Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 86 The Shadow's Further Enhancement

The safe zone is shrinking.

As the fire-stealer's voice rang out, the black wall surrounding the island shrank further.

The Church of the Holy Grail is located near the edge of the Black Wall, and it will be swallowed up the next time the safe zone shrinks.

At that moment, the first group to arrive at the church were stunned by the densely packed undead at the entrance.

As the team closest to the church, they rushed over immediately after receiving the news to see if there was any chance to seize it.

They don't think the team that gets the Holy Grail is necessarily that strong; they might just be lucky and happen to discover this hidden treasure.

Therefore, they devised a plan: to seize the Holy Grail and immediately run towards the Black Wall! That's right, they planned to take the Holy Grail to the edge of the Black Wall and then threaten the powerful teams that were chasing them.

"If you dare attack our team, we'll immediately throw the Holy Grail into the Black Wall, and no one will get it! If you want the Holy Grail, trade it for points. Send someone from your team to kill and eliminate our members, and we'll get you the Holy Grail if we get high points and secure a ranking!"

Using this method, it's possible to achieve big results with small investments, allowing even weaker teams to reach the top ten and receive rewards through points.

The plan was great, but things went wrong in the very first step of "seizing" it.

"Brother, am I seeing things? Why are there so many living dead here?"

"Could they be church guards?"

"...It's more likely that someone in the team inside has some kind of item or skill that can summon this thing."

No sooner had the captain finished speaking than one of the team members inadvertently entered the undead's 30-meter warning range. Instantly, the undead, leading several others, roared and pounced on them!
"Fuck!"

"Big brother, shall we retreat?!"

"Roar!!!"

For a weaker team, dealing with a few undead alone is relatively easy. However, facing an attack from hundreds of undead at the same time is extremely dangerous.

The group immediately considered retreating, but before they had run far, they discovered that the undead had stopped pursuing them and had all returned to the church entrance as if they had received some kind of instruction.

"Just as I suspected!" the captain exclaimed. "I was right. These undead must have been summoned by someone from the Grail Team, and they obey their commands!"

"Listen, we need to devise a strategy. One person will go and lure the horde away, while the remaining four take advantage of the situation..."

Before the captain could finish speaking, he suddenly realized that his teammates had all stopped moving.

He glanced at the team list and was completely stunned to see that the names of his four teammates were all blacked out.

when……

"Heh, is this all the team is capable of? They're really overestimating themselves."

A disdainful female voice sounded behind him. Before the captain could turn around, he felt a sharp pain in his neck as a delicate, small dagger silently sliced ​​open his throat.

Having single-handedly wiped out the entire team, the petite woman twirled her dagger and turned her head, saying, "My assassination skills aren't bad, are they?"

However, she was stunned the next moment, because not far behind her stood not her teammates, but five strangers with indistinct faces.

In the team list, the names of several of her teammates were also blacked out.

“They are not the only ones who overestimate their abilities; you are too.”

One of the five men spoke, and the woman holding the dagger gritted her teeth, turned, and fled. But she had only taken two steps when she felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if something had pierced her body.

Bullets? The other side has firearms? And they're silenced!
The woman reacted quickly, but it was too late. The next moment, she was shot in the back of the head and died instantly.

One of the five men was holding a silenced pistol, and the man next to him praised, "As expected of the national shooting champion, the captain's accuracy is still as reassuring as ever!"

"Alright," the captain with the pistol said. "Don't get entangled with those undead guarding the gate. Xu Wei, go distract them, and we'll rush in and seize the Holy Grail immediately."

"Yes!"

The woman named Xu Wei quickly rushed into the horde of zombies' perimeter and then ran towards the side of the church, leading them away from the entrance.

The remaining few people immediately rushed to the door under the captain's leadership, but they were immediately met with a surge of undead.

"Are they still appearing one after another? Bro, clear the way."

"give it to me!"

The man called Lao Tie took out his mental weapon, a giant hammer that was more than half a person's height!

