Chapter 148
Chapter 148
The reason Apuleer hadn’t made a move against Team F and had only locked them up was, first, because he had to find Shu Yan.
The child had betrayed him and was on the verge of threatening him. He had to be dealt with immediately.
As for Song Zhu, the prison’s former Judge, Apuleer didn’t care about him at all.
He was just a fallen Judge who had been disconnected from the World-Descent Rule, forced to drift through the System, and automatically assigned the identity of a Player. Apuleer didn’t think he could break open data prisons that could only be opened with a Judge present…
Then a message suddenly came from Main God Space: Prison G has been opened. Opener: 001.
Apuleer: ?
Apuleer: ????
The escapees weren’t about to pay any attention to a jailer who had abandoned his post to handle personal business. One prison-opening notification after another popped up.
“Prison A has been opened. Opener: 001.”
“Prison B has been opened. Opener: 001.”
“Prison C has been opened. Opener: 001.”
…
Rao Lin said in surprise, “When did you get your Judge authority back?”
Song Zhu shook his head. “I don’t know, but thinking about it…”
He paused. Since Shu Yan was probably exposed by now anyway, he didn’t bother hiding it any longer. “Shu Yan probably helped me.”
In Smiling in the Netherworld, Shu Yan sat before Shu Xiao’s gravestone with a jug of wine in hand and gave a mocking laugh. “Brother, look. That idiot is just as stupid as ever.”
Still, he had kept his own personal information extremely well hidden. Even now, his name still hadn’t been exposed.
“001 was disconnected. You think I wouldn’t reconnect him?”
The command he had entered two years ago hadn’t only been about Ning Shuo and Ning Wang.
“When the Arena Match at the Star Zone Arena two years later ends, reconnect the disconnected Judge 001.”
There was no question about it: whether it was 002 or 003, when it came to understanding the inner workings of the World-Descent Rule, no one knew it better than 001.
003 tipped his head back and took a swig of strong liquor.
He had told that idiot long ago that more than half of his strength came from his brain.
—
One prison after another was opened. Apuleer panicked and was just about to rush back to Main God Space when an even more serious message appeared.
It came from one of the most fundamental rules of the World-Descent Rule: Rest Areas were places of absolute safety.
And now, error notifications were constantly popping up on the Virtual Screen. More and more people were violating that rule, but because 003 was occupying that authority, the System was unable to punish the violators.
Originally, it would still have been manageable if only the people in the Central Zone were breaking that rule. But after 001 regained his Judge authority, the other Players discovered they could communicate with other Star Zones again.
One spread it to ten, ten spread it to a hundred, and that wasn’t all.
A server-wide notice popped up before the Main God.
[Dear Players,
A new System gameplay mode is now available-Return Home.
The rules are simple: Backpack permissions have now been unlocked. Players of each Star Zone, please proceed to the “Overworked and Overrun” Rest Area in your current Star Zone and destroy its barrier. Every player in the fastest-completing Star Zone will receive 10,000 Heat Points, and every player in the slowest-completing Star Zone will receive 1,000 Heat Points. For all placements in between, rewards will increase by 10,000 Heat Points per rank. Central Zone Players may act from the Rest Area they are currently in.
This is a limited-time event. First come, first served.
-System]
…It was 001. That damned 001!
The Main God trembled with rage and immediately checked the situation in each Star Zone.
At first, some Players from the other Star Zones had stayed out of it, while others still didn’t believe it and planned to wait and see. That was until they received vague but urgent prodding from friends in the Central Zone and assumed the Heat Points reward was real.
In truth, many people in the Central Zone understood perfectly well that without Heat Points, at least half the Players in the other Star Zones wouldn’t do it. After all, not everyone in the Dead Zone was willing to sacrifice themselves, and not everyone in the Living Zone wanted to return to the orderly structure of society.
They knew this wasn’t some gameplay mode at all, but a way to get out of the System. Everyone wanted out, and there was no need to waste time explaining it to others. The temptation of Heat Points was the quickest excuse to spur the other Players into action.
More and more people joined in destroying the Rest Areas in their own Star Zones.
On the surveillance screen, Qi Yang pointed excitedly at a spot. “Here! Hit here! I’ve got a feeling this spot is weaker than the others!”
Jiang Zong brought his hammer down and said in surprise, “It really is. How did you know?”
Qi Yang rubbed the back of his head and smiled shyly. “King said my luck is really good. When I’m doing something, instead of trying to reason through logic I can’t understand, it’s better to follow my instincts.”
Jiang Zong gave a thumbs-up. “Impressive.”
