Chapter 449: A New Plan After the End |
Beixing, Countermeasures Research Office.
In the training room, a crew-cut, burly man with his shirt off was doing compound physical training: ultra-heavy sprints, strikes, leaps.
Each exercise was terrifyingly intense. Even many Ascendants with exceptional physiques would be stunned to witness these drills; they would struggle to complete even one of the routines.
But for the man training, these were just his daily routine.
"Beep."
A permission verification sounded at the door. A moment later Zhang Minglu pushed the door open and greeted the man training, "Dragon Soul, stop for a second, I need to talk to you."
Dragon Soul paused his lifting, took off the hundreds of pounds of weight plates, wiped the sweat with a towel, and walked to the side of the field.
"Doctor, what's the matter?"
"Guan Tong contacted me. He said his organization has a young man..."
The office had no particular reaction and would not intervene.
Guan Tong's definition of the organization had always been clear: it was a group of people who shared a curiosity about the truth and worked together toward that goal.
Unlike some strange groups or cult-like organizations, the Trace Origin Travel Troupe needed no cover and did not use secretive methods. In his view, only organizations like the Qingmei Society that hid in the shadows needed complicated structures. The Trace Origin Travel Troupe simply kept things straightforward.
"...That's the situation." Zhang Minglu finished the account and asked, "Dragon Soul, what do you think?"
"What do you think, Doctor?"
"The office doesn't object. Head Gao values Guan Tong and his Trace Origin Travel Troupe. Bringing some of their members under official oversight would be beneficial. Of course, it's still up to you, since if the person comes you'll be responsible for guiding them."
Dragon Soul said, "If the office agrees, I have no objections either."
"Alright, I'll reply to Guan Tong that way."
"Doctor, how are things in Black Flag Country? Silver Fox and the others have been there for over a month. Do we know their results?"
Zhang Minglu frowned slightly. "To be honest, the gains are minimal."
"Why?" Dragon Soul was puzzled. "Didn't we specifically send Chen Na? With her large-scale perception assisting, it should have been easy to find the parasitized forms hiding in the mountains, right?"
This matter had not yet been fully disclosed to avoid public panic, but there was no harm in telling you. Zhang Minglu said, "After the allied forces were ambushed and routed, many parasitized forms tore through the encirclement and escaped. Now there aren't many left inside Black Flag Country; most of them broke apart and fled to various places across the world."
Dragon Soul felt a chill at those words — unquestionably bad news.
Zhang Minglu sighed. "Looking back now, this was precisely the Prophet's plan. The Prophet must have known that the parasitized main force had been trapped in Black Flag Country. Once humans could identify them, they'd be quickly exterminated, so they had to break the siege and disperse."
"...So humanity was a step too slow. Just when we developed a way to tell them apart, they escaped."
"Yes. But Head Gao and I both think this wasn't a coincidence. The Prophet must have learned from some channel that humans had people rebooting the Mind Network and could identify parasitized forms, which is why he quickly planned a night raid on the allied forces."
Zhang Minglu paused, then sighed again. "Humanity's current problem is that there are very few Ascendants who have broken the thousand-point Mind Power upper limit and rebooted the Mind Network. Only a handful of gifted individuals or those with extraordinary luck can do it."
Dragon Soul was silent.
Even the Ascendants officially nurtured have generally not broken through, and many are far from it, let alone civilian Ascendants. Those like Shadow remain a very small, countable number.
"Right now the new Joint Force is sweeping up the parasitized forms still left in Black Flag Country. The mission should finish and disband back to each nation by May. But catching the Prophet won't be easy, and... Head Gao says that after this rule ends, the Human Consortium seems to be launching a new large-scale plan.
...
The final days of the rule passed without waves.
Unlike some previous rules, although this rule caused many casualties, the chaos it triggered was far less.
The reason was the optional plastification reaction.
Previous survival-type rules rarely had an optional 'exit mechanism' — it was basically pass or die.
Those who realized they couldn't pass would collapse into despair, lose control, become highly aggressive. Like the Fatal Blood Plague rule: some infected people, before bleeding out, would try to cause maximum destruction to vent their pain and hopelessness.
