Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 112 Assault by Thugs
Post-Apocalyptic Rules and Countermeasures Research Lab.

A discussion meeting is currently being held to study the seventh rule of the end times.

Unlike previous meetings, this time, due to the rules, no one could speak and could only communicate by typing and projecting.

The only sound in the entire conference room was the clicking of keyboards.

Someone typed: (The design drawings for the "anti-talking device" have been distributed to major cities, and relevant factories that can produce it are working overtime. It is expected that it will be transported to shelters and gathering points in batches starting tomorrow.)

The statistician typed: (In addition, according to reports from various locations, some shelter members have already failed the challenge due to mispronouncing sounds and have been attacked by sound hunters.)
(Can sound hunters infiltrate shelters? How do they do it?)

(It's still unclear. What is certain is that the Sound Hunter is an invisible entity that kills by severing the carotid artery in the neck, causing massive bleeding. It only attacks the person making the sound, not those around them.)
Gao Liangwei then typed to ask: (How is the preparation for the "Sound Hunter" test going?)
(Preparing now. We plan to have the tester make sounds in a completely enclosed space to attract sound hunters. The walls of this enclosed space are all made of the highest level of explosion-proof and penetration-resistant materials. Furthermore, proximity-activated bombs are placed around the walls, which will detonate as soon as a sound hunter approaches.)
(Are the testers willing to accept the risks?)
(The risks have been explained in advance, and testers participated voluntarily.)
Gao Liangwei nodded: (Then let's complete the test as soon as possible. We need to understand the maximum attack strength of the Sound Hunter and try to eliminate it using human weapons.)
……

Sister Yu led everyone in the camp to dig a grave on the edge of the camp and buried their companions who had been killed by the Sound Hunters in it.

The silence enforced by the rules has become the best way to mourn.

After a while, everyone dispersed and got busy with things in the camp.

Surviving in the wild is not easy. The camp is now unable to be self-sufficient and is still consuming supplies brought from the city.

To achieve self-sufficiency, the first problem to solve is the food supply. Sister Yu considered growing some simple and easy-to-grow plants, but that would require a lot of time and fertile land.

However, the priority right now is to get through this rule period; everything else can wait until later.

Inside the camp, some people were doing laundry, some were cooking, and some were organizing their belongings.

They spent the day in silence. In the evening, everyone sat around the campfire, face to face, but could only communicate by typing on their phones in the group chat.

After chatting for a while, Sister Yu typed: (Everyone worked hard today, get some rest early. Remember to put something in your mouth before you sleep.)
(Understood, Sister Yu.)
(God help me, please don't talk in my sleep!)
(Everyone should sleep face down; it's not easy to talk when your face is pressed down like that.)
(Good night.)
Everyone went back to their tents to sleep. Some time later, a rumbling sound woke up the man with the buzz cut in the camp.

Before the end-of-the-world rules, the man was an ordinary soldier. After the end of the rules, he lost his loved ones and chose to retire, spending his days drinking.

If he hadn't met Sister Yu and the others during the snow disaster, he probably would still have been drunk all the time until he died during another rule event.

After that, he regarded Sister Yu and the others as new family members who could unite and survive together, and he also gained the motivation to live.

It's the sound of a car!
After waking up, the man immediately crawled out of the tent and looked in the direction of the sound. Sure enough, he saw eight or nine jeeps driving towards the camp!

He immediately took out his phone, turned the volume up to the maximum, and played a sound to wake up the others in the camp.

When Sister Yu and the others came out of the tent, the several jeeps had already approached the camp and stopped.

The car door opened, and more than thirty people, mostly young and strong men, got out one after another. They remained silent and looked at the campsite and the others with unfriendly eyes.

The man at the head of the group, with a thick beard, was holding a large tablet. He typed on it and then played the audio.

A flat, electronic female voice rang out: "Leave your supplies behind, and we can let you go."

The people in the camp were startled by the noise. As the camp leader, Sister Yu stepped forward, took out her phone, and typed: (Who are you people? Are you planning to rob us?!)
The bearded man continued to speak through his tablet: "If you don't want to die, hand over the supplies obediently. Don't force us to take them ourselves."

The crew-cut man in the camp stepped forward, glaring at the crowd, and typed on his phone: (You dare!)

The bearded man's face darkened, and the thirty-odd men behind him all drew their weapons. Most were clubs, knives, axes, and some nail guns.

Upon seeing this, Sister Yu immediately realized what was happening.

These people may not be sublimated!
She had heard before that after the official declaration of a state of war, a large number of people from the non-Ascension group chose to leave the city.

Because only a very small number of them entered the shelter, most were excluded or placed at the back of the queue. This made them feel rejected and despised, and they called themselves "the world's outcasts" and made a pact to leave the city.

Most of the people in front of me were carrying cold weapons, and they didn't look like Ascended Ones, but rather like Non-Ascended Ones.

Upon seeing the warning message, the bearded man's eyes turned cold. He turned to look at his men behind him and nodded to them.

The group immediately rushed forward and surrounded the people in the camp.

The camp had only eight people in total, and they were at a great disadvantage when surrounded by more than thirty people.

Sister Yu thought to herself that although she had three Ascended Beings on her side, their overall combat strength wasn't particularly outstanding. If a battle broke out, even if they could repel the enemy, her side would definitely suffer casualties, which was not what she wanted to see.

She typed on her phone for the bearded man to see: (We don't want conflict, so we can give you half of the supplies.)
The bearded man shook his head, his meaning clear: he wanted it all.

In addition to food, they also wanted to take away vehicles and other items.

This was unacceptable to Sister Yu; losing all food and transportation would severely threaten the survival of everyone in the camp.

