I slash with my barbed blade and don't manage to penetrate the thick fur this beast has. I'm batting it around rather than cutting it, and at that point, I should punch it.

Good thing I can verbally communicate to my beasts without giving away my strategy to the enemy since this mite doesn't know any languages.

"Duchess, stop letting Rob joy ride you and fly him over the mite. Drop him when I give the signal." I yelled over the battlefield.

Rob is continuously shooting [Bone Shots] from Duchess' back. Sweeping away waves of [Snow Mites] with a constant volley of broken fingers.

The [Large Snow Mite] is quite sensitive to sound, so his "attacks" become more ferocious after my loud command.

It attacks by bouncing at you. That's it. It hits you like a dodge ball at a high school. Also, their fur is so cold that It can contact freeze your flesh, but I'm not having that many difficulties.

[Resistance: Ice 99 > 100]

Yes! I broke through to triple digits. Now almost half of my resistances are over one hundred. I'm still one to two more resistances reaching triple digits before getting half my resistances to that point, but the visual chart of my growth fills me with dopamine.

It jumps at me again, and I punt it straight into the air. That's the signal, so I hope Duchess saw that.

She drops Rob like a bad habit, and he free falls hundreds of feet. I can't see Rob, but I know he must be "grinning" with a shovel. I don't see Rob, but I spot the damage numbers from his sneak attack.

Critical Hit!

-2378

Unholy shit! I'm going to assume that Rob's fall velocity was the main contributor to that damage number but still, what the fuck Rob. He just "rod of god'd" that creature.

Rob went straight through the [Large Snow Mite] like it wasn't even there. It was anticlimactic. No blood, no death cries, and no explosions followed this death. Rob's arms were shattered after landing that hit, and when he hit the ground, he scattered everywhere.

[Level Up!]

Well, that's one tyrant down and another one to go. I'm still disappointed that during the entire time on this side of the fracture, the boss was the only thing that gave us experience.

I force Duchess to find all the pieces of Rob while Khan, Flash Gordon, and I hold off the raging swarm of [Snow Mites]. I don't know if they realized their leader died and wanted revenge or if they went feral once it was taken out of the picture.

After Rob was put back together with [Telekinesis], we fled the battlefield. I made Duchess circle back and got the corpse of the "beast of snow" and a few mites.

~

We are chilling in the bungalow, but I have something new. I fashioned a beanbag chair out of the mites. The tyrant was primarily hair, but what wasn't hair, I scooped out and placed other mites inside. I made sure nothing but soft hair was present during the entire crafting period.

I kept the mana crystal inside for no particular reason. Rob helped me stitch this thing up once I was finished.

It's comfortable and stays cold regardless of my body temperature. This will definitely be added to my room inside the estate. Oh right, my magnificent mansion. Should I tell my beasts yet, or should I wait?

[...]

Shit, I forgot about my sorta mind-reading snake.

"Duchess, what did you hear from my mind?"

[About keeping a secret?]

"Do you want to know what that secret is?"

[Not really, no. Thisss one doesn't have time to care about other people's secrets.]

"Alright, I'll show you. You don't have to beg."

[...]

I need a door to conjure an entrance to my mansion, so I start carving one into the wall. This counted since the skill activates as the "door" becomes a shimmering wall of milky white.

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[...]

"After you."

The doorway is too small for Duchess, but I wanted to see what would happen anyway. If this doesn't work, in the future, I'll need to use the garage door to ferry my snake between dimensions.

[...]

Duchess silently slithers towards the doorway. When she gets close enough to enter, a strange sight occurs. Almost like her body shrinks to facilitate her entrance, she slides right through. Lucky for me that I don't need to carve a slightly bigger hole. Rob and Khan go in, then Flash Gordon and I bring up the rear.

[Did master have this place the entire time?] Duchess speaks in wonderment. Her prideful attitude is gone while she flies around this enclosed world.

"Nope, but feel free to treat this place like home. All of you are now residing at your master's [Magnificent Mansion]."

I go to put the new "pillow" in the main bedroom, then I sweep the place to see what changed while I was gone.

