Free Web NovelChapter 116: Chapter 111: Fiendish Assault
Apocalypse Rules Strategy Research Room.
A meeting to discuss the seventh Apocalypse Rule was underway.
However, unlike previous meetings, the rule’s restrictions prevented anyone from speaking. They could only communicate by typing messages onto a shared screen.
The only sound in the entire conference room was the clatter of keyboards.
Someone typed: (The design blueprints for the "anti-speech devices" have been distributed to all major cities. Relevant factories capable of production are rushing to manufacture them. We estimate the first batches will begin shipping to shelters and Gathering Points tomorrow.)
A statistician typed: (In addition, according to reports from various regions, some shelter members have already failed the challenge by accidentally making a sound and have been attacked by Sound Hunters.)
(Can Sound Hunters infiltrate shelters? How?)
(It’s still unclear. What we can confirm for now is that a Sound Hunter is an entity invisible to the naked eye. It kills by piercing the victim’s carotid artery, causing massive hemorrhaging. Furthermore, it only attacks the person who made the sound, not those around them.)
Gao Liangwei then typed an inquiry: (How are the preparations for the "Sound Hunter" test progressing?)
(They’re underway. We plan to have a test subject make a sound inside a completely sealed chamber to attract a Sound Hunter. All four walls of the chamber will be constructed from the highest-grade, explosion-proof, and breach-proof materials. We’ve also placed sensor bombs around the perimeter of the walls, which are set to detonate the moment a Sound Hunter gets close.)
(Has the test subject accepted the risks?)
(The risks were explained beforehand. The test subject is a volunteer.)
Gao Liangwei nodded. (Then complete the test as soon as possible. We need to understand the Sound Hunter’s maximum offensive capability and determine if we can eliminate it with human weaponry.)
...
Yu led the others at camp to the edge of their settlement, where they dug a grave and buried their companion who had been killed by the Sound Hunter. frёeωebɳovel.com
The silence enforced by the rule served as the most fitting tribute.
After a while, everyone dispersed to attend to their duties around the camp.
Surviving in the wild wasn’t easy. The camp was still unable to sustain itself, consuming supplies they had brought from the city.
To become self-sufficient, they first needed to solve their food supply issue. Yu had considered some simple, fast-growing plants, but that would take considerable time and a plot of fertile land.
For now, however, their main priority was surviving the current rule. Everything else would have to wait.
In the camp, some washed clothes, some cooked meals, and others organized their belongings.
They spent the day in silence. That evening, everyone gathered around the campfire, but even face-to-face, they could only bow their heads and type on their phones to communicate in a group chat.
After chatting for a while, Yu typed: (You all worked hard today. Get some rest. Remember to stuff something in your mouths when you go to sleep.)
(Got it, Yu.)
(Please, God, don’t let me talk in my sleep!)
(Everyone should sleep on their stomachs. It’s harder to talk with your face pressed into the pillow.)
(Good night.)
Everyone returned to their tents to sleep. Some time later, a low RUMBLE startled the crew-cut man awake.
Before the Apocalypse Rules, the man had been an ordinary soldier. But after the Rules began and his family died, he had become utterly disheartened, retiring to spend his days drinking.
If he hadn’t met Yu and the others during the blizzard rule, he probably would have drunk himself into a stupor every day until one of the rules finally killed him.
After that, he came to see Yu and her group as a new family, bound together for survival, and he found a new will to live.
’The sound of vehicles!’
The man immediately scrambled out of his tent and looked toward the sound. Sure enough, he saw eight or nine jeeps heading for their camp!
He immediately pulled out his phone, turned the volume to maximum, and played a sound to wake the others.
By the time Yu and the others emerged from their tents, the jeeps had already closed in and stopped at the edge of the camp.
The doors opened, and more than thirty people filed out. They were mostly able-bodied men, their gazes silent and hostile as they stared at the campers.
Their leader, a man with a thick beard, held a large tablet. He typed something and played the audio.
A flat, electronic female voice rang out: "Leave all your supplies, and we’ll let you go."
The campers were startled. As their leader, Yu stepped forward and typed on her phone: (Who are you people? Are you here to rob us?)
The bearded man continued to use the tablet to speak for him: "Hand over your supplies if you don’t want to die. Don’t make us take them from you."
The crew-cut man stepped forward, glaring at the intruders, and typed on his phone: (You dare!)
The bearded man’s expression soured, and the thirty-odd men behind him all drew their weapons—mostly clubs, knives, and axes, with a few things like nail guns mixed in.
Yu saw this and immediately realized something.
’These people might all be non-Ascenders!’
She’d heard about this. After the government officially declared a state of war, large numbers of non-Ascenders had chosen to leave the cities.
Only a very small number of them had been admitted into the shelters; most were either excluded or placed at the very end of the queue. This made them feel ostracized and scorned, and calling themselves the "World’s Forsaken," they had left the cities in droves.
This group before her, armed mostly with crude melee weapons, didn’t look like Ascenders at all. They had to be non-Ascenders.
The bearded man saw the warning on the phone, and his eyes grew cold. He turned to his men and gave a sharp nod.
The gang immediately rushed forward, surrounding the small group of campers.
The camp only had eight members in total. Facing over thirty people, they were at a massive disadvantage.
Yu thought, ’We have three Ascenders, but our overall combat strength isn’t particularly high. If we fight, even if we manage to drive them off, we’ll definitely suffer casualties. I can’t let that happen.’
She typed a message on her phone and showed it to the bearded man: (We don’t want a conflict. We can give you half our supplies.)
The bearded man shook his head. His meaning was clear: he wanted everything.
