Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 135 Judgment of Justice
Guan Tong was deeply shocked after reading this post.

He had actually heard about it from the beginning, and even experienced it firsthand—what was the purpose of the mastermind behind the kidnapping of high-level mental power individuals by Shen Zuohu and his gang in Yunhua City? It was most likely to make these people the "patrons" mentioned in the post.

What shocked him was that there were actually countries doing this—and not just small countries.

The Tulip Federation, formed by several small countries that collapsed under the first rule after entering the apocalyptic rules, is actually quite powerful, with its population and land area comparable to the Soro Empire.

Is it because this federal state was newly established and the people's hearts were unstable that it advocated violence and created such a distorted system of feeding the entire population as "sheep"?

"If that's the case, with the customized challenges from numerous donors, the number of first-place finishes that the Tulip Federation's 'alpha wolf' can secure would be astonishing. However, there's an upper limit; even with the most first-place finishes, the total points won't exceed 500..."

Guan Tong found it strange, though. Was the Tulip Federation really betting everything on that alpha wolf? Weren't they afraid that guy might die in some rule-breaking event or be killed by someone else?

Or should we choose a new alpha wolf from the "pack" later? How can we make up for the huge waste of resources then? The spiritual energy that the entire population has lost is irretrievable!
Guan Tong has already seen similar comments posted on the thread.

"The Tulip Federation is too insane! They support the entire population with wolf packs and an alpha wolf? Why hasn't there been any rebellion?"

"That area was already very chaotic, full of warlords, so it wouldn't be surprising to find any weirdos there."

“I have a thought: if someone who is being supported achieves many firsts, but then suddenly passes away, will those firsts be returned to them?”

"Someone has already reported what you're describing. When the person who came in first place dies, the first place will be passed on to the second person in order of succession."

"This post really infuriated me. Let's crowdfund! Anyone want to take down that damn alpha wolf? I'm willing to contribute 500 coins!"

"Give me a break... He's the chosen alpha wolf, after all. Do you think he'd be so easily killed? He's definitely surrounded by guards, or rather, a pack of wolves protecting him."

"Does our Northern Star Kingdom have a similar system?"

"Isn't there official information channels in the shelter? Why don't you just ask the officials?"

"...Never mind, I feel it's safer to discuss this on this website."

As Guan Tong read these discussions, her experiences in the industrial park and on Holy Grail Island came to mind.

He figured that the squad he encountered twice, led by the guy with the scimitar, must be one of the official teams.

However, unlike the Tulip Federation's high-profile publicity campaign, the Northern Star Kingdom has never officially announced the formation of an official Ascendant team. Although some speculate that the team that ranked third on Holy Grail Island, led by "Dragon Soul," is an official team, there is no evidence to confirm this.

Another major power, the Solomon Empire, did not publicly announce the special training of any particular person, but a man in their country nicknamed "Lucifer" gained worldwide notoriety for his eccentric behavior.

His recent public posting of his "kill count challenge" online has caused a huge uproar.

According to some videos online, protests even broke out in the Roman Empire over this issue. People demanded that the king and the Senate make a ruling and use state power to execute Lucifer, because his challenge had clearly demonstrated that he had committed a serious crime.

However, the Senate replied that there was no direct evidence and therefore no decision could be made.

Indeed, although Lucifer claimed online that he created the murder challenge, no one can prove that he created it; the creators of each challenge are anonymous.

Unfortunately, the Ascendants of the Roman Empire did not accept this explanation, and rumors spread that Lucifer had begun killing people, which triggered even greater chaos.

Guan Tong wasn't particularly concerned about what was happening abroad; he was more interested in the situation within Beixing Country.

In the comments section below this post, many people provided information about the challenge projects as "suppliers".

Guan Tong noticed that some of these were from within the Northern Star Kingdom.

This cheered him up a bit.

The last paragraph of the post touched him deeply.

This kind of support system is absolutely inhumane. If you can convince others with reason and get them to voluntarily give you resources, then they may have no right to interfere.

However, if you resort to violence, such as imprisoning someone to force them to cooperate, then this is a situation that requires a strong response.

At the end of the post, the original poster appealed to truly powerful individuals to intervene and disrupt this system of support.

Guan Tong believed himself to be the stronger one, and he also genuinely loathed this kind of thing.

The person in the post who drew Guan Tong's attention, whose nickname was "Kashu," left the following comment:

"After seeing this post, I would like to ask the site administrator and other experts to help us. There are more than forty of us here. We all ran away from the city with the company boss. Originally, everyone was getting along well, but after the information about the eighth rule came out, the boss forced more than twenty of us who had not yet set our own challenge projects to set them up based on his props."

When we disagreed, he and his men attacked us and threatened to kill us. We had no choice but to agree and create similar rules together.

The boss's prop is an incredibly fast bicycle, so all the challenge projects we created are related to it. You can find them by searching the keywords 'bicycle, hospital'.

After Guan Tong finished reading, she opened the challenge list on the panel and tried searching by keywords. Sure enough, more than a dozen similar challenge projects popped up.

The challenge: To travel 500 meters by bicycle in front of the Heilu County Hospital in Ganlin City, without using any other props or abilities.

The challenge: To travel 501 meters by bicycle in front of the Heilu County Hospital in Ganlin City, without using any other props or abilities.

The challenge lies in…

"Goodness, they're not even pretending anymore."

Guan Tong looked at this series of highly similar challenge projects, which were completely identical except for slight differences in distance. The implication of "personalized customization" couldn't be clearer.

Someone else replied to this comment as well:

"Wow, I did a search, and there are so many similar challenges. It really is a support model!"

"OP, you should run if things get too bad, this is too scary..."

