Chapter 276: Imperial Ranking War: Confrontation Comes

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For an entire month, the World System remained silent.

There were no calamities.

No warnings.

No strange changes in the environment.

The secret realm simply continued to exist in its peaceful state, giving everyone enough time to recover from the previous months of suffering and prepare for whatever would eventually come.

For most of the teams, that meant stockpiling resources and strengthening their bases.

For the Heavenly Bronze Empire Team, it meant preparing for war.

Ren had spent the entire month making preparations without explaining the real reason behind them. He had ordered new defensive formations, reinforced the Rock, expanded its internal facilities, improved the training grounds, reorganized the defensive squads, and stocked enough resources to survive for a long time.

Some people thought he was being overly cautious.

Others thought it was simply another example of his paranoia.

Diana never questioned him.

She didn’t know exactly what Ren was expecting, but she knew that if he was willing to spend an entire month preparing, then there was probably a reason for it.

As for Ren, he already knew that their peaceful month was coming to an end.

He simply didn’t know exactly how the World System would announce it.

Now, he was about to find out.

The announcement came without warning.

[Attention, all participants.]

Every person inside the secret realm heard the familiar voice.

Ren immediately stopped what he was doing.

So did everybody else.

The World System had finally spoken.

For the first time in an entire month, the secret realm became completely silent as everyone listened.

[Congratulations to all surviving participants.]

[You have successfully survived within the secret realm for six months.]

The announcement caused a wave of reactions throughout the realm.

Six months.

It had been six months since they entered this place.

Six months of calamities, monsters, battles, resource shortages, competition, and survival.

Six months of watching other teams disappear while the remaining participants continued fighting for their positions.

For many, simply surviving this long was already an achievement.

The World System continued.

[The current Imperial Ranking is as follows.]

A massive display appeared in the sky above the secret realm.

Five names appeared.

The rankings were familiar, but seeing them displayed in such a manner made the difference between the teams impossible to ignore.

[1st Place — Heavenly Bronze Empire]

[7,567,510 Merit Points]

[Lead Contributor — Soren Marek Vire]

[2nd Place — Burning Firmament Empire]

[1,185,025 Merit Points]

[3rd Place — Deep Blue God Empire]

[974,150 Merit Points]

[4th Place — Free Heavenly Paradise Empire]

[863,810 Merit Points]

[5th Place — Berserk Mountain God Empire]

[752,505 Merit Points]

The entire secret realm became noisy.

The ranking itself wasn’t surprising.

Everyone already knew that the Heavenly Bronze Empire was in first place.

What shocked them was the difference.

Seven and a half million points.

The second-place team had barely crossed one million.

The gap was so ridiculous that it didn’t even look like the same competition anymore.

The Heavenly Bronze Empire had more than six times the points of the Burning Firmament Empire.

And the name underneath their ranking only made the situation more absurd.

Soren Marek Vire.

The majority of the Heavenly Bronze Empire’s points had come from one person.

The system was essentially reminding everyone exactly who had created this enormous lead.

Inside the Rock, several members of the team stared at the display with complicated expressions.

They knew their position was ridiculous.

They knew they were far ahead.

But seeing the numbers displayed publicly made the situation feel different.

The other four teams could see it too.

Everybody could.

The system wasn’t hiding their advantage anymore.

Then the announcement continued.

[The first six months of the Imperial Ranking War have concluded.]

[The survival phase is now over.]

That sentence immediately changed the atmosphere.

The smiles disappeared.

The casual conversations stopped.

Everyone understood what that meant.

The survival phase was over.

The World System was finally beginning the part of the competition that everybody had been waiting for.

[The true Imperial Ranking War will now begin.]

Ren’s expression didn’t change.

This was it.

The confrontation he had been preparing for.

The World System continued speaking.

[Twenty-four hours from this announcement, all surviving teams will be forced into direct confrontation.]

[During this event, participants from opposing Imperial Teams may freely engage in combat.]

[The event will remain active until the conclusion of the Imperial Ranking War.]

Several people immediately understood what that meant.

There would be no more waiting for calamities.

No more relying on the environment to weaken their opponents.

The teams would now fight each other directly.

But that wasn’t the most important part.

The next announcement was.

[Due to the overwhelming merit point advantage of the Heavenly Bronze Empire, the location of their primary base has been designated as the objective of this confrontation.]

The atmosphere inside the Rock instantly changed.

Ren narrowed his eyes.

He had expected this.

He still didn’t like hearing it.

[The location of the Heavenly Bronze Empire’s primary base will be revealed to all surviving teams.]

