22. Plunder

The faint internal energy was unable to steady his form.
Thick mist clung to his mouth and nose, stifling his lungs and heart.
Zhao Jia heard the pounding sound grow louder and louder—it was the frantic thudding of his own heart.
Blood surged and churned, but as it flowed into his veins, it transformed into an eerie chill.
The shadow stood still, and the hand that had gripped a blade for twenty years trembled uncontrollably, nerves as tight and frozen as icicles.
His pallid face, under the frosted moonlight, appeared even more ashen; his restless eyes searched helplessly for something.
He focused.
The black cat remained.
A burst of fiery light exploded in the beast’s eyes.
It was not fear, nor panic, but an indescribable longing—as if a hero had glimpsed a legendary blade that could slice through iron, or a debauched rogue encountered a beauty with her dress half undone.
The cat trembled too.
Its body arched, its ears flattened like wings.
Yet its eyes burned with a fierce flame, the kind that only dry tinder meeting wild fire could ignite.
A hiss.
Cold air filled his lungs.
It was as if icy mountain spring water was poured over a searing hot iron, both painful and invigorating.
The three-legged old cat’s head was excellent for tracking and hunting; the toad’s head was good too, with its water jets and frog leaps—not to mention the newly acquired head of the ferocious tiger, whose glaring eyes and white forehead could carve a bloody path through dozens o