Death... and me
chapter-2003

While Titia thought about Roan's words, a newcomer approached from another side. Timboa was the one to come this time with her companions. As mentioned before, her group was the only one other than the twins to be able to fuse their Soul Guiding Power together for a stronger effect. With that said, Timboa's bracelet had many more dead souls, which she quickly released near the Path of Reincarnation's entrance.

Seeing the souls move away, Timboa noticed her own count of gathered souls went up by 216 in a single go. She and her companions brightly smiled and quickly turned around to leave. They could feel they had a huge chance of winning the fifth contest, so they had to be quick.

That was the main reason no one else other than the elders in the meeting hall noticed the twins. That's because the bracelet from those who the twins got the souls from would still count the souls released there. For them, there was simply nothing wrong at all. Everyone 'knew' that once you released the souls in this place, the souls could 'only' go to the Path of Reincarnation... well, not really.

Rean and Roan once again used their Soul Guiding Power together, which surpassed any other devil in the competition, causing 178 dead souls from those 216 to change direction. They all entered Roan's bracelet before Roan released them back. Thanks to that, his bracelet's count also increased. It went without saying that Roan had the highest count now by a huge margin.

Back in the meeting hall, everyone could only pretend that they couldn't see Rui's happy expression. He made sure to show everyone how they had lost... although even he didn't expect it to be that easy. The rules only said that the highest score in the bracelets would count. There was nothing about using other devil's souls. First of all, soul-guiding battles happened every now and then, so what the twins were doing wasn't that much different to start with.

Mephisto obviously had the worst expression. That's because it wouldn't matter how much better Glanvi could be at guiding souls to the Path of Reincarnation. Once he arrived to release them, the twins would capture most of those souls, and Glanvi wouldn't see a thing.

Still, none of them wanted to just give up there and then. They kept watching, hoping that the twins might be using too much strength and wouldn't be able to keep it for long. However, after an entire day of reusing the other participants' dead souls without them knowing, the twins didn't show any signs of fatigue. If anything, they used every free time they had to cultivate. It was obvious they were having a very easy time out there.

"Enough!" Eventually, the first elder devil lost his patience. It was Eisheta of the Flata Clan. "Staying here for three whole days is simply meaningless. Those freaks from the Light Devil Clan have already scored more than enough points, to the point any of our clan members wouldn't be able to reach it in the next two days."

Moloch looked at Fiz through the formation. In his case, it wasn't that bad. That's because, after an entire day, Fiz wasn't anywhere near Timboa, who was second. Let alone the twins. Regardless of what the twins were doing to win the contest, the fact was that Fiz wouldn't win this thing anyway. "I agree. I would rather head back to the Realm of Gods to keep an eye out for the other races there."

Rui obviously had no complaints about it whatsoever. "Suit yourselves. If everyone agrees with you, then I don't mind calling it here. Of course, that will mean my Light Devil Clan has acquired two victories. The Underworld Relic will be in my Light Devil Clan's hand for the next thousand years."

Mephisto held the relic in his hand while he kept a pensive expression. He obviously didn't want to lose the relic at a time like this. But then again, the Underworld Relic couldn't leave the Underworld. It would be useless to whatever was happening in the Realm of Gods. His clan had benefited quite a lot from it by now as well. What he was more interested in at the moment was the twins themselves. Or, to be more specific, the twins' relation to the Underworld Relic. Only he knew that the twins and the relic Resonated somehow, and he truly wanted to understand why.

Ligren, a High Devil Clan Leader, raised his hand to ask permission to talk. With the Elder Devils there, the High Devils had to be respectful. "Our High Devil Clans are using the contest to decide other matters as well. Is it fine if we continue the contest for the whole three days?"

Mavis nodded at him. "You guys can continue to do whatever you want. I'm going to call Doyis's group back and leave on my own. They wouldn't be able to surpass those two devils anymore, even if they didn't capture a single extra soul."

The High Devils sighed in relief as they focused back on the formation. For them, whatever happened with the Underworld Relic was none of their concern.

Rui then looked at Mephisto. After all, that was the Elder Devil with the Underworld Relic. "So, what do you say? Will you accept that? I can wait all three days to be over if you want."

Mephisto pondered over it for a bit. "I don't mind admitting defeat. However, I want those two devils of yours."

"Ha!" Rui snorted in response. "There's no way I would give them to you. With their talent, they're the future of my Light Devil Clan."

Eisheta couldn't help but intervene. "They're good, but I won't accept this contest anymore if they're here. Unless we change the rules. No, even if they weren't reusing our participants' souls, their Soul Guiding Power alone would definitely give them the victory anyway."

Rui didn't seem too worried. "Don't worry, they won't take part in this anymore. The next contest will start 200 years from now. By then, they would have already surpassed the Void Tempering Realm. They won't be eligible to start with."

"Then I'm fine with whatever." Eisheta was relieved to hear that.