"piss off!!!"

Old Tie roared and swung his giant hammer, smashing all the undead pouring out of the doorway away.

The group rushed into the church, only to find it filled with white smoke, with extremely poor visibility, making it impossible to see anything.

"Immediately use reconnaissance drones to pinpoint the enemy's location."

"Yes!"

Several drones flew out simultaneously, and the scan results were all consistent.

Apart from them, there was only one other person in the church!

"The Holy Grail team only has one person?!"

The man was in the corner of the church. The captain immediately drew his gun and fired in that direction. After several shots, there was no response; it was unclear whether the shots had hit their mark.

But the next moment, someone in the team with special reconnaissance abilities shouted, "Watch out! We sense an approaching attack!"

Boom boom boom boom boom boom!

No sooner had they finished speaking than a series of explosions erupted around them. None of the four had expected the enemy to be able to launch such a large-scale, artillery-like attack in an instant. One person was instantly killed, while the other three survived only by using defensive items.

The captain, who was a shooting champion, had a slight change in expression. His silenced pistol with unlimited ammo was already a very powerful weapon. What did the enemy have?
"Watch out, the enemy is attacking again!"

Boom boom boom boom boom!
Another large number of explosions erupted around them. This simple yet powerful bombing attack caused the group to lose a total of seven or eight expensive defensive items in an instant.

"Charge over and engage in close combat!" The captain took the lead, and the group rushed toward the scanning location, but they were blocked by a black wall after only a few steps.

"What's this?!"

"I'll break down the wall!" Old Tie shouted, swinging his giant hammer as he smashed it against the black wall, and a strange scene immediately unfolded.

The "black wall" appeared to be soft; the spot where it was hit by the giant hammer caved inwards before quickly returning to its original shape.

Before Lao Tie and the others could even be surprised, black walls rose up all around them, completely blocking out the light and plunging them into complete darkness, where they could see nothing at all.

"What the hell is this?!"

"Use it quickly—"

Before their voices had even faded, countless sharp spikes emerged from the black walls, piercing through all four of them. Then the black walls collapsed, and all four perished, eliminated from the game.

"This is truly a rare luxury..."

After the four died, Guan Tong's figure appeared and disappeared from the mist not far from them.

By constantly shifting between reality and illusion, coupled with the consumption of materializing large volumes, he was consuming tens of points of mental energy per second on average. Without the "infinite mental energy" buff, he would never have been able to indulge in such excessive use of shadows.

"In just over a minute, several teams have arrived... These are the ones that are nearby, and many more teams are on their way. Among them, there should be quite a few that are stronger than this one."

Guan Tong glanced at his blank book, lost in thought. He had already added words to the first page.

The original "Deformed Entity Eye" was changed to "Five Senses Deformed Entity Eye" by adding the words "Five Senses".

That's right. The reason why Guan Tong was able to accurately attack the team rushing into the church while hiding in the smoke was because he had given the shadow the ability of five senses by adding words.

Vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

After acquiring this ability, the shadow, once materialized, can fully or partially exert its sensory abilities according to Guan Tong's will.

Guan Tong had just activated the shadow's visual senses, sharing what the shadow saw with herself, so that she could see other people even in the fog.

With this combination of Silver Hunter's No. 4 smoke grenade, unless the enemy has the ability or item to see through the fog, or has a way to dispel the fog, he will have the initiative in most battles.

Besides the "five senses," he also tried writing more powerful words such as "indestructible," "teleportation," and "invisibility," but all of them were ineffective.

Guan Tong believes this is likely related to his insufficient mental power limit. Even if he could write the words with unlimited mental power, he wouldn't be able to turn them into reality due to the limitation of his mental power limit.

So he turned to pursuing some practical enhancements that could be implemented immediately.

At that moment, more commotion arose outside, and the number of people arriving grew larger. Guan Tong had already sent out a shadow that had transformed into an eye shape and was hanging on the brickwork at the church entrance to monitor the situation outside.

