Chapter 30
The Gentleman returned to the Sage Tower.
He had delivered the target, but he was completely unwilling to enter the game himself. Naturally, he had to return immediately; otherwise, if the personnel from the Special Operations Department discovered him, he wouldn’t be able to escape.
“You delivered him that quickly?” Laurent raised her eyebrows slightly. “Remarkable speed. I certainly didn’t expect him to move against Bai Hewei so soon.”
The boy playing the handheld console was the ASEAN’s secret weapon.
A powerful Rule-Based ability user.
They had spent an untold sum of money and immense effort to keep information regarding this boy completely buried. Originally, they intended to weaponize him as a secret countermeasure against the American and Chinese Evolvers, so they wouldn’t easily let him step onto the main stage under normal circumstances.
But unfortunately, they ran into bad luck. They were greedy enough to secure the third-generation Evolver Potion, wishing to make this boy even stronger.
That was how their tail had been caught.
Even for fellow S-Class Evolvers like them, learning the parameters of the boy’s ability left a trace of lingering dread in their hearts.
Within a Rule-Based Evolver’s designated domain, they were absolute sovereigns.
Even the world’s strongest would likely suffer an absolute defeat here.
“Bai Hewei won’t fail that easily,” Gentleman waved his cane, stating without a shred of hesitation. “A Rule-Based ability is exceptionally formidable, but it also depends on exactly who it’s deployed against.”
Bai Hewei had beaten him with such utter ease; how could he possibly lose to this Rule-Based Evolver?
Consequently, when Laurent and the others pressed for details regarding the specific traits of Bai Hewei’s ability, Gentleman didn’t breathe a single word.
Who on earth would ever complain about having too much cash?
The fifty thousand yuan from last time had kept Bai Hewei ecstatic for a long period, and he hadn’t anticipated that this deployment would actually carry a full one million yuan!
As expected, as long as a person located their perfect track, generating wealth was as simple as eating food or drinking water.
If he were still working his regular shift with absolute diligence, when would he ever manage to accumulate a fortune like this?
Bai Hewei paced a few steps in his plate armor, finding it rather cumbersome. He tried to unfasten the plates, but no matter how he fiddled with the joints, they refused to budge, so he ultimately let it go.
The space he occupied looked very much like a stage set at an amusement park. The surrounding area wasn’t empty; instead, it featured a fairytale-style castle, structural walls, flora, and so forth. It felt very much as though he had suddenly stepped directly out of the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional domain.
“Exactly how vast is this place?” Bai Hewei frowned. “I’ve been walking for at least twenty minutes now, but it feels like there’s no end in sight.”
“Someone is approaching,” Wen Zhiyi reminded him.
Bai Hewei turned his head, spotting three individuals similarly clad in plate armor pacing slowly toward his coordinates.
The moment they caught sight of Bai Hewei, they accelerated their pace significantly.
Bai Hewei tightened his grip on his longsword.
If these were enemies, for the sake of that one million yuan, he would absolutely never show mercy.
“Mr. Bai, we’ve met inside the conference room previously.”
“I am an operative from Tactical Squad 1.”
“Me too.”
“I belong to Tactical Squad 2. Hello.”
The three individuals quickly fired off a chaotic chorus of introductions.
“I merely went back to the dormitory building to use the restroom, and who knows how I got teleported to this sector. Thank goodness I had already finished wiping, otherwise what was I supposed to do?” The speaker let out a massive sigh of relief, and the bystanders felt an immediate wave of relief as well upon hearing his words.
Using the restroom without being able to wipe was truly too horrifying a prospect.
“I was just slacking off, heading back to the dorms to catch a brief nap.”
“Me too.”
The three men sighed in self-pity. Before they were pulled through the distortion, there were still a few minutes left before their shifts concluded. According to regulations, they shouldn’t have been lounging inside the dormitory building.
But as luck would have it, every single one of them had been teleported inside.
When they escaped this place, they would likely have to explain to the leadership committee exactly why they were inside the dorms during operational hours. The mere thought of it filled them with a subtle wave of exhaustion; they genuinely didn’t want to face that reality.
“This is highly probable to be the work of a Rule-Based Evolver. Provided we capture him, it will absolutely be logged as a monumental merit,” Bai Hewei stated. “When you all were pulled inside, did you discover any clues?”
“None.”
“This sector is completely unfamiliar. Initially, I assumed it was Disneyland, but later discovered it wasn’t.”