And not just the food—he wanted their vehicles, too.
Yu couldn’t accept that. Losing all their food and their only means of transport would gravely threaten their survival.
The bearded man saw Yu’s refusal. He tapped a single word onto the tablet, and the emotionless electronic voice spoke: "Attack."
!
The thirty-odd men immediately charged, swinging their weapons. The crew-cut man instantly summoned his Psychic Power item—a Triangular Military Dagger—and quickly stabbed the three or four men closest to him.
The bearded man and his followers were startled at first, but then their expressions grew even colder.
They hadn’t expected to find an Ascender among them. Most Ascenders chose to remain in the cities, either already in shelters or waiting to get in. While not unheard of, an Ascender choosing to camp in the wilds was extremely rare.
And the people they hated most were Ascenders!
"Kill," the electronic female voice issued from the tablet, relaying the bearded man’s command.
Some of the campers had already been struck down. Furious, the crew-cut man charged the bearded man, intending to take out their leader first!
But to his surprise, the man pulled an automatic pistol from his pocket.
BANG! BANG!
Two shots rang out. The crew-cut man dodged one bullet, but the other struck him in the abdomen. He couldn’t suppress a heavy grunt of pain as he dropped to his knees.
The sound was loud enough to have undoubtedly violated the seventh rule’s threshold.
The bearded man gave a silent, cold smirk. He didn’t shoot again. Instead, he watched the crew-cut man with rapt attention, as if waiting for a Sound Hunter to arrive and finish the job.
However, this gave the crew-cut man an opening. He suddenly hurled the military dagger from his hand.
THWACK!
The bearded man dodged frantically, but the dagger still pierced his shoulder. He gritted his teeth, forcing back any sound of pain, and furiously raised his gun to kill the crew-cut man.
Just then, Yu came to the rescue. She used a defensive item she had obtained from a supply box after the last rule, throwing it to form a long, wide stone wall that blocked both the bearded man and his bullet.
She then moved to help the crew-cut man up, but he ripped the cloth from his mouth and shouted, "Yu, get the others out of here! The Sound Hunter is coming for me!"
...!
Yu froze for a second, then turned to find the others.
Meanwhile, before the Sound Hunter arrived, the crew-cut man endured his pain, recalled his dagger, and threw himself at the other attackers.
He hadn’t expected the bearded man to have a gun. Without it, he could have handled this entire gang by himself. But now, all he could do was take down as many as he could before the end.
He only managed to take down two more before something invisible suddenly pierced his neck, and he collapsed, lifeless.
Of the eight campers, the crew-cut man had been killed by the Sound Hunter, and four others had fallen to the attackers’ assault. The remaining three, including Yu, scrambled into a vehicle and made a hasty escape.
The bearded man assessed his losses. He had taken a dagger to the shoulder, and sixteen of his men were dead. Thirteen of them had been killed by the camp’s Ascenders, and the other three had gotten excited, accidentally made a noise, and been killed by a Sound Hunter.
More than thirty of them had attacked eight people, and they had lost half their men. The bearded man couldn’t accept this outcome. If he didn’t hunt down and exterminate the last three, he would lose his position as leader.
He jabbed at the tablet, and the electronic voice barked: "Chase."
His remaining men immediately jumped into their vehicles and gave chase. Yu floored the accelerator of a small pickup truck, with several jeeps in hot pursuit.
Their speeds were evenly matched. Yu drove for a long time, but she couldn’t shake them.
The two other survivors in the truck with her were terrified. They were both non-Ascenders with no way to fight back against the ruthless gang.
There had been three Ascenders in their camp: Yu, the crew-cut man, and a young boy named Ming. The crew-cut man was dead by the Sound Hunter’s hand, and Ming had been killed by the thugs, leaving Yu as the sole survivor among them.
Yu clenched her jaw, her heart pounding in her chest. All the while, she had to ensure she made absolutely no sound.
She didn’t even have a moment to grieve for her five fallen companions. If the truck stopped, the gang would block their path, and all three of them would surely die.
If the gang didn’t have a gun, she might have stood a chance with her Ascender-enhanced physique and her items. But a gun changed everything. Especially since her Psychic Power item wasn’t for combat, she had no way to counter a firearm. Her only option was to run.
The pickup truck sped down the highway, the gang’s jeeps clinging to their tail, clearly not planning to give up until all three of them were dead.
The other two passengers were huddled in the back, terrified. Even as their leader, Yu felt her own resolve waver. She knew they couldn’t run forever. Sooner or later they would be caught—the pickup was already low on gas.
She drove on for some time. Just as she saw the gas gauge drop to half-full and despair began to set in, she suddenly spotted a forest at the foot of a mountain south of the highway.
Her eyes lit up. ’If we can get into those woods, neither our truck nor their jeeps will be able to drive. We might have a chance to survive!’
She immediately wrenched the wheel, steering the pickup off the highway and straight toward the woods. The jeeps behind her followed suit, refusing to let them go.
And just as the vehicles passed the foot of the mountain and headed for the forest, a single black eye opened, watching their movement.
In a wooden cabin on the mountainside, Guan Tong, who had been lying in bed, opened his eyes as images flooded his mind.
The images came from the "Shadow monitor" he had set up before going to sleep—a corporeal, eye-like Shadow connected to him by a link as thin as a strand of hair.
Maintaining such a small, corporeal form didn’t consume much Psychic Power, so Guan Tong used these monitors as an early warning system in case anyone approached his mountain.
’A bunch of cars just showed up and headed into the forest at the foot of the mountain?’
Guan Tong frowned slightly as he processed the images transmitted by his Shadow.
