Kill The Old Ones!

"Pardon me, City Lord, and I don’t mean any disrespect when I say this, but..." Adrian suddenly spoke and asked, "...why only now? Why did none of you tell us this earlier? Had we known that the stakes are this high, maybe we could’ve done more, trained more, or...you know."

The City Lord was supposed to answer that, but someone else replied first.

"Because he wasn’t supposed to tell us this early."

All heads turned to Ren, the one who replied to Adrian’s question just now. He didn’t look at them; he was polishing his gloves.

"If the City Lord followed the rules, we would only know this after the tournament. When the results are out and it’s too late for us to change anything."

"This rule sounds nonsensical, but it’s a measure of quality and responsibility of the citizens and the participants. If we truly cared, then whether we knew what the stakes were or not, the end result wouldn’t have changed. We would still do our best to get a decent ranking anyway."

"That’s also why our elders didn’t say a word to us even if they knew that this was happening. Am I right, City Lord?"

Ren lifted his head and confirmed with the City Lord, who was now looking at him with amusement.

"Exactly." He nodded. "I am breaking the rules here, though I’m quite sure I’m not the only one. The stakes are that high, after all."

"Besides, even if I told you earlier, it’s not like a lot will change." The City Lord shrugged. "It’s not like it will help you go from the 1st Transformation of the Inhuman Realm to the 2nd. That’s not how it works."

The Ren spoke again.

"What you guys should be concerned with is the desperate ones, representatives of cities at the bottom half of the rankings," he said, causing everybody to look at him again.

"I can already imagine them forming an alliance against the higher-ranked cities, especially the Royal City—since they’re ranked 1st. They will play dirty; they will drag us down with them if necessary, just so that they can get on top of us."

"You’re not going to help us?" Julius Regulus Vermont, or Julie Anne, to be exact, asked. Raising a brow at his tone.

"I’m afraid I can’t," Ren smirked at him. "I have privilege. I go straight to the semi-finals because I cleared Stage 100 recently, you see; I’ve already contributed a lot to this city if you think about it."

"In the preliminaries, you guys are on your own. Depending on what kind of challenge awaits you by tomorrow, you all might not even be able help each other, so I’d start psyching myself out if I were you."

They turned to the City Lord to confirm Ren’s words, and he did confirm it.

"Soren is right. He is a seeded participant—one that will go straight to the semifinal rounds. He won’t be with you in the preliminary round. He’s also right that you guys should be prepared. Not even I know what kind of challenge you’d face in the first round."

Lucian Skyrend then asked Ren, "Are there other seeded participants aside from you? How many?"

Ren looked at him and answered, "There should be. I can’t be the only anomaly in this whole civilization."

The City Lord barely suppressed a snort at the way Ren referred to himself. Remembering how Ren decimated Stage 100 and even made the Flood Dragon King itself terrified of him, yeah, "anomaly" does sound right.

"As for how many, I don’t know. Do we have a number, City Lord, Sir?"

"No idea. That won’t be revealed until after the first round," Gabriel replied.

"So, to summarize, the City vs. City Tournament begins tomorrow, and the stakes will affect the whole city, so we must be prepared for anything, especially the desperate groups that will try to drag us down. The strongest amongst us goes straight to the semi-finals, and nobody could guarantee us that we’d be able to help each other in the first round. Did I get it all?" Adrian asked.

"Yeah, dude. That sounds about right." Lucian patted his back to confirm it. The City Lord also nodded.

"For the duration of the tournament, none of you are allowed to leave the mansion. Your activities will be heavily monitored to lessen the likelihood of cheating and foul play."

"Depending on how the following rounds play out, we may or may not have to leave this place. But unless I tell you personally and face-to-face that we’re switching locations, you’re not allowed to leave this place. This also includes the reserve participants. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," the participants replied.

"Good, that’s all I have to say. My secretary will bring you to your respective rooms. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask her."

After saying this, the City Lord returned to his desk and began going through the stacked documents on his table. Alice, his secretary, moved and led the group to their respective rooms.

Ren’s room was on the 3rd floor of the mansion. It’s a special one because the space inside was expanded; the interior space was almost as large as the whole mansion was. It was more than enough space for his activities.

This might be a privilege only for him because he was special. Or maybe not; he hasn’t seen the other rooms yet.

Ren also spotted the cameras around. They’re in stealth and meant to be hidden, but Ren sensed their presence. The sensation of being watched prickled his neck; that’s how he knew. Their stealth couldn’t escape his senses.

Maybe this was on purpose; maybe not. Who knows? But Ren didn’t have an issue with the cameras; the city lord gave them a heads-up after all.

Ren opened his chatbox and saw his uncle’s messages. Mikel was checking up on him because he couldn’t come here with him. Ren confirmed that he was okay and that he’s going to be okay, to lessen Mikel’s worries.

As desperate as other cities were, there’s no way they’d be brave enough to infiltrate Central City and go straight here to cause some chaos.

Ren doesn’t know much about Gabriel, but he can tell that the man is a veteran that doesn’t tolerate any crap from outsiders. There’s no way he’d allow some stragglers from other cities to cause a ruckus in his city.

’In the canon story, this was a hectic time.’ Ren recalled the event from his memory.

’There, the Cult of the Lost Lambs gained too much power and hold over human civilization. So much so that they were able to send their own agents amongst the participants.’

’Some were hidden really well, and some were too obvious. The obvious ones drew attention away from the hidden ones, allowing them to infiltrate deeper into human civilization.’

’Some of them were even accepted as disciples to famous figures, giving the cult access to more information that plunged humanity into deeper peril and gave more power to the outsider.’

’It has gone so bad that at some point, the cult literally controlled half of the human population.’

’But because of the things I did, the situation was massively different right now.’

’The cult is weak. So much so that their god wasn’t even able to exert any real influence over the human territory.’

’Most of their sleeper agents had been caught. And even the ones who slipped past the radar won’t be able to do much with how weak and thinly spread they are.’

’The cult’s pope and its cardinals are heavily monitored. Two Martial Gods have returned and are now watching over the human territory. If the cult wants to do something, they have to be very sneaky and must be prepared to pay the price for attacking humanity.’

’With how weak the cult was, it’s impossible for them to take control over humanity, not even close to half. Any semblance of control they have is a mere illusion, something that the Martial Gods knew and permitted.’

’All in all, I did a fine job changing things around for the better.’

The best outcome was, of course, to completely eradicate the cult. But Ren, for all his knowledge and power, was temporarily unable to do that. The Martial Gods can, but they need an opening. And the core members of the cult are hard to locate when they are determined to hide.

So, having the cult weakened this much was more than enough, for now, at least. The cult doesn’t really have any real power over humanity. Their leverage was an illusion that the Martial Gods purposefully handed to them for the purpose of baiting them.

The original miserable event in human history had been avoided thanks to Ren’s interference. And he will admit that it felt good to have that much effect, regardless of whether people knew it was him or not.

’Yeah, this works.’

’With this, I feel more at ease leaving for the 1st floor.’

Ren smiled and decided to take a nap for now.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!