Realm Walker

The Great Reporting Era? Zhang Yuanqing thought to himself. The five chiefs know how to meme now?[1]]

With that snarky comment out of the way, he got down to analyzing the round. The first round had been about brains and footwork. Barring a sudden twist, this second round should lean hard on strength. The entire tournament was to prepare contestants for a large-scale slaughter dungeon, and the heart of a slaughter dungeon was the slaughter.

But "The Great Reporting Era"? What the hell was that? Nothing in the name seemed to imply a fight.

He was still turning it over when the world in front of him began to ripple, and he groaned to himself. The scenario is about to load. What am I standing around here theorizing for?

Two seconds later, the world came back into focus. In front of him was a scene of broken buildings and rubble. He was in the middle of an ancient, ruined city. There was wreckage in every direction, houses of timber and of brick all bearing various signs of destruction—walls caved in, roof beams collapsed to the ground. Clumps of wild grass had sprouted bright and green between the black rot of the wood and the scattered grey stone.

So this is the second stage, he thought to himself. That thought had barely formed when he sensed his yin corpse three meters away. In the first round, the dungeon had walled Corpse No. 1 off from him, cutting him off from his yin corpse despite him being its master. But it was back now.

His pale suit was gone too, and he was in pajamas again.

He heard the notification chime in his ears.

【Welcome to The Great Reporting Era!】

【There was once a mighty general who led the empire's Iron Cavalry from conquest to conquest, blazing his name across the battlefields. However, his glory soon outshone his lord's. As it often happens, small men grow jealous. The king grew wary of him, and so the treacherous ministers and the blind ruler conspired together, bringing made-up charges against him. As a result, he was thrown in prison.

【The general died in his cell, still proclaiming his innocence. With his last breath he laid down a curse: all who enter this city shall die by being reported.】

【Each contestant may file one report every ten minutes. A successful report refreshes the cooldown. A failed one seals the function for thirty minutes.

【The general's spirit haunts the sky above the ruins. To make a report, shout skyward, stating both the offense and the justification. The general's spirit will be the judge. If upheld, he will loose an arrow at the accused, docking three points from them. If rejected, he will loose an arrow at the reporter, docking one point from them.】

【Note 1: The general's armor was lost in the city, and its pieces have been scattered across the area. Every half hour, one of the pieces will glow, revealing the location of the treasure. Gather the set and defeat your enemies.】

【Note 2: Each contestant may wear only one armor piece at the start. Kill or eliminate an opponent to unlock the right to wear more, one additional piece for each opponent eliminated.】

【Note 3: Be advised, do not break the law or commit any immoral acts within the ancient city (killing and combat excepted).】

【Note 4: Eliminate a contestant, and you will receive their points as a bounty.】

【To clear this stage, fight against your opponents until only the last two remain.】

The briefing ended. Up in the dim sky, a shape coalesced out of black mist, a hundred zhang[2] tall, standing proud beneath the heavens and above the dead city. It was clad in full battle dress, with a heavy bow in its fist, and was visible from anywhere in the city.

Zhang Yuanqing mulled over the information. It's a free-for-all PvP instance—no, more like a team brawl. The instruction to fight down to the last two probably means the contestants will team up. Most likely, it will be two to a team, which makes four teams.

There are two ways to gain an advantage—reporting others for violations, or acquiring armor. The armor mechanic is easy enough to understand. One will be revealed every half hour, like an airdrop, and every drop will probably kick off a scrap.

The reporting mechanic, though, that's the awkward one. You can't just throw it about, and one miss means you lose points and are locked out of using ic for half an hour on top of that.

Zhang Yuanqing clicked his tongue in frustration. Eliminating someone would reward you with all their points. That one line alone paints a target on my back. How am I supposed to ally with anyone, then? Am I supposed to go at it alone?

***

Dozens of miles away, down by a river, Yuan Ting had tucked himself and his yin corpse behind a broken stretch of wall. His brow was knotted as he considered the information.

