Death… And Me

Chapter 4334: Busy Now

Once they were finally out of the network range, Roan and Kentucky immediately stopped the recordings of their Ring Communicators. After that, they naturally released their Godly Pressure, disguising themselves as Godly Creatures to avoid drawing unnecessary attention from any wandering beasts or predators in the area.

Finally, the two also used Rean’s Body Transformation technique, altering their appearances completely until there was nothing left linking them to their original forms.

Roan had been quite busy with his communicator before shutting it down. He downloaded the entire available map concerning this side of the Besgol Region, including the deepest mapped sections bordering the Godly Creatures’ territories. Even after that, he spent quite some time analyzing the routes and deciding where they should head first. Only after reaching a conclusion did he finally tell Kentucky which direction to take.

---

Meanwhile, back near the borders of Turanzo Country, Rean and Celis remained behind to help clean up the remaining Godly Creatures still scattered across the battlefield. The resistance they encountered at this point was insignificant compared to the previous days, so the process didn’t take very long.

Eventually, their battlefront was also officially declared clean, and the order to return to base was finally transmitted through the RC network. Naturally, small contingents of cultivators still remained stationed around the borders in case of emergencies, but the majority of the forces had already begun withdrawing.

”What now?” Celis couldn’t help but ask after they started returning.

Rean simply shrugged. ”What else? We might as well spend our time cultivating. The base here in Turanzo also has Godly Energy Extraction Arrays, so it isn’t a bad place to stay for a while.”

”That will have to wait.”

At that moment, Huriu suddenly appeared nearby while speaking calmly.

”The rewards for the war are only calculated and distributed AFTER the war officially ends,” he explained. ”Until then, the most you can do is check your contribution points. Well... considering your strength, your Weapon Intents, and Celis’s support abilities, I highly doubt any other Anchor God managed to achieve a better position in the rankings.”

”Oh!” Rean blinked in realization. ”I almost forgot about those rankings.”

Celis immediately sent his mind into his RC and checked the current standings without wasting time.

-1st: Roan Larks, ID...-

-2nd: Kentucky, ID...-

-3rd: Rean Larks, ID...-

-4th: Celis, ID...-

Sure enough, the twins’ group occupied the absolute top positions among the Anchor Gods participating in the war. In fact, the difference between them and everyone below was simply absurd. The cultivator ranked fifth wasn’t even remotely close.

The reason was simple.

Most Anchor Gods simply couldn’t accomplish what the twins’ group had been doing repeatedly throughout the war: killing Godly Beasts by themselves.

Naturally, that didn’t mean there weren’t other talented cultivators capable of doing it. Among the rankings, tens of thousands of Anchor Gods possessed at least one Godly Beast kill under their names. Even the cultivator occupying the fifth position had managed to kill almost forty Godly Beasts during the war, not counting the hundreds of Godly Spawns he exterminated.

Unfortunately for him, compared to the twins’ group, such numbers looked almost embarrassing.

Celis himself had mostly played a support role during the entire war, yet even then, he still accumulated nearly two hundred and thirty Godly Beast kills on his own.

As for Roan...

His total had already reached an absurd nine hundred and sixty-one Godly Beast kills after only a single week of warfare.

There was one important catch, though.

The total number of kills recorded by the Orb System and the kills recorded by the Ring Communicators didn’t actually match at all. After all, the Orb System considered most of the kills inside the Yin Yang Sanctuary to be mainly due to the twins’ group. The rankings in the Ring Communicators, however, had no way of telling the Yin Yang Sanctuary even existed, let alone that the twins deployed it.

Because of that, the rankings displayed far smaller numbers than the system itself truly counted.

As previously mentioned, every two hundred Godly Beast kills granted one Orb Point. Ignoring the official rankings entirely, the system had already recorded a total of 3382 Godly Beast kills for the group.

That alone translated into 16 additional Orb Points.

Their total had now reached 43 Orb Points altogether, much to Sister Orb’s delight.

Naturally, the rankings themselves hadn’t officially closed yet. The war was still ongoing in Terno Dore, especially now that another Godly Horror had appeared there.

Still, it was extremely unlikely any other Anchor God could catch up to the twins’ group at this point.

Only some Aura Gods possessed more kills than they did, and even then, that was the slightly stronger Aura God Realm experts.

”Hehehe!” Celis looked visibly delighted while staring at the rankings. ”The rewards for these rankings have to be much better than those rookie rewards we got in the past, right?”

”Sigh...” Huriu looked completely helpless after hearing that. ”You do realize your friends ventured directly into enemy territory, right? The horde still hasn’t completely disappeared, so it is extremely dangerous out there. Shouldn’t you be more worried about them instead?”

Both Rean and Celis shook their heads almost simultaneously.

”Only a miracle could kill those two.”

Huriu genuinely couldn’t understand where all that confidence came from. The more he interacted with the four of them, the stranger they seemed.

