Chapter 1168: Chapter 167: Doomsday
"Things don’t feel right."
Li Ang frowned, rubbing his temples.
It seemed this was indeed the best time for the revival of those ancient deities,
with the Earth’s population reaching its historical peak, the killing field game further enhancing mutation levels, plunging the world into chaos,
perfectly distracting nations and leaving them without capacity to attend to other matters.
Additionally, countless star gates are gradually opening,
even if Earth becomes the main battlefield for brutal divine battles,
there remains "Escape to the Star Gate World" as the final option.
"The worst part is, there are only 72 hours left, the time is too tight.
We can only hope the Global Occult Coalition has targeted protocols."
Li Ang shook his head, quickly scanning the next explanation.
The third stage of the Killing Field Game’s major event "Battle of the Fates" will begin registration seven days after standard time,
all players above Lv25 can participate.
The registration location remains the same as last time, at the center of the Game Square,
players need to fill out a form with personal information and put it into the voting cup.
"The level restriction is Lv25,
the registration time limit has been extended from the previous sixteen days to one month.
As long as one reaches Lv25 within the month, they can meet the registration requirement.
One month later, the event officially begins."
Li Ang thought silently,
like last time’s Portal World battle, the Battle of the Fates has not yet explained the event rules, and instead revealed the final rewards.
[Players ranked 500-301 will receive two pieces of perfect quality equipment of their choice]
[Players ranked 300-101 will receive three pieces of perfect quality equipment of their choice, or one piece of epic quality equipment of their choice]
[Players ranked 100-51 will receive four pieces of perfect quality equipment of their choice, or two pieces of epic quality equipment of their choice]
[Players ranked 50-21 will receive one piece of legendary quality equipment of their choice]
[Players ranked 20-1 will receive one piece of legendary quality equipment of their choice, along with a special reward]
"Is this... an epic perfect equipment giveaway?
And there’s even legendary-level equipment..."
Li Ang looked at the rewards list, slightly tongue-tied. Even at this stage in the game, perfect-quality items are still not easily accessible,
epic-level items are owned only by first-tier and a few second-tier players.
Now, just by placing in the top 300, one can receive a piece of epic-quality equipment of choice,
and placing in the top 50 offers legendary-grade equipment that no one has seen before.
Of course, what Li Ang cared about most was the special reward for those ranked in the top 20.
"Last time, the final reward for the Portal World Battle was a private star gate capable of opening an entire world.
What will the final reward for this Battle of the Fates be..."
Li Ang murmured, slowly closing the instructions page and opened the friend communications.
As expected, messages from Mule, Liu Wu Dai, Xing Hechou, and others were all about this version update, especially the Battle of the Fates.
Upon seeing the update notes, they too immediately thought of numerous possibilities.
Anxiousness, unease, and even fear, overshadowed a scant amount of excitement.
If the deities were to awaken, it wouldn’t just disrupt the lives of ordinary people; transcendants like them would also be affected.
No one knew the exact condition and power level of ancient gods, but the energy levels from the Sibi King incident were not optimistic.
Li Ang casually replied to them a few words, instructing Chaichai to open the player forum page,
and as expected, the web pages were being frantically refreshed,
every minute and second, new posts were flooding in, and everyone was discussing the content of the version update.
Chaichai frowned, muttering, "Why does this feel like the end of the world?"
"If handled poorly, it indeed could be the end of the world."
Li Ang sighed, casually dropping the remark "I’m heading to The Portal World", and left the Longqing Cruise Ship, diving towards the deep sea.
————
In the meeting room of the Special Affairs Bureau building, the decision-makers of the Yin City stronghold gathered in the conference room,
holding a remote holographic meeting with high-ranking members from other strongholds.
"...I propose we activate the XK-class end-of-world prevention protocol right now."
Already the deputy director of the Yin City Branch, Bai Haozheng tightly pursed his lips, saying in a grave tone, "The version update of this Killing Field Game will dynamically elevate the intensity of routine tasks.
This means a more severe wave of large-scale mutations will be incoming nationally and globally.
