49 Apocalypse Rules

In the Black Banner Country, a fierce, chaotic battle raged within a mountain valley.

Attacks and defenses launched by a variety of Psychic Power items and abilities clashed, filling the air with a constant flicker of multicolored light.

One of the two warring sides consisted of only a hundred-odd people, desperately holding a narrow pass against the enemy horde’s assault.

The attacking force, however, numbered in the thousands. They looked like a long serpent, so densely packed that one could not see its end.

Facing an enemy that outnumbered them dozens of times over, the defenders would have already been breached and annihilated if not for the narrowness of the pass, which prevented too many from breaking through at once.

But even so, faced with such a massive disparity in numbers, the defenders’ strength was gradually failing. The Ascenders on the front line fell one after another.

"The front line is about to break!"

"Hold the line! If we let these monsters through the pass, it’s all over!"

"Damn it... my Psychic Power is empty! Ughh-AAAHHH!!!"

Even for elite Ascenders capable of fighting ten opponents at once, facing such overwhelming numbers—especially when the enemy was a swarm of fearless Parasites—the only outcome without a chance to escape was death by exhaustion.

As several people at the front collapsed, a large group of enemies immediately swarmed into the pass, with more surging forward right behind them.

Seeing this, the defenders inside the pass fell into complete despair. The ones holding the front were their strongest fighters; with them down, those in the rear had little combat strength left.

Some couldn’t help but break down and cry. They had escaped a city overrun with Parasites only with great difficulty, but it seemed they still couldn’t escape the monsters’ clutches.

"BANG!"

Just as the defenders lost all hope, a powerful sonic boom suddenly echoed from the sky.

Everyone looked up to see a massive white object rapidly descending.

"BOOM!!!"

The object landed right in the pass, instantly crushing seven or eight Parasites that couldn’t dodge in time and sending a dozen more flying from the impact.

As they got a closer look, they saw that the thing that had fallen from the sky was a pale white Mecha! Its streamlined frame was dazzling, like a work of art.

"All of you, fall back."

A mechanical voice emanated from the Mecha. It then swung its arms, and with a rhythmic HUMMM, two Power Swords extended from the bottom of its forearms.

The Ascenders from the Black Banner Country hadn’t expected reinforcements and were overjoyed. A boy of about ten, who had clearly watched the show *Decisive Ascender*, pointed at the Mecha and cheered, "Snow White Traceless! It’s the Snow White Traceless!"

"The kid’s got sharp eyes."

Bai Xuewu muttered from inside the Mecha. Her eyes then narrowed as a scanning interface appeared before her, taking in the full details of the enemy’s situation.

She piloted the machine forward, charging into the main force of the Parasites with her dual-wielded Power Swords.

The Parasites immediately swarmed the Mecha, but they were completely unable to damage it. Instead, they were cut down like weeds, mowed down with ease by the Mecha’s blades.

Just then, a whistling sound came from high above—the sound of long-range weapons. A series of thunderous explosions followed, blasting a large number of Parasites in the distance off their feet.

The moment the bombardment ended, a large number of attack helicopters arrived in its wake. A joint force from Soloma and North Star had arrived. Soldiers rappelled down quickly, helping to eliminate the remaining Parasites.

Thousands of Parasites, battered by several rounds of bombing from fighter jets, swept up by the Ascender soldiers, and slaughtered by Bai Xuewu in her Mecha, were wiped out. The battle was over in less than ten minutes.

"Huu..."

The Mecha powered down, and Bai Xuewu landed on the ground, taking several deep breaths. She pulled a piece of chocolate from her pocket and ate it. Piloting the Snow White Traceless for so long had taken a heavy toll on both her Psychic Power and physical stamina.

But...

She looked at the rescued Ascenders from the Black Banner Country. Seeing the joy of survival on their faces made her feel that all her exhaustion was worth it.

"Snow White Traceless!"

The same boy ran over, shouting the name. His eyes were filled with adoration. Although they didn’t speak the same language, he pronounced the Mecha’s name perfectly.

Although Bai Xuewu usually had social anxiety, she tried her best to be gentle with the child, pulling out another piece of chocolate and handing it to him.

The boy happily accepted it and ran off. Other Ascenders from the Black Banner Country were being questioned by a Commander to assess the situation.

A short time later, the voice of the joint operation’s Commander came through everyone’s earpieces, giving out orders.

