After collaborating with other major organizations and taking in more prisoners, the frequency of this place being opened had increased significantly. Currently, it was made accessible once every two to three hundred years.
Therefore, in the beginning, the team leaders from the major organizations were those at peak heavenly god-level. The standard had then slowly lowered to ninth-rank heavenly god-level, then even further to high-rank True Gods. Up until now, the team leaders' abilities were still getting lower in level, to the point where some high-rank Heavenly Gods of certain organizations would let those at medium-rank lead the team if they themselves were unavailable. Basically, there were very few team leaders who were at ninth-rank.
Therefore, everyone was surprised when they saw Buried Heaven, wondering why he was the one leading Death Sickle's team this time.
As a top figure among those at heavenly god-level, Buried Heaven could be said to rank higher than everyone else present, whether in terms of ability or seniority.
As soon as he arrived, practically all the team leaders of other organizations took the initiative to greet him. Even the team leaders of the two grade-7 organizations were no exception.
This was even more apparent for the teams that arrived after Death Sickle, with some team leaders even taking the initiative to approach him with a few words of greeting. After all, outside of Death Sickle, it was extremely difficult for other people to have any contact at all with Buried Heaven.
By around eight-fifty in the morning, everyone was present.
Lin Huang also saw both Kylie and Bloody among those from the Nephilic Judge Tribe. The two women had only been able to recognize Lin Huang through the contract sense of their cards.
However, they only glanced briefly at each other before all three of them looked away.
What gave Lin Huang a sense of satisfaction was that Kylie was already at ninth-rank true god-level, while Bloody had also elevated to eighth-rank.
The team leader from the Nephilic Judge Tribe was also the only other ninth-rank Heavenly God present, apart from Buried Heaven.
Nevertheless, when he arrived and saw Buried Heaven, he had greeted him with a "Sir."
"After entering, all of you will be randomly teleported to an area that matches your combat level. Virtual God rank-9s will be teleported to an area where there are Virtual God rank-9 prisoners, while ninth-rank True Gods will also be teleported to an area where ninth-rank True God prisoners roam.
"One more thing—I've also emphasized this in the information that I sent to you. These prisoners are not the low-IQ monsters that you've hunted before, and they'll use any method possible to try and kill you in order to survive.
"Although the rules don't allow hunters and prisoners to team up, and every fight has to be one-on-one, the prisoners will certainly use their surroundings to their advantage—they may even set traps.
"Every energy fluctuation arising from your battles will expose your position and attract these prisoners to come and investigate. You should know that the individuals confined in this sort of place are mostly lunatics. Even if they weren't lunatics before being imprisoned here, it wouldn't have taken long for them to turn into one.
"You want to hunt these prisoners to get hunting points, while they want to hunt you even more to get resources!
"Everything I've just mentioned was included in the information that I sent out more than a month ago. I'm re-emphasizing these things now because I fear some of you might not have read the information at all." Buried Heaven's gaze swept over Lin Huang's group, his eyes purposefully lingering on Virtuoso for a moment. It was obvious that he was referring to Virtuoso.
Virtuoso paid no heed to Buried Heaven's words, however, and just acted like none of this had anything to do with them.
Just like Lin Huang, they did not hold Buried Heaven in as high a regard as the others did.
Buried Heaven also noticed Virtuoso's wandering attention, cleared his throat, and then continued, "There's one last thing I would like to emphasize once again. The entire secret prisoner territory is under the supervision of God Capital. Whatever you do inside the secret territory, we can clearly see it from the outside. During the entire hunting process, all of you are only allowed to hunt prisoners and monsters from the secret territory. Do not attack hunters who are members of other organizations, and especially do not attack members of your own organization!"
Buried Heaven glanced at both Virtuoso and Lin Huang when he said this. He was a little worried that the slightest disagreement between the two would cause them to start fighting inside the secret territory.
"Once someone is discovered to have attacked a fellow hunter contestant, they will be severely punished once they come out!"
Upon hearing this, Virtuoso could not help curling their lips, staring at Lin Huang with a smile. "Such boring game rules."
Lin Huang chuckled as well. Obviously, Virtuoso had not looked through the information sent out by Buried Heaven, but Lin Huang had read it. Therefore, he knew very well that Buried Heaven had described the rules more stringently to prevent himself and Virtuoso from fighting.
In fact, the rule of the secret territory was that one could attack other hunters within a limited range. Sharing pointers was allowed, as long as one did not kill or incapacitate others, conduct malicious sneak attacks, or plot deliberate set-ups.
As long as hunters behaved appropriately, they could move against each other.
God Capital even encouraged the plundering of points. As long as both parties set the amount in advance, the loser had to pay the winner the forfeit agreed upon.
Even other hunters could use their own points to place bets on the winner or loser if they were spectators.
"I have a question," Virtuoso seemed to have suddenly thought of something, and asked Buried Heaven, "If other hunters attack me first, can I kill them?"
"You can fight back, but you can't kill or incapacitate them, nor can you deliberately set them up." After Buried Heaven said this, he emphasized yet again, "Whatever you do in the secret territory can be clearly seen from the outside at any given moment. Whether there is any subjective malice or not, I believe that can be easily determined by everyone."
"These rules are so childish, just like little kids playing house," Virtuoso complained in some dissatisfaction.
"Alright, if you have any other questions, please ask now." Buried Heaven eyed the time. "The secret territory will open in less than five minutes."
"I have a question," Lin Huang did not ask this question out loud, but directed it to Buried Heaven through voice transmission, "In the secret territory, is the accumulation of hunting points based on each person's actual combat level, or their combat level after disguise?"
"After disguise. To be precise, it's the combat level that you registered with," Buried Heaven replied via voice transmission, "Your hunting points are calculated by the staff of God Capital based on the number of hunts and the level of the target in question. In fact, they can't see your combat level through the monitoring screen at all, so they can only calculate based on the registration information provided by the major organizations.
"There have been no previous cases of fraud regarding such matters. On one hand, the major organizations are full of people who value their pride. In a minor competition such as this, there's no need to resort to fraud, because if it were discovered, one would become the laughing stock of the entire God Territory. On the other hand, the participants are basically all virtual god-level rank-9 and ninth-rank True Gods—very few people of other combat levels take part. Once they appear, the major organizations will probably notice them, so it would be difficult to cheat." When Buried Heaven said this, he cast a glance at Bloody from the Nephilic Judge Tribe.
"Then, the combat level that you signed me up for is..." Lin Huang asked.
"Didn't you ask me to register you as ninth-rank true god-level?" Buried Heaven returned matter-of-factly.
'Did you not just say that there have been no previous cases of fraud?!'
Lin Huang exclaimed silently in his heart. He had asked because he was worried that Buried Heaven had registered him as a first-rank.
He did not expect, however, that the direct and honest Buried Heaven would have no sense of deception whatsoever and had even answered him with such confidence.