Originally level-1 alert abnormal events will be raised to level-2,
level-2 to level-3, level-3 to level-4...
Previously we could suppress nationwide abnormal events because of sufficient manpower,
in addition to training the Mobile Detachment and hiring Bounty Hunters,
we extensively trained soldiers who were ordinary people, equipping them with weapons infused with transcendent elements.
But if mutation levels comprehensively rise, our regular soldiers will be unable to cope with overly complex mutation scenarios, leading to massive casualties."
"XK-class end-of-world prevention protocol..."
A senior cadre from the Special Affairs Bureau in the Sichuan-Chongqing region took a deep breath, saying gravely, "Comrade Bai, do you know what this implies?
We’re forced to abandon over 70% of Earth’s territory, transferring the majority of ordinary citizens to The Portal World,
semi-permanently abandoning Earth’s settlement status..."
"I understand."
Bai Haozheng nodded heavily, the Special Affairs Bureau had already devised prevention protocols for various large-scale mutations before the Portal World battle.
Besides the conventional 1-5 mutation grading, there’s the most severe K-grade mutation, which has a doomsday-like impact on the real world.
XK-grade end-of-world mutation refers to mutations within the human understanding scope,
subdivided into XK-grade α-type end-of-world, which refers to large-scale nuclear warfare, causing severe damage to human civilization, altering Earth’s environment to be irrecoverably unsuitable for human habitation.
XK-grade γ-type end-of-world refers to scenarios described in religious or mythological stories becoming realistic mutations.
Such as the great flood destroying everything in The Bible, the ten plagues of Egypt (the river turning to blood, every family’s eldest son dying), the eastern myth of Mount Buzhou collapsing leading to heaven and earth crumbling, Ragnarok in Norse mythology sinking the entire world.
Apart from that, XK-grade end-of-world mutations also involve vacuum decay and massive extinction.
Above this, there’s the AK-grade meme infectious end-of-world mutation (human collective suffering meme infection, forgetting the ability to breathe), EK-grade human consciousness termination end-of-world mutation (human consciousness collectively replaced or corrupted).
This is not some fantasy,
such as the seamless replacement of reality by the Mirage Dragon mutation previously,
The mutation from the King of Shengnan can drag people into a collective dream,
The mutation from the Sibi King can extract human belief and willpower.
These anomalies can be categorized as the most dangerous mutations,
If they slightly escalate, expand in scope, and enhance in effect,
they could easily cause casualties measured in units of "millions,"
and would undoubtedly fall into the category of XK-class anomalies.
"The Killing Game will intensify all mutations,
if such a situation occurs, we absolutely won’t have the ability to maintain order."
Bai Haozheng said wearily, "I won’t mention those particularly severe mutations now,
but everyone still remembers last year’s 4-1201 incident, right?
Throughout the country, all provinces experienced reality-warping anomalies carried out through phone calls,
ordinary people receiving calls would hear contents similar to typical telecom fraud, like their bank cards being restricted and frozen due to overseas purchases.
If the call lasted more than 15 seconds, the fraud content would become reality,
on the level of reality, freezing their bank cards, which cannot be unfrozen through conventional means—even with the bank’s best efforts.
Initially, these were just telecom scams,
but soon, the malicious nature of reality-warping sharply escalated,
after hearing ’your son or daughter was in a car accident and is being rescued in the hospital, transfer quickly’ on the call, within 15 seconds, the person mentioned would inevitably be struck in a car accident,
after hearing ’a friend accidentally fell from a building and is being rescued in the hospital, transfer quickly’ on the call, within 15 seconds the person mentioned would inevitably fall from a height.
Within just a week, tens of thousands of deaths and injuries occurred across geographically vast cities,
even the monitoring department of the Mobile Detachment didn’t initially notice this—even the ordinary police officers, and the players in the Mobile Detachment,
everyone’s will was twisted,
so that no one sensed anything was wrong.
If it weren’t for the River Map Formation detecting the anomaly, this mutation might have continued to ravage silently even now."
