Chapter 434: End of the Interval Period |
Late at night, on a stretch of harbor shoreline.
A man stood quietly, his long golden hair fluttering in the sea breeze.
A faint vibration came from his pocket. Adam pulled out his phone. Once the screen lit, his already pale complexion looked even more sickly in the glow.
The screen displayed the Ascendant Home website interface, and a private message was slowly unfolding.
"The Moon Key foresaw your death. She and I made a pact to help you. If you see this private message, you can contact me."
That private message was, of course, sent by Guan Tong; he was Adam's only channel of contact.
Staring at the words "foresaw your death," a look of resolute acceptance flickered across Adam's deep blue pupils.
He typed a reply: "Thanks for your concern. If I die, at least I'll die with dignity."
After sending it, he put his phone away and gazed out toward the ocean, his eyes seeming to try to pierce the layers of darkness and reach somewhere distant.
He mouthed the place name, aware that his three other wives and children were all on the island.
If not for seeing them, he would not have agreed to the Suroma king's request to capture the leader of the Fire Thief Worship Cult alive.
But because of a mole, that ugly deal had failed completely and had directly led to the death of Amanda, the wife who went with him.
He couldn't accept that. After leaving Liruo'an City he cut off all official channels and buried Amanda by himself.
Yet he knew the Suroma government would surely suspect he might head to Eden Island, and would prepare heavy defenses.
Adam knew he could not act rashly; he had to wait for the right moment.
He believed the Moon Key's prophecy wasn't baseless, and besides, the Suroma king had warned him before that landing on the island without authorization would carry consequences.
Were there hidden defenses on the island?
Adam frowned, thinking. During his time living there he hadn't noticed any.
After hesitating a while, he made a decision: wait until a new rule was released before going to the island, because the new rule would certainly distract some official attention and create an opening for him.
...
"This is your hometown, Yunhua City? It looks…" Uenoshi sat inside the car and stared at the city in the distance, now mostly in ruins, unsure what to make of it.
She looked over at Guan Tong in the driver's seat, who didn't appear as sorrowful or upset as she had expected.
"This city was destroyed by an earthquake and a tsunami," Guan Tong said. "It's a pity. It used to be beautiful and prosperous. But that earthquake and the disasters that followed destroyed so many countries and cities; Yunhua was just one of them."
Uenoshi fell silent.
In terms of devastation, the entire island nation of Sakura Prayer had sunk in the earthquake and ranked among the hardest hit. The survivors from Sakura Prayer were mostly numb; after the fall of the Yuzawa Family, Sakura Prayer had been effectively silenced on the international stage.
To countries like Suroma, Sakura Prayer was now effectively a vassal under Beixing control. In this era, several small nations envied Sakura Prayer—being a vassal meant protection and survival, and that mattered more than independence.
"Are we sure the person we need to find is really here?" Uenoshi changed the subject.
She had immediately met up with Guan Tong after receiving his contact.
Together they came to Yunhua to look for the woman using the name "Wei Huo."
"I can't be certain. But the Moon Key is famous, and the fact that Suroma officially employs her suggests her prophecies have weight. Let's give it a try; we don't have any other leads right now."
Uenoshi nodded.
Guan Tong then mentioned organizing new members: "After this investigation I'll call a meeting to discuss the Trace Origin Travel Troupe's future. Before it was just the two of us and there wasn't much to plan, but now with Black Star and White Star joining, we should think long-term."
"Alright."
After driving for a bit longer, the road ahead was blocked.
The earthquake and tsunami had destroyed not only the city itself but also nearby transport routes; the once-wide, orderly highway had mostly collapsed and split, making vehicle passage impossible.
They abandoned the car and proceeded on foot. For efficiency, Guan Tong used Shadow to carry them forward; at high speed it felt almost like skimming the ground.
Guan Tong turned to Uenoshi, who was fully armored with sunglasses and a mask, and said, "There shouldn't be anyone around here. You don't need to cover up so much."
Uenoshi hesitated for a moment and removed her coverings.
Her face was almost entirely covered in scales, with only a small area of skin exposed around the eyes.
"Actually, this isn't bad," Guan Tong commented, "at least it minimizes weak points."
"…"
"I'm not joking. I'm serious."
"I know."
The scales were incredibly tough, offering remarkable defense, and now nearly covered her completely, providing all-around automatic protection.
Aesthetics no longer mattered. In this age, strength trumped looks entirely. If beauty could once be traded for wealth, now it pales in comparison to raw survivability.
"Uenoshi, can you immobilize targets with your gaze now?" Guan Tong asked, recalling the images he saw when affected by Scarlet Fear.
"How did you know?" Uenoshi replied, then added, "But it's not immobilization. It forcibly alters the target's genes."
"Alters the genes? Like the Serpent Servant conversion?"
"Something like that, but this conversion doesn't turn them into monsters. It turns them into solidified forms, like deep-sea rock."
"Deep-sea rock… so it still ties back to the 'deep-sea serpent' lineage."
Uenoshi's bloodline ability was extremely complex; even she couldn't fully understand it, let alone Guan Tong.
Especially after killing Yuzawa Jun, she seemed to have absorbed another portion of the great serpent bloodline he possessed. Now two serpent bloodlines overlapped within her, greatly accelerating her power development, which explained why scales had rapidly covered her entire body.
As they spoke, Shadow had already carried the two of them into Yunhua City.
They climbed onto a rooftop that had not yet collapsed and looked down at a panorama of broken walls and ruins.
Guan Tong looked toward the direction of his old home. The once-grand North Avenue had become a strip of gray rubble; shattered glass and rotten signboards were everywhere, stuck with dried seabed silt, turning it into a strip of trash.