Seeing that Sister Yu was against it, the bearded man typed two words on the tablet, which were then pronounced by an emotionless electronic female voice: "Make your move."

"!"

More than thirty people immediately brandished their weapons and attacked. The man with the buzz cut immediately summoned his mental power artifact, a triangular military dagger, and quickly stabbed down three or four people who approached.

The bearded man and his companions were initially startled, but their eyes grew even colder. They hadn't expected that there would be an Ascended among this group. Most Ascended chose to remain in the city, enter or wait to enter the shelter; Ascended who chose to camp outside the city were, if not nonexistent, extremely rare.

And what they hate most are the Ascendants!
"kill."

An electronic female voice relayed the bearded man's commands in speech form from within the tablet.

Inside the camp, some people had already been cut down. In a fit of rage and shock, the crew-cut man charged toward the bearded man, determined to take down the leader first!

But to his surprise, the latter pulled an automatic pistol out of his pocket.

"Boom!"

Two shots were fired. The man with the buzz cut dodged one shot, but was still hit in the abdomen by the other. He couldn't help but let out a heavy groan in pain and fell to his knees.

The noise was already quite loud, undoubtedly crossing the line of the seventh rule.

The bearded man chuckled silently, refraining from firing again. Instead, he stared at the crew-cut man with great interest, seemingly waiting for the Sound Hunter to come and kill him.

However, his actions gave the crew-cut man a chance to retaliate, and the latter suddenly threw his military dagger.

"Pfft!"

The bearded man dodged hastily, but the dagger still pierced his shoulder. He endured the pain without making a sound, and in anger, he raised his gun to shoot the crew-cut man.

At this moment, Sister Yu came to the rescue. She used a defensive item that she had obtained after opening the box following the previous rules. After throwing it, it formed a wide and long stone wall, blocking the bearded man and all his pistol bullets outside the wall.

She then tried to pull the man with the buzz cut up, but he ripped the gag out of his mouth and said, "Sister Yu, you need to take the others and get out of here immediately! The Sound Hunters are coming to kill me!"

"...!"

Sister Yu paused, then turned to look for the others.

Meanwhile, the man with the buzz cut, taking advantage of the fact that the Sound Hunter had not yet arrived, endured the pain, recalled his dagger, and pounced on the other thugs.

He hadn't expected the bearded man to have a gun; if he hadn't, he could have easily taken down the entire gang of thugs by himself. But now, he had to take them down one by one.

He only had time to take down two before his neck was suddenly pierced by something invisible, and he collapsed powerlessly.

There were eight people in the camp. The man with the buzz cut was killed by the sound hunters, and four others fell victim to the thugs' attack. The remaining three, including Sister Yu, ran into a car and hastily evacuated.

The bearded man glanced at his own losses. He had taken a knife to the shoulder, and sixteen of his men were dead. Thirteen of them were killed by the Ascended Ones within the camp, and the remaining three were killed by the Sound Hunters for accidentally making a sound in their excitement.

Thirty-odd people attacked eight, and half of them died—a result the bearded man couldn't accept. He felt he couldn't keep his position as leader unless he wiped out the remaining three.

He slammed the tablet down, producing an electronic voice: "Chase."

The rest of the people immediately got into their vehicles and gave chase. Sister Yu drove a small truck ahead, while several jeeps chased after them.

The two cars were evenly matched in speed, and even though Sister Yu had been driving for quite some time, the other car was still chasing closely.

The two people remaining in the car were terrified. Neither of them were Ascended beings, and they had no fighting power against the thugs.

There were three Ascended Beings in the camp: Sister Yu, the man with the buzz cut, and the boy Xiaoming. The latter two died—one at the hands of the Sound Hunters, and the other killed by the thugs—leaving Sister Yu alone.

At this moment, Sister Yu gritted her teeth, feeling anxious and trying to make sure she didn't make a sound.

She didn't even have time to grieve for her five dead companions, because as soon as the car stopped, the assailants blocked the way, and the three of them probably wouldn't have survived.

If the assailant wasn't armed, she could still put up a fight with her enhanced physical abilities and tools, but a gun changes everything. Especially since her psychic power items aren't combat-grade, she'd have little chance against firearms and would likely have to run.

The small truck drove along the highway, pursued relentlessly by several jeeps driven by the thugs. It seemed they wouldn't stop until they caught up and killed the three women.

The other two people in the car were huddled in the back seat in fright, and Sister Yu, as the leader, was also completely at a loss. She knew that if they kept running like this, they would be caught sooner or later, because the small truck was running low on gas.

After driving for a while, just as Sister Yu saw that there was only half a tank of gas left and was feeling desperate, she suddenly saw a grove of trees at the foot of the mountain to the south of the highway.

Her eyes lit up. If they got into the woods, neither she nor the thugs' car would be able to move, and they might still have a chance to survive!
She immediately swerved the truck off the road and sped into the woods. Several jeeps behind her also sped off the road in pursuit, determined not to let the three escape.

Just as the two cars passed the foot of the mountain and headed into the woods, a black eye opened and watched the vehicles move.

Guan Tong, lying on the bed in the wooden cabin halfway up the mountain, opened her eyes and received some images in her mind.

That was a "shadow surveillance" he released before going to sleep, consisting of countless tiny, hair-thin, morphing eyes that transformed into physical forms.

Such small-sized materializations do not consume much mental energy, and Guan Tong uses them as surveillance devices so that he can detect and warn anyone who comes up the mountain immediately.

Several cars arrived and headed towards the woods at the foot of the mountain.
Guan Tong frowned slightly as he sensed the images transmitted to him by the shadow.

(End of this chapter)