Battle Royale of the Sinners

December 31st, 182 A.D.

11.59 PM.

Tong, Hua Shi, and Friday sat in a circle within Tong's room, waiting for the annual update from the system and rewards from the quests.

Friday glanced at the other two in envy as she wanted to form the soulmate pact with Tong too. However, Lilim ignored their request and questions, shunning them as if they never existed.

'She's an ass,' Friday thought, 'Well, I hope she continues giving us the rewards, so we can improve our faction next year.'

Then, the clock ticked. A new day arrived.

<<Ding>>

<<Collecting the upkeeps>>

"…"

Hua Shi and Tong had a black face. Instead of rewarding them first, the automatic system took their lifespans instead. Had they been reckless and left with insufficient lifespans, they would have died right then.

Since both Tong and Hua Shi and massive lifespan pools, they were not affected much by a few thousand years deduction.

<<Evaluating your clan performance>>

<<Evaluation completed. Here is your result>>

<<You have occupied Julu, Ye, Zhongshan, Jinyang, and Shangdang>>

<<A total of five Commandery cities and three other county towns>>

<<A total of 53,000 lifespans have been added to the clan asset>>

<<Five shopping tickets have been added to the clan asset>>

<<Continue to work hard next year>>

The three checked their clan lifespan pool, 95,000 years of lifespans were there. There were more than enough to supply all future subordinates of the clan and Li Feihong for a long time.

…

************************

<<Clan Quest>>

Quest Objective: Occupy at least one county or a city.

Reward:

- 10,000 Lifespan Pool for each city occupied.

- One Shopping Pass for each city occupied.

- 1,000 Lifespan Pool for each county occupied.

- Rewards are given at the end of each year.

************************

…

The rewards of the clan quest were given annually. As long as the Yellow Turban and Tong's allies kept expanding or protecting their territories, their members would never die from the lack of lifespans.

Unless Lilim messed with them again …

<<Ding>>

<<Evaluating you soulmate quest performance>>

"Here it is," Hua Shi was excited. She was expecting a massive reward as they had occupied many cities than they had planned in the beginning.

Tong was also looking forward to it. He predicted that both he and Hua Shi would receive at least 500,000 lifespans from the happy population.

…

*********************************************

**Soulmate Mission No.2**

Clear Condition:

- Occupied Ye City and Julu City. Other cities are optional.

- Protect the cities from the invaders until the time limit runs out.

- Make at least 50% of your citizens happy.

- Zhang Tong and Hua Shi must participate in this mission together.

Failure Condition:

- One or more of the cities is not under your control when the time limit exceeded.

- Zhang Tong or Hua Shi did not participate in this mission.

Clearing Reward:

- 100,000 Lifespans for completing the primary objective.

- 20,000 Lifespans for killing an enemy general.

- 20 Lifespan for killing each enemy soldier.

- 10,000 Lifespans for each city controlled. The reward is given annually.

- One shopping ticket for each city controlled. The reward is given annually.

- One Lifespan for each happy population each year. The reward is given annually.

- One shopping ticket if more than half of your population is happy. The reward is given annually.

Time Limit: Midnight, December 31st, 190 A.D.

Mission Failure: Soulmate Contract will be nullified, and one of you will die.

System Note: As usual, you have to kill the soldiers or the generals yourself to get the reward.

*********************************************

…

This quest took years to complete as they had to continue protecting the cities for another eight years, but the rewards were generous.

Similar to the clan quest, they had to protect the two key cities, Julu and Ye, so they could complete the mission.

<<Both players have fulfilled all conditions>>

<<A total of five major cities under the players' control>>

<<A total of 701,600 of 1,264,104 population are happy under your rule>>

<<Rewarding 751,600 lifespans and six shopping pass to each player>>

Hua Shi let out a muffled scream in her throat while Tong clenched his fists. They succeeded.

The rewards were worth the troubles they had gone through for the entire year.

*******************************

Name: Zhang Tong

Lifespan: 859,580 Years

Shopping Pass: 6

*******************************

Name: Hua Shi

Lifespan: 824,535 Years

Shopping Pass: 6

*******************************

Name: Dong Bai

Lifespan: 768,762 Years

Shopping Pass: 0

*******************************

Tong and Hua Shi's lifespans were boosted to the point that every otherworlder would be envious. Dong Bai, aka Friday, did not receive the rewards from the quest, but she could absorb life essence by borrowing Tong's tentacle wing, so she did not care much about the number.

<<The reward distribution has been finished>>

"Alright!"

"WOOO!!"

Tong and Hua Shi hi-fived together as they got the boon of this soulmate quest.

"Before you celebrate, you should get your [Create Food] back. The donation cooldown should reset by now, right?" Friday reminded the two as she was jealous.

Tong glanced at the donation button in the menu. It was like Friday had said, the button was flashing rainbow light as if it wanted Tong to donate his lifespans to the system.