Fight to the last two? That means we can make alliances. I can't team up with the Five Elements Alliance people. That leaves Sun Miaomiao or Zhao Chenghuang, then. But Zhao Chenghuang's a strange one, so he’s a bad pick for a partner. Sun Miaomiao it is, then. If she turns me down, I'll go to Yuanshi Tianzun, even if he's top of the board.

Yuanshi Tianzun was his fallback option.

I'll wait for the armor first. It would surely be an item with a beneficial effect.

***

Along the city's main road, World Ablaze stood with his back to a wall, arms folded, watching the hundred-zhang-tall ghost as it hung in the sky.

Killing and hurting people are not reportable offences. But what sort of law is there left to break inside a dungeon besides killing?

His eyes lit up as a flash of realization hit him. He had to bait someone into slipping up, then report them.

It feels like there's a lot of ways to play around this reporting mechanic. But I'm down to ten points. There’s no room for a wrong guess.

A contestant was eliminated once they had zero points left. Of the eight contestants, Yuanshi Tianzun sat on fifty points, while everyone else had ten. That was a wide gap.

A grin worked its way across World Ablaze's hard face. Yuanshi Tianzun's cooked. No one will be allying with him, and every last person in here wants him gone.

The first-placed contestant at the end of the round would be rewarded with a strong item, and whoever had that item was in the running for the overall crown. Anybody who wanted to win had to knock Yuanshi Tianzun out first.

World Ablaze reveled in the other man's misfortune for a second, then moved on to the question of alliances.

Out of the seven, Tone Deaf and Green Pine are low- to mid-level fighters, and rank about the same when it comes to clearing dungeons. Dungeons are my thing, so those two would be easy to reel in. The top three are hard to tie down, and even if I strong-armed one of them to form an alliance, we'd spend the whole time watching each other, and there's no way I'd be the one leading the team.

Yuanshi Tianzun wasn't even a consideration. Whoever teamed with Yuanshi Tianzun would be signing up to be a target.

***

Zhao Chenghuang walked through the rubble with his yin corpse, his attention split between waiting for the glow of a treasure piece and hunting for the other contestants.

His yin corpse had been restored with the help of his great-grandfather's own hands. If he had tried to restore it using his own strength in the Power of the Dark Moon, it would have taken him a minimum of ten days, perhaps even two weeks. He had other yin corpses, sure, but a Transcendent-tier yin corpse was nothing next to a Level 4 one.

The reporting mechanic seems like a limp little tool that's hard to get any value out of, he mused to himself. Amongst those I can ally with though, Sun Miaomiao would be my preferred pick.

If the first and third seeds were to form an alliance, they would comfortably outmatch any other team.

But then the rest will gang up on the two of us. Yuan Ting's part of the Taiyi Sect, and I can pull him in with the promise of favors on the outside. That makes three against five.

Zhao Chenghuang frowned. Three Taiyi Sect members against five from the Five Elements Alliance. He liked their odds, but he wasn't about to declare a certain victory.

He further considered his calculations. There's no sense in drawing the lines so strictly right out of the gate. Even so, though the Taiyi Sect is short on numbers, it could still have its own advantages. The Five Elements Alliance has the numbers, but the trouble with numbers is that each body never pulls the same direction. On top of that, Yuanshi Tianzun has the most points.

The corners of his mouth curled up in a smile. A plan was coming together.

***

Meanwhile, in the colosseum, the crystal mirror had split its feed into eight equal panels, each one showing a different contestant.

"This one's fun. There seems to be loads of rules and it’s a total mess. There's so much to work with! I really want to see how the eight of them handle it."

"Loads of rules? It’s all fluff. Clearing it's easy, just charge the center and make sure to swing harder. If you want to take things more slowly, grab the armor first, then swing hard."

That second one was clearly a Fire Sage.

The crowd continued to argue as they watched the feed. Compared to round one, this one seemed much more promising. It was no longer a Yuanshi Tianzun solo act. All eight contestants now had to wrack their brains.

Once the implications of the rules sank in, plenty in the stands started feeling sorry for Yuanshi Tianzun.

