“Each person needs five ‘Dao’ as the entry fee. After victory, the survivors can split thirty ‘Dao’ evenly.”

“What about the number of participants…?” Qi Xia asked with furrowed brows. “Don’t tell me it just happens to be exactly five people?”

“Not quite…” Earth-Mouse said with a smile. “Since the leaders from ‘Cat’ haven’t come to give me any trouble, I’m being magnanimous and giving you all a choice… You can choose to participate with either five or six people.”

“Oh…?”

This was the first time Qi Xia had heard of a game with an unfixed number of participants.

“Let me make this clear upfront,” Earth-Mouse continued. “If five people participate, then I’ll play the role of ‘Cat.’ But if six people participate, then one of the participants will need to play ‘Cat.'”

Qi Xia pondered for a few seconds before speaking. “We can choose ourselves…?”

“That’s right.” Earth-Mouse nodded. “Since I’m running a business here, I naturally need to accommodate different situations. I can handle both five-person and six-person jobs.”

“So how should we choose…?” Luo Shiyi asked in a low voice from behind. “Do we need to go borrow someone from another team right now?”

“I think we should,” Zhou Liu nodded. “If all six people are on our side, the game will become much easier.”

Qi Xia frowned upon hearing this.

The purpose of participating in an Earth-level game this time wasn’t to make things easier, but to increase the difficulty as much as possible. Therefore, they absolutely couldn’t consider a situation where all six people were on their side.

“The five of us are enough,” Qi Xia said. “Even though I know full well this might be a trap, I’m willing to jump in.”

“Hmm…?” Zhou Liu looked at Qi Xia with some confusion. “There’s an easy path right in front of you and you won’t take it… Are you trying to get us killed in the game?”

“Although I’m a liar…” Qi Xia said, “as long as you follow my arrangements, there’s an extremely high probability I can keep you all safe.”

“In that case… I can only hope you leaders won’t regret this.” Earth-Mouse smiled.

After hearing this, Zhou Liu stopped hesitating. He gave a look to Qiu Shiliu, who was at the back of the team, and Qiu Shiliu pulled out a pile of ‘Dao’ from his waist pouch and handed them to Earth-Mouse.

“Excellent!” Earth-Mouse took the Dao and tossed them into a box beside him, then turned back to open the door of the building. “Asura Arena—leaders, please come inside.”

Looking at the pitch-black corridor inside, everyone took a deep breath and walked in one after another. It didn’t matter if it was an ‘Asura Arena’—as long as they were still surviving in the ‘Land of the End,’ everywhere was an Asura Arena.

Within just a few seconds, everyone discovered that the smell here seemed different from elsewhere. There was no fishy stench inside the building; instead, there was a sweet fruity fragrance.

This kind of scent would almost never appear in the ‘Land of the End,’ and it couldn’t help but make people feel somewhat disoriented.

Everyone felt they had only walked about ten meters, and when the surroundings had become completely dark, Earth-Mouse finally slowly stopped and pressed a button on the wall. The old lights inside flickered on.

“We’re here, leaders.”

Earth-Mouse led them into the main hall, then took out six collars from a cracked box behind him.

“I need to explain in advance…” Earth-Mouse said. “Since I truly respect you leaders very much, I won’t use violent means to harm your lives during the game. But as I said, I also have superiors above me. After comprehensive consideration, I can only bring out these ‘Explosive Collars’ for you leaders to wear. I hope you won’t take offense.”

Qi Xia silently accepted the collar and asked a question he’d been holding back for a long time: “Are you this polite to all ‘Participants’?”

“Me?” Earth-Mouse shook his head. “Leader, you’re giving me too much credit. You’re a leader from ‘Cat,’ which means you’re Qian Wu’s people. I’m only this polite to you few. Please put it on first.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia shook his head. Aside from the rules, every word this man said was a lie—a typical workplace smooth talker.

Everyone looked at the collars in their hands. Zhou Liu raised his head and asked, “Tsk, why are there six? Is there a spare?”

“Hey, what are you saying? I have to wear one too!”

Before everyone could react, Earth-Mouse took the largest collar and fastened it around his own neck. With a “click,” the collar locked firmly around his neck.

Qi Xia carefully examined the sizes of these collars, then quickly cast a suspicious look at Earth-Mouse.

“Leader, don’t mind it,” Earth-Mouse said with a grin. “These are ‘Explosive Collars.’ Mine is bigger than yours, which means there’s more explosives in mine. You leaders only need a tiny bit of explosives to die cleanly, but I can’t. Please bear with me, leaders.”

“Tell us the rules,” Qi Xia said.

“Right, right, right. Follow me, leaders.”

Earth-Mouse led everyone a few steps through the spacious hall, and only then did everyone notice there were quite a few rooms around the hall—seven wooden doors in total.

“My game rules are very complex, but playing it is actually quite simple,” Earth-Mouse said. “We’re divided into two camps. I am the ‘Cat,’ and you are the ‘Mice.'”

“Tsk, we already knew that,” Zhou Liu said.

“And the game is divided into six rounds,” Earth-Mouse continued. “Each round is further divided into ‘Night’ and ‘Day.'”

Seeing that no one responded, Earth-Mouse nodded and continued, “All the ‘Mice’ can only be active during ‘Night,’ while the ‘Cat’ can only be active during ‘Day.'”

“How long are ‘Day’ and ‘Night’?” Qi Xia asked.

“Ten minutes each,” Earth-Mouse said. “Do you leaders think that’s enough?”

Qi Xia carefully calculated—twenty minutes per round, six rounds would take two hours. In these extremely time-pressed circumstances… they had to figure out how to crack the game even faster.

“Damn…” Luo Shiyi cursed. “If it’s not enough, can you extend it?”

“That’s rather difficult, truly hard to extend. If you leaders need it, I’ll try my best to help you apply for it,” Earth-Mouse said expressionlessly. “Following the rules, please bear with me, leaders.”

“Stop the nonsense,” Luo Shiyi scratched his ear. “We’re divided into cat and mice, and then what?”

Earth-Mouse pointed to the leftmost room, which had a black door, then said, “That’s the ‘Mouse House,’ also your ‘Base.’ You can discuss strategies inside or hide from the ‘Cat’s’ pursuit. I will absolutely not enter the ‘Mouse House,’ so after the game starts, that will be the safest place.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia looked around and discovered that the seven doors in the house were actually all different colors. Although they were all dark tones, under the dim lighting, one could roughly distinguish seven different colors.