CHAPTER 274: ORIGIN ICE FORTRESS

First dark mist layer, ice valley castle.

"Let’s call this place ’Origin Ice Fortress’ from here on out!"

"Yes, sir!"

The vassals took their orders and went to tell the overseers to carve ’Origin Ice Fortress’ into the outer walls of the ice valley.

Origin Ice Fortress—the first ice stronghold where humans had actually managed to set up shop in the first dark mist layer. Carlos naming it ’Origin’ was pretty damn fitting.

The naming was just small potatoes that Carlos didn’t sweat over. His real focus was on something else entirely.

Just now, outside Origin Ice Fortress, the Black Knights clearing out monsters had seriously ramped up their kill count, meaning they were running into beasts left and right.

Carlos could smell trouble brewing.

Around Origin Ice Valley, after several rounds of Black Knight carnage over the past few days, the area should’ve been picked clean. So how the hell were so many monsters showing up again?

Right then, Sara burst in, looking pretty rattled.

"Young master, massive waves of monsters are pouring in from the west. The Black Knights are fighting them... no, butchering them is more like it."

Carlos immediately headed outside, sprouted wings, and flew up to the western ice wall to get a look.

Sure enough, countless little white dots were rolling in like a tsunami.

A dark streak was holding back the white tide—this Tulip Black Knight swung its lance, sending monster corpses flying every which way. Its Phantom Dark Horse underneath let out excited whinnies as ghostly flames under its hooves set the corpse chunks ablaze, fires dancing clear as day across the ice.

Carlos’s wings fluttered as he dove down, getting closer to the action.

"What the hell?"

Among the monster horde, the occasional turtle-shell creatures caught his eye.

Sliding Turtle Monsters—fast-moving beasts that could rocket across ice using their shells like sleds.

For their tier, they packed serious armor, lightning speed, and were masters at ramming attacks. Their massive impact could turn rocks into dust.

In Carlos’s memory, the shells on Sliding Turtle Monsters were worth their weight in gold.

With a little work, they made killer ice transport gear.

They could haul both people and cargo without breaking a sweat.

In Carlos’s grand scheme, these ice sleds were perfect for getting around inside the ice plains wall passages, making transport a hell of a lot smoother.

He’d originally planned to hunt them down later but hadn’t expected them to just walk into his lap.

Carlos had a thought, and five nearby Tulip Black Knights immediately charged over.

With such massive numbers of monsters rolling in like a tidal wave, a single Black Knight holding the line would definitely let some slip through the cracks, screwing up the ice fortress construction.

Soon, five dark streaks blazed over and crashed into the monster tide, instantly turning it into a bloodbath of flying corpses.

The monsters kept howling in rage, surging forward wave after wave trying to break through the blockade. Their target was crystal clear—straight for Carlos’s freshly built Origin Ice Fortress.

But this definitely wasn’t just monster instinct. Carlos watched patiently, his emerald eyes scanning each type of creature that showed up.

Horse-head monsters, rock-ice claw beasts, and so on—all your typical ice plains nasties with nothing special about them.

Wait... hold up. So many different kinds of monsters bunching up together without ripping each other apart was weird as hell.

"There’s gotta be something behind this."

But what?

Carlos quickly ran through all the monster types he’d spotted, pulling up their info. Suddenly, it hit him like a lightning bolt!

"Old monsters—these are all old monster lackeys!"

Old monsters, as opposed to new monsters.

According to the data files in his head, the first dark mist layer had once been a bright, sunny realm.

Way back when, just like the Material Realm, it had blazing suns and life everywhere.

But then the dark mist rolled in. After one hell of a fight, that realm finally bit the dust. The survivors decided to join the dark mist to keep their last spark of life going, which is why they got called "Old Monsters."

Old monsters usually meant descendants of the realm’s original fallen clans. You could still see traces of the sunny realm creatures in how they looked.

With old monsters, naturally you had new monsters too.

The ones born from dark mist power were called new monsters—the real heavy hitters of the dark mist invasion.

So even after the sunny realm got completely swallowed by dark mist, the old monster clans couldn’t shake their gut-level hatred.

Having tasted sunlight but being stuck in endless dark mist, the old monsters’ natural hostility toward new monsters passed down to their kids, getting even more intense.

So whenever old monsters and new monsters built up their strength for a while, they’d instinctively start tearing into each other, fighting until they’d beaten themselves bloody and couldn’t go on, then retreating to lick their wounds until the next old vs new throwdown.

The old vs new war was the first dark mist layer’s never-ending cycle. For millions of years, neither side had ever won—just kept piling up bodies on both sides of that frozen river.

Carlos pulled up his memory files, combining them with what was happening now, deep in thought.

"The real blowout of the next round kicks off in six months."

But before the real war broke out, there’d be tons of smaller scraps between new monsters and old monsters.

Carlos figured this bunch of old monsters must’ve gotten marching orders to head for the cold river.

At first glance, they seemed to be heading for Origin Ice Fortress, but looking further east, they were actually aiming for an ice bridge that crossed the cold river.

While he was thinking, under the combined slaughter of six Black Knights, old monsters dropped in waves. Gray-blue blood splattered across the ice. Even paying such a brutal price, they couldn’t move forward one damn inch—instead getting mowed down layer by layer and pushed back.

Even though this pack of old monster clans was dumber than rocks, they slowly figured out something was seriously wrong. When the body count hit a breaking point, the old monsters instinctively started running—came in like a tide and scattered like one too.

Carlos calmly gave the order:

"Hunt them down and bag every last Sliding Turtle Monster!"

Out of this whole group of old monsters, only the Sliding Turtle Monster shells were worth a damn, making it worth the Black Knights’ time to specifically target them.

Up on the western ice wall, Sara, Yolanda, and the Psionics watched in awe at the Black Knights’ raw power. Even a monster horde that massive couldn’t scratch them.

The fight was pretty much wrapped up. Across the ice plains, monster corpses were scattered everywhere. Plenty of old monster parts that weren’t much use to Carlos were still decent raw materials for regular spirit gear.

"Yolanda, get some people to clean up this mess."

Carlos gave quick instructions, keeping his eye on those Sliding Turtle Monster shells.

"Yes, young master."

After crushing this monster wave, maybe the old monsters figured out they couldn’t punch through this way. No second wave showed up anytime soon, and Origin Ice Fortress got back to its smooth development routine.

But only Carlos knew this was just the calm before the storm. The old vs new war in six months would shake up the entire first dark mist layer. No clan could sit it out—either jump in willingly or get dragged in kicking and screaming.

"Before then, the nine core ice fortresses have to be finished..."

The nine core ice fortresses were the most crucial command centers in the planned Northern Wall, designed to coordinate with all the major wall sections.