The next second,

warm blood splattered everywhere.

The twins actually used their bare hands to rip out their sister's right eye (left eye).

Weirdly enough, they showed zero signs of pain, instead getting more and more pumped up.

Two blood-soaked little hands belonged to different owners.

Clutching the gem-like black pupil (white pupil), with perfect timing, they pressed it into their own empty right eye socket (left eye socket)...

"Feels amazing!" x2

The twins blissfully closed their eyes.

The empty eye sockets eagerly accepted the new black pupil (white pupil), flesh growing back. In just moments, they'd completely healed up.

"Bang!"

After successfully merging each other's single eyes, the twins opened their eyes.

Sister Riley had both pupils pitch black, deep with no bottom in sight, like they led to some unknown dark realm.

Sister Anna had both pupils ghostly white, creepy white, like nothing could hide from them.

"Sister, we're different now."

Sister Anna felt bummed out yet pumped up at the same time.

"Sister, we're different now."

Sister Riley nodded, feeling exactly the same as her sister.

They stood in the corner's shadows,

instinctively melting into the shadows as one, their chatter only audible to each other.

"Sister, some stuff just popped up in my memory."

"Yeah, me too."

After swapping each other's mismatched pupils, the twins gradually started changing.

Back and forth,

the twins looked at each other.

Their awakened pupils immediately surged with serious power, wrapping around their entire bodies.

Sister Riley's

clothes had already shifted -

a dark-style gothic battle dress, her little face ice cold, distant yet regal.

In her hands formed a giant half-moon scythe, a full head taller than her, the wicked blade wrapped in thick shadow energy.

Sister Anna wore the same gothic battle dress, but pale colored.

Her little face smiled, but weirdly didn't make you feel warm—instead, it chilled you to the bone.

In her hands appeared a white banner a head taller than her, several banner cloths moving without any wind, wrapped in ghostly shadows, seriously creepy.

"Someone jacked our home!"

"We gotta steal it back!"

Between the twins' back-and-forth, their shadows writhed and merged,

suddenly forming a dark portal radiating freezing energy, with a dark passage inside leading to who-knows-where.

Shadows writhed as the twins gradually vanished into the dark portal...

...

"Wow!"

"Uh-huh."

"Wow! Wow!"

"I got it."

"Wow! Wow! Wow!"

"Red Spirit, you nailed it."

The fire-red little figure floated in front of Carlos, excitedly circling around him, making happy wow sounds.

"Rock Sand City's puppet master—never saw it coming that it'd be the Chief Security Officer."

One of three Controllers, seriously holding major power with crazy strength.

No wonder in the original timeline,

after the Golden Sand Society got busted, Rock Sand City's leadership handled it lightning fast, like they'd already had all the intel.

With Red Spirit back, Carlos had wrapped up all his prep work.

"Time to head to the dark mist regions where the monsters pack more punch..."

Carlos stared off into the distance...

...

Several months later,

Carlos's crew showed up looking beat in some swampland.

On the dark muddy swamp surface, black shadows could occasionally be spotted passing by. The black shadows near the swamp edge sensed the outsiders on shore.

Crimson eyeballs popped up from the mud surface, bloodshot eyes staring without blinking toward shore, giving you the serious creeps.

Carlos ignored this bunch of freaky eyeballs, his gaze seeming to see right through the swamp.

"Who'd think that buried in this swamp would be an entrance to a dark mist dimension?"

Dark mist dimensions -

whenever dark mist completely ate up a world, it would naturally form a layer of dark mist dimension as the final reminder of that world's existence.

Nobody knew exactly how many dark mist dimensions were out there.

In his past life, a demigod once tried exploring but ended up getting totally lost in the depths.

Each layer of dark mist dimension seemed to be in different spots,

but looking at it spatially, they stacked layer upon layer upward, so folks named dark mist dimensions by layer number.

For example,

the dark mist dimension Carlos was about to enter was usually called Dark Mist First Layer, with the weakest strength.

Generally speaking, the deeper the dark mist dimension, the nastier it got.

However,

even in Dark Mist First Layer where monster levels were pretty weak, it stayed crazy dangerous for mid-tier psionics.

Starting from mid-tier,

psionics wanting to rapidly boost their spirituality had to venture into dark mist dimensions.

Because only here were there tons of mid-tier monsters to throw down with.

Each layer of dark mist dimension was insanely huge.

Dark Mist First Layer had tons of entrances and exits in the Material Realm.

Going in from different entrances would naturally drop you in different areas of Dark Mist First Layer.

Carlos had done the math carefully, picking this entrance hidden in the swamp as his way in.

"Ginya, wipe them out."

"Got it! Master!"

Shadow Wings flapping, Ginya quickly soared above the swamp.

The black shadows in the swamp immediately clustered below Ginya.

Huge patches of black shadows bunched together.

Countless crimson eyeballs surfaced, greedily looking skyward, seemingly waiting for prey to drop so they could join the feeding frenzy.

"Boom!"

Withering Domain expanded, instantly blanketing the entire swampland.

The crimson eyeballs gradually aged.

Huge patches of black shadows immediately got agitated.

Rapidly burning lifespans

forced them to scramble toward shore, trying to escape this freaky power.

In the sky, Ginya coldly watched the fleeing monsters below, her mouth stretching wide.

"Run, run..."

The more violent the movement, the faster the lifespan drained.

Each black shadow couldn't escape the Withering Domain's coverage before losing all life and croaking.

As monsters dropped one after another, Ginya's withered leaf armor quietly picked up more shine, getting brighter.

With the blocking monsters taken care of,

Carlos gestured:

"Purple Vortex!"

"Roar!"

Purple Vortex got it, Dark Purple Force Field spreading and shifting into a giant passage, stabbing straight into the swamp's depths.

Through the passage,

you could barely make out

a pool of pitch-black spring water, slowly flowing.

This was an entrance to Dark Mist First Layer.

"Let's dive in!"

"Wow!"

Red Spirit took point on scouting, other retainers flanking Carlos protectively.

After Red Spirit plunged into that pool of pitch-black spring water,

the others followed one by one.

...

Heaven and earth shifted—they'd entered another world.

"Freezing!"

Even wearing pre-prepared winter gear,

it was tough to block Dark Mist First Layer's bone-chilling environment.

Looking around, everything was gray and white, covered everywhere with dead ice crystals—dead silent yet freezing everything solid.

Carlos's eyes held nostalgia. This area matched up with his memories, with pretty much no changes.

"First, spirituality's gotta rapidly climb to 20 points!"