Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 155 The Gate to the Source of the Mist
boom boom boom...

The convoy of armored vehicles and tanks moved with a heavy, noisy sound, forming a long, low rumble in the fog.

The Dragon Soul Squad and Chen Na sat inside the armored vehicle, both looking somewhat exhausted. They had set off yesterday afternoon and had been there for nearly twenty hours, constantly encountering attacks from ferocious beasts and finding it difficult to get proper rest.

It is commendable that this reinforced armored battalion was well-equipped; all the attacking monsters were eliminated by heavy firepower, and the hundreds of soldiers suffered no casualties.

If we just keep moving forward like this, no one knows when we'll reach the end.

"Captain, is that kid leading the way reliable?" Black Shark couldn't help but ask. "What if he leads us astray?"

Dragon Soul said, "It should be fine, after all, he has the 'Coordinate' ability."

The person in charge of leading the way was someone the official team specifically found from the ability/item database, and possessed an ability called "coordinates".

When activated, simply think of the desired destination in your mind, and by consuming mental energy, you will receive route guidance to the target location.

After locating this person, the authorities added him to their team. By having him silently recite "source of the fog," he was able to utilize his coordinate abilities and obtain corresponding route guidance.

At this moment, this person is in the command vehicle of the troop commander, who provides the route and directs the troops to advance based on the information.

“I still don’t think it’s very reliable,” Black Shark muttered. “It’s not even certain whether this fog has a source. Maybe it’s like the Blizzard incident, where the snow was just created out of thin air by the Firebringers. There’s no source at all.”

"If we don't rely on others, who else are we supposed to rely on?" Silver Fox teased. "If you're so capable, why don't you show everyone the way?"

"Hmph, I may not have those strange abilities, but if it comes down to a fight, I can take on ten of him!"

"Without anyone else's strange and unusual abilities, this operation of ours will just be like headless flies, since we can't use navigation or other equipment in this fog. Right, Night Owl?"

Flying Eagle looked at the bespectacled young man sitting in the corner, who nodded and said, "It's not just the electronic navigation that's not working."

As he spoke, he pulled an old-fashioned compass from his pocket, its pointer constantly spinning.

"This fog is interfering with the magnetic field."

"This is fucking weird!" Black Shark cursed. "I don't know which planet this thing came from to Tianshui."

"Let's be optimistic." Eagle patted Black Shark on the shoulder. "Didn't the experts say that this is the first time the existence of extraterrestrial life has been confirmed, and that the Fire Stealers are most likely some kind of intelligent extraterrestrial life, not the 'god' that many people have been talking about? Knowing this is something to celebrate."

"Celebrate my ass, I think..."

Suddenly, a serious order came through the walkie-talkie: "A giant monster has been detected nearby. All vehicles, stop immediately!"

As soon as the sound was made, the convoy of vehicles immediately stopped moving.

Everyone fell silent, so quiet that they could almost hear their own heartbeats.

This was not the first time the troops had encountered a giant monster; they had encountered one before—a monster that resembled an arthropod, with just a small segment of its body exceeding twenty meters in length, and its overall length being impossible to estimate.

It's fair to say that when that monster swam past the convoy, no one wanted to fire at it—perhaps the armored battalion's firepower could kill such a behemoth, but it would likely come at a cost.

The commander was well aware that their core mission this time was "exploration," not clearing out every monster they encountered in the fog. Therefore, he ordered everyone to remain silent upon encountering a giant monster; it would be best to let it pass, and only open fire if it was absolutely unavoidable.

Hundreds of people, each equipped with ten [Biosignal Detectors], each effective for approximately five minutes. They are used in shifts during the journey, sufficient to monitor the giant monster's tracks for an extended period.

All vehicles stopped at that moment. Chen Na closed her eyes and silently activated her [Perception Domain] ability.

After the domain expanded, she clearly sensed a gigantic monster slowly moving about 170 meters away. But to her surprise, the monster wasn't walking on the ground; it was hovering in the air.

She exclaimed in surprise, "It's flying!"

Upon hearing this, Long Hun looked at Chen Na: "Did you use your ability? Was that a flying nightmare beast?"

Chen Na nodded with her eyes closed. Then she suddenly paused, sensing some moving creatures hundreds of meters away. They seemed to be humans.

……

Guan Tong walked through the mist, feeling somewhat puzzled.

No monsters have attacked him for an hour now.

This was definitely not normal. Based on his previous experience, although the monsters in the fog were not densely packed, there were still quite a few of them. He would be attacked on average every seven or eight minutes.

There must be a reason why there has been no movement for an hour now.

Especially in his current environment, the fog is even thicker than before.

It's 12:30 pm, the brightest time of day, but visibility is only a little over half a meter. The fog is so thick that he has to summon some undead to walk around in front of him.

This way, if the monster launches a surprise attack, the undead can hold it off and create some buffer space.

It's impossible for such a dense fog to be free of monsters... Could there be some special circumstances?
"boom!"

Suddenly, a deafening explosion came from not far away. Guan Tong was startled and subconsciously looked in the direction of the sound, but his vision was blocked by thick fog.

It's the sound of cannons!
He was absolutely certain he hadn't misheard; that was the sound of human artillery.

Are there armed forces nearby?
That first cannon shot was like an opening act, followed by a barrage of artillery fire.

That's right, it's the armed forces! And on a large scale!

Did they encounter some formidable beast? Otherwise, why would they cause such a commotion?
Guan Tong immediately manipulated several shadow lines to quickly approach the location of the noise and indeed found an armored tank convoy, which made him immediately certain that it was an official force.

The weapons mounted on these vehicles were firing into the sky, as if the enemy were coming from the heavens.

