Back at their residence, Ethan dumped the mountain of crystal cores in front of Miles—every last one of them, all at once.
It was an absurd sight.
Just the Stage A cores alone numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Stage B was basically uncountable. Even Stage S cores—there were still hundreds left.
To haul it all back, they'd had to get creative. Aside from the few Stage S soulless thralls Ethan stored in his spatial ring when he stayed behind to cover the retreat, the rest of the thralls had simply remained outside, carrying loads like moving freight trucks.
And it wasn't just Ethan's ring.
Everyone had crystal cores stuffed on them too—packs, bundles, whatever they could strap down. They'd come back so exhausted they looked ready to collapse, but the payoff was beyond anything they'd ever brought home.
Miles stared at the pile like he couldn't quite process it.
Even he—Miles—went wide-eyed.