One of the buildings of the main manor has been unlocked. The servant quarters have been aptly unlocked. Maybe this implies that the mansion will unlock its doors once I require the space within the walls. Should I try bringing materials for storage and see if the warehouse opens?

The inside of the servant quarters seems tailored to each of my beasts. They are unfurnished like the rest of the house but are size appropriate for each beast.

I guess having their own personal space would be nice for my beasts, but that doesn't mean I will force them to sleep somewhere as demeaning as a "servants' quarter." The manor has enough room for my beasts to sleep in the main building. Even my bedroom has enough space for everyone (probably not all of Khan) to sleep with me.

I plant the apple seeds and rest, waiting for my beasts to warm up before leaving the mansion grounds to kill the final tyrant.

~

The Khan Express has to travel for over half a day at full speed before getting to the edge of the territory of the frost king. He can handle it.

[Snow Mephits] became more and more common as we zoomed past failed ambush attempts. Instead of stopping to fight every time, I decided that killing the boss and then sweeping up the remains would be a more efficient use of my time.

That strategy turned problematic once I was smack dab in the middle of the "frost king's" territory. Instead of mephits hiding in the snow, clusters of mephits roamed the snow together. Do they have orders or something?

I can spot a spire of ice sticking out from the landscape. This part of the fracture is relatively flat, so this monumental landmark sticks out like a sore thumb.

The ice spire is thousands of feet tall, and an army of [Snow Mephits] surround the structure with creatures I haven't yet seen in this fracture.

[Frost Salamander C lv65]

This horse-sized lizard literally breathes frost, and it's being pulled along like it's a hound.

Running in guns blazing like last time won't work. This time they have an army of creatures that are smart enough to form ranks and tame beasts. The first step should be to wait for the storm to stop since the mephits are more study and active during the storm.

We have to hide out in a newly crafted bungalow. Unfortunately, we can't wait it out in the mansion since we wouldn't be able to know if the snow stops.

We hide and stake out the tower for a few hours before seeing any signs of the storm letting up. The winds stop howling as the snow slowly stops. One hour later is when we start my plan.

The mephits are sufficiently weakened now that the storm is gone. Most of the [Snow Mephits] merged with the snow, so the defenses of the spire have weakened.

Duchess and Khan start a distraction in the opposite direction as I fly in on Khan's main body. Snow is the most reflective surface on earth. That does nothing for Duchess' damage but makes everything she does more flashy.

I take inspiration from our previous fight and fly high above the spire where the "king of frost" resides. Rob has a stealth skill, so he sneaks inside the building during the commotion.

I told him to go in and assassinate the king, knowing he would fail. I need a clear line of sight on the king, so I told Rob that if things go downhill, his number one goal is to lead him outside.

A few minutes pass, and I see Rob using his ludicrous agility to lead the "king of frost" outside.

[Frost Mephit C lv100]

Wow, a different kind of mephit. And look at that level! In a fair fight, I don't think we could win.

I watch as this goblin-shaped ice man with sharp features casually waves a hand, and Rob gets encased in ice. His nose is long and jagged as he walks around naked. He wears a crown of ice on his head and an icepick sticking out of his back. I guess that's Rob's murder weapon of choice. Not bad.

The [Frost Mephit] starts monologuing to the frozen Robcicle as I line up Flash Gordon.

Oops, I dropped him and coincidentally gave him all my mana.

Flash Gordon becomes a living meteorite as his body grows to his large size again and plummets to the earth. Between Flash Gordon and gravity, this [Frost Mephit] is about to have a terrible time.

BAM

SHATTER

Pieces of this guy fly around like a poor imitation of Rob. The assassination plan worked perfectly. I ignore any level-ups because it's time to grind against the rest of the mephits.

~

The first thing I do is retrieve Flash Gordon like in old times. He was a little stuck in the ground. I was worried he might get hurt in the crash, but he seems mostly all right. I told him to [Fragmentation] the opposite direction last second if he was worried about fall damage, but it seems he wasn't.

I free Rob from the ice prison using Flash Gordon and start looking for victims. But before I pick the first one, the spire behind me starts to crumble. Oh no. Don't tell me that the physics-defying sky-scratching tower was being held up by magic. Shit.

The spire crumbles.