Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 167 The Tenth Rule of the Apocalypse

The rest of March flew by, and the end of the month was just around the corner.

The Shadow Incident, which caused a great stir in the middle of the month, has gradually calmed down as the tenth apocalyptic rule is about to be released.

What everyone is more concerned about is what the new rules will be, whether they are dangerous survival rules, and whether they can pass them smoothly.

As for things like shadows, they are ultimately just a topic of conversation for most people, too far removed from ordinary people to keep an eye on.

Even the officials of Antai State, who initially voiced the loudest protests, stopped mentioning the matter after two weeks, and there were even suspicions that they were preventing ordinary citizens from continuing to discuss it.

On the website of the Ascended Ones, someone posted a discussion, suggesting that some officials in Antai State are starting to feel scared.

The identities of those killed by the shadow have already been uncovered by busybodies and posted online.

Once everyone knew that Shadow had not indiscriminately killed innocent people, but had instead destroyed the hideout of a small warlord involved in human trafficking and drug dealing, voices of support arose all over the world, with many believing that he had done the right thing.

This made the officials of Antai State very embarrassed, and the reason why some high-level officials changed their attitude was that they were afraid that if the matter escalated so much, they would make a deadly enemy of the Shadow.

Large countries certainly wouldn't be afraid of making an enemy of someone who has achieved sublimation, but for a small country like Antai State, whose population is plummeting, making an enemy of someone who claims to be the "world's number one sublimator" is definitely not a good thing.

Therefore, the Antai State government is downplaying the impact of this matter, and similarly, many voices of doubt have emerged in Northern Singapore, believing that the government should not have issued a statement before conducting a thorough investigation.

However, all of this has lost much of its attention as the release of the new rules approaches.

At the end of the month, Guan Tong was still deep in a forest in An Tai Bang, and had not left.

After getting up early in the morning, he took a walk in the forest as usual, thinking about the recent situation as he walked.

The idea of ​​the "gatekeeper" among the "original beings" is indeed quite chilling. If those ultimately selected by the rules of the apocalypse are merely "gatekeepers" of the remnants left behind by the destruction of civilization, then it is far too desolate and tragic.

But in the end, this is just speculation by the "original man" and there is no solid evidence to support it.

As for going to Sakura Kingdom together to find the holder of Fragment 5, he wasn't really interested.

Not to mention that traveling with a stranger is inherently unsafe, this isn't a tourist trip. What if we just go there and get taken into custody by the official armed forces of the Cherry Blossom Kingdom?

Furthermore, even if the holder of Fragment 5 agrees to exchange the stories contained within the fragment mural like the two of them... then will everyone stop collecting fragments after that?

Guan Tong believes that this is not the case.

Even if he, the original being, and the holder of the fragments of the Cherry Blossom Kingdom all knew the complete story of the five fragments, everyone would still want to collect them all.

The details of the fragments clearly state that piecing them together will yield the complete "Chronicles of Yamo Star." At that point, will this complete "Chronicles of Yamo Star" simply be the entire set of murals, or will it include additional content or other bonuses? Nobody knows.

Based on this, Guan Tong believes that the three will inevitably become competitors sooner or later, which is difficult to avoid. Unless someone voluntarily gives up the competition and hands over the fragments they possess.

Besides matters related to the fragments, Guan Tong also made many other preparations during this period.

He spent the most time practicing the flow of spiritual energy.

After he discovered that he could complete a full-body circulation, he would do it at least once a day, and if he had the time, he would do it again.

After persisting in this way for a period of time, in addition to becoming more and more skilled, he could clearly feel that his body was optimizing at an accelerated pace.

He also discovered that when psychic energy flows through the body in the form of energy, it naturally forms a protective layer. This protection is effective against both ordinary attacks and attacks related to psychic energy.

In other words, a person skilled in this art can function without any defensive items, because the mental energy they manipulate flowing through their body can itself form a defense.

For example, if Guan Tong were to fight Shi Jingyi, and he wanted to use his ethereal shadow to invade her body, he would be blocked by the flowing mental energy—unless her mental energy was exhausted, he would absolutely not be able to successfully invade her.

This defensive effect is one of the reasons why Guan Tong pursues it and cultivates it diligently.

Even if he can use Shadow Armor for defense, there are still times when he can't defend against everything. For example, if the enemy attacks him without his knowledge, it will be difficult for him to use Shadow Armor to defend in advance.

However, once the flow of mental energy is mastered, mental energy will constantly flow across the surface of the body, which is equivalent to activating a 24/7 automatic defense system. It can effectively defend against attacks that are not powerful enough to instantly destroy you.

Not to mention, reaching a high level of mastery can accelerate the natural growth of one's mental power limit. Guan Tong had already specifically texted Shi Jingyi to inquire about this and received a positive reply.

By the end of the month, he glanced at his panel and saw a significant improvement.

Name: Guan Tong

[Nickname: Station Master]

[Title: Winner]

[Psychic Power: 317 (317) (2560)]

[Ascended Coins: 685620]

[Overall Bioinformatics Evaluation: Excellent]

In just over a month and three days, his maximum mental strength increased by 8 points.
At this rate, assuming a minimum increase of 8 points per month under normal circumstances, and with continued growth, reaching 10 points is not out of the question.

