"You guys go first," Xu Yang instructed Little Fool and the others to distance themselves.
Little Fool looked up at the dark corridor above, where blurred shadows lurked on the darkness-eaten path, each representing a monster, each symbolizing a threat.
As the trembling continued outside, they slowly began to stir, coming to life from their rigid state.
Before she could discern how they spread their claws, Snowball barked behind Little Fool, urging her to hurry up the cliff.
Little Fool quickly followed Snowball.
It led the way with the light in its mouth, matching Little Fool’s pace, neither too fast nor too slow.
Like a spear breaking through the darkness, Snowball pierced the shadows with its diamond-shaped beams, and Little Fool followed closely behind, threading through the dark so near that she would lose her footing and fall off the cliff if Snowball made even the slightest detour.
Wolf Girl brought up the rear, her eyes glowing green, her sensitivity to light far greater than ordinary people. To better see in the dark, her pupils had rounded from sharp vertical slits.
In the darkness, she discerned the heavy stench of evil; looking down at the cliff’s abyss, she saw corpses, corpses, corpses.
Xu Yang opened the carry-on feature of his Nanometer Armor and took out a large, red energy mine, "Flame Range," and placed it on the ground.
The mine was 1.5 meters long, shockingly large, designed to counter multiple enemies. In the center were two detachable sticky motion sensors, shaped like triangles, cleverly wedged in the split.
He removed them all, throwing one on each side of the corridor walls. Once they stuck to the walls, they immediately activated a mini-optical field to become invisible and began scanning for movement in the space between them.
Xu Yang, cradling his gun, moved upward. Relying solely on a submachine gun wouldn’t last long, Wolf Girl’s fur was too thick to stand up to the fire-breathing Scaled Beasts; he instructed Little Fool to keep going nonstop and then turned his head to see the ferocious Scaled Beasts tracking their scent as they climbed.
"Roar—" The Scaled Beasts noticed the intruders, their anger evident.
The leading green-scaled beast burst through the stone passage exit, craning its neck to pursue them up the cliff. In a flash, the landmine before it detonated.
The high-temperature melting wave swept across the central corridor, a fan-shaped Flame Tide engulfing the bodies of the monsters!
Modern weapons shattered scales and tore flesh, the monsters’ shrill screams melded into a loud echo, and Xu Yang looked up to see the snow falling down incessantly.
He turned to observe the burning junction, the stone guardians retreating within the high-temperature plasma flames. Three-quarters of the leading monster’s body was obliterated by the explosion, leaving nothing but legs and a tail burning in the flames, skin split and flesh bursting, while its kind behind it fared no better, dead or wounded beyond recognition.
Little Fool leaned her body to glimpse the chaotic scene of explosion and burning.
"That’s a big fire," she said.
"It won’t stop them," Xu Yang always saw the potential for the flames to die down even at their most ferocious.
He walked over to Little Fool and lifted her in his arms. She leaned back against him, feeling much safer, thinking how great it was to be with dad.
Snowball led them through the gaps connecting the miners’ quarters; all the miners and soldiers had vanished.
Xu Yang realized reinforcements had arrived; he dashed to the exit and saw all the miners and their families standing in the mine shaft, pointing and expressing shock at what was outside.
Guided by soldiers, an engineer dressed in heavy winter gear used a high-temperature chainsaw to cut through the snow blocking the entrance. The saw whirred, chopping through solid ice blocks and melting the surrounding snow at 800 degrees Celsius.
Behind him, people could vaguely see the plain outside ablaze with fire.
The ground shook incessantly.
The Nestor Corporation air force was carrying out airstrikes against the Frost Giants in the area, dropping heavy ordnance, laser-guided bombs, and napalm in bulk onto the land.
"This is the Nestor Corporation!"
"Those creatures are no match," the miners muttered to each other.
Once the engineer had completely cut through and melted the snow, he greeted the miners of Tsukubetsu Mine and then invited them. Nestor Corporation could arrange for the miners to leave the Tsukubetsu Mine, taking all their supplies and transferring to the winter shelter established by Nestor Corporation to take refuge from the snowstorm, waiting for the catastrophe to fully pass before returning to the mine.
Upon hearing the news, the miners had different plans. They had no idea when the disaster would end; it might be better to stay in their own mine tunnels for a while longer and wait until supplies were exhausted before moving to Nestor Corporation’s side.
When would the disaster end? Xu Yang pondered. The whole world was affected, the Frost Giant God had gained immense Power yet made many enemies.
In the future, we might join together with everyone around the world to resist the source of the catastrophe, forming an expeditionary force of different powers and backgrounds. However, since everyone has their own hidden agenda, cooperation might not go so smoothly; it would still depend on individual strength. Some Mystics might even take advantage of the global chaos brought by the frost to advance their own ends.
Xu Yang allowed the miners to decide for themselves and then walked out into the blizzard. The snow was deep, piling up to his legs and bringing a chill to his bones.
Little Fool followed Xu Yang outdoors, but she immediately slipped and plunged into a snowdrift with a "plump," disappearing into the snow.
Like swimming through snow, she hurriedly used her arms to clear away the accumulation, moving backwards to prevent the snow from burying her neck. Shivering, she ran back to the mine entrance and tiptoed to peek outside.