Kingdom of Xisiya, Saint Kisburg.
Inside a magnificent and splendid palace, a young man and a young woman stood side by side, looking at an empty, gold-plated chair in front of them.
Their facial features were similar, with the sa light blonde hair and silvery-white eyelashes, indicating they shared the sa bloodline.
At this mont, both of their expressions were extrely cold, the atmosphere frozen solid.
After a mont, the young man broke the silence first.
"Yelanka, you don't really think that spending two months at so academy in Beixing and coming back ans you can compete with , do you?"
"If you think I can't, then why did you send people to threaten my teacher?" Yelanka said coldly. "That's just a pointless extra step."
Hearing this, the young man's expression beca sowhat unnatural, and he snorted lightly. "I threaten whoever I want. What's a re teacher worth?"
"……"
Yelanka rembered that before she left, Guan Tong had specifically told her he would co to Xisiya in the future, which naturally implied he intended to settle accounts with her brother.
"But you're ruthless enough," the young man said, glancing sideways at his sister. "Without a word, you just had my people taken out, just like that."
Yelanka didn't deny it.
It was fine if he thought she was the one who eliminated them. Based on her understanding of her brother, if he knew Guan Tong was the one who killed them, he would probably just beco furious out of humiliation and act even more irrationally.
She didn't want her despicable, sinister brother to disturb Guan Tong's life again in the short term.
But she didn't admit it either.
Because Rule Thirteen wasn't over yet. During the rule period, she couldn't lie and risk failing the challenge.
Fortunately, her brother wasn't that smart. Seeing her remain silent, he took it as her tacit admission.
"It was Sigorkin who helped you, wasn't it? That woman… I'll make sure she knows who she should truly be loyal to sooner or later!"
Thud, thud, thud.
At that mont, a heavy, rhythmic sound of footsteps ca from outside the door.
Hearing the sound, the young man imdiately shut his mouth, straightened his posture, and stared fixedly ahead.
The owner of the footsteps soon walked up to the two of them and sat down on the gold-plated chair.
This was a middle-aged man with a crew cut. His layer of light blonde hair complented the gold-plated chair beneath him.
But the most striking thing about the man was his face.
One half was quite handso, while the other half was covered in ugly burn scars.
"Yelanka, Lijeka," the man spoke.
"Father," the two responded in unison.
"Next year, my duties will be handed over to one of you. Whoever wants to withdraw, now is the last chance."
Lijeka answered without hesitation. "Father, you know I will never withdraw."
"Neither will I, Father," Yelanka said.
"Yelanka, didn't you hear what Father said? This is the last chance to choose to withdraw!" Lijeka said forcefully. "If you don't withdraw now, I won't show you any rcy afterwards, even if you are my sister."
"That's exactly what I want to say to you, brother," Yelanka retorted. "If you don't withdraw now, I won't show rcy afterwards either."
"Good, very good." A cold glint flashed in Lijeka's eyes. "Then let's see who will be the winner."
Their father listened expressionlessly and nodded. "Since no one chooses to withdraw, then from today onward, the competition between you officially begins. The winner, on January 1st next year, will formally sit on this chair. As for the loser…"
The father looked at his son and daughter separately. "You should know where to go."
"Yes, the loser will be exiled to Sennantata. We understand," Lijeka said.
Sennantata was the extre cold region of the Kingdom of Xisiya, a place where almost nothing grew. Only a very few people lived there, spending their days with bitter winds and solid ice.
The father stood up and left.
After he left, Lijeka turned his head and sneered. "Sister, I think you'd better prepare in advance. Life in Sennantata won't be easy!"
Yelanka ignored him, giving him a faint glance before turning and walking away.
Lijeka watched her back as she walked away, the sneer on his face turning gloomy.
"Daring to compete with
for the heir's position, even if you are my sister…"
He looked at the empty gold-plated chair, the greed in his eyes almost overflowing. Suppressing the impulse to sit on it, he quickly left the palace and got into a black sedan waiting outside.
Seeing Lijeka's expression in the rearview mirror, the driver spoke up. "Lord Lijeka, judging by your expression, your sister probably hasn't given up, has she?"
"Hmph. That overconfident little thing actually dares to compete with !"
"Allow
to remind you, even if you are confident, you absolutely must not be careless. Just from your sister's willingness to travel a long distance to study at the Beixing Academy, you can see she is determined to win and won't admit defeat easily."
