[Time]: Day 32, 11:25 AM

  [Location]: Inside the Feline Fog Warp

  "Nyao?" The Gentleman Cat blinked, pausing the spatial transfer. The grey fog around them stopped swirling. "Yes. The Big Ones. The Elite."

  "Are you telling me," Victoria whispered, her eyes wide with a fanatic hunger, "that the legends are true? That there is actually a population of Greater Lantern Cats hiding in this Sector?"

  Hathaway gasped.

  She looked at Victoria, and for the first time, she saw pure, unadulterated Greed.

  And she understood why.

  Hathaway was a Gamer. A Min-Maxer. And a Cat Lover.

  She knew the Meta. And she knew Cute. This wasn't just about stats anymore. This was about the Ultimate Pet.

  Greater Lantern Cats.

  They were the Holy Grail of Witch Familiars. The "End-Game Support Unit."

  Every Witch knew the tactical nightmare of relying on a normal Lantern Cat.

  It wasn't that normal cats lacked utility. In fact, because Witches were hopeless, irredeemable cat slaves, they often stubbornly refused to abandon their starter pets. A High Witch would happily bankrupt herself to deck her normal Lantern Cat out in Best-in-Slot, absolute Mythic-Tier gear.

  Imagine this: A Witch is in the middle of a boss fight against a Prime Dragon. She is holding the frontline, sweating bullets to keep up her DPS. Thirty yards back, her fully geared, six-slotted Lantern Cat is actually doing amazing—tossing out massive, S-Tier buffs and clutch heals like a furry little cheat code.

  But the second the Dragon charges its ultimate attack and merely looks in their direction? The Witch turns around to receive her final buff, and the cat is already gone.

  Why? Because the boss roared too loudly. Or because the ground shook a little. Or because it was exactly 2:00 PM and time for a scheduled nap.

  It was a harsh lesson every Witch eventually learned: No amount of Mythic Gear can fix a base Morale stat of Zero. Normal Lantern Cats hit their pocket-dimension escape hatch before the boss even finished its attack animation, screaming "Nyao!" and leaving their bankrupt Witch to eat all the aggro and get spectacularly pummeled into a bruised, swearing mess.

  But Greater Lantern Cats were different.

  "Hathaway," Victoria grabbed her arm, her nails digging into the velvet coat. "Do you know what a Greater Lantern Cat represents?"

  "It's not just a big cat. It is a Living Mana Reactor."

  Hathaway’s eyes lit up as her gamer brain processed the info.

  "Wait. The lore says Lantern Cats can recharge Witches with their tails... So a Greater Lantern Cat is..."

  "A Nuclear Power Bank," Victoria hissed, drool threatening to form at the corner of her mouth. "Normally, a cat has a limit. But a Greater Lantern Cat? Even for Witches like us with massive mana pools... they are effectively a Second Blue Bar."

  "If you bond with one, you never run out of mana. You can cast spells until your brain melts, and the Cat will just top you up with Leyline Energy. For a mana-hungry Witch, that is infinite ammo."

  "And the buffs!" Hathaway added, remembering the magitech bestiary archives she had been scrolling through all night. "They possess [Cat's Wish]. It instantly rolls 35 positive buffs from the Leyline Spell Pool! 35 buffs at once! That's an Admin-level cheat code!"

  "And their morale...!"

  "Yes," Victoria nodded solemnly. "The legendary 'One Minute of Courage'."

  "A normal cat runs instantly. A Greater Cat will stay and fight for One Whole Minute!" Hathaway shouted, forgetting she was dangling in mid-air. "In a high-speed magical duel, sixty seconds is an eternity! It's enough to wipe the floor with anyone!"

  "And they are huge, right?" Hathaway asked, her voice trembling with anticipation. "Like... beanbag chair huge? I could sleep on one. I could literally ride one into battle."

  Stats + Fluff = Perfection.

  "And that's not even the best part," Victoria continued, her voice dropping to a worshipful whisper. "Hathaway, do you know the Variants? The specific breeds?"

  "I have listened to the rumors at tea parties. The stories that Arch-Witches tell when they are drunk on Mana Wine."

  Victoria held up a finger, her eyes gleaming with knowledge.

  "First, the Alchemical Greater Cat."

  "They are the 'Common' ones among the legends. We know they exist because you can sometimes find 'Cat Potions' on the black market."

  "They are spellcasters. They love adventure. And once a month, they use their tails to 'fish' into the Leylines and pull out a Random Wonder Item."

  Hathaway’s jaw dropped. "A monthly... free Gacha pull? For real?"

  "Yes! A guaranteed artifact! But their true power is their Redeployment Time."

  Victoria leaned in close.

  "Normal Greater Cats? If they flee after their 'One Minute of Courage', it takes them over a minute to return. That vacuum period can be fatal. But the Alchemical Greater Cat? Its recovery speed is fifteen times faster."

