Chapter 3099: I Was Praising You
The game panel had already opened, allowing players to communicate with each other. Without answering Xu Huo's question, Ding Xiang was about to contact Yi Lan when two players appeared on another reef nearby.
Their cold, heavy expressions quickly dimmed the light that had just lit up in Ding Xiang's eyes. Before she could speak, one of them said, "Your mission has failed."
"How could it be..." Ding Xiang's voice faltered. In her view, although Xu Huo had forcefully broken out, the hyperdimensional device had never been activated from start to finish. This meant the intelligent entities on the island hadn't judged the situation as requiring a self-destruct protocol, so the data stored in the terminals naturally wouldn't be compromised.
But she worked in the Inspection Department and wasn't truly ignorant. Seeing the expressions of her two superiors, she suddenly understood. The Inspection Department's investigation of Challenge Island might not have been intended to actually destroy the place. Perhaps in their view, the value of this research data far outweighed everything else. Somehow, the degeneration research had been published on the terminal devices issued to them on Challenge Island. Now every player who had landed on the island knew what was going on, and Challenge Island naturally couldn't continue to exist.
Thinking of this, her expression also turned cold. She asked, "Has Yi Lan come out?"
The two remained expressionless. "Your mission is over. Don't concern yourself with what happens next. Just return to report."
"It's a pity about those who came before you," Xu Huo said. "After all these years, they still maintain the posture of their deaths, permanently sealed on the island."
"I wonder if, at the moment of their deaths, they were thinking of the Inspection Department, or if the threat of death made them regret their choices."
The expressions of the three people present were all grim, but the two from the Inspection Department had no intention of dealing with Xu Huo. Xu Huo wasn't from Zone 025. Now that the sealing device was destroyed, their small force certainly couldn't detain him. Besides, the mission had already failed. The Inspection Department needed to withdraw quickly without getting entangled.
"Report to the Inspection Department within a day." After saying this, the two vanished from their spot.
Ding Xiang didn't leave. She seemed to have suffered a tremendous shock and didn't know how to react for a moment.
Leaving aside their minor incident, Challenge Island itself was in an uproar because of the content that had popped up on the terminals.
Players near the cross-zone barrier were the first to learn that something was wrong on the island, but most players were struggling in different areas and had no idea the cross-zone barrier had disappeared. So when they received the message, there was quite a commotion.
There was no other reason for it. This mocking tone clearly couldn't have come from the company, and the content was enough to shock them. Degradation experiment subjects?
So they hadn't come to the island to fight for lifelong benefits or regain their freedom, but had instead become the company's experimental subjects?
Since it concerned degradation, anyone with half a brain could imagine what the experimental subjects would experience. They had bet all their hopes on Challenge Island, and this was how Challenge Island screwed them over?
Some were furious, some cursed, and some were disheartened.
Many people had been forced onto the island. Some were drowning in debt they couldn't repay, but for various reasons couldn't leave or didn't want to leave Zone 025. They had come with a glimmer of hope, only to find that this too was just another pie-in-the-sky promise from the company. They would never be able to pay off their debts or shed their wanted status, and so they began to think about leaving Zone 025 altogether.
More common was anger, especially among the many degraded players. Many of them were from Zone 025, with families and hometowns here. Other zones might not be any better than their current situation, and their main goal had been to lighten the burden of their retirement.
In fact, they had long felt it was unfair. Even though they hadn't worked for the government or other official institutions, most of the assets they had earned in their lifetimes had been consumed within Zone 025. They had also contributed to the zone's economy. Why should the zone refuse to take care of their retirement and force them to bear such a heavy burden themselves?
Was the zone unable to afford it?
No, they simply didn't want to bear the burden!
Alton Corporation had toyed with them. Was the zone government completely unaware?
Could it be that the zone government hadn't gotten a share of the benefits from the degradation experiment subjects?
Anger, resentment, and confusion about the future coalesced into a suffocating gloom. After figuring out what had happened, many players immediately returned to Zone 025. They wanted to fight for justice!
The players in Central City were no exception. Especially those who had been fighting tooth and nail in the spire. Realizing they might have been the final batch of selected experimental subjects, not a single one had a pleasant expression.
Yi Lan and Bai Po didn't understand how things had developed this way, nor did they dare to connect it to Xu Huo. They assumed some other accident had occurred. But their goal was Challenge Island's terminal—this was a golden opportunity!
However, before they could act to seize the terminal devices, the company's players blew up the spire first. The terminal equipment metal hidden underground was destroyed, and the point numbers above everyone's heads disappeared!
Yi Lan's heart ached as if being twisted. She lunged toward the explosion site, trying to salvage some debris, but unfortunately found nothing. When she turned back to find the culprit, there was no trace of them. The company's people had withdrawn completely, not a single one left!
Bai Po's original goal had been to deal a heavy blow to the company. Now, without much effort, he had gotten his wish. Yet seeing this scene, he still felt some regret. The company had easily destroyed the evidence. Even if someone wanted to continue investigating, they probably wouldn't find anything.
Yi Lan didn't find what she was looking for, but she received a message from Ding Xiang. Her expression shifted slightly, and the next second, she used her ticket to leave Challenge Island.
Ding Xiang still hadn't left. She looked at Xu Huo. "Are you still going back to Zone 025? I can give you a return ticket."
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you afraid of causing trouble for the zone?"
"Even if I don't give you a ticket, would you not go?" Ding Xiang carried the disappointment she felt toward the Inspection Department and the zone government. "Zone 025's financial data is excellent. It lacks no materials or supplies. Even if the entire zone retired at once, other sub-zones would continuously supply resources. Why treat people as consumables?"
"Even if we set aside those who have broken the law, what about those who died bravely for the zone?"
"So you and Yi Lan came to the island," Xu Huo said. "Only two kinds of people would make this choice: those with an extraordinary spirit of self-sacrifice, and those who have thought it through clearly but still refuse to give up their goal."
Ding Xiang lowered her eyes slightly. "Don't mock me."
"I was praising you." Xu Huo smiled faintly. "The game world is full of slaughter everywhere, yet the game creates the Light Gentleman and the Golden Jade Heart to encourage good deeds. The reason is simply that in the struggle between good and evil, good has gained the support of the vast majority of humanity."
This was also the cornerstone of human society's operation.
It was precisely because the light was bright enough that darkness retreated to the corners. Darkness would never disappear, but by the same token, the light could never disappear either.