Chapter 401: Spreading Fear |
"Let's play, let's play!"
In a shelter in Beixing, a young man woke up in the morning, ate his allocated food, and sat down in front of the computer.
He picked up the controller, ready for today's fierce battle.
After this rule was announced, the young man was very happy.
He liked these survival-type rules with relatively low danger levels. As long as he stayed inside the shelter and didn't go out, he didn't have to worry about getting hurt.
A month-long rule period, staying in the shelter every day playing games was quite comfortable.
Especially since a new game was being released today, which was highly anticipated.
You have to understand, after entering the Doomsday Rules era, the entertainment industry was in a pitiful state. No one was producing new content anymore; people were consuming old content from before. Even though some old games, movies, and TV shows were classics enough, you'd get tired of them after playing or watching them many times.
But after the authorities proposed developing the entertainment industry some time ago, not only did they personally create variety shows led by "Battle of the Ascendants," they also specially approved paying creators Ascension Coin wages. This way, slowly, a portion of Ascendants began participating in creating new content.
Nowadays, the countries that still existed in the world basically all had these two sets of currency systems: Ascendants used Ascension Coins for transactions, ordinary people used gold for transactions.
Previously, Ascendants were also willing to accept gold, but now they basically didn't want it anymore, only Ascension Coins.
As time passed, they increasingly understood that for Ascendants, the most important thing was always Mind Power, followed by Ascension Coins.
What the young man was eagerly anticipating right now was the result of official support and development—a brand new masterpiece jointly developed by multiple Ascendants and ordinary people, an FPS game called "Apocalypse Frenzy."
The game's content was straightforward: players would take on the role of armed team members, fighting against the villainous organization led by the "Fire Thief."
This wasn't even an allusion anymore; it was directly copying the real world, just modifying the setting where humans were powerless against the Fire Thief.
This modification was necessary. People had already had enough of the Fire Thief's antics in reality; they didn't want to suffer again in the game. Even knowing it was fake, being able to shoot the Fire Thief dead in the game was satisfying enough.
"It's available for download!"
The young man timed it perfectly and immediately started downloading the game.
The shelter's internet speed was extremely fast. In no time, the game finished downloading and prompted that a temporary update had been completed.
The young man didn't pay attention to the "temporary update" prompt and eagerly opened the game.
The screen went black, then displayed a large icon.
A mottled sphere glowing with a scarlet halo floated quietly in the center of the screen.
The young man's first thought: Is this the game developer's logo?
The young man's second thought: Wait, games are all free now, the concept of companies doesn't exist anymore, what's the point of a logo? Is it a cutscene? But why isn't it moving?
The moment the third second arrived, what replaced those thoughts and occupied his mind was a series of rapidly changing, terrifyingly realistic images.
As a child, his foot slipped while climbing a tree, his body falling from a great height!
After reading a ghost story, scared and hiding under the covers, a bloody hand suddenly pulled back the blanket, a ghostly face shoved right in front of him!
His parents arguing over trivial matters, suddenly rushing to the kitchen to grab knives and hack at each other, then finally charging towards the child together!
"Ahhhh! Aaaaaahhhh!"
The young man's terrified screams soon echoed throughout the entire shelter.
By the time others arrived, they saw a face pressed sideways against the computer desk, eyes bulging, features twisted.
"What happened?!"
"Look at his computer screen! That's—"
"Don't look!!"
"Everyone move!"
A shelter manager grabbed a metal rod and smashed it hard at the monitor.
Crack! Crash!
With one strike, the monitor immediately shattered, the image on it flickering before disappearing completely.
"Huff, huff..."
The manager glanced at the young man lying dead on the desk, eyes wide open, and roared angrily, "Not long after the rule was announced, we told all of you not to go online, not to look at pictures others send! Can't you remember?!"
According to hidden intelligence released by the authorities: during the rule period, besides directly looking at Scarlet Terra, viewing its images, refractions, reflections, and other methods would all be affected by the power of Scarlet Fear.
So, to prevent some evil people from intentionally spreading videos or images of Scarlet Terra, the authorities of various countries warned their citizens it was best not to go online, only view local content.
Directly cutting off the internet from an official level wasn't very realistic. The "Digital Detox" rule period had caused significant damage to human society, forcing many important production tasks to stop. Moreover, the extent of humans voluntarily disconnecting from the internet certainly couldn't match the intensity of the rule.
Therefore, the official recommendation was, if you absolutely must go online, only visit legitimate websites. Do not visit small, unregulated, or illegal websites, and definitely do not casually chat with strangers online or receive files they send, because you don't know if they might send you images of Scarlet Terra.
"He said a new game was being released today, wanted to play it..."
The dead young man's roommate said, still shaken.
"That... that was clearly a single-player game, thought it would be fine... But, why would there be... pictures of Scarlet Terra in a single-player game?"
