Fishing

Tang Zhuhe had completely vanished into the depths of the chaotic void in the sky, taking those fleeing cities with her.

They had up and left without a care, but their departure seemed to snap the last few remaining strings holding this world together.

The collapse was accelerating.

The earth was no longer breaking apart in chunks; it was like a mirror slammed onto the ground, its shards sliding into an unknowable abyss.

The turbulent colors in the sky became even more frenzied, as spatial rifts spread and connected, tearing the entire firmament into a fragmented mess.

The air was thick with the scent of the end of all things. Even someone as hopelessly super-villainous as Yue Shi found the atmosphere unpleasant.

Evil flowers needed soil to bloom, but this apocalypse was uprooting the very land itself.

On the roof of the headquarters conference room, the Minister’s face was grim as he looked at Yue Shi and spoke earnestly.

“Stop fighting for a moment. Didn’t you see? Everyone else has run away. We’re all finished.”

Yue Shi slowly turned his head. His face didn’t show the Minister’s agitation or rage; it was filled only with malice.

He had seen it, of course. Director Tang had actually fled. She was a shrewd one; she must have known something for a long time.

The end of the world was more thorough and unreasonable than he had anticipated.

Yue Shi stopped his attack.

It wasn't because the Minister’s meaningless platitudes had swayed him, but because the high-level executives who had survived this long weren't easy to kill. Trying to take one out would waste too much time.

Continuing this struggle was pointless.

Yue Shi cast his gaze toward the chaotic heavens in the distance, wondering what he should do after the world was destroyed.

Would he wander through the void? Or would he travel to a new world?

Just then, the center of the sky—occupied by spatial rifts and color turbulence—suddenly buckled and began to rotate inward.

A massive vortex, its edges flowing with a viscous, dark light, slowly took shape.

The vortex looked like a hole leading outside the world, emitting an indescribable aura that made the soul tremble.

Then, from the depths of the vortex, countless long, thin lines descended.

At the end of those lines, a cold light flickered.

Were they... fishhooks?

Yue Shi looked at the hooks in surprise. They came in various shapes: some were curved, some were straight, some had barbs, and others were covered in eerie patterns.

The material was strange—a semi-transparent, grayish-white substance with a viscous liquid flowing slowly inside.

Every hook radiated an aura of pure terror. From the moment they appeared, their targets were clear.

Like sharks smelling blood, a portion of the hooks dove straight toward the headquarters.

They were aiming for the Minister and the remaining high-level executives!

Even more hooks, appearing in overwhelming numbers, whistled toward Yue Shi’s position!

In an instant, Yue Shi was struck by a sensation he found utterly loathsome.

It was a feeling more unacceptable than facing death—as if he were being submerged in filth and waste from all directions.

“What the hell are these things?!”

“Attack! Stop them!”

“Why don't we form a committee to discuss this first?”

The surviving headquarters executives turned pale with horror. They, too, sensed something was wrong, and they unleashed all their powers to block or shatter the descending fishhooks.

But a terrifying scene unfolded.

None of the executives' methods—whether physical attacks, magical powers, or rule-based abilities—could stop the hooks.

Yue Shi’s eyes narrowed. He immediately jumped through space, setting up spatial restrictions as he went. His figure vanished and reappeared on a relatively intact patch of land several kilometers away.

Almost at the same moment he vanished, seven or eight fishhooks pierced through the spot where he had been standing, causing fine cracks to appear in the space itself.

The fishhooks paused for a fraction of a second before changing direction, locking onto Yue Shi’s new location and shooting toward him with even greater speed.

They could even penetrate the spatial seals Yue Shi had left behind, ignoring space to maintain a certain degree of tracking and locking.

Yue Shi’s heart sank. These pieces of trash not only ignored conventional defenses, but they couldn't be shaken off by spatial transfer either?

He no longer hesitated and pushed his speed to the limit. His figure flickered repeatedly, each flash narrowly avoiding a hook.

At the same time, he created localized differences in the flow of time around him to interfere with the hooks' speed.

However, the number of hooks chasing him was rapidly increasing!

It was as if they had recognized him as a high-quality target, and more hooks were being deployed continuously.

They began to surround him from all sides, following tricky trajectories and coordinating with each other to block his escape routes.

Taking a moment to glance back, Yue Shi saw a sight that made him feel even worse.

