Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 665: The Wheel of Fortune Turns

Chapter 665: Chapter 665: The Wheel of Fortune Turns

Being a player means looking down from on high?

Compared to the risks players have to take, Xu Huo felt that Nicks could show a little sympathy for him first.

In some ways, players and ordinary people are the same; players rely on their power to "pity" the weak, and perhaps in the eyes of the "weak," they are but fleeting meteors, destined only for shattered bones.

The so-called sympathy was never on the same level to begin with.

Once life itself starts being compared, the true meaning of life is doomed to be distorted.

There was no change in Nicks’s expression as he pressed the question, "In your country, there’s a saying ’what goes around comes around.’ Aren’t you worried about bringing trouble to your own country by doing this?"

The room was silent.

What answer does he want? Could it be that Country Y had unleashed the Black Rain thinking that Country X was causing trouble within their borders?

It’s just tit for tat.

Girl in the painting walked in from outside the door and waved her hand at Nicks, who was standing by the door, signaling him to get out of the way.

A murderous intent flashed in Nicks’s eyes, but he didn’t lash out. Instead, he was given a cold look by Girl in the painting.

After she entered the room, someone else spoke up from behind the door, "Remember what you said, ’what goes around comes around.’"

The energy in the room vanished, and Nicks, infuriated and embarrassed, punched a hole through the adjacent wall before striding out, grinding his teeth and muttering, "Those damn dogs!"

They indeed were a bunch of damn dogs, because when Xu Huo appeared, he clearly displayed features of a person from Country X. Before the Orchid Safety Zone’s rescue operation could even unfold, the leaders of Country Y called for an urgent meeting, proposing sanctions against Country X and the launch of a national war, determined to make Country X beg for mercy.

Only the highest leaders of Country Y and the few in charge of planning knew about the Black Rain attack. Faced with the outrage of others, they appeared somewhat dejected.

Retaliation was expected, but it came faster than anticipated. With internal troubles unresolved and an external threat now emerging, the two most robust and expansive safety zones, built with tremendous effort and resources, were gone in less than half a day. Moreover, many of those who managed to move into the safety zones early on were families of important government officials. Casualties hadn’t yet been tallied, but deaths were expected to be substantial.

"Only two people really came?" the leader asked again.

"Just two," the secretary handed over a freshly prepared report, "This attack seems to be a warning. The enemy didn’t come here with killing in mind."

With a loud "Bang!" a general slammed his hand on the table. "So many are dead, and you call it a warning?"

"The enemy could cover such a great distance in a very short time. They must have powerful spatial artifacts in hand, and it’s reported that while they were in the safety zone, our spatial artifacts were restricted and couldn’t be used. The expert team concludes that they are capable of moving between different safety zones."

"Not far from the Orchid Safety Zone is Jiwei Safety Zone, which abuts the Variant Base. They didn’t choose it."

The so-called Variant Base essentially comprised a group of individuals who were kept in confinement and mutated by Country Y. Their numbers were not small; due to frequent experiments, many of them fell into madness. The Variant toxin used in the Black Rain was extracted from them. If the intruders had destroyed the Jiwei Safety Zone, the adjacent city would have quickly fallen, and the death toll, certainly not just from collapsing buildings or burial, would have been unimaginable.

"This is our nation’s secret; the enemy couldn’t possibly know!" the general disbelieved.

The secretary brought out another document, "This is data acquired by our agents from a pioneer forum. The poster indeed received an encrypted list of our confidential facilities, among which Jiwei Safety Zone and the Variant Base were clearly marked."

"The intruder’s choice of Orchid Safety Zone had a purpose."

"Moreover, this hacker who provided us with the information went missing after releasing the list."

Most of the people in the meeting felt enraged. To them, this was not an act of mercy but a threat, a provocation!

The proposal to declare war was brought up once more.

Others objected, reasoning that their own domestic issues weren’t sorted out, and waging war might end with nothing gained.

The meeting room erupted into chaos, and at that moment, Nicks received a call. He asked straight out, "Is the Black Rain event in Jing City our doing?"

The room fell silent as eyes, both within and without the video feed, turned to the supreme leader at the head. His expression and silence said everything.

"This is their warning," Nicks spoke after a long pause, "If there’s been a first time, there will be a second. Even with our advanced artifacts, we cannot be completely defensive. Metallic safety zones aren’t reliable; we need to consider other measures."

The supreme leader assigned this task to him. By "other measures," he meant either purchasing intelligence in the game or buying appropriate artifacts from an Artifact Maker.

But artifacts of the same type are difficult to find twice, so the best course of action is to find a material that can replace the existing metals—an artifact doesn’t necessarily have the power to destroy all metals.

Hope was still within the game.

Country Y didn’t hold a reflection meeting. After a brief squabble, the decision to declare war on Country X was put on hold. The more pressing issue was to plug the leak.

However, while the government took the matter lightly, Country Y’s citizens were incited to resist. If the safety zones turned out to be such shoddy construction, how could they trust their government?

Thus, after the rescue operations in both places were completed, Country Y’s government also had to deal incessantly with domestic protests and riots; trouble lay ahead.

The happiest were the citizens of Country X. When foreign players were exposed attacking the Special Defense Department Headquarters, and especially after the subsequent rescue reports were broadcast, national hatred toward Country Y peaked. The collapse of two of Country Y’s safety zones caused jubilation online as though it were a holiday.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish, I love this swift karmic retribution!"

"I heard their safety zones were pretty luxurious, but just a glossy facade over crap—my kid has more fun with mud pies!"

"Country Y was so happy watching our troubles before, now it’s my turn to laugh!"

...

There was a plethora of schadenfreude and teasing comments, but they were soon overshadowed by analyses from savvy citizens suggesting a high likelihood that the event was orchestrated by Country X players, reaching an interesting conclusion thanks to information from foreign friends:

The act was ruthless but left room for doubt, a true Country X style!

However, with so little time, this news hadn’t been confirmed. Likewise, to protect their own country’s players, only a minority on the net hyped up this report, until the citizens of Country Y caught on and began their backlash.

Country Y’s government released a photo of Xu Huo entering the safety zone, publicly challenging the Special Defense Department. However, they didn’t take the bait; since they didn’t acknowledge capturing persons from Country Y after the Black Rain incident, how could they admit that the attack on the safety zones was the work of someone from Country X? Maybe someone was trying to stir up tension between the countries by impersonating another, right?