Brian Carter looked at his phone. It was 7:55 PM, and the room was plunged into darkness due to the power outage.

After checking all the doors and windows, Brian Carter went to the bathroom to wash his face, then soaked the mop and thoroughly cleaned the entire house. He sprayed some air freshener; although there was still a faint trace of blood and rot, it was much better than before. By the time he finished cleaning, it was completely dark outside. Countless zombies were howling and roaring outside, making Brian Carter feel as if there were no other living people in the whole neighborhood except for himself and Grace Thompson.

He turned on the gas and cooked the last two bowls of instant noodles, adding an extra egg and some carrot slices for a satisfying meal. Then he made some porridge by mixing biscuits with water and fed it to the awakened Grace Thompson, finally lying comfortably on the sofa.

“If life could stay this quiet, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he thought. But in reality, that was impossible. Once the instant noodles were gone, the remaining rice at home would last at most two months with Grace Thompson included. As for vegetables and fruit, Brian Carter went to the storage room and found that the meat was already starting to spoil, and the vegetables and fruit were wilting—they probably wouldn’t last until tomorrow.

Brian Carter had no choice but to remove the aluminum panel from one of the kitchen windows and throw the rotten meat outside. Instantly, a frenzy of howls erupted below.

“No way, it’s just a piece of meat, is it really that dramatic…” He poked his head out and saw a dense mass of zombies below, fighting over the spot where the rotten meat had landed.

It took three days to analyze the level one spell, Level One Otherworldly Summoning. During these three days, Brian Carter repeatedly tried to blend blood ink. Grace Thompson’s blood didn’t seem to work well; the parchment scrolls he made only lasted two hours. To make them permanent, he would need the blood of a magical creature.

On the morning of May 8, 2012, the weather was cloudy with a light breeze.

Brian Carter stood in the middle of the living room next door, looking at his phone, which had only one bar of battery left.

“The exact time is 7:15. The structure of Level One Otherworldly Summoning is fully rebuilt. Now it’s time to put it into practice.” He held a pale yellow parchment scroll in his hand—this scroll contained Acid Missile, a level zero spell scroll he had just made.

“Level One Otherworldly Summoning randomly summons a monster projection from a neighboring plane at the cost of magic power to assist in combat. But it’s still uncertain whether there are monsters in this universe willing to accept such a contract. Besides, the laws of this universe are much more solid and tight than those of my previous life’s universe. I don’t know if the summoning will succeed.”

Brian Carter calmed his mind, quickly forming a series of complex hand seals, and began chanting an incantation in an unknown language, layered with countless overtones.

As his mental structure resonated with magic, a meter in front of Brian Carter, an oval, translucent light membrane slowly emerged from the void. The living room was instantly filled with the static-like noise of a TV with no signal.

A shadowy figure silently rolled out from the light membrane. At the same time, a stream of information instantly flooded into Brian Carter’s mind.

Cheetah Bloodthirsty Hunter

Normal skills: High speed, Sharp Claws, Mount.

The shadow quietly crouched in the living room, its two yellow, gem-like eyes calmly watching Brian Carter.

It was a jet-black panther.

Chapter 9

What Brian Carter hadn’t expected was that, perhaps due to the different laws of the universe, the cheetah summoned by Level One Otherworldly Summoning turned out to be a permanent summon. In other words, it would exist in this plane permanently; once summoned, it no longer required magic to maintain and wouldn’t automatically return to its original plane after a set time. However, the corresponding cooldown for Level One Otherworldly Summoning was a lengthy one month.

The appearance of the cheetah greatly relaxed Brian Carter.

Holding the scroll in one hand and following the panther’s light, agile steps, Brian Carter finally felt a real sense of security.

Man and panther arrived on the fifth floor.

The swarm of buzzing green-headed flies was gone, and the bloodstains in the stairwell no longer smelled as bad as they had a few days ago.

“Let’s thoroughly clear the fifth and sixth floors first.” That was Brian Carter’s plan.

A ball of acid missile, accompanied by a brief chant, quickly corroded a fist-sized hole in the security door of an apartment on the fifth floor. Thick green smoke billowed out.

“Grrr…” The panther arched its body warily, taking a threatening stance to warn its master of danger.

Brian Carter quickly pulled open the security door and pointed inside.

“Xiao Hei, go!”

With a whoosh, the panther shot into the room like an arrow. Then came the zombies’ howls and the chaotic noise of things being knocked over. By the time Brian Carter entered, holding his nose, everything was quiet again. The panther walked out of a bedroom with elegant, light steps, as if it had just taken a stroll and nothing had happened. Only the blood on its two front paws showed that the sounds of battle just now were not an illusion.