“Rule-Based? How did we run into such a troublesome ability track?”
The group pondered for a moment. Lacking a concrete course of action for the time being, they decided it was best to move together as a unit to avoid getting picked off individually.
“The defining characteristic of a Rule-Based capability is that the Evolver themselves must implicitly abide by their own regulations. This implies that the Evolver is bound to be hidden somewhere inside this domain,” Wen Zhiyi cast his gaze over the three operatives before speaking. “Do you recognize everyone housed within that dormitory building?”
“Basically, yes. Even if we can’t accurately name every single person, we can still recognize their faces.”
“Exactly. Although our building houses a considerable number of personnel, we can generally recognize everyone.”
“Then for the time being, our primary objective is simply to locate the individual whom you don’t recognize,” Wen Zhiyi’s resolute tone easily infused confidence and strength into the group. “The effective range of a Rule-Based capability is constrained; at most, it covers the perimeter of your dormitory structure. If it exceeded that boundary, the volume of evolutionary energy required to sustain the space would be far too colossal, which defies all natural logic. Do not panic; locate that specific Evolver, and we can escape this space.”
When facing the unknown, the most terrifying element was a complete lack of direction regarding what to do.
Wen Zhiyi’s presence seamlessly patched this vulnerability.
Although the three operatives harbored a trace of curiosity regarding the underlying origin of this micro-robot, seeing Bai Hewei place absolute trust in it, they naturally extended their trust as well.
Since there were no superior alternatives presently, they might as well follow its guidance.
The group continued exploring the bizarre domain. But as they paced further forward, the structural details of the scene grew increasingly familiar.
“This emblem! I remember now! Initially, I assumed this was Disneyland, but it’s not. This looks exactly like the classic game we played during our childhood, Monster Hegemony!” an Evolver suddenly interjected loudly.
Bai Hewei and the others turned their gazes toward him in unison.
If memory served correctly, this operative was named Wang Zhengrong. He had profiled himself as a B-Class Evolver whose capability was [Tenfold], allowing him to elevate all his physical metrics by ten times within a short duration. He stood as an exceptionally practical and versatile operative, frequently tasked with leading the vanguard during field operations.
“Look closely. This emblem is the exact logo of that gaming corporation,” Wang Zhengrong said with a trace of enthusiasm. “This game was incredibly popular during the last century. I actually dug it up to play out of nostalgia a while back, and was thoroughly obsessed with it for a period.”
According to Wang Zhengrong’s summary, this game was a basic fighting game featuring roughly over a hundred hero characters. Players could select different heroes to engage in combat, and each character possessed distinct specialty moves, primarily testing the player’s mechanical skill level.
“Then how do we officially initiate this game?” Bai Hewei inquired.
If it functioned like a game, he recalled catching sight of a boy constantly grinding away on a handheld console inside the Sage Tower. This space was highly probable to be the manifestation of his supernatural ability.
“You just need to touch this emblem and rap on it three times, like this,” Wang Zhengrong demonstrated the action. The next split second, he vanished from the spot instantaneously.
“What… what’s going on? Where did he go out of the blue?” the remaining two operatives asked in bewilderment.
“The match has likely commenced; we should go in as well,” Wen Zhiyi mused for a moment before speaking. “If the game doesn’t officially begin, we will remain trapped here indefinitely. We might as well step inside preemptively to see exactly what this Evolver intends to accomplish.”
“I’ll go,” Bai Hewei enthusiastically rapped on the emblem three times, and his physical form vanished instantly as well.
The remaining two operatives hesitated for a brief moment before following suit and tapping the logo.
[The match has officially commenced. We wish everyone an enjoyable experience.]
[Please select the hero you wish to deploy into combat.]
Bai Hewei merely blinked his eyes, discovering that he was standing before a massive combat ring.
Simultaneously, a massive red arrow materialized directly above the heads of all three newcomers.
“Aren’t those our people?”
“I recognize him. He lives on the first floor; I pass him every time I head upstairs.”
“Why are they all gathered here?”
“Hey, wake up!”
Compared to the combat ring itself, what drew everyone’s attention even more was the boy standing across from the stage grinding away on his console, along with five individuals who lay collapsed on Bai Hewei’s side, similarly clad in plate armor.
Wang Zhengrong and his fellow operatives recognized them instantly as personnel housed within Dormitory Building 1—members of their Special Operations Department.
