Ethan and the others picked a spot to landâsomewhere 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 thousandâand 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 theyâd basically hit the jackpot.
Even Ethan could use these.
Heâd 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 whoâd reached Tier 20 had matching Tier 20 cores they could use. But the other ten thousand were still Tier 18, and the cores theyâd just harvested were too high-tier for them to absorb.
Right now, the governmentâs crystal-core breakdown tech only went up to Tier 18. Maybe theyâd get a breakthrough later, but at the moment, Tier 19 cores were basically unusable for those guys.
And even the Tier 20 group couldnât all level at once. If they split the cores evenly, itâd be one core per personâbarely 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 whoâd received cores sat down on the spot and started absorbing.
The ones who hadnât gotten any yet spread out in a perimeter, keeping watch.
Ethan was the first to finish. He rose to his feet, energy steady and denseâTier 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 Commanderâand the rest of the Fallen Star Squadâliked running around outside instead of sitting safe behind walls.
"Alright," Ethan said, sweeping his gaze over them. "Everyoneâs leveled. Next upâwe keep going."
"Yeah!"
He mounted up, and the whole group lifted off again, searching for the next Infernal tribe.
It didnât 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 didnât have a choice. Dopey and Rocky were too monstrous, and the Infernals werenât dumbâthey knew they couldnât win, so they werenât about to stay and die for nothing.
The moment they turned to flee, Flamebirds and Fallen Star Guard poured in from all directionsâdense enough to blot out escape routes.
They hit while the Infernalsâ fighting spirit was already gone, cutting them apart before they could even gather themselves.
With the Fallen Star Guardâs 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 overâpick 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 theyâd erased three more Infernal tribes in a row, they finally had to stop.
Not because they didnât want to keep goingâbecause they couldnât.
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 wasnât going to cut it anymore.
Right now, everyone was taking a breather inside an abandoned compound.
Theyâd 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 hadnât improvedâbecause the crystal cores theyâd 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 guysâ strength would shoot up fast. Orâonce they ground their way up to peak Tier 18 by absorbing mysterious energy, theyâd 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... theyâd 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 wouldâve been slower, sure, but casualties wouldâve dropped to almost nothing.
He didnât do that.
The Fallen Star Guard was going to become the blade of Fallen Star Cityâor really, the entire Atlas Federation. When the Void Realmâs monsters came pouring out again, thereâd 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 placeâso 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.
But now the tribes had merged, and that made things messy.
A hundred thousand-plus wasnât something they could handle head-on anymore.
If Ethan led them into that now, it wouldnât be training. It would be sending them to die.
"Ethan," Chris said, looking over. "Whatâs the plan now?"
Theyâd 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 donât need to be polite either. Iâll 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. "Thatâs... kinda nasty, isnât it?"
Then someoneâs grin spread.
"But... I love it."
Ethan just shook his head, then led them outâthis 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 Ethanâs team had wiped a few smaller tribes, the nearby survivors had all fled into this one, swelling it into a true mega-tribeâwell over a hundred thousand.
Ten thousand zombies wouldnât 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 Ethanâs people in seconds.
So yeah.
Better to play it safe.