In the lobby of Heilu County Hospital.

The arrival of the unfamiliar young man took everyone present completely by surprise.

And after the young man shouted, "I am Ka Xiu!", some of them quickly realized what was happening, and the looks they gave the stranger grew even more peculiar.

Complaining online, and someone actually came to intervene?

Gao Xinjian frowned, eyeing the unfamiliar young man warily. "No matter who you are or where you came from, you'd better leave quickly. Don't meddle in our business here."

"If I weren't here to meddle, why would I have come all this way?"

This young man, who looked to be in his twenties, was precisely Guan Tong, who had used the [Passerby Transformation Device]. After seeing the plea for help posted online by "Ka Xiu," he had decided to come and resolve the situation.

Because he simply couldn't stand this kind of thing. If he hadn't known about it, that would be one thing. But since he did know, and the victim was a user of his website asking him, the Administrator, for help, then he would come and fix the problem.

Hearing Guan Tong's words, Gao Xinjian's large face darkened. "You really insist on meddling? Don't forget there are dozens of us here. You'd better weigh the consequences carefully."

In the past, when encountering an unfriendly stranger, Gao Xinjian wouldn't waste so many words. He'd simply have a few of his men take action directly.

But this time was different. He had glanced at that post roughly. He believed anyone who came to meddle in this affair must be an expert, because ordinary people simply wouldn't dare and wouldn't have the ability to intervene.

Moreover, the fact that this young man dared to come alone proved he definitely had some skills. Gao Xinjian didn't want to take risks. He just wanted to use their numbers to scare him off, avoiding the uncertain factors that might arise if a fight broke out.

Guan Tong ignored Gao Xinjian's threat. He looked at the restrained young man and asked him directly, "You are Ka Xiu? Is this man threatening me the 'boss' you mentioned in your post? And these men holding you down, are they his accomplices and underlings?"

"That's right!" the young man surnamed Wang shouted. "It's them!"

"Shut your mouth!"

Gao Xinjian barked a low command, then suddenly turned with a smile plastered on his face and walked towards Guan Tong.

"Friend from out of town, there's no need for things to be so tense, is there? There might be some misunderstanding here. Let's talk things through clearly first before..."

Halfway through his sentence, as he reached Guan Tong, Gao Xinjian's eyes abruptly changed. An item appeared in his hand.

Thud!

The moment that item materialized, before Gao Xinjian could even use it, a pair of shadow blades pierced through his chest.

He looked down at his chest in disbelief, his face already full of terror, blood spilling from his mouth. "No... impossible... you..."

After the shadow blades extending from Guan Tong's wrists completed their attack, they immediately shot towards the several men restraining Ka Xiu.

As Gao Xinjian's underlings, witnessing his death had utterly terrified them. Some turned and ran, some stood frozen in place, and others tried to fight back. But the result was the same for all—they all died by the shadow blades.

All of this happened in just a few short seconds. Before the others even realized what was happening, Gao Xinjian and his few underlings were all lying on the ground, staining the floor beneath them red.

"Ah!"

Someone let out a shriek, but was immediately muffled by the person next to them.

Everyone looked at the unfamiliar young man in horror. The latter pulled up the equally stunned Ka Xiu, who was still sprawled on the floor.

Then, Guan Tong spoke to him and the others. "The challenge projects you've already created can't be revoked. Your Mind Power will probably diminish somewhat. But the people controlling you are gone now. Things like this won't happen in the future."

"Th-thank you... You saw my post? May I ask..."

The young man whose online alias was "Ka Xiu" stammered excitedly. Guan Tong patted his shoulder, said nothing more, and turned to leave.

"If anyone wants to take on Gao Xinjian's role, the next one to fall will be that person. So, you all figure it out yourselves."

Everyone watched as the young man finished speaking and left. They remained somewhat dazed even after he disappeared through the doorway.

If not for the still-warm corpses on the ground reminding them this was all real, they would have surely thought it was more like a dream.

It took a long while for the crowd to gradually accept reality. The young man mustered his courage and spoke up. "Everyone, you all heard what that expert said... We, we need to unite from now on. No one can use violence to coerce anyone else again!"

"Yeah, we absolutely cannot have another Gao Xinjin!"

"What a ruthless character. He took out several people without even batting an eye!"

"Hey, Xiao Wang, do you know him?"

Someone asked. The young man shook his head.

"No, I don't. He's probably a kind-hearted expert living nearby who saw my post and came specifically to help." Inspired, the young man felt his heart surge with emotion. "When I get the chance in the future, I want to go help others too!"

Exiting the county hospital, Guan Tong stood at the entrance.

He thought to himself, having traveled over a thousand kilometers, even though he came to help someone, it wouldn't do to make the trip for nothing.

After Gao Xinjian's death, the first-place rankings in all his challenges would default to the person in second place.

The problem was, these challenges had no second place.

Because the challenge location was restricted to the entrance of this county hospital, the only actual challenger was Gao Xinjian himself.

And those challenges were: "Challenge to race the speed of moving XXX meters by riding a bicycle only, without using any other items or abilities, at the entrance of Heilu County Hospital in Ganlin City."

Racing the speed of moving a certain distance by riding a bicycle only...

Guan Tong pondered, summoned his Shadow, and had it transform into a bicycle. Then he got on and rode it.

