[And players ranked beyond 100 in their district, you may now make your final choice.]
[First choice, eradication.]
[Second choice, become the lord's subject.]
The regional channel exploded instantly.
["A devil! What's the real difference between having your consciousness suppressed and being erased!"]
["With no consciousness left, just an empty shell, that's worse than death."]
["Bro above, you can't say that. Better a bad life than a good death. Maybe one day consciousness will recover!"]
["What if it never recovers? Or what if the inner consciousness still exists, can feel everything, but the body is not under your control? That's worse than death! Like being paralyzed everywhere!"]
["When you're fully paralyzed you still can't move! If you have awareness but your body is uncontrollable, just treat it like a 4D movie."]
["Bro above, you must be one of those ranked within the top 100, or you wouldn't talk like that!"]
["Sorry to disappoint you, I'm exactly number 101!"]
"..."
———
[A1 District]
General Shakun's name appeared unsurprisingly as Rank 1 of District 1.
Everyone in District 1 congratulated him, but Shakun did not react at all. Being number one of his own troops meant nothing.
What he wanted was to be the first of the entire A Region.
And of course, he believed he absolutely would become the region's number one.
After all, no one else had an entire army serving them.
The pinned announcement was still refreshing slowly.
Next came the content about district merging. Originally each large district had a thousand people, but after four days of elimination, each district only had a little over one hundred left.
Even Shakun's army was no exception.
Even though he tried to minimize losses, besides normal casualties, there were too many rebels and infiltrators he had planted into his troops who were eliminated one by one.
So by the time of final tallying, he only had a bit over two hundred subordinates left.
As expected by the intelligence bureau, the announcement began explaining the district merge.
[Because the number of players has drastically decreased, merging will follow.]
[Each numbered subdistrict will no longer have its own map, but merge directly into District 1. For example: A1–10 will merge into the A1 map; B1–10 will merge into B1, and so on.]
[And each alphabet region will undergo a numbered elimination. Only the top three subdistricts survive; all others are eradicated or become subjects.]
[Example: In Region A, subdistricts 1–10, if 1–3 rank top three, then subdistricts 4–10 are all eliminated.]
[Now announcing Region A's top three.]
The regional ranking… was coming.
General Shakun's eyes lit up and he stared hard at the announcement.
The third place did not show Shakun's name. Only first and second remained.
["General Shakun takes first!"]
["General Shakun forever invincible!"]
["General Shakun undefeated in battle!"]
Only first and second had not been announced yet, but Shakun's men were already frantically flattering him.
They already believed absolutely that Shakun was number one.
A sinister smile gradually formed on Shakun's face. Becoming world number one was enough to make him feel a hint of pride. After all, letting the entire world see his name, letting them realize that he, Shakun, was the true king of this world, that was not a bad thing.
However…
[A Region, Rank 2, from District 1…]
[Shakun!]
"What?"
Shakun's smile froze on his face instantly.
He never expected to be second.
'How can I possibly be second?'
'This isn't right. Impossible. Could the world ranking system be wrong?'
'In this world…'
'How could anyone be stronger than me?'
[One node stronger than six.]
But bizarrely…
Shakun saw this line appear on the pinned system.
'Is the system seeing through my thoughts?'
'Is this system-level mockery?'
Shakun rubbed his eyes quickly, and found he must have been seeing things, because the pinned content wasn't "one node stronger than six" at all, but…
[A Region, Rank 1, from District 7: Ethan!]
"District 7?"
"Ethan?"
"Who is that, how could he be number one?"
"Impossible!"
"Unscientific!"
"System unfair! Why am I not first, but that Ethan from District 7 is first? I protest!"
At Shakun's command.
Almost all his subordinates raised their voices in opposition.
The world chat channel was instantly dominated by Shakun's men, refreshing so fast nobody else could even get a word in.
"Protest! System cheating!"
"Unfair!!"
"Demand details! Show the warehouse materials! No one has more than General Shakun!"
"General Shakun has an army, what does that Ethan have?"
"Ranking unfair, demand recalculation!!"
If not for chat limits, Shakun's men could flood the channel all day.
But then the pinned announcement refreshed again.
[I heard someone is questioning my rankings?]
[Since that's the case, I will reveal part of the information. Please watch closely.]
[Shakun: House Level 3 (Stone House)]
[Ethan: House Level 4 (Villa)]
'Villa?'
Shakun's eyes widened instantly.
'Impossible, in just four short days, someone upgraded their house to villa level?'
He remembered a villa required mostly advance materials.
For example advance stone and advance wood.
But his army, even when they found these, could not easily obtain them. Especially advance wood, aside from treasure chests, required a lot of manpower and time to gather.
Later their weapons were upgraded, but due to limited materials, the upgrades could not be widely applied.
And upgrading to a villa wasn't just about materials… the hardest part was actually beast cores.
General Shakun spent about two days figuring out that beast cores came from killing the otherworld monsters.
Just then, his scouts discovered a herd of wild bulls.
Shakun waved his hand and organized two hundred soldiers to siege them.
No one expected, that herd of wild bulls would charge brutally.
Dozens of bulls smashed into two hundred soldiers in one charge, causing over half casualties, and more than thirty dead outright.
But Shakun didn't give up. For beast cores he risked everything.
After receiving the frontline report, he immediately sent reinforcements.
With superior numbers, tthe legion finally encircled the bulls. Just as they were preparing to kill them.
The wild bulls used a new skill. Savage Trample!
Shakun remembered that moment, dozens of bulls stomped at once, heaven and earth changed color, the ground shook.
His troops could not even stay standing, and the skill had a built-in stun effect!
The army instantly lost combat ability.
And the bulls used the chance to break through.
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