There is One New Rule Every Month Globally

"Is there anyone else inside the map?"

Chen Yi frowned and pondered for a moment before speaking, "You mean players?"

"No."

Sword Without End's demeanor was evidently a bit off, his spirit somewhat wilted as he shook his head, tremblingly bringing a wrinkled cigarette to his lips and speaking with some weakness.

"You mean people other than players?"

"Do bosses count?"

Chen Yi remembered a theme park map they had encountered before, which featured a Little Demon who loved lollipops; that Little Demon even left him a card that, once activated, could summon the Little Demon to attack his enemies for him.

"No, I mean people other than bosses and players!"

"Haven't seen any."

Chen Yi shook his head, looked at the time, and said, "So what's the situation? Spit it out, I'm in a hurry to go out and kill someone here. If I go later, there won't be enough time; it's almost time to sleep."

"The day before yesterday, I went to a map that was quite difficult. I came to Yancheng to find you, but Jiaye said you weren't there."

"So I joined a few other high-level combat players to enter."

"That map is huge... It's the largest map I've ever seen, easily two or three times the size of Yancheng."

A flicker of panic and fear surfaced in Sword Without End's eyes. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, calmed his heart, and continued, "Actually, that map was a city."

"A very bustling city with skyscrapers everywhere, most of them hundreds of stories tall, the whole city filled with neon signage."

"There were also hovering cars, devices in the air specifically for traffic control, looking just like traffic lights.

"Countless hovering cars shuttled back and forth between the buildings."

"There were many people on the streets, but many of them had cybernetic limbs, cybernetic eyes, arms, thighs, heads, or even whole bodies!"

"But these people walked on the streets without anyone nearby showing any signs of surprise; I even saw some people walking dogs that were mechanized."

"Damn it, can you imagine someone walking a mechanized dog in the street?"

"And... "

"Wait a second."

Tuberculosis Rabbit, keenly aware of the information in Sword Without End's words, furrowed her eyebrows and spoke gravely, "You mean, the map you went to was a very bustling city, and in the city, there were... lots of people?"

"Who were these people?"

"Yes."

Sword Without End took a deep breath before he began recounting, kneading his temples, "We initially thought those people were just NPCs in the map, as it's quite normal to have some NPCs in maps."

"Although we'd never seen NPCs in maps before, that doesn't mean there can't be NPCs."

"We initially ignored those NPCs, as everyone was freely exchanging information about the mission and skills, since the map was difficult, we had to be serious."

"But while we were exchanging information, we suddenly noticed something was off, those NPCs around us seemed to understand what we were saying, and they were all looking at us with strange eyes."

"We then did some probing and to our astonishment, we discovered every single person in the city had extremely high intelligence; I found a tobacconist and tried to converse."

"The owner could respond to me very smoothly, not at all like the intelligence an NPC of the map should have."

"Can you, can you understand that feeling?"

"It wasn't the feeling of being inside a map at all, but like crossing over, in that moment all of us had the sensation of having crossed into a strange world."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Do you know what this means?"

"Don't rush, talk slowly."

Chen Yi shook his head, interrupting Sword Without End's narrative. He hadn't liked Sword Without End much before, but after watching the video about Sword Without End in Theater of Life,

he felt a faint increase in affection for the middle-aged man who cared about his image.

At the very least, a man willing to sacrifice himself to buy time for others to escape couldn't have a bad heart.

"What's the map's clearance mission? What level is the map?"

"There's no level."

"That map is called the 'Pioneer Map'; it doesn't have an ABCD rank system. The clearance mission requires us to go to the slums and destroy a signal transmitter held by a beggar."

"Then escape to a designated activation point."

"There were 9 players in total who entered the map, and only 5 players came out alive, each of them heavily injured."

"To be precise, 4 players were killed on the spot, and 1 player was captured alive."

"But the map rules clearly stated that any player not reaching the escape point within the designated time would be wiped out, so that captured player's chances are slim."

"After killing the beggar, shortly after destroying the signal transmitter he had, unmanned drones suddenly hovered above us, followed by a shrill alarm."

"Then seven or eight hovering cars chasing us with sirens blaring."

"The drones even extended a Gatling gun below and began firing at us."

"And the escape point was on the other side of the slums; with no other choice, we scattered and fled towards the slums, luckily, I had Traceless Green Peak which allowed me to escape quickly to the evacuation point."

