As long as you have the courage, fierce ghosts go on maternity leave.

Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!

The sound of hooves resonated. Along with the sixty newly-promoted Ghost Emperor duplicates, a total of eighty-three Alexanders activated their talents at once.

"Holy shit!"

Witnessing this, ten hell warriors couldn’t help but curse. However, the next moment, each hell warrior found themselves facing a full-on assault from three Ghost Emperor-level Alexanders, and hundreds of Imperial-level Alexanders.

Unsurprisingly, the ten hell warriors were instantly annihilated, reduced to ashes. Even their armors and weapons were left battered beyond use.

"What a waste, such a waste!" Second duplicate exclaimed, visibly pained. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"These hell warriors are far too frail," the original Alexander said, equally distressed. "Next time, the Imperial-level should refrain from attacking. Everyone else, exercise caution!"

"Don’t worry!" One duplicate nodded, "We’ll definitely be more careful. Aim for the warriors, not their equipment!"

"We should try to keep them as intact as possible," another duplicate chimed in. "After all, they’re potential Ghost Food. Although their ghostly bodies are mostly formed from Mist and have no research value or use for others, they’re still quite useful for us. At the very least, they can replenish our forbidden energy. The forbidden energy in the mini challenge arena is non-renewable, after all."

Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!

Just as the duplicates were engrossed in their discussion, another wave of hoofbeats echoed.

The duplicates exchanged glances and activated their spatial talents. This time, the hell warriors didn’t even get the chance to speak before they were slaughtered.

Skillfully converting the hell warriors into Ghost Food and stowing away the armor, Alexander wasn’t about to pass up the horses—valuable items in their own right. The virtue of thrift, after all, was one he held dear, even in this Horror World.

Being thrifty, as he understood it, meant diligently collecting resources to sustain oneself. And that’s precisely what he’d always done.

Having cleanly gathered their spoils, ten duplicates used item cards to transform into hell warriors, and then waited for their next prey to arrive.

As time passed, the rate at which hell warriors arrived began to accelerate, and even enforcers started to appear. Moreover, hell warriors no longer appeared in isolated groups but occasionally converged from four or five groups at a time.

This time, Alexander chose to annihilate them all at once.

When the number of incoming hell warriors swelled to forty or fifty, along with the constant arrival of enforcers, the Emperor-level duplicates alone started to feel the pressure.

But that was alright; if Emperor-level wasn’t sufficient, they still had Imperial-level.

At full power, an Imperial-level could critically injure an Emperor-level opponent. Four or five attacking together could achieve instant kills. And Alexander had over ten thousand Imperial-level duplicates.

Half an hour later, when the count of hell warriors felled by Alexander and his duplicates surpassed ten thousand, the sound of hooves suddenly intensified, suggesting the presence of at least a thousand more. Thousands of hell warriors and several hundred enforcers arrived almost simultaneously.

Facing them with just eighty Emperor-level duplicates and over ten thousand Imperial-level duplicates might suffice, but achieving instant kills was now improbable.

That was alright, though; Alexander had a trump card.

His duplicates had inherited most of his abilities and talents, including his ace in the hole: Hell Curse!

Hell Curse could summon an Emperor-level battle ghost for just a tenth of the stored Ghost Energy. And when Alexander created duplicates, the stored Ghost Energy for Hell Curse was 310 billion.

This meant that any Alexander duplicate, even those at the lowest Prince-level, could summon over three thousand Emperor-level battle ghosts.

Of course, maintaining these battle ghosts also drained Ghost Energy. Once that ran out, they’d disappear. But a single attack was enough, as Alexander sought not prolonged combat but instant kills.

Just one Hell Curse could call forth over three thousand battle ghosts capable of striking at full power! With two Hell Curses and their intrinsic strength, they could instantly annihilate these thousands of hell warriors.

As the sound of hooves rapidly closed in, figures in black armor and helmets—the hell warriors—became visible at the end of the street.