Those difficult headquarters executives had their defenses easily bypassed by several hooks, which bit deep into their bodies.

It wasn't a physical piercing, but a more conceptual anchoring.

They struggled and roared in terror, even launching self-destructive attacks, but nothing worked.

The lines behind the hooks pulled taut and yanked upward.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Like fish being reeled in, the executives were instantly dragged away, turning into blurred afterimages as they were pulled into the vortex in the sky. They vanished, leaving nothing behind.

Yue Shi’s heart ached slightly—not out of pity, but because he had already considered those executives his property, intending to kill and decompose them himself.

He hadn't expected someone to beat him to it.

The same scene was playing out across the world.

While dodging the hooks, Yue Shi witnessed several independent high-level transcendents with powerful auras being hooked away amidst their furious roars.

In the distance, he even saw several Forbidden Zones that had once been massive headaches for human society erupt in a grand display of resistance.

But soon, even the Forbidden Zone masters were fished away. The divine ghosts were not spared in this catastrophe.

One direction was particularly eye-catching.

There was a Begonia tree of unimaginable size, its branches lush with countless pink flowers.

A gentle yet resilient rule-based power flowed through its trunk. Any creature unfortunate enough to be touched by this power was instantly stripped of its gender.

However, at this moment, the giant tree was being tightly entangled by dozens of exceptionally thick hooks.

The hooks weren't caught on the branches; they had bored into the trunk, entangling the roots and hooking the divine ghost’s true form on a conceptual level.

The giant tree vibrated, and pink petals drifted down, creating a scene of dreamlike beauty.

The Begonia tree was likely trying to shake off the hooks, but its efforts yielded little result.

Seeing that it couldn't escape, the giant Begonia tree’s vibrations gradually ceased. The flowers on the tree rapidly dimmed, the leaves withered and fell, and the massive trunk began to shrivel and weather away.

Just before the hooks could yank the Begonia tree from the ground, the entire tree collapsed, transforming into a massive cloud of pink dust that slowly drifted between heaven and earth.

It preferred to end itself rather than be fished away.

Yue Shi caught a glimpse of this from afar.

‘That’s a huge Begonia tree. Is that the one from the Land of Equality?’

‘A plant-type supernatural creature... could it be a scion or a clone of the Tree of Truth?’

At the moment, he didn't have the luxury of investigating the Begonia tree’s true identity. He spared it a brief thought before pushing it to the back of his mind.

The buzzing sound of breaking air behind him grew denser and closer.

The fishhooks chasing him had converged into a torrent, blotting out the sun and sealing off most of his escape routes.

He couldn't let this continue.

A sharp glint flashed in Yue Shi’s eyes.

“Mirror Clone!”

His figure suddenly blurred and split. In an instant, hundreds of identical Yue Shis scattered in all directions.

Each Mirror Clone represented a possible escape route he might take and possessed a portion of his strength.

At the same time, his main body activated his hidden state, his figure vanishing as his presence became nearly non-existent, blending in with the countless clones.

The strategy worked.

The fishhooks that had been firmly locked onto Yue Shi immediately split up, with a significant portion drawn away by the clones.

The clones fled at the same speed as the main body, so they wouldn't be caught immediately. The pressure on Yue Shi was greatly reduced.

However, there were still about a dozen fishhooks that seemed to have recognized something. They didn't chase the Mirror Clones but continued to follow Yue Shi’s main body at a steady pace.

Their speed was much slower than before, appearing hesitant and uncertain, but they never lost their trail.

Yue Shi frowned slightly, unable to figure out how the locking mechanism of these hooks worked.

Mirror Clones could distract most of the hooks, but they couldn't fully deceive them.

The hidden state could reduce the precision of the lock, but it couldn't eliminate it entirely.

What was it? What exactly were they using to lock onto their targets?

With too little information, Yue Shi couldn't figure it out.

While maintaining his high-speed movement and hidden state, he opened the Insight vision in the center of his brow.

The golden vertical pupil emerged, and his gaze instantly focused on the nearest hook, attempting to analyze what these things were.

But the moment his Insight vision made contact with the fishhook, the previously wavering hook seemed to instantly lock onto its target, and its speed exploded!

Not only that, but the dozen or so other hooks wandering nearby also seemed to receive a clear signal. They all changed direction simultaneously, chasing after Yue Shi’s main body at a much faster speed than before.

