49 Apocalypse Rules

[The Rule Period has ended.]

[Congratulations on passing the trial of the eleventh Apocalypse Rule.]

[Your reward has been delivered to your storage box.]

[The twelfth Apocalypse Rule will be announced in sixty days.]

As the Fire Thief’s voice rang out, Guan Tong was using Shadow’s account to post on the Ascender’s Home forum.

The post’s title was: "One Million Sublimation Coin Bounty for the Mastermind Behind These People."

In the post, he publicly disclosed all the intelligence he had regarding the "Qingmei Organization," "Yongzhou Base," the "serial kidnapping case," and the "Big Sis."

He also posted photos of every member of the team that had attacked him, with the exception of Jiang Ming. He had taken these pictures after eliminating them.

His bounty was for one thing: the true identity of the mastermind behind the "Big Sis."

He might have been overly cautious before, thinking it would be a bad idea to disclose this information so recklessly. But after this attack, he threw all caution to the wind.

People were going to great lengths to get rid of him. What reason did he have to hold back?

Moreover...

After finishing the post, Guan Tong turned and looked.

Shi Jingyi was lying on the bed in his shelter, sleeping in a heavy stupor.

During the earlier long-range bombardment from the base, she had been severely injured despite deploying a Psychic Power Shield in time.

She might have been better off if she had only protected herself. But the shield she had deployed had also enveloped Guan Tong. A larger area naturally meant weaker defenses.

Guan Tong had immediately channeled a large amount of Psychic Power into her for healing, but it had only been enough to save her life.

The problem was, she was unconscious and couldn’t use recovery items on herself. An Ascender with healing abilities might be able to treat her externally and speed up her recovery.

But after the attack, Guan Tong no longer knew who he could trust.

He even suspected the Strategy Research Room now. He worried that if he entrusted Shi Jingyi to them, she might be assassinated by a mole in their ranks.

It was the same with the academy. Right now, he didn’t trust anyone but himself.

Even if the enemy’s target was him—Shadow—and not her, he couldn’t rest easy.

So he made two posts in total. The first was a bounty for the mastermind’s identity. The second was a commission, seeking the help of an Ascender with healing abilities in exchange for a generous reward.

He didn’t use Shadow’s account for the second post, however. He published it using the forum administrator’s account. This was to prevent his enemies from seeing that Shadow needed a healer and accepting the commission just to launch another attack.

However, after the super-earthquake, nearly all of the world’s networks were down. It was unlikely that many people would see his two posts anytime soon.

’If only I had a healing ability myself... But I still can’t write on the seventh page of the Wordless Book.’

Previously, to completely wipe out his enemies, Guan Tong had written the character "Domain" on the sixth page of the Wordless Book, unlocking the brand-new, powerful ability: the Shadow Realm.

Once activated, the Shadow Realm consumes Psychic Power to create corresponding Shadow Layers that cover the environment. Within this entire Domain, everything falls under Guan Tong’s perception, allowing him to move instantly or launch ranged attacks at will.

This was not the full extent of the Shadow Realm’s power, but Guan Tong was in no mood to explore it further. He couldn’t find any peace of mind as long as Shi Jingyi hadn’t recovered. After all, she had suffered this undeserved fate because she was trying to help him.

Guan Tong took a deep breath and silently called up his status panel, trying to distract himself.

[Name: Guan Tong]

[Nickname: Shadow]

[Title: Civilization Observer]

[Psychic Power: 859 (859) (191,710)]

[Sublimation Coins: 3,687,120]

[Overall Bio-signature Evaluation: Excellent]

His Psychic Power limit had nearly doubled, approaching nine hundred.

He owed this explosive growth to having repeatedly expended massive amounts of Psychic Power, which had widened his Psychic Power channels. This was arguably the greatest benefit he had reaped from the eleventh Apocalypse Rule.

The second benefit was that he had obtained a large reserve of Psychic Power.

He originally had a little over 200,000. He had spent over 20,000 by writing on the sixth page of the Wordless Book and activating the Shadow Realm over a wide area for the first time, so he now had 190,000 remaining.

If he had tried to accumulate those 190,000 points himself, there was no telling how long it would have taken. Such an amount could only be gathered by having a large number of people channel it to him.

Of course, since he wasn’t officially affiliated with the government, they would naturally stop organizing people to channel Psychic Power to him now that their collaboration was over.

However, this latest rule had changed Guan Tong’s perspective on many things.

For the first time, he had viscerally felt the power an organization could grant him. In the future, if the need arose, he wouldn’t be against building a small organization of his own.

A wise man acts when the time is right. He felt that after this super-earthquake, the global landscape would shift dramatically. Perhaps many of the surviving Ascenders would get ideas about making a move.

But as for what those changes would look like, Guan Tong couldn’t predict.

’Still, this is the first time the interval between rules has been two months. The next one won’t be announced until August. It gives humanity a lot of breathing room for disaster relief.’

This long interval—the first of its kind—was further proof that the Fire Thief was deliberately manipulating every Apocalypse Rule.

What was baffling was its motive. Did it want to exterminate humanity or not? If not, why release such a terrifying rule so early on? If it did, why not just release a series of difficult rules back-to-back and get it over with?