Ethan and the others picked a spot to land—somewhere with no Infernals in sight.

Once they were down, they hauled out all the crystal cores.

This time, the take was just shy of forty thousand—and every one of them was high-tier.

Over twenty thousand were Tier 19 cores. More than ten thousand were Tier 20. Over five thousand were Tier 21. And there were even a little over three hundred Tier 22s.

One fight, and they’d basically hit the jackpot.

Even Ethan could use these.

He’d only just stepped into Tier 22 himself, and those Tier 22 cores were perfect for him. With them, he could push straight to the peak of Tier 22 in one go.

For Chris and the others, it was even better. Between the Tier 21 and Tier 22 cores, they could ride the line all the way up to peak Tier 22 and catch right up to him.

The only annoying part was the Fallen Star Guard. Their power levels were about to get uneven.

The ten thousand who’d reached Tier 20 had matching Tier 20 cores they could use. But the other ten thousand were still Tier 18, and the cores they’d just harvested were too high-tier for them to absorb.

Right now, the government’s crystal-core breakdown tech only went up to Tier 18. Maybe they’d get a breakthrough later, but at the moment, Tier 19 cores were basically unusable for those guys.

And even the Tier 20 group couldn’t all level at once. If they split the cores evenly, it’d be one core per person—barely a bump.

But if they focused on a thousand first, they could lift that group to Tier 21. Then, using the remaining Tier 21 cores, they could push another four hundred to peak Tier 21. After that, they could raise two hundred to Tier 22.

That was how you squeezed the maximum value out of the haul.

And once they had two hundred Tier 22s and twelve hundred Tier 21s, their overall combat power would jump hard.

With that decided, Ethan pulled out nine Tier 22 crystal cores for himself, then allocated enough cores to Chris and the others to take them cleanly to peak Tier 22. After that, he distributed the rest.

Before long, everyone who’d received cores sat down on the spot and started absorbing.

The ones who hadn’t gotten any yet spread out in a perimeter, keeping watch.

Ethan was the first to finish. He rose to his feet, energy steady and dense—Tier 22, peak.

A little later, Chris and the rest stood up too. Then more and more people got to their feet as the wave of upgrades finished.

Excitement was written all over their faces.

This kind of leveling speed was insane. No wonder their Commander—and the rest of the Fallen Star Squad—liked running around outside instead of sitting safe behind walls.

"Alright," Ethan said, sweeping his gaze over them. "Everyone’s leveled. Next up—we keep going."

"Yeah!"

He mounted up, and the whole group lifted off again, searching for the next Infernal tribe.

It didn’t take long to find another one they could hit.

Same setup: Ethan went in first and dropped Dopey and Rocky right into the middle of it.

Beat them down first. Worry about the rest after.

A few minutes later, that tribe broke just like the last one and tried to run.

They didn’t have a choice. Dopey and Rocky were too monstrous, and the Infernals weren’t dumb—they knew they couldn’t win, so they weren’t about to stay and die for nothing.

The moment they turned to flee, Flamebirds and Fallen Star Guard poured in from all directions—dense enough to blot out escape routes.

They hit while the Infernals’ fighting spirit was already gone, cutting them apart before they could even gather themselves.

With the Fallen Star Guard’s strength boosted, their killing speed jumped with it. And with Chris and the others now at peak Tier 22, they chewed through the tribe even faster than the first time.

Before long, the entire tribe was wiped out.

Same as before: they dug out the crystal cores and immediately pulled out.

This run added another thirty thousand-plus high-tier cores to their stockpile. The number of Tier 21 Enhanced climbed by more than a thousand, and Tier 22s increased by another two hundred.

After that, Ethan kept the momentum rolling.

Same routine, over and over—pick a tribe they could take, Ethan leads Dopey and Rocky in to kick the nest, everyone else crashes in during the chaos, and the moment the last Infernal drops, they harvest the cores and vanish before reinforcements can arrive.

The routine was simple, but it worked like a charm.

After they’d erased three more Infernal tribes in a row, they finally had to stop.

Not because they didn’t want to keep going—because they couldn’t.

After getting hit by a few ambushes back-to-back, the Infernals wised up and started merging. Every nearby tribe consolidated into these oversized super-tribes, each one starting at a hundred thousand minimum.

With that setup, their old "hit-and-run" playbook wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

Right now, everyone was taking a breather inside an abandoned compound.

They’d wiped five tribes total, each one in the thirty-to-fifty-thousand range.

At this point, the Fallen Star Guard had over a thousand Tier 22 Enhanced, over five thousand Tier 21s, and the remaining four thousand were sitting at peak Tier 20. Of course, there were still ten thousand Tier 18s who hadn’t improved—because the crystal cores they’d gotten were too high-tier for them to use.

But Ethan was sitting on close to a hundred thousand Tier 19 cores now. Once the crystal-core breakdown tech improved, those guys’ strength would shoot up fast. Or—once they ground their way up to peak Tier 18 by absorbing mysterious energy, they’d be able to ramp up quickly from there.

Still, absorbing mysterious energy was slow. The fastest way was always crystal cores.

And even though Ethan had been using the safest method he could... they’d still lost a few hundred people.

There was no way around it.

This was war.

Ethan could have just let Dopey and Rocky do all the killing while everyone else stayed back. It would’ve been slower, sure, but casualties would’ve dropped to almost nothing.

He didn’t do that.

The Fallen Star Guard was going to become the blade of Fallen Star City—or really, the entire Atlas Federation. When the Void Realm’s monsters came pouring out again, there’d be endless fights waiting for them.

They needed combat. They needed to clash with enemies stronger than themselves.

That was the whole reason Ethan had brought them out here in the first place—so he could train them personally.

Killing zombies? That was kiddie stuff.

Only truly brutal battles forced people to unlock the strength they were supposed to have.

And these Infernals were perfect for sharpening a unit like this. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

But now the tribes had merged, and that made things messy.

A hundred thousand-plus wasn’t something they could handle head-on anymore.

If Ethan led them into that now, it wouldn’t be training. It would be sending them to die.

"Ethan," Chris said, looking over. "What’s the plan now?"

They’d come here to wipe out the Infernals. Nobody was in the mood to just walk away.

Ethan thought for a moment, then said, "If they want to play dirty, we don’t need to be polite either. I’ll just have Dopey and Rocky slaughter them. We watch. Once they break and run, we pick them off piece by piece."

"Uh..." Everyone stared at him. "That’s... kinda nasty, isn’t it?"

Then someone’s grin spread.

"But... I love it."

Ethan just shook his head, then led them out—this time ditching the birds and moving in on foot toward a tribe in the distance.

It used to be a medium-sized tribe, maybe seventy or eighty thousand Infernals. But after Ethan’s team had wiped a few smaller tribes, the nearby survivors had all fled into this one, swelling it into a true mega-tribe—well over a hundred thousand.

Ten thousand zombies wouldn’t mean much.

Ten thousand Infernals was already scary.

And this was ten times that.

These things started at Tier 19, minimum, and every one of them had ranged abilities. If they really traded blows, that wall of attacks would bury Ethan’s people in seconds.

So yeah.

Better to play it safe.