Death... and me

Sure enough, Rean and Roan returned to the City Guards' headquarters, completely ignoring whatever the other countries intended. They weren't 100% sure that the other countries were aiming at them, but it didn't matter if they weren't either. It was, as Rean mentioned. They would need to come knocking on their door whether they wanted to or not.

The reason was simple. Rean and Roan had way too many Existence Pearls after intervening in hundreds of battles between cultivators. For example, Liana had 27 pearls after an entire week. The number of cultivators diminished, and the pearls each cultivator carried increased. However, it still wasn't enough to beat Roan's numbers if all of them were gathered.

Unless, of course, they suddenly decided to give all their pearls to one or two people. There was no way in hell that those big countries would give up their pearls, though. Each and every single one of them still held on to the hope that they might end up in first place after two weeks.

"Oh, Rean, Roan, you're back." Rivaldo, who was dealing with a few issues in headquarters, just so happened to bump into them. "Isn't it too early for your squad to be back from patrol?" Rivaldo was quite satisfied with the twins' performance. He heard the reports from his team members, showing that the twins really helped the city a lot. Even the people of the area they patrolled liked them as they stopped the problem with the outsiders there.

Rean nodded with a smile, telling Rivaldo, "We are. Our squad has been stopping the battle between outsiders all this while. Because of that, we decided to give our squad a week's rest. I hope Captain Rivaldo doesn't mind it."

Rivaldo shook his head after hearing that. "You guys did enough service equivalent to over a month of problem-solving. You and your squad members definitely deserve this week off. In fact, I would mention that myself as I could see your squad members starting to feel tired."

Rean and Roan nodded in agreement. "By the way, Captain. As outsiders ourselves, perhaps the remaining outsiders will try to get revenge on us for stopping their conflicts. Some of them might try to cause trouble here in the headquarters while we're resting."

Rivaldo's expression went dark, letting out a grim chuckle as he said, "Hehe! Now, isn't that interesting? I very much wish to see who will come to MY headquarters to cause trouble." Rivaldo then patted the twins' shoulders in assurance. "Don't worry, you two just go ahead and rest. Our members aren't so weak that they can't deal with a few small flies."

The twins nodded and thanked Rivaldo before they retreated. "Well, since we can't use Divine Energy and Soul Power, what should we do in the meantime?"

Roan then grabbed Rean's collar before pulling him to the training field. "What else is there to do? We will train combat without the help of those energies. You're still lacking a lot of experience in this field."

Rean felt like crying, but he could only follow Roan's instructions. Resources were his field, while combat was Roan's. None intervened or complained about each other's plans. "Fine, fine. I can walk there by myself."

Little by little, cultivators began to gather around the City Guards' headquarters, waiting for Rean and Roan to leave for another patrol. At the same time, Venali and the others went somewhere else to look for more Existence Pearls. Their plan was to look like they wouldn't go after Rean's group after all. Since they couldn't get close, they might as well look for more tasks that would reward them.

Time passed, and ten days had passed since the Dream City test started. During this time, the cultivators understood the rules behind the city and found even more Existence Pearls. However, the majority didn't have plans to be first on the scoreboard. Once some of them were lucky enough to gather ten pearls, they knew their position was revealed on the map. Naturally, they immediately activated their pearls and left straight away. They were all afraid of people like Venali, Liana, and others to come after their pearls. Over a hundred cultivators completed the third test in this fashion.

That, of course, irritated the big countries' leaders, who wanted to gather more Existence Pearls. Other than Roan with his 130 pearls, the second-best cultivator only had 34 of them, and it was Liana from Tenke Country.

Liane didn't care, though. If she didn't get the highest number of pearls by the end of the two weeks, she would distribute them between her country members. It was that simple. The ones who really cared about it were the members of the countries who first wanted to get Roan's pearls for themselves.

In the end, they were forced to gather once again. "Why hasn't Roan left the City Guards headquarters until now?"

"What else would it be? He definitely noticed we sent a lot of our forces after him, so he's afraid of coming out of the Headquarters."

"But if he doesn't leave, we most likely wouldn't be able to get more pearls than him when the second test is over."

"Well, if that really happens, we can still gather our own pearls. As long as we gather all of them, one of us would have more pearls than him."

"Hoh? Is that so? Then, I will obviously be the person to hold everyone's pearls, right? I won't accept any other arrangement."

"Dream on. There's no way anyone here would give their own pearls to someone else. But we can still bet them."

"Bet? I would rather have more members of my country pass this test than risk losing my pearls in this meaningless bet of yours."

Velani then called everyone's attention. "We have no other choice. We must force Roan to come out."

Fulia couldn't help but ask, "And how exactly will you do that?"

Everyone went quiet at that moment. It was easier said than done to force him to come out.

However, it was at that moment they noticed Liana's mark on the map moving in the direction of the City Guards' headquarters. "What is she trying to do?"