"Two chance, five skills. Wish me luck!"

Tong rubbed his hands as he prayed. [Immortal Yang Vein] and [Create Food] were what he needed the most at the moment. As long as he regained the two skills back, the war in this year would be a-walk-in-the-park for the Yellow Turban.

'The moment of truth.'

Tong inserted 100,000 lifespans into the system central pool and pushed the donate button.

<<Ding>>

<<You have obtained [Create Food] Lv.6>>

"FOOK YEEEEAAAAHHH!!"

Tong screamed and ran around the room like a soccer player who had just scored a goal.

Friday chuckled, while Hua Shi nodded.

"We don't have to guess. He has it back."

"Indeed. I thought his luck was bad, but I was wrong."

Five minutes after the celebration lap, Tong lied down on the floor and laughed, "Plot armor for the win!"

"If you had a plot armor, Lilim wouldn't have erased your skills," Mocked Friday.

"Hahaha! It doesn't matter! Our cities are safe. Now Tong, get back your dual-cultivation skill! Your wives want it back."

Tong's face darkened as he remembered that these two predators had insane stamina at night. Without the unlimited yang seeds, Tong could not outlast them on the bed.

'Dammit! Why have I trained these two to be this strong? I can't sleep soundly for a single night.'

Despite the complaint, Tong also wanted the skill as he could use its regeneration ability and stamina passive buff. The dual-cultivation was also beneficial to him as he could increase skill levels of other skills.

'Give me back my dual-cultivating power, please?'

Tong prayed as he pushed the button.

<<Ding>>

<<You have obtained [Sword Mastery]>>

Tong sulked in the corner of the room. The goddess of luck did not favor him this time.

"What do you get?" The girls asked him.

"[Sword Mastery]. Sorry, no dual-cultivate for another year."

Hua Shi shrugged, "Too bad. But it doesn't matter, right? You can manually regenerate your seeds now."

"Please, Sunday. It's different from the skill. Manual-regen tires me mentally."

"It's part of your practice. Now that we get the skills out of the way, it's time to milk!"

Friday nodded and began stripping Tong and tying him onto the bed. The nightlife of this mental demon family continued.

Further details will be omitted.

…

…

January 1st, 183 A.D.

This year marked the year of the country-wide famine. Every city would suffer the shortage of food in this harvest season in September.

To Tong and his affiliate cities, this problem had been solved beforehand as Tong regained his [Create Food] and his granaries had already been filled to the brim since last year.

The morning assembly at Julu, Jia Xu was reporting the movements of the neighbor lords.

"Liu Yan has assembled 50,000 professional soldiers and currently recruiting volunteers. He is framing us as bandit rebels to get the people's support, so we can expect that several groups of militias will reinforce their main army once they dispatch the troops. The deployment deadline of Ji City is by the end of January, and they plan to march toward Zhongshan first."

"Sun Jian has been requesting for supports from his lord, Tao Qian, and the neighbor lords, so reinforcements and volunteer forces from various cities are gathering inside Ganling. The latest news from December indicated that they have 40,000 soldiers and is still increasing. From their stance, they are targeting Ye City. The dispatch date is still undecided."

"Yuan Shao has been sending diplomats to several lords, which the content of the negotiation is to form a coalition against us. They also plan to invade Julu, and their dispatching date is set in early February. Their force number is 150,000 elites without including the drafted militias or volunteers!"

Listening to the briefing, everybody had a solemn expression as the next war would involve three of their affiliate cities. Julu, Ye, and Zhongshan, which had to face different enemies at once.

Zhongshan had Zhang Liang, Zhang Bao, Bo Cai, and 10,000 Yellow Turban soldiers. With the newly recruit militias and professional from the surrendered Zhen family, their number was less than 20,000.

Ye City was without an official governor or a trusted personal by Tong. There were 35,000 garrison soldiers housing in the city.

Julu was Tong and the Yellow Turban's headquarter. They had 60,000 dispatchable elites and 10,000 police officers.

'More uphill battles. These will be harder than all battles I have been through.' Tong thought.

As he had expanded his territories, more responsibility and troubles awaited Tong and his family members. They had yet to stabilize all cities, yet they had to repel the invaders again.

Jia Xu continued his reports, "Another thing that we should pay attention. All three forces have already noticed Liu Ping's death, yet they still want to invade our cities. These mobilizations have nothing to do with Liu Ping's framing anymore."

Jia Xu paused and look at everyone inside the building.

"This war is about clan profits and façade. The Han Dynasty is confirmed dead."

Sima Fang and Lu Zhi, who was listening to the report in the government hall, deeply exhaled as they had given up trying to protect the 400-year-old dynasty.

Everything from this point on was about their survival in the anarchy! To survive the power struggle between all lords in this country, they had to either unify the country or solidify the foundation of their affiliate cities.

The battle royale for the supremacy had officially begun.