After pulling off soul fusion with all his worn spirit gear, Carlos immediately ordered the three retainers to get back.

The Shield Guards' upgrade to Dark Knights was priority number one.

Thinking of soon having Dark Knights, Carlos's sleepiness totally vanished, despite several days and nights without shuteye.

"Phew!"

Carlos exhaled deeply, chugged down ten alchemical potions, and closed his eyes to recover.

Before firing up the Dark Knight sublimation formation, his spirit had to fully bounce back...

...

Before long, three streaks of light came down as retainers returned. Carlos opened his eyes, ending his recovery.

His thoughts flowed, and a pitch-black wooden jar showed up on the ground.

Taller than a person, surface patterns barely visible, cold aura seeping out with a seriously ominous vibe.

Geddo's Jar—a high-level sealing jar in the Death Herald pathway, often used to store various precious liquids with awesome preservation effects.

Just the jar body was pretty valuable, but the liquid inside was way more precious.

Carlos cast the secret technique, unsealing Geddo's Jar. Instantly dark mist rose, revealing cold white glass-like liquid inside, icy cold with twinkling points of light.

This was Dark Knight secret formation liquid that Carlos had prepped using crazy expensive materials, several times more valuable than secret bone liquid or secret silver liquid, with seriously complex procedures.

Carlos took out the formation liquid and started carefully drawing the Dark Knight sublimation secret formation on the ground...

Compared to previous sublimation secret formations, the Dark Knight sublimation secret formation had more layers,

way more complex steps, seriously troublesome to draw, requiring extreme care in one shot. Any screwup meant starting over.

However, Carlos was already totally familiar with it, so he wouldn't get nervous.

The three retainers surrounded the area. If any monsters showed signs of getting close, they'd immediately wipe them out to avoid messing with master's drawing.

Time crawled by as an incredibly complex formation gradually appeared on the ice.

Taking up a massive area, dense secret texts covering it, large patterns containing small patterns, mind-boggling to look at.

"Sweet, drawn perfectly!"

After Carlos checked and confirmed zero errors in the formation, he immediately set up a Purple Thornblade Shield Guard to stand at the sublimation secret formation's core position.

Then Carlos grabbed a Ghostly Dark Steed from storage space, placing it at the secondary core position.

After placing main and secondary subjects, Carlos waved his hand, tons of monster corpses piling up at outer sacrifice positions like small mountains.

At this point, pre-ritual prep was done.

Carlos took a deep breath, focusing hard. What came next was the make-or-break part.

Bang!

He released thick Death Herald energy, firing up the Dark Knight sublimation secret formation.

Instantly, various intricate patterns lit up one by one, crossing each other. Within the massive sublimation secret formation, cold pale flames rose, burning the entire area.

As pale flames rose, mysterious sublimation words quietly spread through this area:

"&&**…##…&&&"

Piled monster corpses melted one after another like fuel, becoming seriously pure energy absorbed by the sublimation secret formation.

With sacrifice kicking off, pale flames got denser, bubbling intensely like they were burning the sky!

Carlos constantly watched changes within the formation. When flames hit their peak, mysterious sublimation words immediately shifted to more urgent tones.

At the same time, precious rare materials—Twin Fall Bone Stone, Blue Rhino Horn, Fury Ore Marrow...—got thrown by Carlos into the pale sea of fire.

"Boom!"

Instantly, the pale flames that had maxed out surged again, looking from far away like a pale volcano.

Burning! Extracting! Sublimating!

Pale flames covered everything, only some weird sounds could be heard...

Carlos didn't dare slack off for a second, the sublimation words in his mouth getting more and more urgent...

....

"&&@!&&@!&&@!"

"Boom!"

As chanting got close to its end, a crazy powerful aura started to spread...

In the insanely turbulent pale sea of fire, a tall black shadow was barely visible. Countless pale flames rushed toward it eagerly, and in moments, the pale sea of fire was totally devoured!

Right then, the final sublimation words ended. Carlos impatiently looked into the sublimation secret formation.

A knight with insanely powerful aura stood there, even taller and beefier in build.

The bones throughout its body had gone through incredible changes.

Not only were they several times thicker, but their number had doubled, filling tons of body gaps to form a suit of cold bone armor radiating dark metallic shine.

Demonic purple thornblade patterns spread to every part of the bone armor, especially the glorious purple thornblade on the chest.

The knight covered in dark bone armor carried a crimson great shield on its back, insanely heavy. On the shield surface, a lion-tiger beast head roared—totally indestructible!

Strong, thick bone hands gripped a long-handled greatsword—this was the mutation of the Purple Thornblade Clan Sword.

The hilt became thick and long, the sharp purple thornblade body also got bigger by several sizes, reaching a full fifteen feet in length, gleaming with cold light—nothing could stand against it!

Beneath it, the Ghostly Dark Steed was covered by a layer of purple thornblade bone armor, only showing a pair of crazy cold undead fires, surrounded by ghostly flames, giving off soul-chilling cold!

"Finally... finally... finally nailed it!!!"

Carlos stood before the successfully sublimated Dark Knight. The first thing he saw was that mutated Purple Thornblade greatsword.

"Rather than calling it a long-handled greatsword, it's more like a lance!"

The successfully sublimated Dark Knight, fully armored (bone armor is still armor), wielding a long lance, carrying a great shield, instantly showing the badass presence from his memories!

Carlos impatiently started checking the Dark Knight's info.

[Purple Thornblade Dark Knight]

[Health: 400 (Constitution x50)]

[Strength: 28]

[Constitution: 8]

[Speed: 3 (infantry state)/40 (cavalry state)]

[Skills: Purple Thornblade Strong, Purple Thornblade Cavalry Tactics (1+3) level]

"Terrifying! A full 28 points of strength!

The speed weakness has been totally wiped out, even becoming an advantage!"

Looking at attributes alone, the Purple Thornblade Knight born from three sublimations could easily crush mid-tier beings, even ranking among the powerhouses in high-tier psionics!

In Dark Mist First Layer with its 29-point spirituality limit, besides those special node bosses, who could match the Purple Thornblade Knight?

Nobody else!

With 40 points of speed and terrifying strength, Purple Thornblade Dark Knights could come and go however they wanted in Dark Mist First Layer.

Moreover, Purple Thornblade Dark Knights perfectly merged the power of Fearless Shield Equipment, Purple Thornblade Clan Sword, and Ghostly Dark Steed.

[Purple Thornblade Strong: Powerful talent born from the source fusion of Purple Thornblade Clan Sword, Ersbah First Legion Fearless Shield Equipment, and Ghostly Dark Steed

(1) Purple Thornblade Cavalry Tactics level +3

(2) When using Purple Thornblade Cavalry Tactics, damage +10%, defense +10%.

(3) Bond: Fearless Purple Thornblade!

Purple Thornblade Dark Knights resonate during battle. Each extra one increases 1 point strength, 1 point constitution, and immunity to negative effects. (Each constitution point lasts 10 minutes)

(4) Umbral Iron Bone Armor: Defense massively increased, can absorb Umbral Iron or bones to heal injuries.

(5) Ghostly Flame: Soul-targeting ghostly cold flame, massively increases soul damage.]