A few of the girls had terrible luck. Several of the spots they struck on the barrier were especially solid, and by the time they flopped down on the ground without caring about their image anymore, wiping away sweat, someone handed them handkerchiefs. “Take a break. Wipe your sweat first.”
The moment they saw who it was, their eyes lit up. “Teacher Qianqian!”
Li Ziqian waved with a sweet smile. “Hi. Want some water…?”
Before she could finish, the girls who had been exhausted a second ago suddenly sprang up like they’d been shot full of adrenaline, grabbed their shovels, and started furiously chipping away at the barrier again.
Li Ziqian froze for a moment, then ran over to join them, a little embarrassed.
The dagger Yu Min normally used had already gone dull at the edge, and there was no time to sharpen it. He simply picked up an iron rod instead. Just as he was about to keep smashing, a brand-new dagger was held out to him.
“Use this.”
It was Shen Xiao.
Hostility surged across Yu Min’s face. He grabbed the rod and swung it straight at her. Shen Xiao hurriedly ducked, a gust of wind sweeping over her head. With a bang, the barrier split with a spiderweb of cracks.
Yu Min sneered. “I thought that after seeing my codename, you should’ve understood just how impossible it is for me to forgive what happened between us.”
Qi Ran, Yu Min. Qi Yu.
It wasn’t just a combination of names. It was also his hope of meeting her again.
From beginning to end, Yu Min had never once kept Shen Xiao in his heart.
Or rather, if seeing her again in the System hadn’t stirred up that trace of hatred, Yu Min would have almost forgotten the person who had gotten him killed.
Seeing the commotion over there, Shangguan Zhigu frowned and started toward her Captain to help, but Gu Qi stopped her. “Captain can handle it. Right now, our job is to hurry and help them get out.”
Back in the modern world, the two of them had been in the same girl group. Then an accident killed them both, and they both entered the Script.
At this year’s Star Zone Arena, they saw two female Players from Zone E in the audience, girls who had been in the same group as them in the modern world.
And not just them. There were others too.
Someone patted Shangguan Zhigu on the shoulder. The man from Zone A everyone called Uncle Fei handed the two of them an iron rod each. “Use these. They’re not heavy, and they’re easy to swing.”
Behind Fei Jinnian, Rong Xi summoned countless thick vines and smashed them against the barrier again and again.
In a rare idle moment, as he watched the System heading toward defeat, he suddenly remembered when he had first entered the System.
Back then, a Clown had asked him to choose a codename. Rong Xi, who knew clearly that he was already dead, had stayed silent for a long time.
Ning Shuo always said he was a cold-blooded person, even saying plenty of hurtful things to drive Rong Xi away.
But that self-proclaimed cold-blooded person had never once said anything curse-like to Rong Xi.
How could someone like that be cold-blooded?
After thinking for a while, he wrote down Rex.
It came from the opening sounds of the pinyin for “hot-blooded,” and in Latin, it also meant “King.”
The King was merciful, condemning himself rather than the world.
He had long since offered his loyalty to the King.
That was what Rong Xi, whose brain was hopelessly full of Ning Shuo, thought.
Meanwhile, Ning Shuo was very happily “passing judgment” on the System.
More and more people were destroying the Rest Area. The Rest Area’s absolute safety had been completely shattered, and thanks to what those people from Zone F had done, the Main God Space wasn’t in much better shape either.
Because one of the World-Descent Rule’s fundamental rules had been severely damaged, the ordinary Judge process had long since lost power. Full authority over the control console had been opened up, and Song Zhu successfully sent a signal to the outside world.
No one knew whether the people from the so-called World Management Bureau would receive the signal and make it in time, but if the Main God was this afraid of them, then at the very least they had to be useful somehow.
Only a few seconds after the signal was sent, the Main God returned to the Main God Space in a furious rage. Seeing that the signal had already gone out and that there was truly no room left to turn things around, Apuleer, standing against everyone there with a twisted expression, made the same choice he had made two years ago:
to detonate the World-Descent Rule.
This time, he had no need to worry about whether a malfunction in the World-Descent Rule would draw the World Management Bureau over. The signal had already been sent. He might as well go for broke.
The World-Descent Rule was still in his hand. At the critical moment, a transit gate opened. Shu Yan stole the World-Descent Rule and tossed it to Ning Shuo in one smooth motion. Then he patted off his sleeves and left, quietly hiding his achievement.
At the very instant the enormous energy was about to erupt, Ning Shuo casually tossed the World-Descent Rule into the Water Moon Mirror, then pressed his palms together and prayed devoutly. “Even if they’re items with the same permission level, once it enters another space, the data link for the detonation should break the moment it crosses over, right?”
With a ding, the data chain really did snap.