"Yet even so, I was seriously injured."

"And the most important thing is—"

With a flicker of fear in his eyes, Sword Without End's voice trembled as he spoke, "Those sirens on the hovering cars chasing us, the voice blasting from the loudspeakers wasn't telling us to surrender."

"But it means... you damned players dare to set foot in City 13 again!!!"

"Do you know what that means?"

"It means that those people in the maps aren't simply NPCs; they're more like real, living beings in a world!!"

"After I came out of the map, I looked for you first. As far as I know, you're the strongest player I'm aware of, and I think you should be informed about this."

"This matter is related to our future life or death."

"..."

Chen Yi remained calm and silent, not speaking a word. In reality, he had already suspected as much, and Sword Without End's information today had made his suspicions even clearer.

He had a suspicion in his heart.

The Snow Sea Project Team was training troops, continuously filtering Blue Star players until they assembled a massive army to help the Snow Sea Project Team invade other worlds.

The Wilderness, Sands of Time Map—they were all created by the Snow Sea Project Team for the purpose of training troops.

And maps like the one Sword Without End went to were the actual objective of the Snow Sea Project Team, to deploy players into other worlds and have them complete the invasion for the Snow Sea Project Team.

Just like Sword Without End's mission this time, to destroy a signal transmitter in the hands of a beggar.

Possibly, that thing wasn't a signal transmitter at all but something detrimental to the Snow Sea Project Team; the Snow Sea Project Team planned to destroy this object, so they dispatched a player in the form of a mission release, to have the player destroy it.

"Chen Yi, do you understand what I'm saying?"

Sword Without End's eyes were full of anticipation and a plea for agreement as he stared intently at Chen Yi, his dry lips trembling slightly, obviously still shocked by the incident.

"I understand."

Chen Yi nodded, fell silent for a while, then continued, "So why did you come to me?"

"I want to invite you to go to this map again."

Despite a look of fear, Sword Without End's expression was resolute as he clenched his lips tightly: "This time we won't rush to complete the mission first, but instead try to find a way to log into that city's internet forums or something, to see if we can find any information about the Snow Sea Project Team!"

"Then, perhaps we can really understand the reason for the existence of the Snow Sea Project Team!"

"As well as the purpose of the Snow Sea Project Team choosing Blue Star, and what exactly that world is all about."

"Just one more entry, and I believe we can understand many truths."

Chen Yi stood in place, looking up at the sky: "I understand, you don't have to say anymore, some things become dangerous if discussed too much."

Sword Without End was taken aback, then also looked up at the sky, instantly understanding and nodded without speaking further.

"Can we enter that map again?"

Chen Yi asked.

"No, after a few of us completed the mission and escaped successfully, the entrance to that map disappeared."

"But I believe the map will reappear someday. When it does, I hope I can invite you to enter that map with me."

Just then—

Sword Without End suddenly froze, a trace of alarm flashing in his eyes as he looked up at Chen Yi.

"The map has reopened, there's a new mission."

"The new mission is to kill an offender arrested within the Law Enforcement Bureau, by the name... Li Bei."

"The name is unfamiliar, but... I suspect that this offender mentioned in the mission is likely the same person I was just telling you about who got captured!"

"The map opening time is in 1 hour."

Chen Yi's eyes narrowed, and he stood there staring at Sword Without End, lost in thought. Continue reading stories on empire

This exchange contained a lot of information.

The two biggest pieces of information.

The Snow Sea Project Team seemed in a hurry to silence someone, but it was obvious that the Snow Sea Project Team didn't have the capacity to kill the captured player; it seemed like the Snow Sea Project Team was worried the captured player might leak some information.

And the rule of the map is that players who fail to escape to the evacuation point in time will be eradicated.

But this Li Bei didn't die.

So, does that mean the Snow Sea Project Team actually doesn't have the ability to wipe out a player?

Or rather.

The ability to wipe out a player has failed?

"Huh!"

He let out a light breath, looked up at Sword Without End: "In your condition, can you still enter the map?"

"I can, I have a healing prop, and my injuries are healing progressively."

"Hmm."

Chen Yi nodded, jumped onto a nearby sled: "Come on, accompany me to kill someone in Black Trench City first, then let's go check out this map you're talking about."

...

ps: Let's fix the update schedule, starting from tomorrow, updates will be at midnight daily.

If there's no additional release, it will be a guaranteed three chapters, any additional releases will be published together.