This rule, however, allowed those who thought they couldn't survive to gamble on the plastification reaction. Success meant survival; failure meant instant death, with no time to wreak havoc.
With this 50% success-option, the rule remained relatively calm throughout. Many people even thought the rule didn't kill that many.
But when the rule ended and the Human Consortium released the data, people discovered how wrong they were.
At 9:00 a.m. on May 1st, the rule was declared over.
Everyone still alive heard the Fire Thief's 'cordial' voice.
[Congratulations, you have passed the test of the eighteenth Doomsday Rule]
[Rewards have been sent to your Storage Box]
[The nineteenth Doomsday Rule will be announced thirty days from now]
Cheers erupted across the shelters.
"Finally over! I'm going out to breathe fresh air!"
"Can I eat the 'contaminated' food now? I lost over ten jin this month, I need to bulk back up!"
"Does anyone know where they cleared out plastics during the rule? I want to retrieve my model figures..."
"Not bad this time, there's a whole month in between! I can rest properly!"
Amid the excitement, people quickly realized an old problem resurfaced: although the rule had ended, its effects wouldn't vanish immediately.
Some traces went all the way back to the first Sleep Deprivation rule over two years ago. Even now, some people still get headaches from that continuous 72-hour sleeplessness.
Closer examples were even more numerous.
After the Earth Dragon Rolls Over rule, vast regions became permanent no-man's land; some place names and countries that had existed were rapidly being forgotten.
After the Five Senses Elimination rule, many developed claustrophobia and remained troubled.
After The Liar's Self-Punishment rule, people grew poor at lying and often replaced polite flattery or self-deprecating remarks with silence.
After Extraterrestrial Parasitism, many began seeing everyone as parasitized, becoming paranoid and refusing to be alone with anyone.
These were all long-term consequences of the rules, lasting at least until the end of all rules, and the Human Consortium could only alleviate them, not eliminate them.
Now, after the Microplastic Infestation rule ended, negative effects emerged swiftly.
Most directly, people developed aversion to plastic materials.
Even though the Human Consortium repeatedly announced that tests showed microplastics' chemical properties had returned to normal and no longer possessed rule-period toxicity, many still refused to let plastic back into their lives.
Another group clearly divided rule-time from non-rule-time. The moment the rule ended they rushed to retrieve plastics removed during the rule — toys, clothes, and so on.
What conflicts could erupt when these two groups lived in the same shelter or dorm?
In one shelter, only hours after the rule ended, a fight broke out. Two roommates came to blows; by the time the administrator arrived both were bleeding.
"What's wrong with you two?!"
The administrator had others pull the pair apart and demanded loudly.
The two panted and glared at each other viciously. One spat, "Administrator, he's crazy! I went to clean and grab my building block set back, and when he saw it he told me to throw it away because it's plastic. The rule's over — microplastics are no longer highly toxic! I refused and he attacked me. He's insane!"
After listening, the administrator looked to the other person. "Is that true?"
"...Yes, the rule is over, but who knows if plastics still have lingering toxicity? What if there's residue?"
"What residue! The officials have already done multiple safety tests; there's no problem."
"But after the spores rule ended, weren't alien spores still around? It's been so long and the parasitized forms still haven't been cleared!"
"You're making no sense. These aren't the same thing!"
The administrator was angry. Seeing the man couldn't be reasoned with, he hardened his expression.
"Final warning. The shelter is a communal living space. You can't act on your personal whims. If you continue causing trouble, I'll have security take you away. Decide for yourself."
At the threat of being taken by security, the man suddenly felt vulnerable. He hesitated, then nodded and backed down, claiming he was wrong.
After handling the dispute, the administrator reported it. Similar incidents occurred frequently; some environmentalists rallied online, but public response was scant and the uproar soon died down.
After all, a rule had just ended. People preferred to relax rather than spend the interval arguing online.
Meanwhile, as usual the Human Consortium held summary and planning meetings after the rule ended.
This time Mary served as committee chairman for the first time, and the meeting was set in the capital of Suroma.
When delegates from all countries gathered, they all noticed during casual conversation the capital's population looked visibly smaller than when they had last visited.
