Chapter 708: Crimson Snow Mine

The Central Region, the Pure Land of Eternal Night Snow Mountain, is the core battle zone.

The terrain here is mainly composed of ice fields and permafrost hills, and the sky is shrouded in eternal night and snow all year round.

The 【Eternal Night Frostbite】 that comes with the Eternal Night Snowstorm is a nightmare for all flesh-and-blood races except for the Undead and Nightmare races.

Creatures below level 30 suffer 10 points of true damage per second, ignoring defense and directly losing health.

The only thing capable of breaking through the eternal night's chilling erosion is the Crimson Snow Mine distributed across the Central Region.

After the Red Snow Ore is mined, the effective resistance can only be maintained for three days.

Three days later, it can only be used as a material for refining Crimson Snow Pills and can no longer directly resist the cold corrosion.

...

The Crimson Snow Mine, occupied by the Blood Demon Sect, was dimly lit deep inside its caves.

Thousands of Blood Demon Sect disciples were wielding pickaxes, digging for Crimson Snow Mine between the frozen soil and ice.

Ding, ding, ding.

The sounds of picks striking the frozen ground rose and fell, mingled with the disciples' complaints.

"Damn it, this Crimson Snow Mine is no place for humans to mine."

A man with a face covered in ice shards slammed his pickaxe into the ground, rubbing his frozen hands. "It's so scarce and deep. I work eighteen hours a day just to barely scrape together one unit. Want to complete the task? Dream on."

A skinny man next to him emptied the gravel from his basket and said with a bitter face, "If you think it's too hard, go sign up for the transport team. You don't mine, you just escort the goods. It's much easier."

"No, no, no!" The man's face changed, and he shook his head like a rattle drum. "Is the transport team a job for humans? If they can come back five out of ten times, we're lucky."

As he spoke, he swung his pickaxe again, digging even more vigorously than before: "Mining is great, I love mining, hehe."

Deeper into the mine, an older disciple leaned against the cave wall, panting, his pickaxe worn down to just half.

"Hey, when do you guys think the main force of the sect will finally be able to take Frost Abyss City?"

The senior disciple sighed, "As long as we take that place, we won't have to worry about the Crimson Snow Mine anymore."

"There are only two large mineral deposits in the entire Central Region. The rest are all small veins like these, which are scarce and difficult to mine."

"Since there's no cure for the frost erosion, we can only disperse our mining and transportation efforts, which gives those Nightmare bastards an opportunity to launch sneak attacks everywhere."

"This year alone, tens of millions of fellow disciples have died during transportation."

"Tens of millions?" The skinny man's eyes widened. "That much?"

"More than enough." The senior disciple shook his head. "Why do you think those transport teams can't recruit enough people? Everyone knows they're just sending themselves to their deaths."

Just then, a cheer came from deep inside the mine.

A young disciple, his face covered in ice shards, burst out of the side passage pushing a cart full of Crimson Snow Ore, his face beaming with a bright smile.

"Hahaha! Brothers, I'm off! Mission accomplished for today, time to go back to sleep!"

Everyone looked up at him, their eyes filled with envy.

"You bastard, you're so lucky."

"Give me half a truckload! I'll cover your shift tomorrow!"

"Get out! I have a day off tomorrow!"

The young disciple pushed the mine cart and jogged out of the mine, the wheels leaving two shallow ruts on the frozen ground.

Outside the mine, there was a wooden table at the task handover area.

Behind the table sat a lean manager with a thick stack of account books in front of him.

The young disciple pushed the mine cart to the table. The steward raised his eyelids to check the weight, then looked at the quality of a few pieces of ore, and made a mark in the ledger: "That's enough, let's go."

"Thank you, Steward!" The young disciple left happily.

The foreman watched his retreating figure, then looked down at the mountain of red snow ore piled up behind him, sighed, and asked an old clerk next to him who was also inspecting the ore, "How much did you collect today?"

The old clerk didn't even look up, saying as he kept the accounts, "We've collected a thousand units today, not bad. Last month, the same period only saw seven hundred."

“One thousand units is not bad.” The manager stood up and looked at the ice stone wall surrounding the mine.

Dozens of innate masters stood atop the wall, their hands on their weapons, their gazes sweeping across the distant snow-covered landscape.

At the foot of the wall, the members of the transport team squatted in a row, their faces as long as donkeys, looking like they had lost their parents.

“Getting them out is the real problem.” The manager pointed to the group of people. “Look at those guys in the transport team. They haven’t even set off yet, and their faces are already pale.”

The old clerk glanced at it and said, "Anyone would be in the same boat. Last month, the transport team made three trips, and two of them were intercepted."

Of the 2,000 who survived, only 300 returned.

The foreman cursed, "Damn it, those bastards from the Nightmare faction have gotten smarter. They don't bother with the heavily guarded mines; they're just targeting the transport teams."

"Hundreds of senior disciples with innate abilities are guarding the mine, so they dare not come."

"Once the transport team sets off, visibility is less than 100 meters in the wind and snow. You don't even know which direction they're coming from. By the time you see them, the knife is already at your throat."

The old clerk stopped writing, frowned, and said, "Why didn't the sect use its many spatial equipment for escorting them?"

The steward lowered his voice: "You think we haven't thought about it? The sect leaders of each branch have already considered this idea."

Large-scale spatial equipment is only available of Dark Gold quality, and there are only a handful in the entire sect. Furthermore, the Central Region is riddled with Nightmare Clan spies.

"We used it once last time. The transport team set off with the spatial equipment, but it was intercepted the next day. The spatial equipment and the Crimson Snow Ore were all lost."

"From then on, the sect's higher-ups completely abandoned this path."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a commotion arose from the transport team's location.

A burly man stood up and shouted at the foreman, "Foreman! Load the truck! We're all going to die sooner or later anyway, might as well get out and reincarnate sooner!"

The manager glanced at him, said nothing, and waved his hand, signaling for the truck to be loaded.

The transport team members got up from the ground and walked in a line toward the mine carts, their steps dragging as if they were walking toward the execution ground.

The innate masters on the wall glanced down, but no one spoke.

The wind and snow poured in from outside the mine, whipping up ice shards and slag from the ground, which then pelted against the walls with a crackling sound.