[Only the location of the Heavenly Bronze Empire’s primary base will be revealed.]

[The remaining areas of the secret realm will remain undisclosed.]

A map appeared.

The entire secret realm wasn’t displayed.

Instead, one specific location was marked.

The Rock.

Their home.

Their fortress.

The place they had spent six months strengthening.

Now, everyone knew exactly where it was.

For a moment, nobody inside the base spoke.

They understood immediately what this meant.

Their greatest advantage had just been turned into a target.

Then the World System delivered the final part.

[Merit points gained from eliminating participants belonging to another Imperial Team will be doubled during this event.]

[Merit points gained from eliminating participants belonging to the Heavenly Bronze Empire will be multiplied by five.]

Silence.

This time, it lasted much longer.

Even the people who had been expecting a confrontation hadn’t expected this.

Double points for killing other teams.

Five times the points for killing someone from the Heavenly Bronze Empire.

The reason was obvious.

The system considered their enormous lead too great.

It had effectively placed a bounty on them.

And not just a normal bounty.

A bounty that encouraged every other surviving team to attack the same target.

The announcement finally ended.

[Prepare yourselves.]

[The confrontation will begin in twenty-four hours.]

The World System disappeared.

The secret realm remained silent for several seconds afterward.

Then the Rock erupted into discussion.

"This is ridiculous."

"Five times?"

"They’re literally putting a bounty on us."

"Four teams against one..."

"They’re definitely going to cooperate."

Nobody needed to explain that last part.

It was obvious.

The Burning Firmament Empire had more than one million points.

The other three teams had hundreds of thousands each.

None of them could realistically catch up to the Heavenly Bronze Empire through normal means.

But now?

If they killed members of the Heavenly Bronze Team, they would receive five times the normal merit points.

Their best opportunity had been handed to them.

The teams that had spent six months competing against one another now had a common enemy.

The Heavenly Bronze Empire.

And there was nothing stopping them from working together.

Four teams.

Roughly fifty representatives each.

Around two hundred people.

Against fifty-one members of the Heavenly Bronze Empire.

The numerical disadvantage was obvious.

Even if the Heavenly Bronze Team was individually stronger, nobody could simply ignore being outnumbered by that much.

Especially when every death among them was worth five times the normal merit points.

It was almost as if the World System wanted them to be attacked.

Some members of the team were visibly uneasy.

They had spent six months building their lead.

Now that very lead had become the reason everyone would come after them.

Diana looked toward Ren.

"What do we do?"

Ren remained calm.

He had already known this was coming.

For the past month, this was exactly what he had been preparing for.

"Nothing changes."

The others looked at him.

"Nothing?"

"We continue with our preparations."

Ren looked at the map where the Rock’s location had been revealed.

"Our base has already been reinforced. The defensive formations are ready. The squads have been drilled. Our stockpile is sufficient, and everyone already knows their positions."

He paused.

"They have twenty-four hours to come here."

Ren’s expression remained completely calm.

"That means we have twenty-four hours to prepare for them."

The nervousness in the room didn’t disappear immediately.

But hearing Ren speak with such certainty helped.

He wasn’t surprised.

He wasn’t panicking.

He wasn’t even particularly angry.

Because this was exactly why he had spent the peaceful month preparing the Rock as if a war was coming.

He knew that the World System wouldn’t allow them to simply sit comfortably on top of their massive lead.

Eventually, the other teams would have to be given an opportunity to catch up.

This was that opportunity.

And Ren had been waiting for it.

The survival phase was over.

The calamities were over.

The peaceful month was over.

Now, the teams would finally fight one another directly.

The Heavenly Bronze Empire had spent six months building an enormous lead.

The other four empires now had twenty-four hours to decide how they would deal with it.

Ren looked toward the distant horizon beyond the Rock.

Somewhere out there, roughly two hundred enemies were preparing to come for them.

They probably thought that revealing the Rock had left the Heavenly Bronze Empire vulnerable.

They probably thought the fivefold merit multiplier would make the risk worthwhile.

They probably thought that four teams working together could overwhelm fifty-one people.

Ren couldn’t blame them.

From the outside, it probably looked like the obvious strategy.

But there was one thing they didn’t know.

Ren had spent the entire peaceful month preparing for exactly this.

The Rock wasn’t merely a base anymore.

It was a fortress.

And the Heavenly Bronze Team wasn’t going to surrender their six-month lead without making their enemies pay dearly for every step forward.

The true Imperial Ranking War had finally begun.