Even if other Ascended beings rely on group strength to achieve 100 first-place finishes in the eighth rule and gain a 500-point mental power cap, their advantage over him in this aspect will quickly diminish. Guan Tong even felt that if he maintained his growth rate, surpassing these guys in the future would be a piece of cake.

In addition to the natural increase in mental power, he also accumulated several hundred points in mental power reserves, from almost falling below two thousand to stabilizing at around two thousand five.

He's been using his reserve mental energy quite a bit in these recent rules. Whether it's combat or frequently using teleportation to travel, it's simply impossible without a reserve. Ensuring this "mental energy pool" stays full and doesn't dry up is extremely important to him.

Thus, after a month of rest and recuperation, the new rules arrived as scheduled.

……

July 4, nine o'clock in the morning.

Guan Tong sat in the shelter, looking at the coal ball that was still fast asleep, and listening to the voice of the fire-stealer echoing in her mind.

[The tenth rule of the apocalypse has been released]

[Apocalyptic Rule Ten: Elimination of the Five Senses]

[Rule Details: Starting 24 hours after the rule is announced, all of humanity will randomly lose one of the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. This loss will continue for five days, after which all five senses will be lost. This rule will last for 15 days.]

[Success Reward: 500 Ascension Coins]

[Failure Penalty: Reduced maximum Mental Strength]

[Note: Losing sight means being shrouded in darkness; losing hearing means the world is a silent play; losing smell and taste means food is merely for sustenance; losing touch means being cut off from all connections… When all five senses are lost, how can you be sure of your own existence?]

"Elimination of the five senses..."

Upon hearing the newly released rules, Guan Tong was surprised and immediately thought of her shadow, which could share her senses with her.

"If the shadow is unaffected, then this rule is practically a freebie for me, isn't it?"

……

Post-Apocalyptic Rules and Countermeasures Research Lab.

Three minutes after the rules were announced, the meeting room was full of people.

After Gao Liangwei took his seat, he said directly, "What are your thoughts on these rules? Speak quickly. Time is of the essence. In 24 hours, we will randomly lose one of our senses, and we must take action before then."

Everyone nodded.

If there's anything fortunate about these new rules, it's that the Firebringers gave humanity 24 hours to prepare. No rule was immediately stripped of a sense upon its release.

These 24 hours are undoubtedly extremely valuable, especially for the research team. They must seize the time to develop a response plan and then send it to the emergency management bureaus in various regions for implementation.

"Since the order in which the senses are eliminated is completely random, we must consider different scenarios. If the sense of smell or taste is lost first after 24 hours, that would be most advantageous for us."

"That's right. Losing your sense of smell and taste won't affect your life in the short term. But if you lose one of your senses of sight, hearing, or touch first, it will become very troublesome!"

Everyone nodded in agreement. For humans, it's possible to not smell or taste something, but to not see, hear, or even feel it is truly terrifying.

"We cannot take chances," Gao Liangwei cautioned. "We must be fully prepared for any possibility."

"I think the first thing to clarify is that this is not a survival rule. The rewards do not include survival chests, and the penalty for failure is a decrease in mental energy. This means that it is possible to pass through by taking shortcuts."

"Yes. If it's not a survival rule, you can choose to give up if you really can't hold on. Even if your mental strength will weaken a bit, it's still better than forcing your way through and causing serious aftereffects."

"Yes. I remember that fasting rule back then; quite a few people probably suffered serious organ damage as a result..."

"It's best to avoid attenuation if possible," Zhang Minglu said at this point, "especially since the problem of the Mind Lock hasn't been solved yet."

Ascended beings restricted by the Mind Lock cannot increase their Mind Power cap through natural growth. If they were to experience a decline due to rule failures, their previously accumulated advantages would undoubtedly vanish rapidly.

"For now, we don't need to make any preparations for taste and smell. The focus should be on sight, hearing, and touch. In fact, since visual and auditory problems are common, human society has been working on assistive development for many years. The most troublesome is touch, and research in this area is still extremely scarce."

Yes, as everyone knows, visual and hearing impairments are common human ailments. Since the development of modern science and medicine, many auxiliary solutions have been developed for these two types of problems.

Examples include guide dogs and robots specifically trained for the blind; and bone conduction hearing aids designed for the deaf. There are many related assistive solutions.

Research on the sense of touch is extremely scarce. It's hard for people to imagine what it would be like without the sense of touch—if you touch something, without the sense of touch, it means you have no idea whether you've touched it or not.

Moreover, the loss of touch is certainly not limited to the hands; other parts of the body will also experience the same loss. For example, if you lose touch in your skin, you won't know whether you're wearing clothes or what the temperature is like.

At that point, even the ability to take care of oneself will become a problem, especially when combined with visual loss, you won't even know if you are standing, sitting, or lying down.

In this way, after completely losing all five senses, a person may begin to question their own identity, become unaware of their own existence in the real world, and so on.

An expert took a deep breath and said, "No matter how random it is, all five senses will be lost after five days. I think the real challenge for us humans is the final ten days without any senses. How to get through those ten days is the real problem to solve!"

(End of this chapter)