That was right. The city skyline the Moon Key had drawn was none other than Guan Tong’s hometown: Yunhua City! That was why it felt so familiar. And the large smokestack was the towering one in the city’s industrial park.
"What did you say I would discover in this city?" Guan Tong asked, looking up at the Moon Key.
"That is what the Prophecy says."
"So that’s how it is."
Guan Tong never imagined that this affair would lead him back to his hometown, Yunhua.
He hadn’t returned to that city in a very long time.
Besides, he remembered that Yunhua, being a coastal city, had been swept away and destroyed by a massive tsunami during the "Earth Dragon Flipping Over" Rule Stage...
Guan Tong folded the sketch and put it in his pocket. "Thanks," he said to the Moon Key. "I’ll head over there as soon as I can. I’m also going to try and contact Adam. Do you have a direct way to reach him?"
The only way he could contact Adam was by sending a private message to his account on Ascender’s Home, which was nowhere near as direct as a phone call.
"I don’t have a phone," the Moon Key said calmly.
"...I can see that."
Judging by the fact that she still lived in a log cabin with barely any appliances, he could tell she was the type who preferred a life with less modern technology.
"In that case, I’ll come back and tell you if I make any progress."
"I’m about to leave Xinyue City. If you need to find me in the future, go to the Argan Grassland."
Guan Tong was surprised. "You’re leaving? Does that mean you won’t be taking commissions anymore?"
The only reason he’d been able to find her was because the Moon Key’s address was publicly listed on the commission website. Many people had sought her out, which was a major reason for her fame.
The Moon Key gazed at her Crystal Ball. "I have seen too many futures. Now, I wish to see the present. There are tribes on the Argan Grassland who revere a natural way of life. I will go and join them."
The Argan Grassland... Guan Tong had heard of it. It was a vast tropical savanna in the far east of the world, home not only to a great number of wild animals, but also to several tribes.
Although Guan Tong found the idea of a modern person living a tribal life hard to accept, he understood the Moon Key’s choice.
"Alright. Well, goodbye then."
After Guan Tong left, the Moon Key raised her left hand and looked at her broken index finger. She whispered, "Is Shadow’s future a taboo? Just to prophesize one small thing related to him, I have to pay the price of a broken finger... What in the world is his future tied to?"
...
In the past, people always celebrated at the end of a Rule Stage.
Especially after the most dangerous survival-type Rules, people would rejoice at having survived another ordeal, often erupting into wild celebrations.
Governments around the world welcomed this, seeing it as a way for the public to blow off steam. Otherwise, after living so long in such an oppressive atmosphere, people who weren’t killed by the Rules might be driven to extremes by depression and despair—something that had happened more than a few times.
But after this Rule Stage ended, the revelry wasn’t nearly as intense as usual. This was because several pieces of bad news were weighing on people’s minds.
For instance, the Parasite legion’s counterattack on the coalition base had killed a massive number of soldiers. This sent shockwaves through the civilian populations of the Human Federation’s member states, and the public once again felt a deep sense of dread and fear toward the Parasites, whom they had come to see as a negligible threat.
Then there was the destruction of Dream Ship One.
The Human Federation had made numerous attempts to communicate with Robert, but he refused to change his mind. Left with no other choice, the Federation ultimately decided to launch multiple missiles and destroy the spacecraft.
Once this was made public, people learned that the original cause of the astronauts’ deaths was related to the Crimson Fear. The fact that "the power of a Rule can deploy and take effect before the Rule itself is announced"—a piece of information high-level officials had known for days—began to circulate widely.
But what terrified humanity most was the news about the Demon Race.
The Human Federation hadn’t planned on releasing this intelligence anytime soon, but an internal leak forced them to publicly acknowledge it. However, the Federation made it clear that the information about the "Demon Race" was entirely Robert’s uncorroborated account, and its veracity was yet to be determined.
Unfortunately, this addendum had little effect. People were stunned to learn that the entity behind the Crimson Fear was merely a single individual of another race. The fact that this race had also threatened to find humanity’s home world and exact revenge terrified them even more.
A single "individual" had been enough to make humans too scared to look at Terra Star or even go online. If the entire "Demon Race" came for them, wouldn’t humanity be completely doomed?
After the Human Federation released its statement, a deluge of related information began to circulate online.
This information primarily did two things: it hyped up the terror of the "Demon Race," and it mentioned that the Crimson Fear had been dispelled a day before the Rule Stage’s official end by an Ascender.
When these two pieces of information were combined, a new line of reasoning emerged and began to spread like wildfire online.
"Who the hell did this? Why kill the ’demon’ ahead of time?! Aren’t they just bringing disaster down on Celestial Water Star!"
"Exactly! The Rule Stage was going to end in one more day anyway. Why do something so stupid and unnecessary? Great, now the ’demon’ is dead, and its whole race is coming for revenge! What are we supposed to do?!"
"If the Demon Race wanted revenge, they should have gone after the Fire Thief. But now that we humans killed this ’demon’, they’re obviously going to come after us... I’m so pissed off..."
Countless similar comments flooded all the major social media platforms.
On one anonymous site, someone even posted a crucial piece of information.
"Just a rumor, no guarantees it’s true. Heard the one who killed the ’demon’ and ended the Rule Stage early was North Star’s ’Shadow.’ Yeah, that Shadow God..."
The moment the name "Shadow" was connected with the incident, the controversy exploded.
Previously, online public opinion about Shadow had been mixed. But considering he had saved many people on several occasions, the positive reviews generally outweighed the negative. The criticism was mainly focused on the times he had caused massive destruction and acted recklessly in other countries.
But with this latest incident, public opinion took a sharp nosedive. A torrent of voices denouncing him erupted across all major platforms.
Even on Ascender’s Home, a forum with a huge fanbase for Shadow, numerous posts appeared questioning his actions.
One post titled "Did Shadow Protect Us, or Did He Bring Calamity?" garnered over ten thousand replies shortly after being published.
The OP wrote: "Admittedly, Shadow God and the Human Federation, who assisted him, may have had good intentions. But looking at the outcome, it seems this is a case of good intentions leading to a terrible result.
Whether the Rule Stage ended a day sooner or later wouldn’t have made a big difference to humanity. But if ending it one day early means earning the hatred of a powerful alien race, that’s a disastrously bad trade. For all his good intentions, Shadow God might have just doomed the entire human race! Don’t we ordinary Ascenders get any say in this?"
The earliest replies, based on their timestamps, were posted shortly after the thread was created. Most of them supported the OP and angrily denounced Shadow.
"Yeah, Shadow probably got his kicks doing this, but now the entire human race might have to go down with him!"
"What were the officials thinking, anyway? Why would they agree to something like this?"
"I really don’t get it. Why can’t everyone just play by the rules and clear the challenge properly? Why do they have to find some cheap exploit to break the Rules the Fire Thief set up?! How can humans challenge a god-like being like the Fire Thief? This is just asking for disaster!"
"It’s just like in a video game. Some players don’t follow the intended path and insist on using glitches and exploits for a cheap clear. But have they ever thought about what happens if their glitch-abusing crashes the whole game? All the other players are screwed, too!"
"If all of humanity has to pay the price for Shadow’s actions, I refuse to accept it! He can’t be the one to reap the benefits while we all share the consequences. Since when is that fair?!"
"I agree! Shadow’s the one who stirred up this mess; it has nothing to do with us regular people. If the ’Demon Race’ really does show up, we should make it clear to them. Every wrong has a perpetrator, and every debt has a debtor. They should go find their real enemy for revenge, not harm the rest of us!"