Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
Xiao Yu could hear her heart thumping in her ears.
She was beginning to feel afraid. How could she not when there so many hostile eyes were trained on them? She had borrowed Nekomata’s spirit ability and it was a hundred times more useful than Fishball’s disco lights, but it still could not protect her from so many opponents.
There were close to 50 teams, which amounted to 80 cats and apostles. There was no telling what kind of powers they might have and what damage they might inflict.
The thought brought on involuntary shivers. Xiao Yu was just a primary school kid after all.
Zhao Yao gently patted the top of her head.
“You’re scared?” he chuckled.
“As if,” Xiao Yu responded coolly, swatting Zhao Yao’s hand away, “I bet you’re the one who’s scared.”
She was terrified, but there was no way she would let her nephew know that. He would bring this up and mock her for the rest of their lives.
Zhao Yao gave her a kind smile, then scanned the crowd. His gaze was met with pair after pair of fiercely determined eyes.
“Don’t worry. Just stay behind me. Everything will be fine.”
Next to his feet, Matcha was performing an encore of his reassuring words.
The ginger cat patted the Serval’s head. “You’re scared?”
“Aren’t you scared too, King George?” she replied nervously, tail drooping.
Matcha hummed non-committedly, surveying the crowd as Zhao Yao had done.
“Don’t worry. Just stay behind me. Everything will be fine,” he repeated.
While Zhao Yao and Matcha were the paragons of calm, Noodle the Husky was the exact opposite. He had quickly cowered behind Xiao Yu, quaking with fear.
“Idiots! There’s no hope! We are doomed. How can we survive when we are surrounded by so many people?”
There was a pause as his mind flitted from option to option.
“Oh, right! I can play dead!” he thought brightly.
Noodle recalled the times when Xiao Yu trained him to collapse to the ground when she pointed a finger gun at him. He always found it stupid, but the dire state they were in right now elucidated Xiao Yu’s intentions. He was suddenly overcome with gratitude.
Nekomata narrowed his eyes as he assessed the situation.
“Zhao Yao may be powerful, but how can one man defeat so many apostles at once? Could it be that he has grown stronger somehow? How is that possible?”
A sly smile played on his lips. “Interesting… I should observe him further.”
Zhao Yao’s composed demeanor was noticed by every cat and apostle in the area as well. It fuelled their anger and frustration towards him. To them, this Black Robe Man was an undeserving show-off who was acting cool.
How could he emerge victorious against 80 of them?
“Heh heh, I bet we’ll make him cry later. Does he really think that being invisible makes him invincible?”
“When all of us attack him at once, we might just kill him. That would cause a bit of trouble, wouldn’t it?”
“Kid, you might want to hand us the sapphires now. You can become invisible, but you won’t be able to escape so many of us.”
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While most of the contestants cast thrash-talk and dirty looks in Zhao Yao’s way, the Explosive Man had his eyes firmly on the Cat King of the North.
“When does the second round begin?” he asked impatiently.
The King of the North replied, “Everyone must be tired after the first round. Let’s take a half-hour break. After that, we will commence the second round of this competition. It will begin in the woods as well. It will last an hour. After the hour is over, the contestants that have managed to secure a sapphire will proceed to the last round.”
The Explosive Man glowered at Zhao Yao, Xiao Yu, and the Serval before walking away.
He thought to himself, “I will have all three sapphires in hand. Then, I will be crowned the Cat King.”
He paid little regard to Zhao Yao’s powers. To him and every other contestant, the three of them only managed to scrape past the first round because of underhanded means and good luck. They were not the actual competition.
Yue Shan was quietly surveying Zhao Yao as well. The first round felt almost unjust. It was frustrating. He could have breezed through the first round. Unfortunately, the Explosive Man stood in his way for no good reason. His telekinesis was powerful enough to subdue him, but that would injure him gravely and as a government official, he could not do so.
“I must secure the sapphires in the next round.”
Zhao Yao did not pay any mind to the aggression that he had become a target of. He focused on getting ready for the next round instead.
First, he carefully pulled a balaclava over his head, then strung a surgical mask over his face. There will be a tussle later and he did not want to accidentally reveal his true identity if some rascal was to pull off his cloak.
Xiao Yu clenched her hand into a tight fist. She also assumed that Zhao Yao and King George’s only ability was to become invisible. This led her to believe that the responsibility of winning the coming battle would rest on her narrow shoulders.
She looked intently at her fist, which dissolved into a phantom hand. She was perfectly capable of using Nekomata’s power.
“I’ll have to do my best.”
To Zhao Yao, she said, “Once the second round begins, we’ll enter the woods and throw the sapphires in front of everyone. They’ll all fight for the sapphires. When that happens, I’ll cover you and get you out of there. You don’t have to be afraid. I will never let anything happen to you. If not, your mom will kill me.”
Xiao Yu knew that her spirit power would be able to literally keep both herself and Zhao Yao out of an opponent’s grasp. Once they were safe, she could start thinking about how to get her hands on a sapphire.
Zhao Yao did not say anything in response. He merely smiled.
It would be a lie to say that he was not feeling any pressure or worry. He had never had to fend off so many apostles and supercats at once.
However, he did have a lot of tricks up his sleeve. If he kept a clear head and used the right skills the right way, victory would be his.
“Invisibility would be useless now. I can’t evade all of them.”
Being invisible was not the same as disappearing after all. The opponents might not be able to see him, but they could definitely touch him. That meant they could hurt him too.
Meng Hao and his half beasts could easily detect his scent to locate him. Chimera and Explosive Man could set fire to the woods. Yue Shan could identify his whereabouts with his telekinesis.
“I could conjure an illusion or swallow myself into the belly. To create a realistic illusion, it would have to cover all the senses. Inspector Ho would be able to associate that with me. If I used Suck-Me-In, my signal would vanish unless I get Gaia to help again…”
Zhao Yao passed the first round using deception. He could very well do the same with the second round, but it might not be the right course of action.
“If I don’t actually show some of my powers, no one would respect me even if I become Cat King,” he mused.
The Cat King of Jiangmen would serve as the leader of all supercats. It was only fitting that the strongest would deserve this position. He would need to show that he had the capacity and might of a commander.
Zhao Yao had always operated from the shadows. He reigned in his powers so that the true extent of his powers remained secret.
This was his opportunity to finally unleash his full power. He could feel a buzz of excitement.
The corner of his lips lifted into a smile. He had made up his mind.
“Guess I’ll fight my way past this round. Let’s get this over and done with.”