"Kill!"

Wasting no words, Alexander teleported using his spatial abilities. In an instant, he and his duplicates appeared amidst the hell warrior ranks. As they launched their attacks, two duplicates, each unsheathed their swords.

Talent—Hell Curse, activated!

Instantly, behind each hell warrior or arriving enforcer, one or more figures wielding swords ablaze with ghostly green fire materialized. Simultaneously, all the Ghost Emperor-level duplicates activated their spatial talents.

Without a doubt, these hell warriors didn’t even have the opportunity to react before they were instantaneously annihilated.

Efficiently converting the bodies of the hell warriors, Alexander and his duplicates donned the armor and took up the long blades, employing the Perfect Identity Card.

Though they couldn’t acquire the attribute templates of the hell warriors, nor did they find any particular skills that the warriors possessed, the armor and weapons were undeniably of Emperor-level quality and came with no usage restrictions.

Even the lowest-tier, the Prince-level duplicates, could effortlessly vanquish King-level entities when equipped with hell warrior gear, without even needing to use their skill talents.

Wave after wave of hell warriors came at them like moths to a flame, meeting their end at the hands of Alexander and his duplicates.

During this time, other duplicates were also busy, dispersing in all directions to crack cycles. Unfortunately, the complexity of Emperor-level cycles made them hard to break, even with inside help. Success was rare.

Finally, a day passed. The number of Emperor-level duplicates reached eighty-five, and all the hell warriors in Cangshan City had been exterminated by Alexander.

"All King-level duplicates, disperse. Search for cycles to break and look for any hell warriors we might have missed," Alexander ordered, his eyes sweeping over his numerous duplicates—now numbering over twenty thousand—all garbed in hell warrior armor and astride war horses.

With a grand wave of his hand, Alexander led the charge, "The rest, follow me to the hell warrior camp. We’ll start by emptying Cangshan City from the hell warrior base!"

"Empty the hell warrior camp!" Hundreds of thousands of duplicates responded with a howl-like cheer, filling the air with palpable excitement.

The native inhabitants stood dumbstruck, staring at this spectacle.

Alexander, at the head of his army of thousands, arrived outside the hell warrior encampment at dining hall number nine and struck the camp’s massive doors. The doors remained tightly closed, without a hint of movement from within—clearly, no one was left to stand guard.

Relieved, Alexander swung his Underworld Sword. Ethereal shadows clung to the blade as a massive black sword shadow descended with force.

"Open!" he roared.

With that bellow, the doors of the hell warrior camp shattered, allowing the duplicates to flood in like a tidal wave.

The layout of the hell warrior camp was straightforward—vast mansions housing a series of resting rooms, and at the back, enormous warehouses stretching for miles.

"Boss! We’ve found some great stuff here—goods of every grade, numbering at least in the tens of millions! Over a million are above soldier-level!" A duplicate rushed over, exclaiming excitedly.

"Take some people and empty it out!"

Without a moment’s hesitation, Alexander commanded. Behind him, a few duplicates who had already cleared their storage rings dashed forward to complete the task.

"Boss, we’ve discovered a large number of various Ghost Fruits!"

"Empty it out!"

"Boss, we’ve hit the jackpot! I’ve found many Ghost Treasures!"

"Empty it out!"

"Boss, we’re rich! So many secret treasures!"

"Empty it out!"

"Boss—"

The voices kept coming, and Alexander responded in almost mechanical fashion, but the excitement in his heart was far from subsiding.

They’d struck it rich—truly struck it rich!

He’d long suspected that the original Ghost Treasures and secret artifacts of Cangshan City were likely hidden in the hell warrior camps. But when they actually found these items, the elation Alexander felt was irrepressible.

A single hell warrior camp had provided enough Ghost Treasures to arm millions, and not just with the most basic gear.

And in the whole of Cangshan City, there were twenty to thirty such hell warrior camps!