Chapter Fourteen: Prey and Hunter

Zombies are chaotic and evil beings—bloodthirsty, savage, and murderous. When even humans, creatures once endowed with reason, mutate into such monsters, what, then, would become of a beast that underwent such a transformation?

Fan Li could be certain that the canine before him was once a golden retriever, but its appearance and demeanor were utterly changed. Its teeth jutted grotesquely, as if it had spent too long clenching its jaws, so that the muscles of its face were now rigid and frozen. From Fan Li’s vantage, the retriever’s face was warped and ghastly, its eyes wide and bulging. The moment it caught sight of Fan Li, its fur bristled in alarm.

That was not all. There was a gruesome wound across its chest, as though it had been slashed by a keen blade, exposing white bone beneath the torn flesh. The injury was massive, and under normal circumstances, the retriever would have long since died.

Yet now, the golden retriever seemed unaffected by its wounds. Instead, it let out a series of piercing, guttural howls.

A zombie dog.

There was no doubt—the golden retriever had mutated, becoming a monster infected with a deadly virus.

Run.

Fan Li was flesh and blood, incapable of enduring the bite of a zombie dog. Moreover, unlike the slightly plump zombie downstairs, this mutated hound would not be so easily trapped at the narrow doorway. Instead, the constricted space could become a snare for Fan Li himself.

Without hesitation, Fan Li spun around and sprinted up the stairs. In the instant he turned, he distinctly heard claws scraping the floor. He had barely taken two steps when he heard the thud of paws striking wooden boards.

The zombie dog had already lunged out of the living room, its claws landing on the toppled planks.

The owner of the house was dead. Perhaps the man had never imagined that the loyal companion who had shared his life for years would one day turn on him. The gaping wound on his chest was likely the mark of his last, desperate struggle. But tragically, unless one dealt a fatal blow to a zombie’s head, such wounds mattered little to these abominations.

Bang!

In four strides, Fan Li reached the top of the staircase. He whirled around, his night-seeing eyes catching the mutated zombie dog hurtling towards him, jaws gaping wide. The mutation had gifted it with astonishing agility; its hind legs tensed, and with a powerful leap, it soared into the air. At this speed, Fan Li would be knocked down in an instant!

But as the beast closed on him, Fan Li gripped his katana in both hands and swung it down with all his might.

He had the higher ground.

Unlike their earlier standoff at the doorway, Fan Li now stood atop the stairs, able to unleash the katana’s full lethality.

A pained howl split the air.

The zombie dog’s right shoulder was struck brutally, the razor-sharp blade slicing through flesh and nearly severing its front paw. Off balance, the beast tumbled down to the lower landing.

Seizing his chance, Fan Li turned and fled further upstairs. Though the dog still pursued him, the urgency was gone. Pausing at the sixth-floor landing, Fan Li looked back.

The zombie dog’s right forepaw was now useless, attached to its body by only a few splintered bones. With just three legs, it struggled onwards, blood dripping steadily. Its bloodshot eyes seethed with rage and bloodlust as it roared up at Fan Li, furious at its own pain and the loss inflicted upon it.

He had severed a foreleg with a single stroke.

This alone attested to the katana’s formidable sharpness, far beyond what Fan Li had expected. If this blow had landed on an ordinary zombie, it would have been fatal. But for the zombie dog, it was merely a grievous wound.

This meant that once beasts mutated, they gained explosive power and terrifying vitality that surpassed even human zombies.

If a gentle golden retriever could become such a nightmare, what of a tiger, a lion, or even a rhinoceros?

Fan Li dared not imagine what horrors such mutated beasts would present. For the surviving humans, without firearms, how could they possibly defend themselves?

For a moment, Fan Li even doubted the future of humanity itself.

The zombie dog let out a shrill, heartrending wail—not from the pain of its wounds, but from the frustration of being unable to seize the living flesh so near.

The loss of a limb did not deter it. It continued to make guttural, food-guarding sounds, echoing through the dark, silent stairwell, instilling terror and dread.

An ordinary person would have been petrified at this sight, paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.

But Fan Li was no ordinary person.

Having slaughtered three zombies with his own hands, and with Ellie, the little monster, at his side, Fan Li’s heart had already begun to change.

Just as humans and pets could, for special reasons, become bloodthirsty and savage monsters, so too was Fan Li beginning his own transformation in this new era.

Cruel as it might sound.

Yet conventional thinking had little chance of survival in this new world.

What did people once fear? Save for rare exceptions, their greatest terrors came from haunted houses, horror films, or half-believed ghost stories.

But now, the apocalypse had arrived. The world outside was a living hell. If humans still clung to the old fears—dreading to go upstairs alone after a horror movie, or suspecting a ghoul grinning in the mirror—they would not survive in this wasteland.

Survival of the fittest.

In this new world, the first to be eliminated were not sorted by education, gender, or age, but by one thing above all: the courage to face challenges.

For some, this was a fatal demand.

These monsters before him would, without doubt, enjoy a period of plenty. For the average person, it would take immense bravery to face such creatures at all.

But nothing is absolute.

Watching the zombie dog inch its way up the stairs, Fan Li’s gaze turned icy. The beast, in its mindless state, could never know that Fan Li had always had the option not to open that wooden door and let it out.

Now, the only reason the zombie dog had escaped its prison was not its own strength, but because, from the very beginning, this fearsome creature had always been the prey.

Fear resistance strengthened.

With his Monster Manual, Fan Li belonged to the first generation to adapt to the new era. Expressionless, he stepped down to where only three steps separated him from the zombie dog, and slowly raised his katana.

“Die.”

Facing the snarling, howling beast, Fan Li brought down his blade. For the zombie dog, this might be the final sound of its existence; and for Fan Li, it was his last farewell to the person he had once been.

Hunter and prey.

If he had to choose, Fan Li would, without hesitation, be the hunter.