Chapter 13: Day-One Rankings! First Place by a Landslide with 185,000 Points!

Time slipped silently toward midnight.

Tick.

The clock in the upper-right corner of the void interface changed to:

[00:00:00]

Hum!

A golden results screen unfolded before every Lord.

The Day-One Overall Points Rankings were officially released.

[Godfall Continent — 133rd Grand Selection: Day-One Overall Points Rankings]

[1st Place: Tyrant (Region Code: Dark-0914) — Points: 185,400]

[2nd Place: Raine Augustus (Region Code: Light-0002) — Points: 16,800]

[3rd Place: Lucian Drake (Region Code: Dragon-0011) — Points: 15,200]

[4th Place: Carson Blackwell (Region Code: Iron-0005) — Points: 14,100]

[5th Place: Adrian Sterling (Region Code: Sky-3008) — Points: 13,500]

...

John glanced over the rankings.

Second-place Raine Augustus had scored more than sixteen thousand points.

By the standards of previous Grand Selections, that was already an exceptional result for a first-day novice.

The Judgment Alliance had clearly poured a massive amount of resources into him.

But John’s score?

Over one hundred and eighty-five thousand.

More than ten times Raine’s.

After thinking about it for a moment, John wasn’t surprised.

Who else could gather more than ten thousand units of every basic resource on the very first day?

Who else could field an army numbering in the thousands?

Who else could erase an entire siege wave in barely three seconds?

His overwhelming lead was only natural.

But there was something else on the rankings that deserved attention.

At the very bottom of the interface was an inconspicuous line of red text.

[Current Surviving Lords: 100,456,6119 / 124,231,1034]

When everyone had first descended that morning, there had been more than one hundred and twenty million novice Lords.

Yet after only a single day—

and the first monster siege—

nearly twenty million had already been removed from Godfall Continent.

Once a territory was destroyed, its Lord’s Godfall Mark would be forcibly stripped away.

The failed Lord would immediately be returned to reality.

A permanent gray-white dead mark would remain on the back of their hand—

proof that they had forever lost the right to enter Godfall Battlefield again.

Just like Darcy.

Reality was that cruel.

John closed the interface, returned to his wooden house, and immediately went to sleep.

Even inside the game, physical stamina still mattered.

And tomorrow, he had somewhere he needed to go.

It was a long journey.

He needed proper rest.

...

Morning sunlight slipped through the cracks around the window and fell across the head of the bed.

John opened his eyes and sat up.

There was none of the sluggish heaviness that normally followed a late night.

Instead, his entire body felt lighter than ever before, overflowing with strength.

He rotated his wrist.

His knuckles gave off a series of dull cracks.

For a moment, John even had the illusion that he could smash solid rock apart with his bare hands.

Had the experience his troops gained yesterday raised his own level as well?

The thought had barely crossed his mind when a pale blue interface appeared before him.

[Lord Identification Number: Lower City–Sequence 13–9527]

[ID: Tyrant]

[Lord Level: Lv.9 — 120/9,000 EXP]

[Talent: 10,000× Acceleration — SSS-Rank, Unique]

[Class: Undead Sovereign — Hidden God-Tier, Unique]

[Vitality: 85]

[Agility: 85]

[Spirit: 85]

[Strength: 85]

[Unallocated Attribute Points: 80]

[Skills: Undead Conversion — Lv.1, No Cost; Absolute Dominion — Lv.1]

John raised an eyebrow at the numbers.

An ordinary Lord class gained only five points in each of the four core attributes per level.

Undead Sovereign, on the other hand, granted ten points to every attribute with each level—

plus another ten free attribute points.

"That’s a nice surprise."

John muttered.

"I wonder what else this hidden class has waiting for me."

He didn’t spend any of the free attribute points.

Instead, he closed the allocation window.

During the mid and late stages of Godfall Continent, Lords could unlock exclusive skill books.

Some of those skills had extremely strict attribute requirements.

Until John obtained a core skill worth building around, blindly dumping points into a single attribute would be foolish.

For now, he had other things to do.

John pushed open the door.

Breakfast had already been prepared outside.

Two slightly charred potatoes.

A bowl of thick soup made from wild vegetables and minced meat.

Beside it sat a bamboo tube filled with filtered spring water.

The cooking was crude.

But during this resource-starved pioneering phase, the natives had clearly done the best they could.

John ate a few bites of potato, picked up the bowl of soup, and walked toward the open ground in the middle of the settlement.

His army was already assembled.

Fifteen hundred Undead Spearmen.

One hundred Undead Sentinels.

And one hundred and fifty Undead Dark Knights.

Gru stood off to the side with several dozen villagers, waiting nervously for orders.

"Gru."

John called out.

Gru hurried over and bowed.

"My Lord."

"Today, the territory will split its forces."

"You’ll be moving with them."

John swept his gaze across everyone present and began issuing orders.

"Divide all Spearmen and Sentinels into four groups."

"The first three groups will each consist of four hundred and fifty Spearmen and thirty Sentinels."

"They’ll escort all of the villagers and harvest every mine, logging site, and stone deposit inside the twenty-kilometer area we cleared yesterday."

"The fourth group will consist of one hundred and fifty Spearmen and ten Sentinels."

"Expand the scouting radius to forty kilometers around the territory."

"That fourth team’s mission has only two objectives."

"Mark every high-value resource node on the map."

"And collect any scattered gold deposits you encounter along the way."

"Avoid every monster group."

"Do not engage unless absolutely necessary."

John’s voice turned cold.

"Before nightfall, every unit must return inside the territory’s defensive barrier."

"Anyone who disobeys that order will be executed."

The command sank directly into the soul flames of every undead unit.

"Yes, my Lord!"

Gru quickly responded before turning to distribute baskets and iron pickaxes among the villagers.

With the synchronized scraping of bone and armor, the three gathering forces marched out of the territory.

The villagers, equipped with tools, followed them toward the surrounding resource sites.

The fourth scouting team scattered into the wasteland.

John turned around.

The only force remaining before him was the one hundred and fifty Undead Dark Knights.

He opened the Lord Map.

Several grid sectors north of the territory, deep inside the gray fog, he placed a marker.

It was a strange red-and-black skull icon.

Distance from Territory: 300 kilometers.

"At full speed..."

John narrowed his eyes.

"We should be able to reach it in half a day."

He wasted no more time.

Walking over to the nearest high-tier Dark Knight, John swung himself onto the undead warhorse behind its saddle.

"Move out."

"Head north at maximum speed."

The warhorse gave a low, hollow neigh.

Its four hooves struck the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

One hundred and fifty heavily armored Undead Dark Knights immediately surged forward behind John.

They thundered through the territory gates and into the endless wasteland.

The terrain ahead was rough and uneven.

Loose stones covered the ground.

Thorny brush grew everywhere.

But beneath the iron-shod hooves of the armored undead warhorses, every obstacle was crushed apart.

"ROAR—!"

They had traveled barely thirty kilometers when a pack of vicious wasteland jackals covered in bone spines burst from behind an earthen ridge.

There were seventy or eighty of them.

Their enormous mouths were lined with backward-curving fangs as they lunged straight toward the cavalry.

"Charge."

John didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

BOOM!

One hundred and fifty spiral armor-piercing lances, each four meters long, lowered at the same time.

Dark-gray death energy surged across the heavy armor of the Dark Knights.

Thunderous hoofbeats shook the earth.

The entire formation suddenly doubled in speed.

Then—

the armor-piercing lances crashed straight into the pack of vicious jackals!