Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 140 Dying is more valuable than living

Strong fortresses are often breached from within.

However, even when attacking from within, it's crucial to choose a good entry point.

Guan Tong's goal was to suppress the monitoring room first, because taking action from other places would be easily detected, thus triggering an alarm at the base.

Based on what he discovered using shadow penetration, the monitoring room was located in the upper floors of the base, not far from the office of the administrator, Han Ling.

Guan Tong's strategy was to first suppress the monitoring room and then quickly take control of Han Ling, the base manager.

The time to take action... is set after dinner at the base.

Guan Tong silently waited for the right opportunity to arrive.

At the plum base, several employees in the monitoring room returned after having dinner and chatted in a complaining tone.

"The food seems to have gotten worse lately."

"Sigh, we're lucky to have anything to eat. I wonder how long the sweeping operation outside will last. If it goes on for too long, our supply of goods here might be in trouble!"

"There's no need to worry about that. Manager Han can definitely get food, and if there really is no food, there are still those 'reserve grains' locked up downstairs."

"Damn, have you been watching too many weird movies? Want to eat people?"

The group chatted idly, completely unaware that a dark shadow was lurking in the corner of the room.

They sat down in the chairs, looking somewhat bored at the wall of surveillance screens made up of dozens of small screens pieced together.

Staring at it from morning till night every day, you can imagine how boring it is. If something were to cause trouble, that would be fine, but the problem is that since they took over the surveillance work, there hasn't been a single incident at the base.

Although this was the result of Han Ling's proper management, it was really boring for the monitors.

However, their "boring" lives are running out of time.

The split shadow lines silently climbed up the chair, up the back of the chair, and then, without the people noticing, "whoosh!" they quickly wrapped around their necks!

"Uh?!"

Without warning, the monitors were strangled by a tough, thin line, instantly unable to breathe, their eyes bulging. Some tried to pull the line off their necks, but they couldn't grasp or tear it away, because the line was both thin and incredibly strong.

Just seconds later, all the monitors slumped into their chairs, lifeless.

The lines that had strangled them quickly receded, vanishing without a trace the next moment, replaced by a young woman appearing in the room.

It was Guan Tong who came using the "Shadow Shift" technique.

That's right, he physically came to the base this time. Constantly manipulating shadows remotely consumes a lot of mental energy, and weapons like the Silver Hunter can't be used remotely.

But the most important reason was that he wanted to destroy this evil place with his own hands.

Guan Tong glanced at the corpses in the monitoring room, took off the monitor's uniform from one of them, and put it on himself as a disguise.

He then glanced at the monitor screen.

Except for the room of Han Ling, the base administrator, which was not monitored, everyone else was being monitored.

Even managers like Liu Yuqiang and team members like Chen Na were no exception.

Guan Tong thought to herself, "Chen Na must have known that there were surveillance cameras in her room, which is why she used the [Communication Scroll] while pretending to be asleep. She's quite clever."

Instead of leaving immediately, he took out his phone and took some photos of the room.

He then left the monitoring room and walked toward the manager's office on the same floor.

Han Ling was working in her office when she suddenly heard a crisp "ding" sound. She jumped up and turned her head to look, only to see a barely perceptible black line shoot out.

enemy!

Han Ling immediately realized that someone was trying to attack her, otherwise the protective gear she was wearing, which could automatically resist attacks, would not have made any noise.

The black line, having failed in its attack, quickly retreated to the doorway, turned the lock from the inside, and opened the locked door.

Han Ling's pupils contracted, and she immediately picked up the phone on the table and pressed a button on the side.

The button is connected to a transmitter hidden inside the phone; pressing it will send a signal throughout the base, triggering an alarm.

"Click."

She pressed the button successfully, but the alarm she expected did not sound.

"what happened?!"

She gasped softly. At that moment, Guan Tong entered through the door opened by the shadow, carrying a silver hunting bag.

He glanced at Han Ling, then at her phone as she frantically pressed the side buttons, thinking how lucky he was that he had fired an electromagnetic pulse bomb with the Silver Hunter beforehand, otherwise she might have succeeded.

but……

Guan Tong looked at Han Ling, thinking that she had encountered a similar situation to before.

That's your own shadow, unable to touch the enemy's skin. I encountered a similar situation with the scimitar-wielding man on Grail Island. It's likely that both of them possessed similar special protective items that could defend against attacks related to mental power, so even a blurred shadow couldn't penetrate their bodies.

"Who are you?" Han Ling asked, her face cold and wary as she saw the woman carrying a gun and wearing a surveillance uniform walk in.

She couldn't understand how this woman had infiltrated the base. Could it be...?

Recalling the thin black line that had attacked her earlier, Han Ling vaguely felt that there was some connection between them.

Guan Tong didn't want to waste words with this person. With a thought, the shadow beneath his feet stretched out several solid long arms to grab Han Ling.

"You are the Shadow!" Han Ling exclaimed in surprise. She had also participated in the Holy Grail Island competition and witnessed the Shadow manipulate these black shadows to transform and kill hundreds or even thousands of contestants.

Isn't this scene exactly the same as it was back then?
brush!
Faced with several large black hands reaching for her, Han Ling gritted her teeth and summoned a disc-shaped prop.

She threw the disc, and its edges instantly unfurled countless sharp teeth, slicing through the shadowy hand that was reaching for her.

At the same time, she quickly drew her gun from her waist, aimed it at Guan Tong, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang bang bang!"