"These people escaped from Kromar City. By the time they got out, the city had already been overrun by Parasites. But many who couldn’t escape are still trapped inside. Our objective is to retake the city from the Parasites and rescue the remaining humans."

"Remember! We currently have no way to distinguish between humans and Parasites. All combat personnel must remain vigilant around any Black Banner People, even if they claim not to be infected. Do not let your guard down! Alright, rest here for five minutes, then we move out."

"Roger that."

Bai Xuewu knew that retaking a city was far from an easy field skirmish. ’There will be heavy casualties.’

But she had already steeled herself before coming. ’Even my little sister, Chen Na, went to Sakura Prayer to take part in a dangerous investigation. How can I, her older sister, drop the ball?’

...

Guan Tong considered his combat abilities to be a notch below his reconnaissance skills.

Indeed, his Shadow was far more convenient for intelligence gathering than for combat. Its greatest advantage was its ability to remain concealed while, to a certain extent, ignoring terrain.

Just like now, as a large number of Shadow Lines under his control traveled through the seawater and silently crawled onto the deck of the Yun Jia.

The ship wasn’t protected by a barrier. Guan Tong figured it was because the ship was simply too large; a typical Barrier Item didn’t have that much range. And having different Ascenders use multiple Barrier Items to overlap would lead to conflicts or failures.

For a massive ocean-faring cargo ship like this, capable of carrying over ten thousand containers, the length from bow to stern alone exceeded five hundred meters, and its width was nearly a hundred meters.

Covering such a behemoth with a single Barrier Item was simply unrealistic.

However, Guan Tong estimated that certain core areas, like classified laboratories, would likely have their own separate barriers to prevent infiltration.

After climbing aboard the ship, the Shadow Lines dispersed and began to investigate.

Some of the Shadow Lines slipped through the cracks of the shipping containers. Through the shared vision, Guan Tong confirmed that what Shangyuan Zi had said was true: inside the dim containers were not goods, but a large number of unconscious people.

These people had likely been given sleeping drugs and were in a deep slumber. Guan Tong investigated several dozen containers in a row and found people inside every single one; even the least populated ones held around thirty individuals.

A rough calculation based on the total number of containers on the ship suggested that the number of people inside the containers alone was in the thousands, perhaps even more than ten thousand.

Even though Guan Tong already knew about the Mizusawa Clan and how utterly inhumane Mizusawa Chun was, this number still shocked him.

Furthermore, judging by their appearance, most of these people were not Andai People, but almost all were citizens of Sakura Prayer.

In the old era, a mass disappearance on this scale would have definitely been exposed. But in the age of the Apocalypse Rules, it was clear that very few people paid attention to such matters anymore.

If someone suddenly vanished, people would just assume they couldn’t handle the psychological pressure and had gone off somewhere to end their own life. Calling the police was considered a waste of effort.

This mentality was not uncommon in any country, not even in North Star.

At that moment, the Shadow Lines that had infiltrated the ship’s interior living quarters sent back new images.

Guan Tong saw that many of the personnel there were wearing Ninja Suits, which aligned with his earlier deduction: the Mizusawa Clan had its own private army.

A key characteristic of this private army was that they still wore traditional ancient attire, which looked completely out of place in a modern setting. However, it was less a characteristic and more a form of obedience training.

In addition to them, he also discovered some researchers in white lab coats. They appeared to be from all over the world, likely genetics experts recruited by the Mizusawa Clan from across the globe to participate in their experiments.

Everything he had seen so far was enough to prove this was an experiment ship. ’But,’ he thought, ’I still need to pinpoint the location of the core laboratory and confirm whether the ever-elusive Divine Son Mizusawa Chun is on board.’

The Shadow Lines split again, creating even more threads that roamed throughout the ship, searching.

Before long, several of them were blocked by Psychic Power barriers. Guan Tong memorized the locations of these key compartments, planning to raid them first as soon as the operation began.

He then withdrew most, but not all, of the Shadow Lines, leaving some lurking on the ship to monitor any movements.

As for himself, he handed the evidence he had gathered to Silver Fox, who would then forward it to the research department.

The research department moved even faster. Just over ten minutes after receiving the evidence, its director, Gao Liangwei, personally notified Silver Fox.

The high command had officially approved the dispatch of warships and air forces to immediately lock down the Sakura Prayer port and launch an armed strike against the experiment ship. This operation was to be synchronized with the rescue mission in the Black Banner Country—they would win two wars at the same time.