  "If it runs away, it comes back in Five Seconds."

  "Five seconds?!" Hathaway shrieked. "That's basically a perma-summon! That's broken! Who balanced this game?!"

  "And then," Victoria continued, her voice trembling not with fear, but with the excitement of a hunter recounting a legendary kill. "...There is the Storm Greater Cat."

  "They are the Heretics of the species. The Barbarians. While normal Lantern Cats are cowards, Storm Cats are addicted to violence. They possess the trait [Unbreakable]."

  Victoria's expression turned grim, yet reverent.

  "Hathaway, have you heard of the Toyatros Incident?"

  Hathaway shook her head.

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  "Toyatros was a local Pseudo-God of War in a high-magic colony world. One day, he was evicted from his own Divine Palace. By Six Storm Greater Cats."

  "They beat up the Pseudo-God of War, kicked him out, and looted his armory. Storm Cats like to use Giant Weapons. Imagine a fuzzy ball holding a warhammer twice its size."

  "When the Colonial Witches discovered this, they fell in Love."

  "A massive Raid Party descended on the palace. They saw the cats swinging giant maces, and their eyes lit up with pure, unadulterated Greed. And here is the crazy part," Victoria whispered. "There were dozens of Witches in that raid. But there were only Six Cats."

  "It was a crisis of Loot Distribution. Everyone wanted one. No Witch wants to own 1/12th of a cat."

  "So, to prevent a civil war, they agreed to Single Combat. Only the Six Strongest High Witches were allowed to step forward. One Witch. One Cat. Winner takes all."

  Hathaway gasped. Her brain instantly translated all that crammed historical lore into a gamer's Multiverse Threat Index.

  In the vast, terrifying food chain of "Legends," there was a brutal hierarchy:

  At the bottom were the Ratman Legends—abysmally weak, basically glorified elite mobs.

  Sitting right next to them in the bargain bin were the Lantern Cat Legends (Greater Lantern Cat)—equally weak in raw output, barely scraping the cosmic standard for the title.

  In the middle were the Universal Legends—the Paladins, Barbarians, and Wizards who ruled backwater worlds.

  Near the top were the Dragon Legends, the kind that casually crushed a human hero's tower shield like a tin can, reminding the iron-canned mortals that 'Dragonslaying' wasn't meant for them.

  But sitting completely alone at the absolute, untouchable apex... was the Witch Legend (High Witch).

  Their official multiverse classification was simply: The "Do Not Engage" Class.

  Fighting a High Witch meant you were fighting an immortal, hyper-violent artillery platform backed by a multiverse-ending respawn army.

  "Victoria," Hathaway asked, her voice completely dry as she realized the mathematical absurdity of the matchup.

  "A Greater Cat is at the bottom of the ladder. A High Witch is the untouchable ceiling. That's not a duel. That's a starter pet fighting a Max-Level Raid Boss. How long did they last?"

  "It varied," Victoria said solemnly. "The weakest cat lasted Five Minutes."

  "Five minutes against a High Witch?" Hathaway blinked. "That's already a statistical miracle."

  "But the Alpha..." Victoria's eyes shone with pure reverence. "The Alpha Cat—a magnificent beast with black and white fur and whiskers as long as spears—lasted Thirty Minutes."

  "Thirty?!" Hathaway shrieked.

  "Yes. Obviously, it was a taming ritual. The Witches were holding back lethal force—you don't throw a Disintegrate spell at a pet you want to adopt. But still... for thirty minutes, that Cat tanked crowd-control spells, gravity crushes, and binding chains from an apex predator.

  "It roared, it swung its hammer, and despite its massive, round belly flashing with blue and white lightning... it moved with Supernatural Agility."

  "It was majestic," Victoria sighed, looking at her own empty hands.

  "The Witches were being conquered by the sheer, unadulterated beauty of that bravery.

  "They say the Storm Cats are the reason Witches today are obsessed with Maine Coons and Lion Cats. We buy those large, fluffy breeds to fill the void in our hearts.

  "Because deep down... every Witch just wants a Storm Cat."

  Hathaway swallowed hard. Her throat felt dry.

  She looked at her own trembling hands.

  She didn't just understand. She resonated.

  That isn't a pet.

  That is the Ultimate Lifeform.

  For a split second, Hathaway forgot about the library. She forgot about the trade. She just had a vivid mental image of herself burying her face into a stomach the size of a beanbag chair, listening to the purr of a nuclear reactor, while the cat casually swatted a dragon out of the sky with a giant mace.

  I need it.

  I don't care if I have to bankrupt the Ludwig family.

  I don't care if I have to farm for ten years.

  I need that fluff.

  "It was a global sensation," Victoria continued, unaware that Hathaway was mentally calculating how many fried chickens it would take to bribe a Storm Cat.