The bullets were all blocked by the shadows, and at the same time, the disc prop that Han Ling threw was also pressed down by several shadow hands. Other shadow hands did not give her time to use any more props, grabbing her limbs and pinning her to the ground.

"It seems your defensive item can only defend once, or rather, it has a cooldown period," Guan Tong said, looking at Han Ling who was pinned to the ground and unable to move.

As Han Ling struggled, she managed to say, "You're Shadow? Shadow is actually a woman? But according to the intelligence, Shadow should be an old man in his sixties!"

Ok?
Guan Tong's heart stirred upon hearing this.

The old man in his sixties—isn't this the image he used when he went to Tianding Mountain?

The long-haired, chubby black man who said he would use the "secret communication scroll" to leak information about the shadow seemed to be serious, not just bluffing.

But what's even more outrageous is that this information actually circulated and some people actually believed it—Han Ling in front of us is undoubtedly a victim of false information.

However… Guan Tong glanced at the phone Han Ling was holding in her right hand and saw that she had turned on the recording function. On a whim, she pretended not to notice and said, “A shadow is never just one person. A shadow is a group, and everyone in the group is a shadow.”

"What did you say?"

Han Ling didn't understand what this meant. Did the shadow not represent a single person, but a group?
It's understandable that she doesn't understand; Guan Tong was deliberately spreading more false information to confuse his true identity.

In this way, if he needs to appear in various other forms or directly have his shadow appear in his place, it will further confirm this false information, making it unclear to all those who are hostile to him who the real shadow is.

Although Han Ling wasn't sure, she quickly regained her composure and said, "We can talk! Our commander has always wanted to find Shadow and hopes for an opportunity to cooperate. The terms will definitely satisfy you..."

"I have nothing to talk to scum like you." Guan Tong manipulated his shadow and punched Han Ling hard in the face, knocking her unconscious.

He didn't kill Han Ling immediately; he just wanted to dig out more people later. Because, whether it was what Chen Na had said earlier or what Han Ling herself had just said, the real decision-maker of this organization was someone else, seemingly the person she called the "commander."

He then touched the storage ring on his finger; a 1-cubic-meter space, enough to fit several Han Lings inside. It was just a pity that the space lacked the outside atmosphere; any living creature placed inside would suffocate.

Guan Tong first created some shadow threads to bind Han Ling tightly and lock her in the room. After it was over, he would take her away through a shelter and then go back to interrogate her to find out more about the mastermind.

Having secured Han Ling as the base administrator, Guan Tong took the ID card from her desk. It had the highest level of access and allowed her to move freely anywhere within the base.

"Next, it's those accomplices... I won't let any of them go."

Guan Tong considers herself not to get angry easily, but once she does get angry, she will definitely let it out.

Just like he told Han Ling that she was scum, not only her, but everyone in this base who knew the truth about the prison and still worked for this organization was scum and degenerate in his eyes, and they needed to be completely eliminated.

Even though everyone's life is more precious in the post-apocalyptic era, Guan Tong firmly believes that the deaths of these accomplices in the base are more valuable and contribute more to the world than their lives.

"From top to bottom, layer by layer."

Once Guan Tong made up his mind, he would carry it out to the end. He walked out of Han Ling's office.

Soon, employees in several nearby offices all perished at the hands of the Shadow, without even making a sound.

When Guan Tong arrived at the office of the head of the Materials Management Department, Liu Yuqiang was making a statistical table. He only realized something was wrong when Guan Tong swiped her card to enter.

"who are you?"

Liu Yuqiang frowned. He was very familiar with the people in the high-level area of ​​the base, and he definitely had never seen the woman in front of him before.

“You don’t know me, but I know you.” Guan Tong didn’t rush to make a move this time because he was curious. “You are Liu Yuqiang, the chairman of Jule Technology.”

Liu Yuqiang frowned. He used to be a business tycoon with a reputation that spread throughout the country, so it was perfectly normal for others to know him.

"You still haven't answered me which department you're from! And why were you able to open my door with your card!"

"What I'm curious about is why you're the head of the logistics department at this base," Guan Tong asked. "Do you know the leader, or rather, the commander-in-chief, of this base?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Yuqiang realized something was amiss.

No department at the base would ever ask such a question.

He was silent for a moment, then suddenly rushed out from behind his desk, revealing a pair of gray-white gloves on his hands.

It was his exclusive mental power item, the "Gloves of Might".

Through his tireless development, the gloves amplified his strength to an astonishing degree. He once tested them, and with a full-force punch while wearing them, he was able to shatter a boulder more than half his height.

"drink!"

Liu Yuqiang shouted and threw a punch at Guan Tong, trying to strike first.

But the next moment he saw a somewhat horrifying scene: countless black shadow hands emerged from Guan Tong's collar and sleeves, easily blocking his fist and grabbing his arm.

"Liu Yuqiang, it seems your mental strength isn't very high; your punches don't have much power."

"Could you be... the legendary Shadow?"

Liu Yuqiang stared at Guan Tong in shock. He had heard about the abilities of shadows to some extent, and knew that their most typical ability was to manipulate shadows that could change shape.

“As one of the management members, you’re different from those lowly lackeys. I’ll ask you one more time, do you know who the commander Han Ling is talking about is?” Guan Tong manipulated a shadow hand to grab Liu Yuqiang’s neck. “I’ll give you five seconds to answer, or I’ll break your neck right now.”

　Chapter 3 will be released around 11:30.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)