”So be it...” Huriu eventually gave up. ”I actually came here to discuss something else.”

Rean and Celis exchanged glances before nodding.

”The supreme commander of our battlefield personally came to talk to us,” Rean commented with a grin. ”It has to be something good.”

Huriu shook his head slightly before beginning.

”I’ve checked your backgrounds already. I know you don’t possess cultivation aptitude according to the traditional standards. You were tested before, yet neither of you could even make the Gray Color appear during the examinations.”

Rean and Celis didn’t react much to that.

”However,” Huriu continued, ”because you can utilize Weapon Intents, and because Celis’s support abilities are exceptionally effective even at the Anchor God Realm, you displayed combat power far beyond what anyone would normally expect from cultivators at your level.”

Celis eventually lost patience with the long explanation.

”You don’t need to keep going in circles,” he said directly. ”What exactly did you come here for, commander?”

Huriu looked at him before shaking his head.

”Let me finish first so the explanation makes sense.”

Celis sighed and remained quiet afterward.

”In any case,” Huriu resumed, ”even if your current advantage decreases as your cultivation rises higher, the truth remains that we still believe the two of you—and likely your whole group—will become very capable cultivators by the time you reach the Zone God Realm.”

He then narrowed his eyes slightly. ”Our only uncertainty before was whether you would even be capable of cultivating that far with such poor aptitude.”

Huriu paused briefly before continuing. ”But after everything you accomplished during this war, that concern has mostly disappeared. The rewards you will receive from your contributions should compensate significantly for your lack of natural aptitude. And considering your current combat abilities, there is little doubt you will continue dominating these rankings for a long time.”

His expression then became more serious. ”Because of that, you are already becoming a force to be reckoned with, even if only at the earliest stages for now.”

Rean and Celis immediately became more interested after hearing that.

”That said,” Huriu continued, ”I would like to invite your group to join a special elite group.”

”Hum?” Rean looked curious. ”Something similar to the temporary elite unit we joined during the war to support the battalions?”

”It would be somewhat similar,” Huriu confirmed. ”However, this would not be temporary.”

His gaze turned toward the endless black territories shown on the maps beyond Besgol.

”This elite group exists for very specific purposes: exploring and charting the unknown territories belonging to the Godly Creatures as well as dealing with any requests regarding going deep into those territories.”

As previously explained, more than ninety percent of the areas surrounding Besgol, and the other cultivator regions as well, remained completely unmapped. On every map, those areas appeared as enormous black voids filled with uncertainty.

The reason was simple.

The world outside the cultivators’ territories was simply too massive.

Even the Besgol Region itself, which already seemed enormous to most cultivators, was nothing more than a grain of sand compared to the endless world dominated by the Godly Creatures.

Rean narrowed his eyes after hearing that.

”There is no way anyone can fully chart territories of that scale,” he pointed out. ”Even if someone could fly nonstop without encountering danger, it would still take forever just to map the regions surrounding Besgol alone.”

”Obviously,” Huriu agreed immediately. ”But then why do you think nearly ten percent of the surrounding territories are already available within the network maps?”

He answered his own question right afterward.

”Part of it comes from independent missions and random explorations carried out throughout history. However, the majority of those mapped territories were discovered by elite exploration groups exactly like the one I mentioned.”

Celis was the next one to ask a question. ”But why recruit Anchor Gods for something like that?”

”The minimum cultivation normally required to join these groups is actually the Aura God Realm,” Huriu explained. ”However... your group is clearly an exception. Your combat power already reaches that level in practice.”

He then clarified further. ”Naturally, this is not mandatory. You are completely free to reject the offer if you wish. Still, you should understand that these elite exploration groups receive enormous rewards whenever they successfully chart new territories.”

”And those rewards don’t even include whatever treasures, resources, ruins, or opportunities they might discover during the exploration itself. Last but not least, there are no taxes for their rewards.”

Rean and Celis remained silent for several moments after hearing that. Everything in Besgol had a 30% tax, and that was definitely a big number.

Eventually, Rean finally answered. ”We’ll need some time to think about it.”

Huriu didn’t seem surprised by that response. ”That’s fine.”

Then, as if suddenly remembering something important, he added another detail. ”Oh, right. If you do accept the offer, you will no longer be considered direct members of your current sects. Instead, you would operate under the authority of the Godly Subjugation Guild itself.”

Seeing their reactions, he quickly added another explanation.

”Of course, the guild is jointly managed by all major powers within Besgol, so technically speaking, your sect would still retain partial influence regarding your status.”

After that, Huriu continued speaking with Rean and Celis for a while longer, discussing a few details about the elite exploration groups before eventually leaving.

The moment he disappeared, Rean immediately transmitted a message through the soul connection shared among the four of them.

’So... you heard all that, right?’

Far away from Turanzo, deep within the Godly Creatures’ territories, Roan’s calm voice echoed back through the connection.

’We can think about that later. Kentucky and I are busy right now.’