Moving at maximum speed, within just a few seconds, the first-place rankings for over a dozen custom-tailored challenge projects made for Gao Xinjian were all transferred to Guan Tong.

"I didn't think it would actually work..."

Guan Tong had only been trying it out, unsure if a bicycle transformed by his Shadow counted as a bicycle. It seemed now that it did.

Looking at the dozen-plus new first-place rankings he'd gained at once, instead of feeling joy or excitement, what he felt more at this moment was a deep, heavy darkness.

Nothing could more directly illustrate the horror of the provider system than this.

If such phenomena were allowed to exist, perhaps this single rule alone wouldn't change much. But once this system was established, if similar rules appeared later, the result would be the same.

Then, the value of ordinary Ascendants would be quickly drained, turning them into "supplies" for the supported individuals.

The final result would be that within various organizations, an extremely small number of supported individuals would possess overwhelmingly powerful strength, capable of rivaling thousands of Ascendants.

Whether such a world would be good or bad? No one could say for sure.

Some might think this is the inevitable trend of the Doomsday Rules era, while others would firmly oppose it.

They feel that if the world becomes a world belonging to just a few, or a few dozen, of the most powerful Ascendants, then what difference does it make whether the world is destroyed or not?

As for Guan Tong's own thoughts on the matter, even he couldn't clearly articulate them.

It's just that for people like Gao Xinjian, and even those who kidnap and imprison others, he wouldn't let a single one go if he found them.

"Body Swap."

With matters here resolved, Guan Tong activated his ability and instantly returned to Mingdao Mountain.

While waiting for his Shadow to be recalled, he opened his computer.

On the website, in that provider post, "Ka Xiu" had already updated his comment.

"An expert really came to save us! A million thanks! I hope someone will also go help with the situations other providers have posted!"

Guan Tong silently closed the post and noticed another highly popular casual chat post had appeared on the homepage.

The Suroma Empire Can't Withstand Public Pressure, Officially Announces Manhunt for the Murderous Devil Lucifer!

Guan Tong didn't really pay much attention to foreign people or affairs, with the sole exception of this "Lucifer." He was somewhat concerned about him.

The reason, naturally, was because the two had clashed on Holy Grail Island. This Lucifer's "Fallen Angel Wings" could easily slice through his Shadow, leaving a very deep impression on him.

But now, after his Shadow's toughness had increased in its smaller form, he didn't know if those wings could still cut through it.

If given the chance, Guan Tong really wanted to test it. But currently, it seemed there was no such opportunity. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Post body: "OP is in the capital of the Suroma Empire. After several large-scale protests erupted, the Senate finally couldn't withstand the pressure, completely changed its previous stance, and officially declared the Ascendant 'Lucifer' a serial murderer, issuing a warrant and bounty for him.

According to rumors from unofficial sources, this Lucifer was spotted in a border city. After killing many people, he fled beyond the empire's territory. Some speculate he's going into the wilderness to kill, while others guess he received recruitment offers from other countries. Specific details will be updated when OP receives the latest news!"

Guan Tong glanced at it. The reason the post was so popular was mainly directly related to Lucifer's challenge. After all, creating a challenge based on the number of people killed was far too extreme and anti-human; it was impossible not to attract widespread attention.

Moreover, he also noticed a current trend online: the "celebrification" of Ascendants.

Some well-known Ascendants were being discussed with very high frequency.

His own identity as "Shadow" was one of them. Even though he had never appeared publicly and there was no related information about him, it didn't stop people from eagerly discussing and speculating about him in various ways.

Additionally, Guan Tong saw many posts about "Shi Jingyi," mostly posted by academy students. Many titles were things like "Dream Teacher," "Teacher is so beautiful, I love her so much," etc., which also left him speechless.

Then there was "Snow Traces." Because of its cool mecha, it was also discussed by many Ascendants.

Another reason for its high popularity was that, unlike Shadow and Shi Jingyi who didn't speak online, the ID "Snow Traces" was practically a hardcore internet enthusiast, posting a lot of things every day on various social platforms, and without even using alternate accounts—all under the same nickname.

These relatively famous Ascendants would appear on trending searches every few days. Guan Tong found it a bit strange several times, always feeling like the authorities might be intentionally using an invisible hand to promote them.

After all, the online environment was also part of wartime management. It was impossible for this content on the trending lists to have passed without review. Having review and these trending topics could only mean they were deliberately pushing the popularity of celebrity Ascendants.

Guan Tong didn't know if the authorities had some plan. For now, he still needed to focus on obtaining more first-place rankings and keep an eye on the Providers post, aiming to destroy as many domestic wilderness provider systems as possible within the rule period.

However, he wasn't doing this out of guilt or a desire to make amends.

He didn't feel that sense of guilt—"because I sold the related intelligence, which led to this situation appearing."

That's right. Because of the leak of the Hidden Rule, many groups started acting inhumane. But at the same time, this exposed their evil and existence to the sunlight, making many providers brave enough to reveal the truth.

Whether this matter was more right or wrong, Guan Tong himself couldn't judge, nor did he care about others' judgments.

He only knew that evil not being exposed doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If he could use this opportunity to eliminate as many provider systems as possible, it would absolutely be a good thing for the vast number of ordinary Ascendants.