Suroma had not massively built underground shelters; many civilians lived in old districts. Normally the interval between rules would have produced more people on the streets, but when the delegates drove through, they saw almost no one. Everyone guessed Suroma likely suffered heavy casualties in this rule.
"Welcome, everyone." Mary arrived, sat down, and smiled. "Let's start directly."
As in past sessions, the first agenda item after a rule was to report casualties from the last rule, to anchor the world's total population.
When the Human Consortium was newly formed, countries withheld population numbers, but gradually they provided real figures to better cooperate.
Small nations needing aid caused confusion if their population didn't match requested supplies, producing suspicion and resentment that hindered cooperation.
"As committee chairman, I'll go first." Mary announced, "Suroma lost about 3.43 million people in the last rule, of which around 1.8 million died due to failed plastification reactions. The nation's remaining population is approximately 87.1 million."
The delegates were astonished by the numbers.
"1.8 million failed plastification reactions — with a 50% success rate, that means nearly 4 million people in your country underwent high-density microplastic injection..." Torafuto, the Xisiya delegate, was stunned. "So many people took such a huge gamble."
Gao Liangwei spoke up: "Beixing lost about 300,000, leaving roughly 610 million remaining."
Torafuto followed: "Xisiya lost about 1 million, leaving around 64.5 million."
The three major countries' combined remaining population totaled about 760 million. The remaining six smaller nations lost over five million combined and have around 30 million left. Altogether, about 790 million.
Compared to the pre-rule global total of 800 million, that's a decrease of about ten million.
A single rule causing a loss of a hundred thousand people worldwide — even if plastification made the loss less immediately visible — was still severe.
As custom dictated, after anchoring the population the delegates fell silent for a moment of mourning.
But Mary broke the silence swiftly. "Besides the fatalities, we must account for those who successfully underwent plastification. Suroma has about two million successful cases."
Other delegates reported their numbers — some high, some low. The smallest was Beixing, with under 100,000. Globally, successful plastification cases totaled around four million.
What should be done with these four million? Mary asked.
"No special treatment necessary, right?" one delegate uncertainly suggested. "Aside from reproductive and digestion abnormalities, aren't they essentially the same as normal humans?"
"Physical alteration inevitably leads to mental alteration. That's a major point in psychology." Mary said. "These plastified people will become mentally altered, it's only a matter of time. I think preventive measures are necessary to avoid a crisis similar to the parasitized forms."
Gao Liangwei asked, "You mean what, Committee Chair?"
Mary tapped her arm. "Implant electronic tracking chips in them. If someday these people turn against normal humans, the chips will allow us to locate each one for targeted tracking and capture."
Her suggestion surprised the other delegates, who promptly opposed it.
"No, that's too extreme. Doing that will immediately spark conflict!"
"Yes, you can't compare them to the parasitized forms. They're not the same."
Faced with opposition, Mary frowned briefly but then let it pass. "Fine. If consensus can't be reached, Suroma will implement this policy internally."
...
Other delegates could hardly object. The Human Consortium is an organization for cooperative aid; unless a member state's actions threatened others, it's inappropriate to interfere in internal affairs.
"We have an old proposal." The Luruiguo delegate repeated the familiar idea. "The Super City plan can't be delayed. In this rule we small countries lost millions, partly because shelter capacity was insufficient and microplastic-free air couldn't be guaranteed. We must build a Super City to house our populations!"
This proposal had first been raised after the fifteenth rule ended, in late January, and the Consortium had temporarily tabled it. Now in May it resurfaced, showing how desperate the small countries were.
Mary nodded. "The Super City plan can be put on the agenda. Suroma can provide intelligent industrial machinery to assist construction. Commissioner Gao, Commissioner Torafuto, what do you think?"
Neither objected. Small nations have the right to survive; the Super City plan was their chosen path to preservation.
Whether the plan was correct wasn't for others to decide. Constant opposition would only lead to conflict and collapse.
"Beixing doesn't oppose constructing a Super City, but don't forget another plan." Gao Liangwei said. "After the Scarlet Fear on Terra disappeared, the original space migration plan should be resumed as soon as possible."