Lijeka's face darkened, and he looked up at the driver.
This man with a small mustache was both his driver and his advisor, his most trusted subordinate.
"Gaeljin, do you have any ideas?"
"The simplest thod is often the most direct one," Gaeljin said. "That is to make your sister unable to compete with you."
Lijeka's heart stirred. "You an… kill her?"
Gaeljin smiled and shook his head. "Lord Lijeka, she is still your sister, after all. And if you kill her, your father wouldn't be pleased, would he?"
Lijeka understood. "So you an, as long as she's injured badly enough to be incapable of participating in the competition."
Gaeljin smiled in tacit agreent.
"But… that damned woman Sigorkin is on her side, providing protection. That will be troubleso," Lijeka said, frowning. "You know her strength. She's one of the most powerful Ascendants in all of Xisiya."
"Please rest assured on that point," Gaeljin said. "As long as we plan carefully and find the right opportunity to separate the two of them, it will be fine."
"Hmm… Then let's do it that way. Gaeljin, you arrange this matter, but I want to know every detail!"
"As you wish, Lord Lijeka."
……
"The rule is about to end. Shouldn't we find soone to establish a contract?"
As ti reached the end of October, the final period of Rule Thirteen, people who had been silent for many days began to beco slightly more active for the sake of the "Truth Oath."
This hidden intelligence, announced by the authorities at the very beginning of the rule's release, was sothing people hadn't forgotten—the temptation of "double rewards" was still great.
Moreover, after the hidden intelligence was made public, people quickly found the optimal solution. That was to wait until the final period of the rule, even the last day, the last hour, the last minute, to establish the contract, minimizing the possibility of failure as much as possible.
Now, with only a few days left before the rule ended, even if the contract was to be established on the last day, one had to find a partner to establish it with in these few days.
Otherwise, if you got to the last day ready to establish it and found you couldn't find anyone, or the person you wanted to find had already made arrangents with soone else, it would be awkward.
So, in these final days, people began looking for partners and making arrangents regarding the contract establishnt through various channels.
The best candidates were, of course, family and friends. Unfortunately, many people were now alone, their family and friends all having failed to survive the previous dozen or so rules.
This wasn't an isolated case, but a common phenonon.
Especially since many families only had one child. After the Doomsday Rules descended, middle-aged and elderly parents mostly passed away during the first rule, leaving a single young adult child alone in this world, pitifully isolated.
Furthermore, in the era of the Doomsday Rules, making friends wasn't easy. Firstly, everyone was wary. Secondly, a friend made today might be gone tomorrow due to the next rule. After a few tis like that, even the most optimistic person would beco withdrawn.
So now, many people could only leave ssages for each other online, agreeing on a ti and place to et and establish the Truth Oath.
The academy where Guan Tong was located was relatively convenient in this matter.
Students in the sa dormitory attended classes and relaxed together every day, knew each other well, and were naturally the most suitable candidates to pair up and establish contracts.
Of course, there were also so who didn't get along.
During the last Academic Affairs Office eting, Guan Tong heard a teacher ntion that during this rule period, quite a few students had already applied to change dorms because conflicts caused by the rule had beco irreconcilable.
As for Guan Tong himself, because he had already decided early on not to establish a contract with anyone, he wasn't very concerned about this matter.
However, what he didn't expect was that a public opinion storm related to the Truth Oath was rapidly fernting with the speed of a wildfire, and its source was right in his Ascendant Ho forum.
……
On October 29th, a post was published in the Casual Chat section.
The title was: "I Was Scamd! Is Intentionally Making Others Fail Their Challenge Allowed?!"
Within just a few minutes of being posted, the post's popularity skyrocketed, and the number of replies surged wildly.
The reason was related to the content of the main post.
The post's content was as follows: "I arranged with soone online to establish a Truth Oath. After eting offline and completing the contract establishnt ceremony, that person suddenly told
they had already told a lie before, violating the rule. And then they said a sentence to my face, the exact words were: 'I am a cow.'
This person is human, not a cow. Him saying this ant he lied after the contract was established, which ant my double reward was gone just like that! I don't even know if I'll be implicated and fail the rule challenge.
After saying it, that person was very smug and arrogant, saying he hadn't broken any laws and wasn't afraid of anyone—I want to ask, is no one going to deal with this kind of person? Do the official authorities allow this kind of person to run rampant?!"