Yue Shi’s expression changed. He immediately closed his Insight vision and focused all his mind on escaping.

The hooks' speed slowed down again, returning to that state of vague tracking.

But that moment of precise locking still sent a chill through Yue Shi.

He used his not-exactly-brilliant brain to think rapidly.

‘Does observation strengthen the lock?’

‘No, it’s not just observation.’

He recalled everything he had seen along the way.

The hooks had taken transcendents, divine ghosts, and that giant Begonia tree, but the people beneath the tree hadn't been affected at all.

The hooks turned a blind eye to the ordinary humans crying and running on the ground.

Their targets were very specific: they only caught transcendents and supernatural creatures.

Especially powerful transcendents and powerful supernatural creatures.

The headquarters Minister and High-level Elders had all accommodated complete authorities, and those divine ghosts were likely no exception. Yue Shi himself was a convergence of authorities.

A bold idea gradually became clear in Yue Shi’s mind.

These fishhooks descending from beyond the heavens... the targets they were locking onto were likely “transcendence” itself!

Or rather, they were looking for supernatural traits that had exceeded a certain threshold!

Ordinary people, low-level transcendents, and low-level supernatural creatures didn't meet the standard for “being fished.”

But people like him, the headquarters executives, and the Forbidden Zone divine ghosts were the most conspicuous big fish in this pond.

Yue Shi himself was powerful enough that even his clones were stronger than average high-level transcendents, which was why they could draw away most of the hooks.

But a clone was still a clone. Although his main body had activated its hidden state, the ability of 「Hidden Black Feathers」 was itself a supernatural power.

Even the Insight vision was using a supernatural power to interpret information, which naturally triggered a reaction from the hooks.

‘Could my guess be right?’

Yue Shi couldn't be certain, but if it was true, then his situation was dire.

Where did these hooks come from?

Was this world just a giant fishpond, and these fishhooks were the fisherman’s tools for harvest?

What exactly was this apocalypse?

...

Back at the headquarters.

The Minister had been playing hide-and-seek with the hooks for a while.

He used his Authority of Oblivion to make the hooks forget his exact location.

Unfortunately, the oblivion only worked briefly. After a two-second delay, the hooks would resume their pursuit.

And that delay was getting shorter. Initially, he could stall them for four seconds.

What Yue Shi could figure out, an old fox like the Minister could naturally deduce as well.

He had noticed the pattern: the fishhooks only caught the strong. The stronger one was, the more hooks they attracted.

The Minister and the headquarters executives were surrounded by many hooks. Meanwhile, if a low-level clerical staff member tried to bump into a hook, it wouldn't even bother with them.

This discovery led the Minister to make many connections, and the more he thought, the more chilled he became.

What was the true nature of this world?

A farm for high-dimensional lifeforms?!

Looking at the apocalyptic scene of the earth splitting and the sky collapsing, and seeing his old colleagues being caught one after another, the Minister took a deep breath and chose to stop resisting.

The world was about to be destroyed anyway, and almost all his colleagues and friends had been fished away. There was no point in staying here to wait for death. He might as well see what was inside the vortex in the sky.

He wanted to see exactly what kind of existence was behind those hooks!

Could it be a higher-level world? Like in some cultivation novels, where reaching a certain level allowed one to ascend to a higher map.

That was the best-case scenario. His fear was that behind the vortex lay someone’s dinner table.

The Minister prepared various contingencies and proactively approached a hook that looked decent, preventing other hooks from entangling him.

The line pulled taut, and he was fished up into the vortex in the sky.

The moment he entered the vortex, all his senses fell into chaos.

Inside the vortex, there was no light, no dark, no up, down, left, or right, and no past or future. Time and space lost all meaning, and only the line hooked to him indicated the sole direction.

In this indescribable state, the Minister actually saw text.

It was text he recognized—it was his mother tongue!

The Minister’s pupils shook, unable to hide his shock.

The pulling force from the line increased, and the Minister’s body and thoughts seemed to transform into text as well.

After an unknown amount of time, when everything seemed to have lost its meaning...

The Minister felt the existence of his body again. He looked back, but he didn't see Blue Star or any vortex.

Behind him was only a book so massive it was beyond description.

He could hear a buzzing alarm in his ears, accompanied by a cold, mechanical announcement.

“Containment breach!”

“Containment breach!”

“Containment breach!”