Chapter 225 - 141: December: Month of Chaos
[This month is the Month of Chaos.]
[The second stage is about to end, and we welcome the final frenzy.]
[Do you regret not developing your territory diligently in the previous months?]
[Do you lament your bad luck for not drawing powerful items, troops, or building blueprints?]
[Do you resent fate for not having you reborn into a wealthy family?]
[Now, your chance has come!!]
[Go forth! Attack the lords with high points, tear down their buildings, slaughter their soldiers, and pull them from their thrones to make them lose their qualification to advance.]
[For this month, destroying buildings offers a chance to obtain building blueprints.]
[All lords currently ranked in the top 10,000 in points—those able to pass the second stage—will be marked on the system map.]
[These markers will refresh once every hour.]
[Two-way Teleportation Gates will now spawn randomly in the wilderness. You can use these gates to travel to the continents of other participating lords in the second stage.]
[Two-way Teleportation Gates will also spawn randomly in the wilderness, allowing travel to the vicinity of other lords’ territories (on the same continent).]
[All treasure chests and wild monsters in the wilderness have been cleared. Now, nothing will disturb your frenzy.]
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Time flew by, and a month passed in the blink of an eye.
On a night at the end of the month, stars twinkled in the sky. The World Tree was shrouded in a hazy Spiritual Mist, and the Great Elves in its branches emitted a faint green glow.
Beneath the glowing lamppost flowers, the members of the territory happily browsed the shops, went on dates, and enjoyed themselves.
Lin Yu was inspecting the "Random Treasure Chests" he had collected this month. Three thousand chests were neatly arranged in Warehouse No. 8 (he had already opened the excess ones, yielding some resources). Lin Yu planned to wait until he had a luck-boosting buff before opening them. If he really couldn’t get a buff, he would just wait until this stage was over.
The moment the system announcement sounded, he immediately opened the system map. On it, he saw a huge, flashing blue dot at the center of his territory, occupying an enormous area of the map.
[Your territory’s signal is too large and is affecting the system map display. Would you like to reduce the signal size?]
[After reduction, your signal will be the same size as that of a normal ranked lord.]
"Yes, yes, yes!"
Lin Yu hurriedly agreed to reduce the signal. Instantly, the blip that had taken up nearly his entire map view shrank. Even so, a solitary blue dot in the middle of a vast forest was still exceptionally conspicuous. Any nearby lord who zoomed in on the map would be able to see it.
’Let me see if there are any other ranked lords nearby.’
Lin Yu zoomed in on the map and saw two or three tiny blue dots in the eastern mountain range.
In the western plains, he saw about a dozen small blue dots, one of which was slightly larger.
There were no dots in the southern swamp. It was highly likely that the harsh environment had slowed the development of the lords there. Plus, with Lin Yu having occupied the White Bone Wilderness to their north, they had no room left to expand.
’Speaking of which, this month is supposed to encourage infighting. Yet Cuiwei Star created the Cuiwei Lord Corps and prohibited its members from attacking each other during this stage.’
’I wonder if the lords who didn’t make the rankings will risk an attack?’
’Thinking about it, I originally assumed the rule against attacking fellow corps members was to protect weaker lords from being bullied by stronger ones.’
’But now it seems it’s also meant to protect the ranked lords, preventing them from being ganged up on and taken down by resentful lords who didn’t make the cut.’
’The entire continent has 788,111 lords. Huh? That seems a little low. Last month was so easy, and we even had three chances to revive. People still got wiped out?’
’Seven hundred and eighty thousand lords... if they all ganged up, they could wipe me out easily.’
’Now that I think about it, it’s a good thing I joined the Cuiwei Lord Corps. If my territory were besieged right now, it could probably only withstand an attack from a hundred or so lords at most.’
Lin Yu thought about his own territory: defense lines measured in kilometers, over a hundred thousand soldiers, several thousand heroes, and among them, he had already amassed over 500 Legendary Heroes.
’Hmm... If they aren’t that strong, I should be able to hold off a thousand lords.’
Lin Yu felt a little fortunate for his own caution and for keeping a low profile. Otherwise, if he had offended too many people, they might have ganged up on him. If they ignored Cuiwei Star’s warning and came after him, he would be in deep trouble.
While Lin Yu was examining the system map, other lords were doing the same. If they discovered a ranked lord nearby—especially one they knew—some offered congratulations, while others were jealous. A minority even banded together to discuss whether they should launch a vicious surprise attack on the ranked lord.
The lords surrounding Lin Yu were much the same, but with one key difference.
"Boss, look! There’s a blue dot in the forest to the west."
"How did he develop? That forest has so many strange, aggressive plants. How did he manage to develop enough to get on the leaderboard?"
"Boss, do you think that guy in the forest is stronger than you?"
"How would I know? We’ve never fought, and we’ve never even met."
...
Similar conversations were taking place among the lords in the eastern and southern regions.
However, the lords in the western plains had a different conversation. Many of them had interacted with Lin Yu before and knew him. A good number had even rented his Death Devourers and Elemental Corps. Thanks to this, many of those lords had accumulated enough points to successfully make the rankings, giving them a good chance to advance to the third stage. Naturally, what they had to say was quite different.