Guan Tong manipulated his shadow to look upwards, but due to the thick fog, he could only see a very short distance. Even from that distance, a large number of bat-like monsters descended from the sky, slamming into the armored vehicle.

Compared to the defensive capabilities of armored vehicles and tanks, these monsters were essentially committing suicidal attacks and should have been harmless. But the next moment, a massive wing descended from the sky and pierced through an armored vehicle with a loud clang!

It's a gigantic monster!
Guan Tong knew that only a gigantic monster could possess such power, and the official force must have discovered this as well, which was why they were bombarding the sky so fiercely. Get away!

That was his first thought; whether it was a giant monster or the artillery fire of the official armored forces, it was all dangerous to him.

If he were to approach rashly and accidentally get hit by a large-caliber artillery shell, it would be no laughing matter!

Guan Tong immediately manipulated his shadow to transform into shadow armor covering his entire body, and then quickly rushed forward, away from the vicinity of the battlefield.

As he ran, he suddenly noticed that the fog ahead was thinning.

Are we getting close to the source of the fog?
Guan Tong quickened his pace, and no monsters came to stop him, making him gradually realize that perhaps the closer he got to the edge, the fewer monsters there were; or perhaps this was the territory of the monster that was currently fighting the official armored vehicle convoy, and the other monsters had been scared away?

Since the monsters don't have the concept of eating, Guan Tong doesn't know whether there's a "food chain" among them.

He only knew that the fog in front of him was getting thinner and thinner, and then he suddenly stopped.

About twenty meters ahead, a tall fog gate stood suspended about 30 centimeters above the ground.

"That door... is it one of the sources of the mist?"

Guan Tong looked at the floating fog gate and walked towards it step by step.

Could the pieces mentioned in the hidden rules, the ones that can piece together the puzzle of the apocalyptic rules, be here?

His heart raced as he watched the fog gate draw ever closer. Suddenly, several figures rushed out from the other side and stood facing him.

Guan Tong stopped and looked at the five people. They were all wearing the same bright yellow protective suits, clearly a small team.

The five people glanced at the fog gate floating in the air, exchanged glances, and the tall man in the lead said to Guan Tong, "You must be a strong person from the common people. We are the official Ascendant team. It seems that the gate is the source of the fog."

Guan Tong's heart skipped a beat. She thought that the armored unit might be responsible for holding off the monsters, thus creating an opportunity for this small team to complete their exploration.

“Yes,” Guan Tong said.

"We need to conduct our exploration first, so please stay here for now. We can send you back if needed after we're done."

Why did you explore first?

Upon hearing this, Dragon Soul paused, and Black Shark beside him spoke up: "Listen, kid, it was our soldiers who fought to the death with the giant bird monster to create this opportunity to approach the door, so of course we should explore it first!"

Guan Tong disagreed: "That's not a reasonable excuse. Even without you, I would have found a way to lure the monsters away and explore."

As he spoke, he manipulated the shadow lines to approach the fog gate. However, the shadow lines, which were barely noticeable to the naked eye under normal conditions, were spotted by Night Owl, the bespectacled member of the group.

Night Owl said, "He's using his psychic abilities to get close to the Fog Gate!"

"You little bastard, playing dirty tricks!" Black Shark shouted, drawing his rifle from his back, but was stopped by Captain Dragon Soul.

"Black Shark, don't be impulsive."

"Captain, let me do it!"

After saying this, the silver fox vanished without a trace.

Teleportation ability? No, it's just that the speed is too fast for the naked eye to keep up with...

Guan Tong saw the silver fox leave a blur as it moved, and then felt a gust of wind coming from behind him. With a "bang," the silver fox's high sweeping kick struck his shadow armor.

The thick shadow armor absorbed the force of the kick, and Guan Tong was not injured. He immediately manipulated the shadow lines to wrap around the Silver Fox, while at the same time, he shot the Silver Hunter's grappling hook towards the ground in the distance in the direction of the fog gate.

"This is... a shadow?"

The silver fox saw the black object coiling towards it and retreated rapidly to avoid it, its face showing surprise.

"You're a shadow?!"

The other four members of the team had initially assumed Guan Tong's black armor was his special protective suit and hadn't connected it to Shadow. But seeing Shadow's signature way of manipulating shadows, they suddenly realized his identity.

Guan Tong ignored it; his target was the puzzle piece. After the grappling hook sank into the ground in an arc, it quickly pulled his body over.

Seeing this, the five members of the Dragon Soul Squad concluded that there must be some secret at the Fog Gate, otherwise Shadow wouldn't be in such a hurry!

"past!"

At Long Hun's command, all five of them rushed forward.

The fastest two, Silver Fox and Flying Eagle, caught up with Guan Tong immediately, but were blocked by the shadow wall that rose from the ground.

It really was a shadow!
If the five people weren't entirely certain before, the appearance of this shadow wall proved with absolute certainty that this person was the Shadow. Because during the battle on the Holy Grail Island, the most discussed topic was the black wall formed by the Shadow, which blocked countless people's paths to survival, leaving an extremely deep impression.

"I come."

Black Shark swung his right fist, and a burst of red light erupted from his fist, smashing the shadow wall blocking his path with a single punch.

At this moment, Guan Tong had reached the edge of the fog gate, and he saw with his own eyes that the fog was overflowing from inside the gate.

However, he did not find anything that resembled a fragment, and the fog gate had no physical form; the shadow lines he had previously released passed right through it the moment they touched it.

If we rule out the impossible, the only remaining possibility is that the fragment is not outside the fog gate, but inside it.

Guan Tong stepped into it, and his body was immediately swallowed by the mist.

The five members of the Dragon Soul team who were chasing after them stopped in front of the fog gate, instead of immediately following them in, and instead looked hesitant.

(End of this chapter)