“Strange! Why have all the monsters suddenly disappeared?”Taking a deep breath, Adrian couldn't hide his disappointment.“It's not like they're hiding because they're afraid of us coming, right?”More than simply feeling that his trip today had been a waste, Adrian realized that collecting Stones might not be as easy as he had imagined.“My lord, I believe this phenomenon has something to do with the system. In the New World, this is known as the retreat before an attack.”Seeing Adrian's troubled expression, Yemima spoke up.“What do you mean?”“I suspect the system is deliberately withdrawing the monsters and forcing them to hide somewhere. The purpose is to prepare them for tonight's attack. If my guess is correct, we won't find a single one of them for now, no matter where we search.”Yemima's explanation made sense. Perhaps the monsters really were being gathered in preparation for a much larger attack.“Does that mean the attack during Evernight will be far more terrifying than

“The countdown begins.”The game system's voice echoed across the sky as the giant digital display showed 00:00:10.“Ten.”“Nine.”“Eight.”“Seven.”“Six.”Inside the room, Darla watched the computer screen and saw that the mist was now only a few hundred meters away from the outer perimeter. Given its speed, there was no way the countdown above them could be wrong. In just a few seconds, it would reach them.“Five.”“Four.”At the same time, Adrian stood in the second-floor lobby with his arms folded, his gaze fixed straight ahead. His expression was cold, and his eyes conveyed nothing but calm composure.The point in front of him marked the outer boundary of the region.And the fact that his greenhouse faced directly toward it seemed to suggest that the structure had been designed to confront the monsters that were about to arrive.“If a lord has truly been brought to this New World with the destiny of exterminating monsters, then so be it. I'll fight every last one of them.”“Three

“Yemima said the monsters’ withdrawal was deliberate preparation for Evernight, didn’t she? That means if we’ve encountered everything from zombies to bears, there’s a good chance those are the very monsters that will come after us, right?”An hour before Evernight began, Adrian had already devised a plan to lure as many monsters as possible toward his shelter. He hadn’t done so without making preparations.“Zombies and Abominations are still manageable. Those Blood Bears are the hardest ones to defeat.”His undead army would have no trouble holding back the zombies and Abominations. But as for the bears, only Yemima would likely be able to deal with them.“But with the turrets’ help, it shouldn’t be a problem either,” Darla said. “Even if the cannons can’t kill the bears, they should certainly be able to scare them away.”Darla was simply trying to be realistic. Killing a bear was extremely difficult. Scaring one away was already a considerable achievement. There was no need to kill

“So these will be exchanged for Bronze-tier soldiers? No problem. With them joining my forces, my army will only continue to grow.”After all the bear and Abomination corpses had been thrown into the altar, only the zombie corpses remained. Although they were the most numerous, they were also the lowest-tier monsters.Even so, the thought of a massive army of undead soldiers marching before him made Adrian’s heart race with excitement.“What? No soldiers are appearing?”His expression immediately changed when ten zombie corpses were thrown in, yet nothing emerged.Instead, the altar produced a hundred Attribute Stones.That meant he would receive ten Stones for every zombie corpse.“All right. It’s fine. At least I’m getting something out of this.”Although he couldn’t hide his disappointment, it wasn’t as though he had gained nothing.There were around three thousand zombie corpses, which meant he had now obtained thirty thousand Attribute Stones.“With reserves like these, I won’t h