"Can’t the man catch a break? He clawed his way through round one, yet in round two he's public enemy number one again!"

"That guy's luck is cursed. He started on hell difficulty, and it's been hell the whole way."

"The reporting mechanic is useless anyway. Who is going to be breaking laws in a place like that? His point lead doesn't buy him a thing."

The chatter swung to the rules.

"The round is called 'The Great Reporting Era.' That name tells you flat out that the reporting mechanic is the crux of the matter. It all boils down to who can crack it first. Play it right, and you can knock people out without throwing a single punch."

"The only way I see it is if you can bait someone into a slip and then report it. But these are top-eight sharks. Who's getting baited?"

"Do you see it? Every one of them glanced at the ghost once and then tuned it out. They all think this reporting mechanic is junk."

"Huh? What's Yuanshi Tianzun up to?"

***

Zhang Yuanqing had been at it a while before something finally clicked—a way to test the reporting mechanic.

He went over to his yin corpse, dropped into a crouch, and yanked its pants down. Then he threw his head back and looked up at the sky.

"I, Yuanshi Tianzun, hereby report Corpse No. 1 for indecent exposure in public! Justification: an affront to public decency!" he yelled with all his might.

The spirit that stood between heaven and earth said nothing. It did not answer.

【Ding! Report upheld. The target is not a registered contestant. Invalid target. No penalty.】

"Huh," Zhang Yuanqing grunted as he rubbed his chin, one more piece clicking into place.

The reporting mechanic only applied to registered contestants. Reporting the transgressions of invalid targets did not incur a penalty.

After a few seconds, another idea struck him. He crossed over to a nearby brick wall and called his yin corpse beside him for cover. He then hauled out his Sea-calming Divine Needle from below his waistband and let himself go against the brick wall.

As the clear stream splattered against the wall, he kept himself screened behind the wall and the corpse, manipulating the yin corpse into staring dead-on at the business end of its master's divine needle.

He'd emptied his bladder not long after waking, so there wasn't much. A dozen seconds, and he was done.

Stowing his junk away, he tipped his head back and boomed out, "I, Yuanshi Tianzun, hereby report Yuanshi Tianzun for public urination! It is an offense against public morals!"

Taking another deep breath, he bellowed, "I, Yuanshi Tianzun, hereby report Corpse No. 1 for peeping at my private parts! It's against the law!"

Above the ruins and beneath the heavy sky, the towering spirit slowly turned its head his way. It lifted its bow and drew it back. Instantly, the bow flexed into a half-moon shape.

Thwip!

An arrow made of black energy tore its way through the air toward Zhang Yuanqing, dropping out of the murky sky like a meteor as Spirit Realm notification chimes rang in his ears.

【Ding! Report upheld.】

【Ding! You have been reported by Yuanshi Tianzun. Three points docked. Offense: public urination.】

【Ding! Report upheld. The target is not a registered contestant. Invalid target. No penalty.】

"Now we're talking," he murmured with a grin.

He'd shaken loose a few rules. One, anyone could report themselves. Two, he could pull down someone's pants and report them for flashing. Three, he could flash others and report them for looking.

It doesn't matter what actually happened. The same blade will fall. This is The Great Reporting Era, all right.

He'd run the test after being inspired by the backstory. The Spirit Realm's briefing had laid it out plainly: the general had been framed and killed because of a malicious report with no truth to it. This meant that malicious reporting was likely baked right into the curse. And there it was.

***

Seven heads snapped up at once, staring at the heavy sky, the afterimage of the arrow's trajectory still floating in their vision. Somebody landed a report? Who?! And that quickly?

They'd barely walked into this scenario, and someone had already tagged another contestant. How?

Anxiety hit all seven at the same moment.

***

In the colosseum, the stands were full to the rail, yet not one person made a sound. It was so silent one could hear the man beside them breathe.

1. ]Roughly around 2019 to 2021, the ruling party in China began to formally introduce whistleblowing into their national-level policies, encouraging people to report major violations ☜

2. One zhang measures 10.9 feet, or 3.3 meters. ☜