'Roar!'

Hundreds of monsters kicked up charging ice mist, getting closer and closer to Carlos's group.

Fat ice monsters charged up front. Even though they were chunky, they weren't slow.

Despite their heavy builds, their feet formed continuous surfaces, dragging bloated bodies to glide like lightning on ice.

Other monsters followed right behind, roaring with hunger for flesh.

Ice spike monsters brought up the rear, barely keeping formation.

Carlos watched calmly. When ice spike monsters closed to within 100 yards,

"My retainers, go wipe them out!"

"Roar!"

"Wow!"

"You got it! Master!"

Three purple, red, and yellow lights flashed, instantly jumping into the monster mob.

Boom!

Purple screens spread, crimson flames exploded, withering swept over everything.

Instantly, monsters were scattered everywhere. In moments, one-tenth had bit the dust.

The special elite ice spike monster's narrow eyes showed pure terror. The army it had busted its butt to assemble was getting slaughtered without putting up a fight!

It made short urgent sounds, calling for clansmen to bail immediately.

Monsters! What freaking terrifying monsters!

In its memory, even the top dog tribes in the glacier depths didn't pack such scary power!

"Wow!"

The sound caught the three retainers' attention. Red Spirit, the speediest, became a red light instantly popping up above this special elite ice spike monster.

The special elite ice spike monster faced certain death. Patterns on its black iron cone arms barely lit up before getting swallowed by crimson flames, melting completely!

"Wow!"

Red Spirit spat with disgust, then turned to mop up other monsters.

...

[Spiritual Essence +1.5]

[Spiritual Essence +2.2]

[Spiritual Essence +1.6]

[...]

The sound of climbing spiritual essence in his mind brought crazy joy.

"Dark Mist Second Layer monsters are tougher by one tier, but the three retainers still totally dominate."

But Shield Guards with only two sublimations couldn't pull off previous crushing wins—battles would definitely cause damage.

This was why Carlos didn't throw Shield Guards into battle. Only after their next successful sublimation could he confidently unleash them.

Before long,

the three retainers completely massacred hundreds of monsters. Carlos's spiritual essence piled up to 2409/19000.

"Sweet, hundreds of monsters bumped it up by nearly 500 points."

"Keep moving."

Carlos's group kept heading toward their southern target...

...

Deeper south, they ran into more monster crews.

Same deal—when monster crews bunched up enough, Carlos sent three retainers to clear house and harvest spiritual essence.

Over several days, harvesting over ten waves of monster crews, Carlos's spiritual essence stacked up to 9301/19000—seriously fast progress!

Finally, they stopped in front of a hanging glacier.

A small glacier hanging on a mountainside, hence called a hanging glacier.

The hanging glacier in front of them was massive, with countless upside-down ice spikes.

At the spike tips, weird ice balls formed, gleaming with crystal shine.

Thousands of ice spikes, countless ice balls, adding awesome color.

Carlos stood before it, eyes showing emotion.

"Who'd think that inside these gorgeous ice balls lurk bloodthirsty monsters."

This hanging glacier's real name was Ice Worm Nest—a breeding ground for monsters called ice butterfly worms.

In his vision, those thousands of ice balls were ice butterfly cocoons, with ice butterfly worms quietly waiting inside for the moment to break out.

However, they'd never get the chance to emerge.

"The numbers are definitely enough. Let these ice butterfly worms contribute to the final push toward 20 spirituality points!"

Carlos's gaze landed on the three retainers. Before the Shield Guards' next sublimation, only they could handle monster crew hunting.

"After dark,

you can start targeting the ice butterfly worms on the hanging glacier.

Purple Vortex handles cutting them off, Red Spirit and Ginya handle wiping them out, working section by section."

Picking nighttime action was because ice butterfly worms slept way deeper at night, rarely waking up.

As long as Purple Vortex's Dark Purple Force Field blanketed an area to block sound, then the other two retainers' flames and withering fields could clear them out.

This would definitely score quick wins without causing massive ice butterfly worm chaos.

There were way too many ice butterfly worms. If huge numbers woke up, things would get messy.

Not from worrying about the retainers' safety, but ice butterfly worms, seeing they couldn't fight back, would definitely tunnel into glaciers to escape.

Then slaughter efficiency and numbers would tank big time.

"Roar!"

"Wow!"

"Got it!"

The retainers responded one after another.

Carlos had them wait here while Red Rose Shield Guards protected him, finding hidden terrain nearby to set up camp and chill.

Staying somewhat far away, if monster chaos broke out, Carlos would have time to react.

Time crawled by as the gray-white sky gradually got darker.

The dark mist world's layers were all different.

Dark Mist First Layer, a glacial world, had no sun but still told night from day.

When gray-white sky was completely stained with pitch-black light, night fell.

However, nighttime was quick—only about one-fourth of the day, 6 hours.

"Move out, my retainers!"

Carlos didn't sleep. He had to constantly watch the battle through Purple Vortex's vision, preventing screwups.

The three retainers moved out. Purple Vortex, following Carlos's orders, chose to start with ice butterfly worm cocoon groups from the edge.

Dark Purple Force Field split in two, covering respective areas completely without gaps.

Red Spirit and Ginya looked at each other, each picking an area to enter the Dark Purple Force Field.

"Boom!"

In Red Spirit's Dark Purple Force Field, crimson flames shot up, ice balls melted. Inside, fist-sized ice butterfly worms just waking up felt terrifying flames.

Each writhed, desperately drilling into glaciers, but flames had already blocked escape routes.

Filling the entire space, terrifying heat melted all glaciers. Ice butterfly worms made ear-splitting screams before going silent.

Compared to Red Spirit's bold, violent destruction of everything, Ginya was more 'gentle.'

She quietly released Withering Domain, blanketing the area's ice butterfly worms, freely sucking up their life force.

Before long, ice butterfly worms' life force nearly drained, seriously aged, lacking even strength to break cocoon bonds.

Only a few ice butterfly worms sensed something was wrong, struggling to break free, but before crawling out of the domain, their vitality was completely devoured.

Ginya's withered leaves gradually brightened.

...

Carlos's spiritual essence started rapidly climbing...