“Are you the Rule-Based Evolver? What did you do to them?” Bai Hewei demanded, leveling his gaze at the boy holding the console.
The youth possessed black hair and dark eyes, looking to be roughly thirteen or fourteen years of age. He wasn’t very tall, standing at about one meter sixty-five, and carried distinct mixed-race features, his deep-set eyes resembling a Westerner’s, though his general facial contours remained remarkably soft.
He was a mixed-race child.
And highly probable to be of multi-ethnic descent.
“They merely lost a match to me,” the boy raised his head to cast a glance at Bai Hewei, though the movements of his hands didn’t halt in the slightest. “Do you wish to commence the game? If you confirm, I will outline the rules of the match for you.”
“Why can’t we wake them up under any circumstances? Their hearts are clearly still beating, but they won’t open their eyes,” Wang Zhengrong and the others tried pinching philtrums and delivering heavy physical jolts, but nothing could force the collapsed individuals to open their eyes.
“They have likely slipped into this threshold between life and death due to their failure in the match,” Wen Zhiyi crawled down from Bai Hewei’s shoulder, pacing over to the side of the collapsed men to carefully peel back their eyelids and inspect their physiological parameters.
“They have currently fallen into a state of profound comatose, akin to a vegetative state. Even if their consciousness remains fully awake internally, they are securely trapped inside their physical forms and cannot awaken,” Wen Zhiyi’s tone sounded noticeably heavy. “I have already retrieved the archival data for Monster Hegemony. The hero characters within this game cannot truly perish, and failing a combat match merely triggers a mechanism for resurrection.”
Back at the Research Institute at this moment, Wen Zhiyi’s fellow researchers had long since begun digging out all historical files regarding the boy and Monster Hegemony.
Plain to see, this boy’s Rule-Based ability was to engineer a literal gaming world. Within this matrix, one had to implicitly comply with his regulations and play the game against him; only those who secured a victory could depart.
“Chief, this is a bit troublesome,” a researcher noted with a grim complexion. “Monster Hegemony features a total of one hundred and thirty-five heroes, and each character possesses completely distinct capabilities, practically encompassing every track. If this Evolver can freely summon these heroes, aside from Bai Hewei, probably not a single person trapped inside that match will make it out alive.”
“A Rule-Based ability must also comply with fundamental logical constraints. If he could directly deploy over a hundred heroes simultaneously, he wouldn’t be sitting here waiting patiently,” Wen Zhiyi shook his head. “The true horror of this ability likely doesn’t manifest in that manner.”
“Perishing within the game does not equate to a true death, but if you continue to lose matches to me, the reality changes completely,” the boy stood up, offering a small smile as he spoke. “Look over there. They are right here.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Bai Hewei and the others watched five individuals with identical features suddenly materialize behind the youth. However, their physical attire had altered completely; they were no longer clad in plate armor, but were wearing all kinds of bizarre costumes instead—some wore Taekwondo uniforms, some wore oversized boxer shorts, and some were even wearing dresses.
Aside from these five individuals, an immense, dense wall of diverse figures stood securely behind the boy.
“…Those are all missing Evolvers,” the profiles of the figures standing behind the youth were transmitted to the Research Institute through the robot’s optical array, and they were recognized almost instantly.
Evolvers went missing across the globe every single day. Some likely perished due to supernatural clashes against rival ability users, some were abducted to serve as disposable muscle for various rogue syndicates, and others were directly laid onto operating tables.
“Exercise extreme caution. This boy is highly probable to be more troublesome than any adversary we have encountered previously,” Wen Zhiyi answered. “The worst-case scenario has manifested. The hero characters available for selection within this game are not the original designs from Monster Hegemony. Instead, he has merely borrowed the structural architecture and design framework of the game, while the internal entities have long since been altered completely.”
The sheer dominance and bizarre nature of a Rule-Based Evolver was plain to see.
If this boy were afforded a sufficient window of time to accumulate a vast library of “heroes,” within the effective perimeter of his game rules, probably no one would be capable of defeating him!
And the purpose behind his targeting of Bai Hewei was exceptionally transparent.
Provided Bai Hewei lost this match, under the absolute, mandatory compulsion of a Rule-Based capability, Bai Hewei would similarly be transformed into a hero under the boy’s control. That way, the world’s strongest Evolver could be carried away with absolute ease.
This level of temptation was simply too colossal.