After sharing vision, he could see that the teammate who was responsible for drawing away the horde of zombies in the church earlier had run away, probably scared off by seeing the team list completely black.

Shortly after she ran away, several groups, totaling dozens of people, arrived outside the church. However, instead of attacking the church, they began fighting amongst themselves for the right to enter!
Guan Tong felt a little amused watching this, but it was good that these people were killing each other; it would allow him to concentrate on continuing to strengthen himself. Otherwise, even if he could handle the group attacks from too many people, he would be distracted and his strengthening speed would decrease.

Just like how he transformed and stored up spiritual power through the third page of the "Wordless Book," this process requires a certain degree of focus.

"I have the Holy Grail for 3 minutes now, and I have 27 minutes left. If I use it all to convert and store mental energy, with my maximum of 132 points, and at a conversion ratio of 10:1, the conversion process will take 3 seconds, converting 13 points every 3 seconds... Under undisturbed conditions, 27 minutes is enough to store 7020 points of mental energy!"

This number is undoubtedly exaggerated, but Guan Tong knows it's unrealistic. First of all, 27 minutes without interruption is impossible. Let alone 27, with more and more teams arriving, it would be good if they could have a total of 10 minutes without interruption!

Secondly, compared to simply accumulating mental power, he considered it more important to further enhance the [Book Without Words]. Now that "Shadow" has gained the ability of the five senses, "Silver Hunter" will definitely need further enhancement as well.

"Boom!!!"

Just as Guan Tong was thinking about strengthening his abilities, a loud noise suddenly came from the roof of the church. Someone had launched an attack from above!

As a large number of broken bricks and stones fell from above, a large figure also descended from the sky, landing with a thud in the middle of the church.

Guan Tong took a closer look and was immediately taken aback.

What broke through the roof was not a human, but a light-colored humanoid mech more than three meters tall!
There are props like this? Is this person a huge fan of mecha movies?
"Zizzi——!"

There was clearly a human pilot inside the mech. With a crackling sound of electricity, a lightsaber-like weapon appeared in the mech's right hand, and a mechanical voice came from inside the mech.

"Listen up, you hiding in the fog! Hand over the Holy Grail and I'll let you go!"

"..."

Guan Tong looked at the mecha, ignoring everything else, and raised the Silver Hunter to fire dozens of No. 3 rounds at it!

"Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom—!"

"Looks like the negotiations failed. Well then, don't blame me for taking it by force! Super Shield, activate!"

hum-

A light purple shield covered the mech, and the No. 3 high-explosive shells were completely neutralized when they hit it.

Although Guan Tong was somewhat surprised, he wasn't flustered at all. He knew very well that such a powerful mech must consume a huge amount of mental energy per second, and since the pilot didn't have an infinite mental energy buff, it definitely wouldn't last long.

"Power Sword Combo Slash!"

With a low shout, the mech pilot moved swiftly, wielding his lightsaber to slash at Guan Tong!

This mech can even pinpoint my location through smoke?
Although Guan Tong had shadow armor covering her body, she still managed to shoot out her grappling hook, hooked it into the wall, and quickly moved away from her original position to avoid being attacked.

The mecha turned to give chase, but the next moment a large number of shadows "climbed" onto it. Although they could not penetrate it, they pulled it tightly, making it unable to move easily.

"What are these dark, gooey things? They're disgusting! Take them away!!!"

Guan Tong heard the disgusted voice coming from inside the mecha and figured the pilot was probably a young girl.

He immediately targeted its weakness, deforming the shadows. In an instant, all sorts of disgusting shadows, such as feces and tentacles, were spread out on the mecha!
This tactic actually worked! The driver shouted, "Get out of here!" as he swung his lightsaber to sever the shadows that bound him and charged straight out of the church, seemingly forgetting all about his mission to seize the Holy Grail.

Guan Tong was speechless upon seeing this: "...What a weirdo."

(End of this chapter)