The sea had receded, leaving a gray-white salt crust that thickly coated everything in sight, like a pale filter. Under the sunlight it radiated an air of decay.
This was a city first abandoned, then ravaged by earthquake and tsunami. Aside from some rare green shoots appearing with the arrival of spring, it showed no signs of life.
Guan Tong saw no people, heard no sounds, only smelled a faint sticky, rotten scent in the air—animal, plant, or a mix of both.
"How are we supposed to find someone who might not even be here in such a huge city?" Uenoshi asked. "Shouldn't we ask your little sister with the sensing ability to help?"
"I considered bringing Chen Na, but she's out on a mission, so we'll have to do this ourselves this time."
Guan Tong said, and then commanded Shadow to split.
One shadow split into two, two into four, four into eight… soon hundreds, then thousands of shadows appeared.
"Go."
He waved his hand and the shadows dispersed in all directions, searching every corner of the city for him.
Guan Tong sat down on the rooftop and closed his eyes.
Uenoshi knew his shadows could share sensory input, but processing images from hundreds or thousands of simultaneous shadows would be a tremendous strain on the brain—like one person watching hundreds of surveillance feeds at once. Ordinary people couldn't handle it.
Fortunately, Guan Tong was not ordinary.
Uenoshi stood silently by, alert to the surroundings.
More than half an hour later, Guan Tong opened his eyes, disappointment apparent on his face.
"Didn't find anyone?"
"No." Guan Tong rose to his feet. "I checked almost all the relatively intact, habitable buildings. No sign of people."
"Could we have missed someone? It is a large city, after all."
"There will definitely be omissions, but this isn't something you can finish in a day or two."
Searching a large city like Yunhua thoroughly on his own would take ten days or more; he would essentially have to use up the entire rule interval period.
Uenoshi had no objection—she had nothing more important to do.
They agreed to spend the remaining ten or so days focusing solely on investigating the city and finding people.
...
The half-month interval period passed quickly.
During this time the Human Consortium was active, mainly striking against the Fire Thief Cult and the parasitized forms.
During the previous rule period, these two anti-human groups had launched attacks and caused significant damage. Now that the rule had ended, the Human Consortium decided to retaliate hard.
Before striking, they needed to root out moles.
Leaks of major Human Consortium decisions had happened repeatedly. Each time they promised internal investigations, but the results were poor.
This was partly due to insufficient resolve and partly due to inadequate investigative methods.
But this time the mole problem caused significant damage: the assassination operation failed, and the leak of unverified but damaging intelligence about a "Demon Race" pushed "Shadow" to the center of public condemnation.
Severe criticism of a top Ascendant could trigger instability. Heads of state in Consortium countries expressed concern: if Shadow, in anger, defected to the Fire Thief Cult or turned hostile toward ordinary people or other Ascendants, it would be disastrous.
Fortunately, Beixing reported that they had communicated with Shadow, and the various countries felt somewhat reassured.
To prevent recurrence, the Consortium changed its decision-making mechanism to a whitelist system. Only those on the whitelist would receive critical intelligence.
This narrowed the scope of any future mole investigations significantly.
Those eligible for the whitelist were Consortium committee members and a few high-level official decision-makers. These people quickly passed a joint resolution.
The resolution authorized large-scale bombardment of Liruo'an City.
Previously many had opposed this, arguing that many cultists might be under mind control and indiscriminate bombing could harm innocents. That was one reason assassination of the cult leader was previously favored—some thought killing the mind-controller would restore many cultists to their senses.
But after the Suroma crisis and the million-person city disaster, countries agreed on a "Consortium citizens first" principle. They would no longer place Consortium nationals at risk because of uncertain factors.
Thus the bombing plan passed. Using satellite monitoring, countries led by Suroma would deploy long-range firepower to conduct saturation bombing on Liruo'an City, targeting the living forces of the Fire Thief Worship Cult.
Liruo'an offered fewer caves and wild terrain for hiding than Black Flag Country, and the cultists were not as resilient as the parasitized forms. After several rounds of bombing and previous losses inflicted by several Annihilators, the cult took heavy casualties and became thoroughly demoralized.
After this success, Suroma announced it would soon send ground forces to eradicate the remaining cult elements, aiming to wipe the cult from Tianshui Star.
But the Consortium's real headache was the parasitized forms.
These monsters had used the rules' power and numerous embedded moles during the last rule period to severely damage the frontline coalition.
Though seeming to have achieved a victory, humanity became even more resolute about annihilating them completely.
After the old coalition withdrew, a new coalition formed rapidly.
Unlike before, every member of the new coalition underwent secret screening to ensure no parasitized forms were present.
Beixing provided the screening. The personnel were secret, but Beixing did not keep the method secret; they announced the reboot of the Mind Network.
This was classified information limited to Human Consortium whitelist members and not made public. Only a handful of Ascendants could now restart the Mind Network; several small countries couldn't even gather one. Publicizing the method would only alert the parasitized forms.
Thus the new coalition's soldiers were genuinely human, without parasitized moles. With a large contingent of official Ascendants accompanying them, the new coalition was stronger than the old one.
Faced with this formidable new force, the parasitized forms avoided direct confrontation. Under the Prophet's command they abandoned captured bases and carried their operational and living supplies into the deep mountains, clearly intending a protracted war of attrition.
Meanwhile, internet uproar stirred by the "Demon Race" claim cooled as officials downplayed it and Shadow withheld public comment. Everyone knew, though, that if a Demon Race ever truly appeared, public opinion would explode again far more intensely.
Amid these contradictions and chaos, time marched into April.
Unlike humans who often missed deadlines, the Fire Thief never failed to show up on schedule.
At 9:00 a.m. on April 1, a new Doomsday Rule was released on time.