Even though this boy’s supernatural ability was equally terrifying and possessed limitless latent potential, he had still been deployed to abduct Bai Hewei.
This was a truly magnificent investment!
“I will ask one final time: do you confirm the commencement of the match?” the boy smiled.
Bai Hewei leveled a glare at him. “Confirmed.”
“Excellent. Moving forward, I will outline the rules of the match for you,” the boy rested a hand on his hip, looking thoroughly brimmed with confidence. “First, your team of players can deploy any single individual into the ring to engage in combat against a hero of my choosing. Secondly, anyone who secures a victory against me can depart this game, whereas those who lose will be integrated as my brand-new heroes. The combat format is strictly one-on-one—which means that provided any single one of you defeats me, you can lead everyone else out of this game completely.”
“Additionally, during combat, you are fully permitted to channel your own supernatural abilities, so you cannot claim I am taking unfair advantage of you,” the boy shook his console, speaking with a pleasant smile.
“Then what if we wish to carry these collapsed individuals out as well?” Bai Hewei asked, pointing to the five comatose operatives.
“In that scenario, you will need to defeat me five times,” the boy chuckled. “Defeating me once grants you a baseline victory for this match, and you can naturally choose to depart directly. But these individuals are already my defeated adversaries; to extract them, you must secure an additional victory for each person, carrying out one individual per win. If you manage to defeat me, they will regain full consciousness the moment they leave the game.”
“How do I know if you’re telling the truth?” Bai Hewei frowned.
“A Rule-Based Evolver is inherently bound by their own parameters; outlining the regulations for you stands as one of my mandatory constraints,” the boy answered without a trace of concealment. “I must first construct an equitable combat environment before the match can officially commence. This setup is highly favorable to you—if you lose to me, you only sacrifice one person per match, but provided a single one of you defeats me, every member of your team can return home. Now, commencing the match, who will you deploy into the vanguard?”
How on earth was this equitable? They barely numbered a few individuals, whereas the enemy possessed a literal army.
Bai Hewei wanted to complain, but knew this wasn’t the time for sarcasm. A one-on-one format was infinitely superior to a group brawl; if it devolved into a chaotic melee, their team might not make it out alive.
Unequal or not, so be it.
Bai Hewei immediately prepared to step forward.
“Mr. Bai, let me handle the first match,” Wang Zhengrong caught onto Bai Hewei’s armor instantly. “These are all our comrades from the border branch; how could we let you shoulder the weight alone? I’ll take the stage first to test this Evolver’s true depth for you.”
Wang Zhengrong and his fellow operatives comprehended Bai Hewei’s strategic value perfectly. Facing an unknown capability like this, how could they allow Bai Hewei to take the initial risk?
No matter what, they had to be the ones to step up first, gathering a sufficient repository of intelligence for Bai Hewei before letting him anchor the final matches.
“They are correct,” Wen Zhiyi agreed with this line of reasoning as well. “So many individuals have already lost to this Evolver; his capabilities are highly probable to be far more complex than they appear on the surface. You are the one with the highest statistical probability of defeating him; you cannot take the stage this casually.”
After a brief moment of hesitation, Bai Hewei relented.
“I’m up first,” Wang Zhengrong stated directly, leaping into the combat ring.
[Game character deployed. Please select a hero for combat.]
The computerized announcement echoed through the space.
The boy cast a glance down at his console. A pixelated avatar had already materialized on the screen, perfectly mirroring Wang Zhengrong’s physical profile.
Simultaneously, Wang Zhengrong’s current biometric variables appeared clearly within the youth’s console interface.
“Strength: B, Speed: B, Spirit: B… but the parameters indicate you possess a (Doubling Buff). Your ability looks genuinely fascinating,” the boy rubbed his chin, his eyes scanning Wang Zhengrong with pure curiosity, looking very much as though he had uncovered a brand-new toy. “Your profile as a hero is exceptionally balanced across all metrics, making you quite troublesome to handle.”
Wang Zhengrong’s expression grew profoundly solemn. As an avid gamer himself, he caught onto the chilling anomaly instantly.
“You can read my biometric data?” Wang Zhengrong hadn’t anticipated that the other party could comprehend the exact parameters of his ability with such absolute clarity.
“Tapping on a hero’s avatar to review their status files—isn’t that a standard feature in any game?” the boy countered. “The variables displayed on my end merely consist of three core categories. If a character possesses specialized capabilities, they will simply manifest via different buffs. If you ask me, I’ll honestly tell you everything; but if you don’t inquire, I won’t bother speaking.”