"Isn't the government going to send someone to handle this?"

"It seems that since the wartime administration began, the authorities haven't been paying much attention to things outside the city... or more accurately, they simply can't manage them all."

"Damn, isn't there anyone powerful enough to justify this?"

After seeing this, Guan Tong glanced at the commenter's words, "We would like to ask the site administrator and other experts to come and save us," then shut down her computer and got up.

He thought to himself: In that case, I'll go and make the trip.

...Heilu County, Linyi City, Ganzhou.

As a small county town in a remote area, the population was already small. After entering the post-apocalyptic rules, the already sparse population was completely wiped out, turning it into a veritable ghost town.

After the blood plague rules were implemented, a group of forty or fifty people came here and settled down in the abandoned county hospital.

These people used to live in a cluster in Ganlin City. The key figure was Gao Xinjian, the owner of a decoration company. The others were basically his company's employees or their relatives.

The reason the employees were willing to continue following Gao Xinjian during the post-apocalyptic era was because he had always treated them well and paid them generously. Moreover, he continued to encourage everyone to persevere after the post-apocalyptic rules were implemented, and even led the elimination of a group of undead during the undead rule era.

This earned him the trust of the group, so when he proposed leaving the city to live in the wild, most of the group agreed.

After leaving Ganlin City, they drove to Heilu County. This was Gao Xinjian's hometown, a place he was very familiar with, which is why he chose to live here.

For the first few days, everyone was happy together, but as time went by and supplies gradually dwindled, Gao Xinjian also changed little by little.

He began to become increasingly forceful, prioritizing the allocation of supplies for himself and a few of his men. If anyone objected, he would loudly berate them, and even order some of his men to push and shove each other.

The others were helpless against this. Although they were all ascendants, they were no match for those few. The reason Gao Xinjian recruited those few to his side was precisely because those few had the highest combat power.

People could tolerate the distribution of supplies, but the fact that Gao Xinjian demanded customized projects for himself and several of his subordinates after the rules were revealed was unacceptable.

After so many rules, everyone knows that mental strength is the key to everything, and no one would willingly reduce even one point of their maximum potential. Gao Xinjian's demand is simply too much.

Faced with the protests, Gao Xinjian ordered several of his strongest subordinates to attack, injuring several people. The others, frightened and unable to resist, had no choice but to agree and create the challenge project according to Gao Xinjian's demands.

Gao Xinjian then used his bicycle props to successfully win first place in multiple events. Several of his subordinates also each won two first places.

The other thirty-odd people could only endure and wait for the cruel reality of their mental strength to diminish after the rules ended—this was unchangeable, as each person could only create one challenge during the rule period.

One of the young people saw the "Patron Complaint Post" on the House of Ascended while browsing the internet on his mobile phone.

The young people then realized that similar problems existed not only in their area, but also in other places.

So he posted his experience online, pleading for help to rescue them. Because this time, failing the rule only weakened their mental strength, it wasn't fatal.

If a situation similar to the first rule were to occur again, he had no doubt that Gao Xinjian, who had already broken ties with everyone, would take everyone's lives, just so that he could survive!

The young man picked up his phone to check the post a few hours later.

Many people replied to him, but not a single one offered to help.

Some said the distance was too far to come, some said they had already helped seek help from the authorities, and others said they should find a way to save themselves... The young man shook his head with a wry smile.

Suddenly a hand appeared from above and took his phone.

The young man was startled and looked up to see Gao Xinjian.

"Boss Gao..."

"Xiao Wang, what are you looking at so intently?"

"No, I wasn't looking at anything... really..."

The young man's panicked expression was like an open book to Gao Xinjian, a seasoned veteran, revealing the true meaning of his words.

He said with a half-smile, "Is that so?"

As he spoke, he scanned the contents of the young man's phone.

After reading the post and the young man's replies, Gao Xinjian's smile vanished, replaced by an icy coldness.

"Xiao Wang, you did a great job."

"Mr. Gao, I..."

The young man surnamed Wang's mouth trembled as a tremendous sense of fear spread through his heart.

At this moment, others also noticed what was happening and gathered around.

Gao Xinjian held up the young man's phone: "Come on, all of you, look! Xiao Wang has even learned to go online to complain. That's really great!"

Everyone looked at the contents of the phone with extremely strange expressions.

Gao Xinjian suddenly threw his phone on the ground and stomped on it until it was smashed.

"Crack!"

"I'll fight you to the death!" The young man surnamed Wang's eyes turned red, and a dagger suddenly appeared in his hand, which he thrust fiercely at Gao Xinjian.

Gao Xinjian reacted quickly, slapping the young man's wrist away. Then, several of his men rushed up and pinned the man down.

"You little brat, when did you secretly exchange for a mental weapon? Are you trying to harm me?" Gao Xinjian's eyes flashed with a fierce light. "Now I can't let you live, kid!"

The others realized that Gao Xinjian intended to kill someone and wanted to stop him, but they were afraid that the danger would fall on their own, so they remained silent for a moment.

"Da da da……"

Suddenly, footsteps approached, and everyone looked over to see a young man in his twenties walking towards them from a distance.

"I haven't come to the wrong place, have I?" the young man said as he approached.

Gao Xinjian frowned: "Where are you from? What do you do?"

The young man said, "I'm looking for someone with the online name 'Kashu,' is he here?"

Upon hearing this, the young man surnamed Wang, who was being held down by Gao Xinjian's men, was shocked and shouted, "I am! I am Kashu!"

　Day 19 of my daily 10,000-word challenge. I finished writing the third chapter but revised it for a long time, and it almost dragged on until tomorrow. Thank goodness...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)