Below the main post was a large amount of support and shared grievances.
"There are people like this? They really deserve to die!"
"My heart aches for the poster, actually running into this kind of scum and trash…"
"Ahhh! I ran into one like this too! They also told
after establishing the contract that they had already told a lie!!!"
"Seriously, isn't this kind of behavior dealt with by the authorities?"
"I checked the legal database. There are no relevant legal provisions yet, so it's not a cri…"
"Harming others, making them fail their challenge and suffer rule punishnt, how is that not a cri? If it's a survival-type rule, what's the difference between doing this and intentional murder!"
"Strongly support the poster and everyone with similar experiences filing reports!"
"Let's all speak up together, bump this post, let the authorities see our stance!"
The righteous indignation of countless people caused the post's popularity to rapidly climb to number one on the entire website.
When Guan Tong saw it on the shelter computer that evening, he also felt that people who did such things were truly detestable.
Others might not know the second part of the hidden rule, but he knew it very well.
If two people established a Truth Oath, and one of them lied while the other didn't. Then after the rule ended, the lying party would receive triple rewards, while the other party would suffer failure punishnt.
If the other person also lied, then neither would receive rewards, and both would suffer failure punishnt.
But the problem was, for the person who didn't want to lie, there was no choice at all—once the other party to the contract lied, regardless of whether you lied or not, you were destined to suffer failure punishnt after the rule ended.
This tyrannical regulation was completely like the Fire Thief telling you in the cruelest way possible: how painful the price is for trusting the wrong person.
And this was also the reason Guan Tong chose not to establish a contract with anyone.
However, the experiences of the original poster, and even others in the post, had subtle differences.
That was, the people who chose to deceive had already told lies before the contract was established.
The reason they chose to deceive was precisely because they had already violated the rule, so they held a kind of "since the jar is already broken, drag one down with " drowning-ghost ntality, pulling others into the water.
In this way, because they had lied before, even if the other party to the contract didn't lie, after the rule ended, they wouldn't get triple rewards but would suffer failure punishnt.
There were no winners at all, only losers.
Guan Tong originally thought that as long as he kept the second part of the hidden rule undisclosed, he could prevent people from harming each other for high profits.
But now it seed he had still underestimated how low the bottom line of so humanoid creatures could be.
All he could do at this mont was feature this post and pin it to the top of all sections. To let as many people as possible know about the existence of this kind of behavior and avoid suffering similar harm.
At the sa ti, he had another purpose in doing this, which was to increase the influence of this matter and amplify the spread of information.
Just like the users in the post comnts calling for the authorities to punish the scamrs, he also believed that the relevant official departnts should take action.
If they let it go with the excuse of "no relevant legal provisions," it would only encourage the arrogance of these people and make the already nearly vanished trust between people even more fragnted.
This might be what the Fire Thief hoped to see, but it was definitely not what humanity as a whole hoped to see.
With the fanning of the flas by Guan Tong, the Administrator, the information from this post spread rapidly to every corner of the internet, becoming a hot topic of discussion both online and offline that very night.
Even many Ascendants who had originally planned to establish a Truth Oath with soone on the last day, after seeing this matter, were all scared into canceling their plans—who knew if the person they had arranged with would do sothing similar?
Except for a few companions who absolutely trusted each other, most arrangents with ordinary friends or strangers were put on hold.
Once a chain of suspicion begins to form, without strong external intervention, it basically cannot be stopped.
This external force could only be provided by the authorities.
The characteristic of the Beixing authorities reacting quickly to public opinion was once again demonstrated.
Early the next morning on the 30th, several official accounts simultaneously issued statents, stating they would severely crack down on behavior that intentionally caused others to fail their rule challenges. As long as evidence was submitted and confird to be accurate, these people would be arrested and charged/sentenced according to the severity of the consequences!
Although the statents were issued quickly, the effect wasn't particularly outstanding.
Unless you had prepared a recording in advance and the other party carelessly stated their evil actions, it was very difficult to secure evidence solid enough to submit…
Thus, the originally planned "Contract Establishnt Day" on the final day of the rule instead transford into a "Suspicion Confirmation Day."
A large number of Ascendants made the sa choice as Guan Tong on this day. To ensure they absolutely did not violate the rule, they were willing to give up the double reward and abandoned establishing a contract with others…
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