Hearing the youth’s words, the complexions of Wang Zhengrong, Bai Hewei, and the remaining operatives turned quite grim.
Wen Zhiyi’s eyes gleamed with a trace of renewed interest in reverse-engineering this capability.
Provided an ability like this was developed properly, its range of utility would be colossal.
If any other Evolver had been deployed to this sector, securing a victory would be highly questionable.
But the individual standing here today was Bai Hewei, so the reality changed completely.
“Since your metrics are perfectly balanced across all tracks, I’ll select this specific hero to match you,” the boy said with high spirits, swiftly locking in a character for combat.
Very quickly, an ability user leaped into the ring across from Wang Zhengrong.
The adversary’s eyes were completely hollow, and his entire countenance appeared remarkably numb.
“This individual is the A-Class Evolver [Holy Knight] Clow from the [Holy Infant] organization. Didn’t his file indicate he perished? How could he possibly appear here?”
Back at the Research Institute, the team located the profile of the character entering the ring, rubbing their eyes as they almost assumed they were misreading the data.
“Can a deceased individual truly be integrated as a hero character?” A nearby researcher felt his fundamental understanding of reality thoroughly challenged. “Then doesn’t that imply this ability can trigger resurrection?”
“If he could genuinely bring back the dead, he wouldn’t be deployed out here as an operative; use your brain,” Wen Zhiyi felt these researchers were letting their imaginations run a bit too wild. “It’s highly probable that Clow lost a match to this boy first to become a hero character, causing his physical form in the real world to dissolve into a vegetative state, which was why he was recorded as deceased.”
“An Evolver’s capability can be bizarre beyond measure. We have those who possess immortality, and now we have someone who can translate gaming matrices into reality. What if there genuinely exists a mechanism to resurrect the dead?”
“This Evolver has truly cast pearls before swine. If his capability were uncovered by corporate executives at those gaming conglomerates, the directors would literally kneel down to serve as his dogs!”
“I want it, I want to study it! Chief Wen, figure out a blueprint to capture him quickly and bring him back. Who knows, maybe it really can trigger resurrection!”
“The sheer volume of energy required to bring a deceased individual back to life is not something an ordinary Evolver can sustain. Mending trauma falls within normal parameters, but resurrecting the dead is equivalent to building a castle in the air; it would easily drain every single shred of energy from a top-tier healing Evolver. Even then, success wouldn’t be guaranteed,” Wen Zhiyi shook his head. “If resurrecting the dead were truly achievable, even if it required a one-for-one exchange of a healing Evolver’s life, plenty of factions would scramble to hunt them down.”
It was precisely because it was impossible that these healing-type Evolvers could enjoy a peaceful existence.
But even so, the boy’s capability remained exceptionally coveted.
Although Bai Hewei was absolute, his dominance was primarily manifested through his own physical form. Conversely, the youth standing before them was completely packed with traits that left researchers drooling with anticipation.
Moving forward, he would need to properly spur Bai Hewei into action.
“Sigh, Clow’s capability is rather troublesome,” another researcher noted. “His ability is called [Holy Knight], allowing him to bolster his metrics through faith, and he likely possesses a certain degree of rapid regeneration. Compared to Wang Zhengrong’s pure physical amplification, he commands a superior advantage.”
“Furthermore, Clow’s ability grade is higher; Wang Zhengrong is highly probable to suffer a severe disadvantage.”
A B-Class Evolver clashing against an A-Class powerhouse, with the A-Class character additionally manipulated by an S-Class entity behind the scenes—no matter how one calculated it, the scales tilted heavily against them.
Wang Zhengrong naturally comprehended this reality perfectly.
But he had never assumed he could secure a victory in a single shot. Even if he lost, as long as his performance could assist Bai Hewei in harvesting a sufficient repository of intelligence, that sacrifice would be completely worth it.
They merely required a single victory to sweep the match.
[Combat officially commenced.]
Accompanied by the computerized alert, Wang Zhengrong amplified his internal ability instantly, planning to catch the adversary off-guard by aggressively hammering a sequence of heavy strikes into his frame first.
Author’s Note:
Gentleman: Bai Hewei, you absolutely cannot lose!!! If you lose, I’ll completely lose face in front of everyone.
Bai Hewei: ??? My guy, that’s a bit excessive.