Bai Haozheng paused, and slowly said, "And this is just one of the large-scale mutations that isn’t so lethal.
If mutations like Mirage Dragon or the King of Shengnan escalate,
I dare assert, in a month’s time, we will lose control of the situation,
by then, it’s not merely a question of losing our living space,
we’ll lose villages, cities, provinces."
"..."
In the meeting room’s holographic projection, the decision-makers sat in a ring, silent,
they were aware of how terrifying such a future would be,
but if executed according to the XK-class apocalypse prevention program, it would equally result in irreversible impacts on the societal order of the real world.
"We don’t even know exactly what kind of XK-class apocalypse scenario it is now,"
a senior member of the Special Affairs Bureau slowly said, "It could be meme contagion, reality distortion, or even physical collapse,
too many situations could occur."
"Then let’s prevent according to the worst-case scenario,"
Bai Haozheng said solemnly, "The essence of mutations is a series of anomalous events.
The anomalous events revolve around anomalous objects, diverse in type,
only by defending all possible situations can we ensure the worst-case scenario doesn’t materialize."
"Complete defense?"
The high-level officials furrowed their brows,
they naturally understood that Bai Haozheng’s complete defense wasn’t about guarding against each potential scenario,
but migrating the vast majority of the populace to The Portal World.
After recent exploration and research, the Special Affairs Bureau and Heterodox Academy finally confirmed that The Portal World is relatively safe.
In The Portal World, the possibility of mutations drops dramatically, about 12% of what it is in the real world.
So, as long as we transfer the vast majority of the populace to The Portal World, there’s no need to worry about the mutations spiraling out of control.
However, the drop in mutation probability also means a reduction in player qualification,
the probability of the Killing Game selecting a normal resident of The Portal World to become a player is only 12% compared to the real world.
Once migration is completed, the growth rate of players would plummet,
in the long term, it’s utterly unfavorable for the expansion of Transcendent numbers.
The meeting room buzzed with discussions,
"Large-scale migration may ensure security, but what about the future?
Player qualification is the most precious resource, losing the growth rate of players means losing future development potential."
"But if we don’t migrate, as Comrade Bai said, what if the worst-case scenario happens?
If the King of Shengnan incident happens again in an upgraded version, it could even lead to the disappearance of millions!!"
"What about the equipment development department? What do they say? Is it possible, under a complete migration of the existing populace,
to maintain stable increase in player qualifications?"
"Do you mean the cloning plan? No, that technology is not mature enough and can’t guarantee mass production of clones.
Moreover, that technology is still under review by the Ethics Committee.
If we want to use the cloning plan to balance the player growth rate,
we must publicly explain to the populace.
Otherwise, it’s a severe act of deception."
"Maybe we can just migrate a portion of the populace, keep ten city buildings on the original land. In that case, we can maintain a population of 110 million on Earth, preventing player qualification increase rate from reaching zero..."
"But there are so many city buildings. If explained to the populace, most would surely prefer migrating to The Portal World for a stable and peaceful life."
"Then implement a volunteer recruitment mechanism? Those willing to stay on Earth can live in city buildings. Those unwilling to stay can migrate to The Portal World..."
"In such a case, we must consider the attitudes of the Global Occult Coalition and other countries. Large-scale migration implies abandonment of Earth, and allowing anomalous events to ravage our territories while being irresponsible to the other populace in the world."
"There’s also Demon Prison to consider. If the Killing Game will enhance mutations globally, Demon Prison could evolve again. According to the front line exploration team’s report, Demon Prison has already begun to show monsters selected for promotion by the Killing Game, among which players have appeared..."
The discussion reverberated through the meeting room; it was merely the first stage of the discussion,
this version update of the Killing Game determines the fate of human civilization,
every action must be cautious, cautious, and more cautious.
Information needs to be gathered, all intelligence collected as much as possible, combining opinions from think tanks and the populace, before making any painstaking final decisions,
even if given a half-year or a year’s time, it would still be insufficient.
Yet, right now, there are only 72 hours.