Hearing this, the manager was greatly alarmed: "Damn! Someone put its picture in the game released today. We need to report this to the higher-ups immediately!"
At the same time, a large number of players who were highly interested in the game "Apocalypse Frenzy" and chose to download it the moment it was released, were caught off guard and witnessed the ultra-high-definition photo of Scarlet Terra displayed as soon as the game started.
Some immediately fainted, had stress reactions, or died. Others, in extreme fear, fell into mania, attacking people around them indiscriminately.
Only a very few with extremely fast reaction speeds managed to look away or destroy the screen within the first second of seeing it, not allowing the fear effect to take hold.
But the number of these few was far too small.
Globally, at least several million players had already been affected, causing major chaos in various places.
...
March 4th, Banzhen City, Sakura Prayer Country.
Guan Tong and Uenoshi met outside the administrative building.
After Suzuki's funeral, Guan Tong returned to Beixing, while she stayed in Sakura Prayer Country to investigate.
Although the two kept in touch by phone, Guan Tong felt it was better to meet in person regularly.
"You... your condition has worsened again?"
Guan Tong looked at Uenoshi, who was wearing a tight mask. When she met him alone before, she didn't wear a mask. The fact she was now could only mean the scales had spread further up.
"Mm, they've reached the upper half of my cheeks," Uenoshi said.
"Any physical discomfort?"
"None. On the contrary, the natural growth rate of my Mind Power upper limit has increased. I seem to be gradually gaining some insight into the abilities Yuzawa Jun once possessed."
A companion growing stronger should be a good thing.
But Guan Tong wasn't particularly happy, because the price of Uenoshi's strength was obvious.
If her current situation continued, sooner or later she would be covered in scales from head to toe. At that point, she wouldn't even be able to show her true face to others.
"Don't worry about me," Uenoshi said. "I've uncovered some intelligence during my investigation these past few days."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Do you remember when Yuzawa Jun wanted to deal with you, so he first had Suzuki use her ability to profile you? The goal was to find you and also profile your ability."
Guan Tong nodded. Of course he remembered.
"That wasn't the first time she profiled you," Uenoshi said. "While investigating the Sakura Prayer Country Peace Office archives, I discovered that before Yuzawa Jun, a major explosion case occurred in Antu City, destroying half a street. Suzuki was serving at the Antu Peace Office at the time. The Headquarters Director then ordered an investigation into the matter, and she profiled the scene once, becoming aware of your existence."
Guan Tong recalled that battle: "The Antu explosion case... was created by a guy named Wu Wang. His ability was Metal Detonation. He tried to take me down with him at the time but failed. What's the connection?"
Uenoshi said, "The intelligence I found is that the relevant data from Suzuki's two profiles of you were anonymously queried some time ago."
"Someone queried them?" Guan Tong felt a chill. "You mean..."
"It's possible someone wants to use her to deal with you," Uenoshi said. "Whoever that person is, they must have significant influence. They can both anonymously query Sakura Prayer Country Peace Office archive data and operate within Beixing, finding the withdrawal center where Suzuki was."
Guan Tong frowned. Mentioning "significant influence," a name flashed through his mind.
Big Sister, Jiang Lanying.
When she was alive, her influence was undoubtedly immense. Even when she reached the point of defection, she still had multiple Death Warriors following her and even hired Lucifer to be the contact person.
However, that influence had long since dissipated with her death.
Once she died, the people related to her would naturally be purged.
So who would want to deal with me?
"Do you have anyone in mind?" Uenoshi asked.
Guan Tong shook his head: "I can't think of anyone. But I believe it shouldn't be related to the Countermeasures Research Office."
He currently had a close, mutually beneficial partnership with the Countermeasures Research Office. The office had no reason to act against him; doing so would only result in a lose-lose situation.
"Then you need to be careful. It's easy to dodge an open spear, but hard to guard against an arrow shot from hiding."
"The one who should be careful is the person behind the scenes," Guan Tong said. "Sooner or later, I'll dig them out and repay blood with blood."
Uenoshi nodded: "I'll continue investigating in Sakura Prayer Country until late this month when I go to Fahe."
"Mm."
Guan Tong had already mentioned to Uenoshi that he was going to Fahe to deal with the Fire Thief Worship Cult. After learning this, she requested to accompany him.
Guan Tong considered it and agreed, but he didn't plan to have Uenoshi join the Human Consortium's Joint Action Team. Instead, he wanted her to operate separately to provide support.
That way, if something went wrong with the Joint Action Team, she could avoid being implicated and still provide additional assistance.
Just then, Uenoshi's phone rang. She picked it up and looked: "It's Yoshino."
She answered: "Director Yoshino, what's the matter?"
Whatever was said on the other end, Uenoshi quickly hung up and looked at Guan Tong: "Something's happened. Someone is spreading images of Scarlet Terra on a large scale."