The STEEL BALL RUN—a cross-country race spanning roughly 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles), launched at ten in the morning on September 25th, 1890, from the beaches of San Diego on the Pacific coast to New York City—the first competition in human history to cross the North American continent on horseback.
That was the pitch, anyway. In practice, there were no restrictions on nationality, race, social standing, or skill level. Even the rules on transportation were laughably loose—anything you could ride was fair game, whether horse, vehicle, or your own two feet.
An insane undertaking. What made it more insane was the era: with automobiles still in their infancy and horses as the primary mode of transport, this race—which would take at least two months even traveling every day—forbade switching vehicles mid-course.
None of which had anything to do with Quanquan.
First, there was the entry fee of twelve hundred dollars, which screened out the majority of applicants. Quanquan couldn't afford it, and even if she could, she wouldn't have wasted it on a race registration.
Second, no matter how prettily they dressed up the "no restrictions on skin color or race" clause, that was clearly meant for humans and their chosen modes of transport.
"Meow."
Neither category included a cat. Not even one as perfectly round as this one.
If you had to draw a connection, it was only that this particular cat happened to be somewhere in the first half of the racecourse. But aside from the rare daredevil willing to risk a shortcut, nobody in their right mind would cut through the heart of a waterless desert.
「Warning: Host is in critical dehydration. Please replenish fluids immediately.」
「Warning: Host is in severe starvation. Please consume food to restore stamina.」
The voice in her head issued warning after warning, but out here in the endless yellow sand, there wasn't a scrap of anything resembling food. Forget a human with survival training—for a furball who'd been an ordinary cat both before and after crossing over, this was a death sentence.
"Hungry." The furball lay flat on the scorching sand, motionless. The blazing sun had left her eyes visibly shriveled and dry.
The kitty couldn't move anymore.
Sure, wild animals had their own survival instincts—marking territory with scent, reading the landscape for direction. But this stretch of desert was alive. Footprints vanished the second they were made. The sand swallowed everything.
The Devil's Palm. That was what the local natives called this place.
From above, the rock formations looked like a demon's claws reaching up through the sand. According to local legend, it was the curse left behind by a meteorite that had struck here in ancient times.
Compasses were useless within its borders. The shifting sands made the terrain itself move—mountains that should have been there suddenly weren't, and canyons appeared that no map had ever charted.
It didn't even stay in one spot. The Devil's Palm drifted, constantly, and nobody knew how far its boundaries truly extended.
"Meow..."
How many days had it been? Cats didn't track time. She only knew she'd never been this thirsty. Her ears held nothing but a buzzing whine; her eyes saw nothing but a blinding white haze.
This was the warning sign of impending death. And yet, somehow, that warning had been blaring for nearly ten hours without managing to take this fragile little furball's life.
This was a miracle. Or more precisely—a Holy Miracle.
Beyond its disorienting effects and wandering nature, the Devil's Palm had one more property, far less widely known: it could awaken dormant, unknown abilities within the body—the physical manifestation of one's spiritual essence, known as a Stand.
Perhaps finally remembering to throw its pathetic host a lifeline, the not-particularly-intelligent System piped up again:
「First-time System binding includes one complimentary Summoning Scroll. This item summons a creature from across the multiverse with high compatibility to the Host. Use now?」
The cat ignored it. Her consciousness was still swimming in and out.
「Host vitals critical. System will auto-activate after countdown. 10, 9... 2, 1.」
A scroll unfurled across the sand like a roll of toilet paper kicked open. The warm desert breeze froze solid. Moisture bloomed where moisture had no business being—in the dead center of a desert—and for the first time in an eternity, the parched little cat felt a sliver of relief.
Then the sand itself cracked open, birthing a swamp-like pit of muck that radiated undisguised, churning malice.
The sudden humidity seemed to jolt the cat back to partial awareness. Every hair on her body stood on end, and she mustered the last of her strength to raise her tail in a warning signal, driven by pure instinct.
Then a deep, rumbling voice spoke from right beside her, dripping with amusement: "Little lady, your desires are about as loaded as a gambler's wallet."
It was an enormous, fat creature—a body that would need at least two overcoats stitched together to cover. But despite the humanoid shape, it was definitely not human.
Slick, amphibian skin. Stubby limbs that mimicked human proportions but were grotesquely undersized for its bulk. A head nearly half the size of its body with no visible neck. A mouth that could swallow a person whole—not an exaggeration—lined with rows of teeth that were only "small" relative to the creature itself.
From the corners of its lips extended whiskers as thick as a man's arm. From the cat's low angle looking up, those whiskers neatly blocked whatever expression lurked in those beady, scheming little eyes.
Something between a toad and a catfish—a bizarre species, wearing, of all things, a dainty little top hat.
This was a devil. And not one from this world.
"Meow—" The cat managed a feeble warning cry.
The toad-thing studied her for a long moment. Or rather, it studied the dark, swirling mass of energy coiling off the cat's body like spiritual power made tangible.
The cat could have sworn the creature split that nightmarish maw into a grin—though to be fair, its face was structurally designed to look like it was always grinning.
It spoke as if reading the deepest desire in her heart: "Let me guess—right now, you're craving a lavish dinner the way a leaky slop bucket craves filling. My dear lady, why not strike a deal? Trade me those surplus whiskers of yours for a sumptuous feast."
A cat's whiskers were never surplus.
...But compared to a stomach screaming for food, they suddenly didn't seem all that important.
"Meow." She didn't fully understand, but the cat agreed to the deal.
The workings of the human world had always been a mystery to cats.
"MEOW!" This really was the last of her strength now—an urgent hurry up.
The devil grinned again. Then, like a diver, it plunged headfirst into the muck pit it had conjured. At the same instant, the whiskers that had been part of the cat's face her entire life vanished without a trace.
When the devil resurfaced, storm clouds had piled across the sky. Wind erupted from nowhere, hurling sand and grit into the air. And then came the rain—a downpour so violent she could drink from it without needing a bowl.
But the "feast" the devil had promised? What lay before the cat was not something any ordinary person would classify as food.
It was a set of remains, desiccated into a mummy.
More precisely, only a piece—a spine. Just the vertebral column.
"Eat up."