The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 810: The Path to Anna

The wind howled outside.

It came from the sea, carrying a fog of anomalies that seeped through the narrow pass and enveloped the gloomy town of Nis.

"Where do we look for the Flowing Cat?"

Katerina turned from the fire and asked.

Nis was on the coast, and the anomaly fog had rolled in early. They didn't have much time left, so they had only managed to search the main buildings.

The search yielded nothing.

The former residents had taken everything they could carry.

All they could do now was hope for a bit of luck: either find the Flowing Cat or wait for Her to appear on Her own.

Wooooo!

The sea wind swept even stronger through the abandoned town, and within its howl, they could hear the sharp rattling of doors."Did you hang up the badge?"

Katerina looked at Prusius, who was squinting at the dancing flames.

"Uh... I think I hung it up..." he said, a note of uncertainty in his voice.

Katerina rose with an exasperated sigh and went to the door with Prusius, glancing back at the Fallen.

"There's nothing outside," the Fallen snarled, his face splitting into a sinister grin.

Katerina undoubtedly hated the guy, but she didn't doubt his words. She removed the chair leg that served as a bolt, and the wooden door flew open with a gust of wind. The bright fire flickered dimly, casting bizarre shadows.

Squinting, Katerina examined the ancient badge hanging on a wooden peg on the wall and, after a moment's thought, took it down.

Suddenly, a black shadow shot past her feet and darted into the hut. Prusius shrieked in terror, tucked his tail between his legs, and hid by the fire.

Lu Li looked up; the black shadow had stopped at the edge of the light, revealing the outline of a black cat.

It was just a stray cat that had run in to hide from the sea wind.

"It's black..."

Prusius watched timidly, wanting to approach and say hello but afraid the cat would scratch his face.

The black cat hiding in the house possessed no special divinity; its fur was dull and its body thin, no different from any other stray.

Slam!

Katerina slammed the door and replaced the bolt.

The low flames of the fire returned to their previous state, their steady, bright light once again filling the hut.

Katerina, clutching the ancient badge, walked over to the window, pressed it against the glass, and propped it up from behind with a can.

"A black cat came inside. Is that a coincidence?"

Katerina asked, walking around the collapsed shelves to sit by the fire again.

The black cat, paying no attention to anyone, had lowered its head and was licking its paws.

To the stray, they were the outsiders.

"It must be."

Black cats weren't rare; they had seen plenty of them in Wigtown, in the wild, and here in Nis.

Besides, this cat wasn't pure black—it had a tuft of white fur on its belly.

Katerina said nothing, opening the can of food that had been warming by the fire and began to eat in silence.

Prusius offered to help, but he was actually sneaking quietly toward the black cat. His padded paws, though not as silent as a cat's, were still nearly soundless.

The black cat, with its keen senses, stopped grooming when Prusius was still five or six meters away, and looked up, staring at him.

Prusius froze, pretended to look around, and then dragged a few wooden planks over from the pile of broken shelves.

This grocery store was the last building they had searched, so there was no shortage of firewood.

"Just a little closer..." Prusius said, disappointed.

"A little closer and she would have scratched your face off?" Katerina asked sarcastically, a smile on her lips.

"I meant no harm!" Prusius protested loudly.

"But cats don't like dogs."

As Prusius wallowed in his disappointment, a shadow suddenly fell over him.

The black cat had approached silently from the corner. Ignoring the wide-eyed Prusius, it walked over to Lu Li, rubbed its head gently against his pants, and sat down.

Ignoring Prusius's envy, Lu Li took a piece of meat from the can and offered it to the stray cat.

"How much food do we have left?" Katerina asked, watching Lu Li.

"Enough for tomorrow."

Prusius glanced at the suitcase; all the canned food was inside.

"But if we don't leave tomorrow morning, we won't make it back before the day after tomorrow."

The journey takes a full day, and even if we set out at noon, we won't get back to Wigtown before dark.

"Hmm... The Merchant could bring us food!"

Prusius, after thinking for a long moment, finally remembered the Merchant. For some reason, he had a way of slipping one's mind.

"He can't leave."

Katerina reminded Prusius.

To retrieve his goods, the Merchant had to return to the In-Between for a while, and Barry could show up at any moment.

Though he might not be following them anymore.

No solution was found, and the hut fell silent once more.

The howling wind swept over the night-shrouded town, faintly carrying strange sounds.

The first to hear the faint, eerie sounds was the black cat lying beside Lu Li. Then Prusius, who had been watching it constantly, pricked up his ears.

The sounds, hidden within the noise of the wind, gradually grew clearer; it sounded like the roiling meows of hundreds of stray cats, or the rustle of a moving flock of sheep.

Meow!

The black cat lying nearby got up, walked to the wooden door, and began to scratch at it with its paws, wanting to get out.

The group around the fire exchanged glances. Lu Li stood up to open the door for it.

The wind burst into the house, bringing with it the clearer sound of meowing cats and a disorderly rustling, like footsteps, along with the smell of rotten fish, more nauseating than the stench on the beach.

The black cat slipped through the crack in the door and instantly vanished into the fog.

"I'll go take a look."

Lu Li didn't close the door. He went back, picked up the oil lamp, and then pulled a torch from the fire.

"I'll go with you."

"Me too."

Prusius chimed in after Katerina.

The Fallen offered no opinion, merely pulling a second torch from the fire.

They left the hut and headed toward the source of the sound, upwind.

From time to time, stray cats would run past them, heading into the darkness.

When they got close enough to the noise, the Fallen whispered, "Anomaly ahead."

Lu Li, walking at the front, stopped and looked up, gazing toward a spot nearby.

A black cat sat there, black as a silhouette. It was blacker than the darkness itself, more real than the fog, sitting with an elegance and mystery, like a lady, like an elf.

The stray cats, like worshipers, crowded around Her, protecting Her.

Lu Li suddenly threw his torch into the swirling darkness ahead.

A small patch of gloom dispersed, revealing everything that was happening in the fog.

Hunched silhouettes resembling frogs, fish, and humans were fighting the stray cats; they had sharp claws, had grown sharp teeth, and held bone blades in their paws.

Stray cats, converging from all directions, threw themselves at the frog-fish creatures. These cute and agile animals were torn apart by sharp teeth, claws, and bone blades, but as they suffered, the frog-fish that attacked them also received similar injuries.

The pack of stray cats, having suffered heavy losses, destroyed hundreds of the invading frog-fish creatures at great cost, and everything fell silent again.

And at that moment, the Flowing Cat, surrounded by cats, stepped lightly onto the battlefield; its slender tail, longer than its body, swept over the corpses of its kin.

Deformed chests swelled, scattered limbs reconnected, torn flesh mended, and the dead cats came back to life. Gathering with the surviving cats around the bodies of the anomalies, they lowered their heads and began to tear and eat.

The noble and elegant black cat returned to the light and approached Lu Li. It rubbed its head gently against his pants, just like an ordinary cat, its slender tail wrapping softly around his calf as it let out a lazy, contented meow.

Katerina and the others held their breath, watching this astonishing sight.

"Take me to Anna," Lu Li said, his gaze lowered.

The Flowing Cat moved away from Lu Li, stepping gracefully, and headed away. Standing on the border between light and darkness, She stopped and looked back at Lu Li.

She was waiting for him to follow Her.