerful creature as itself, everything was merely a game, sparked only by discovering a somewhat unusual human and developing a slight interest to toy with him.

Or perhaps it was like trying to prove something, to prove that human nature, at its core, is still vile.

It looked forward with anticipation, though it actually didn’t know what it was anticipating.

But Wu Jiu... clearly did not respond to that kind of expectation.

Wu Jiu picked up the cat, his fingers gently touching the base of the cat’s ears.

"I’m sorry... I thought I should have sent you away yesterday... but now it seems I didn’t, if I had been more alert, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I’m sorry," he said.

He gently stroked the little head of the cat. The cat was astonished.

What’s with this human...?

Why doesn’t he play by the rules? What the heck is he apologizing for!

"I’ll send you out now. This place is very dangerous; don’t come back in," Wu Jiu said.

The cat was stunned.

I’m being sent out again?

You damn send me out when you’re about to die, and still damn send me out when you’re not dying?

It became unhappy, meowing in resistance and even raising its half-broken tail.

After a series of actions such as throwing a tantrum, rolling around, acting cute, and furiously meowing, Wu Jiu seemed to understand something.

He too was surprised.

This cat possessed some extremely unique sequences such that, in Wu Jiu’s eyes, it was just an ordinary cat. Perhaps it had gone through some mutations, but its mutation level was certainly not high.

So indeed, he was very worried that the cat would die in a mycelium-covered place full of dreadful insects.

"Do you want me... to take you with me?" he asked.

The cat nodded.

Being able to understand didn’t surprise Wu Jiu too much; the world outside the tower, where anything bizarre was normal.

In the end, the human and the cat did not part ways.

The cat took a strong interest in Wu Jiu, swearing to find the ugly flaws in this human! To prove all humans are villains, and then to kill this one.

Wu Jiu didn’t think so much. He felt fortunate to have survived the previous night, thinking perhaps this was a cat that could bring good luck.

So, on his lengthy journey that followed, he always brought the cat along.

Humans thought it was a bond between themselves and a poor little animal, making the adventurous journey less lonely.

But the cat believed that this weak human could be killed at any moment; it didn’t do so only because it hadn’t yet unveiled the human’s hypocrisy. At least, that’s what the cat believed.

As for the moments when getting its small head and cheeks rubbed felt truly great, it would definitely not admit that.

The journey of the human and cat began.

The mycelium, a place seemingly with endless hordes of the Insect Race, was for Wu Jiu an excellent place to train.

The cat did not know what it would witness was not the hypocritical human tearing off his disguise to reveal his true nature.

Rather, it was about the legend of the High Tower becoming the legend of the world.

(That’s it for the Wu Jiu arc for now; it will continue after a while.)