[Three-City World] Method of Salvation

At that moment, in King City, the prime minister, who stood above all but one, was in a foul mood.

So far, not a single participant from King City had returned.

King City had rigid class barriers, but its upper echelon knew how to win people over and had firmly secured the loyalty of the ability users who truly wielded power.

But that had also created a fatal problem: civilians with no ability to defend themselves were quickly devoured by the anomalies in the Instances, while the lofty ability users cared only about protecting themselves and had no interest in exploring.

Such a team naturally could not meet the requirements of a high-level Instance with newly added special clearance conditions.

After realizing that the Instances had "clearance conditions other than survival," their analysis team had reviewed the entire livestream.

The outcome was utterly bleak. This time, King City would probably come away empty-handed.

In the past, getting nothing from an Instance had been no great trouble. At worst, they could tighten their hold on resources and get through it by letting a wave of ignorant commoners starve. But this time, that was absolutely out of the question.

Not long ago, a bone-deep sense of terror and urgency had descended without warning upon everyone in the Three-City World.

It was a warning from the will of the world.

A true catastrophe was coming.

Immediately afterward, anomalous Instances had begun opening in rapid succession, far exceeding those of the past in both number and difficulty, and unprecedented Instance livestreams had appeared at the same time.

The string of abnormalities all pointed to a disturbing future.

Then, yesterday, the King of Embers had been the first to return from an Instance, bringing news enough to set all three cities on edge.

Participants who cleared an Instance this time could bring back clues about a "Method of Salvation"!

At that thought, the prime minister of King City looked at the young, handsome King of Embers on the screen and ground his teeth in hatred.

He had wanted to take advantage of the Holy City participants' recent return, before they understood the situation, to wheedle some useful information out of them. But this man had just had to intervene and spoil everything!

Why? He clearly knew that the "Method of Salvation" another city obtained should benefit Ember City too, whether by giving them something to compare against their own or another option to choose from. Why was he getting in the way?

On the screen, the King of Embers paid no attention to the prime minister's venomous glare. He looked straight through the screen at Ren Yi.

"Mr. Mo Ming, is it? You returned in such a hurry that I imagine your pope hasn't had time to explain the current situation. How about I fill you in?"

As he spoke, he sat up a little straighter. His previously flippant expression vanished entirely, replaced by a grave seriousness.

"The world has given us all an extremely grim warning. The anomalous Instances have presented special circumstances never seen before, and Mutant Beast activity has grown increasingly frequent... The apocalypse really is coming."

His fingertips tapped softly on the tabletop, the steady knocking especially clear in the silent hall.

"The apocalypse?" Ren Yi immediately put on a puzzled expression. "Your... Majesty the Ember King, haven't we been living in the apocalypse for a long time already?"

The pope beside him turned to glance at him, his gaze calm. He neither spoke nor stopped him, evidently allowing him to handle it as he saw fit.

On the screen, the Ember King slowly shook his head, his tone grave. "This is different from the calamity thirty years ago that wiped out the previous civilization. Last time, it only gave rise to Mutant Beasts and destroyed technological civilization..."

He paused, then stressed each word: "This time, after the apocalypse, nothing will be left."

"By 'nothing,' I mean us humans, Mutant Beasts, every city, even the ground beneath our feet, the plants, the bricks and stones, the planet we depend on for survival, and the entire world."

"I can't say exactly how the destruction will happen. I only know it's all connected to that auxiliary rule in the Instances. You... must have seen that rule being enforced with your own eyes too, right?"

Too?

A flicker passed almost imperceptibly through Ren Yi's eyes. Then he nodded without betraying anything.

Seeing Ren Yi nod, the King of Embers continued.

"Then you should know what 'Blank' looks like, and you should understand that when I say 'nothing will be left,' I'm not exaggerating in the least."

At that moment, over in King City, the brat of a king who had been ignored all this time finally lost patience. Frowning, he interrupted.

"You two, what are you being so cryptic about? Humanity is bound together. Shouldn't you explain it to us as well?"

The moment he said "humanity is bound together," even the Ember King, whose expression had been calm until then, fell silent, an indescribably mocking look on his face.

Ren Yi stole a sidelong glance at the pope beside him and saw that the old pope's graying beard had tilted slightly upward. He was clearly holding back laughter.

The awkward silence lasted a moment. In the end, the Ember King sighed first and began to explain.

"Although the participants' panels can't be seen on the livestream... didn't your King City have the participants entering the Instance pass information along as it came in?"

Ignoring the somewhat strange expressions on the council members' faces in King City's feed, he rubbed his throbbing temples and went on.

"Unlike the rules that had to be found inside the Instances in the past, this time all participants received a special rule through their panels: [Do not feel pain together with others]."

"Based on my observations, the hidden condition of this rule should be [Do not feel the same pain together with others]."

"Your Majesty the Ember King," the pope suddenly spoke up, taking over at just the right moment.

"The rule you mentioned must be what caused participants to suddenly dissolve in most of the trials, correct?"

Ren Yi glanced at the pope.

The old fellow had probably known all along too. By suddenly chiming in to play the straight man, he was likely hinting that Ren Yi could take an active part in the discussion.

"That's right, but I should add that they didn't suddenly dissolve." Ren Yi spoke up of his own accord.

"For those of us inside the Instances, time seemed to stop the instant the rule was triggered."

"We could only watch helplessly as the person who broke the rule melted away bit by bit. Those of you watching the livestream from outside probably couldn't feel that sense of suffocation."

He deliberately put some of the dissatisfaction of someone in a lower position into his voice.

"So what?" King City's little king muttered, his face full of indifference. "It wasn't painful anyway. If you ask me, it was much gentler than that anomaly with the big blade, and the Blood-Melting Swamp..."

"You only need to remember that once this rule is triggered, there's no room to resist whatsoever." The Ember King cut him off without ceremony, his voice cold.

"No matter who it is, anyone who breaks it will become a patch of 'Blank.'"

Ren Yi raised an eyebrow. "Your Majesty the Ember King, do you mean that you witnessed this rule being enforced with your own eyes too?"

"Of course," the Ember King replied coolly, his gaze unruffled.

"I was also one of the participants who entered an Instance this time. I simply chose not to stay inside and returned as soon as I confirmed I'd cleared it."

Just as I thought.

Ren Yi understood.

The king of Ember City was probably one of the few participants who had genuinely cleared an Instance this time. He might even be the only one who had truly met the clearance conditions.

That meant he had managed to escape an Instance overseen by at least an adult anomaly of C-rank or higher, even though the information available to his side had been maliciously concealed.

He did not believe any anomaly would show mercy once the Calamity had begun.

It seemed that the King of Embers had likely secured his position for reasons beyond the system and his bloodline. He himself was probably highly capable, perhaps even an exceptionally powerful ability user.

However, Ren Yi was not in the same city as the Ember King, so he was not worried.

No matter how powerful the Ember King was, he could not survive the Calamity sweeping everything away.

This outstanding king and his people had only seven days left to live.

The Ember King did not know that Ren Yi had already sentenced him to death in his mind, and continued.

"The reward for clearing the Instance this time was a single piece of information." He stared into Ren Yi's eyes, as though trying to catch every flicker in them.

"Method of Salvation," he said, enunciating each word.

"A way to survive the coming apocalypse."

"Mr. Mo Ming, what Method of Salvation did you receive?"