  "The Witches who heard the news didn't just want one. They developed a Collective, Pathological Obsession. It breaks the damage formula. It breaks common sense. But mostly, it breaks your heart because you can't have one."

  "And these..." Victoria whispered, "...Are just the ones we know. The truly rare ones? The ones that don't even have names? They are beyond imagination."

  "I would dive into a pool of rotting fish to find one," Victoria admitted, her dignity completely gone. "I would trade my family estate for one. Just to bury my face in that giant belly..."

  "Nyao! You cannot find them!" The Gentleman Cat scoffed, looking down at the drooling Witches. "They do not work for fried chicken. They serve The Great Meow-IAO."

  "Meow-IAO?" Hathaway repeated.

  Her mind instantly pulled up the Character Card for Chief Ovelia.

  [Trait: Queen of the Lantern Cats].

  Everyone knew Ovelia was the ruler of this species. That was common knowledge.

  But "Meow-IAO"?

  That didn't sound like a Witch's honorific. That sounded like... a Cat.

  A specific, legendary, hidden Cat.

  Is this Ovelia's secret lieutenant?

  The Viceroy of the Cat Dimension? Or perhaps the Primal Ancestor that guards the entrance to their homeworld?

  It made sense. Every Queen needs a General.

  If Ovelia is the Ruler, then this "Meow-IAO" must be the Lord of the Cats—the Alpha of the species who manages the population on her behalf.

  The Lantern Cat stopped floating for a second. Its golden eyes dilated with pure reverence.

  "Nyaa... Meow-IAO..."

  It whispered the name like a sacred chant. The pronunciation was strange—it sounded less like a word and more like a long, drawn-out, majestic meow.

  "She is the Big Boss Cat. The Roundest of Them All."

  The Lantern Cat gestured vaguely with its glowing tail, trying to describe something beyond human comprehension.

  "She dwells in the Deepest Shadow, where no wind blows. She possesses the Infinite Mass. She is so heavy, so stable, that she never moves. The world moves for Her."

  "She is the Ultimate Ideal of Cat-kind: To sit in the dark, to be terrifyingly round, and to have the best snacks float into her mouth automatically. Nyao."

  Victoria’s breath hitched. She analyzed the data with rapid-fire muttering.

  "Infinite Mass... Stationary Existence... Deepest Shadow... It sounds like a Primordial Greater Lantern Cat Matriarch. A variant that has grown so massive it has become a stationary entity. It must be the Grand Lord of the Cat World, hidden in Ovelia's private dimension."

  Hathaway nodded, equally entranced.

  "Yeah. Basically a giant, furry Jabba the Hutt. A Raid Boss that just sits there, eats, and commands the legion?"

  Her eyes shone with the Greed of a Collector.

  "Victoria," Hathaway whispered, grabbing her friend's sleeve. "I don't need the Big One. That's Ovelia's personal pet. We can't touch it. But if it's a Matriarch... that means it has Kittens."

  "A Direct Descendant of the Roundest One," Victoria realized, gasping. "The bloodline would be pure gold."

  "We just need to find where Ovelia hides it," Hathaway schemed, her moral compass spinning wildly. "Maybe we can bribe a guard? Or trade a lifetime supply of fried chicken for one runt of the litter?"

  (Neither of them realized that "Meow-IAO" was simply the Lantern Cat dialect pronunciation of "Ovelia." And the "Infinite Roundness" the cat worshipped was not physical fat, but the terrifying pressure of over 500,000 M-Units of Mana compressed into a single, lazy entity. They were fantasizing about a giant cat, unaware they were describing one of the most dangerous Witches in history.)

  "Nyao! A noble ambition!" The Lantern Cat nodded solemnly, adjusting its bowtie with a paw. For the first time, it looked at the two Witches with a hint of respect. "Finally, Cat meets Witches with proper aesthetics. Yes! To be Round is to be Divine! To possess Mass is to possess Truth!"

  Then, it looked up and down at Victoria and Hathaway’s slender, fit figures.

  The respect instantly vanished, replaced by deep, judgmental Pity.

  "But alas... look at you. Nyao."

  The Cat shook its head, its eyes filled with sorrow.

  "Skinny."

  It said the word like a slur. It sounded worse than "stupid" or "ugly."

  "Two-dimensional sticks walking in a 3D world. You lack Gravity. You lack Presence. If the Great Meow-IAO sneezed, you would blow away like dry leaves. Tragic. Nyao."

  "Nya-aaaack! Enough daydreaming!" The Cat yawned, shattering the illusion of the grey void. "We are here. Prepare for ejection."

  Puh.

  The sound was suspiciously similar to a cat spitting out a hairball.

  The Crimson Mist swirled violently, contracting around them. The weightless sensation vanished, replaced instantly by the heavy, crushing gravity of reality.

  Hathaway felt a sudden lurch in her stomach—the sensation of an elevator dropping twenty floors in a second.