Chapter 710: Battlefield

The grandmaster from the other side came forward, clasped his hands in greeting, and asked, "Brother, which mine are you from?"

"The Seventh Mine."

"You guys are lucky." The grandmaster on the other end gave a bitter smile. "We were ambushed by the undead halfway there, and we lost more than a thousand men. All the Redhoofed Oxen were killed."

If the undead army hadn't withdrawn for some unknown reason, none of us five hundred would have made it back.

"It's already quite an achievement to have made it this far alive." The grandmaster nodded. "Let's regroup and continue."

"good."

The two teams merged into one, and the disciples on both sides huddled together, chatting as they walked.

"You really ran into each other?" The disciple on the other side lowered his voice, his tone revealing undisguised relief.

"Is that a lie?" A tall, thin disciple spat. "You didn't see it. When that undead knight thrust his spear down, our team leader was pinned to the ground, armor and all."

Then the skeleton immediately went up and kicked him, and his head was gone.

"hiss......"

"And those skeletons, they crawled out from under the snow without making a sound. By the time you saw them, you were almost in the face with a knife."

"Then how did you escape?"

"Run? Run my ass." The tall, thin disciple gave a bitter laugh. "I even had my last words planned out. If the undead hadn't suddenly retreated, I'd be dead by now."

After hearing this, the disciple patted him on the shoulder and said, "Alright, alright, we'll be there soon."

"You guys were unlucky this time, we were lucky. We only encountered a few landslides along the way, and didn't see a single ghost."

"real?"

"Really, look at us, two thousand people, all lined up neatly, and not a single truckload of ore was lost."

The tall, thin disciple let out a long sigh: "You were really lucky. If you had run into that situation too, neither of us would be alive to be chatting here today."

"Haha, that's what they mean by fate..."

Just then, a whooshing sound came from above.

Everyone looked up and saw streaks of dark red figures flashing across the sky at great speed, heading towards the eastern defense zone.

"It's the senior disciple on patrol!"

"We've arrived! The eastern defense zone is just ahead!"

The group immediately erupted in chaos.

"Hahaha! I'm alive!"

"We're here! We're here! We're here!"

"The first thing I'll do when I get home is take a hot shower!"

"Why take a shower? Go to sleep first! Don't wake up all day!"

Even Master Zhang, who had been keeping a straight face, relaxed his brow.

He glanced at Master Li; neither of them spoke, but their expressions softened considerably.

We walked for another hour.

On the horizon ahead, a cluster of gray and white buildings emerged from the wind and snow: watchtowers, blockhouses, ice walls, and piles of red snow ore as big as small mountains.

The transport team lined up in a long queue to wait for the delivery, while the barehoofed cattle mooed and burrowed into the shed.

Beside the ore pile, hundreds of enormous magical beasts lay prone on the ground.

They are three to five meters long, covered in dark gray scales, with arched backs, exceptionally thick forelimbs, and claws curved like sickles.

With its long, pointed snout, resembling a hybrid of a pangolin and a monitor lizard, it lay lazily in the snow, occasionally flicking its tail to clear away a large patch of snow.

"Safe!" One of the disciples tossed his sword back into its sheath, letting out a long sigh of relief, his voice brimming with barely suppressed excitement. "Damn it, I actually made it this time alive!"

"Stop yelling, deliver the goods first."

The centurion rebuked him, but the wrinkles on his face relaxed.

Masters Zhang and Li led the team to the handover point and handed over the ore.

Master Li casually asked the innate steward who was checking the accounts, "Junior brother, why are there so many Bloodscale Earth Dragons gathered here?"

The steward raised his head, pushed the ledger aside, stood up and cupped his hands: "My two senior brothers may not know this, but these days, the sect's transport team has been heavily intercepted and killed by the Nightmare Army, suffering heavy losses."

The daily consumption of Crimson Snow Pills by tens of millions of disciples in the Eastern Theater Command is rapidly becoming unsustainable through ground transportation.

He pointed to the blood-scaled earth dragons: "The Elder Council has ordered the mobilization of these dragons to open up the underground passages of Frost Abyss City and directly enter the mineral-rich areas for mining."

Master Zhang raised an eyebrow: "An underground passage? The easternmost defense zone of Frost Abyss City is a hundred kilometers from the mine. We could attack from there..."

"We'll have to dig at least 150 kilometers of tunnels."

The deacon nodded, his tone calm, "But if we travel in a straight line through the ice, we can save a lot of distance. The Bloodscale Earth Dragon can dig several thousand meters, over a hundred kilometers, a day, and it can be completed in a little over a month."

Both masters gasped simultaneously.

Master Li couldn't help but ask, "But underground..."

"There are troubles underground," the deacon interrupted him, lowering his voice, "but the elders have already made the decision that this tactic will be used not only in the east, but also in the north and south."

By diverting some of the above-ground resources underground, even if only 10% of the tunnels are successfully completed, it would greatly alleviate the shortage of Crimson Snow Ore.

No sooner had he finished speaking than some of the post-natal disciples queuing up to deliver ore couldn't help but mutter to themselves.

"Underground?" A thin disciple shrank back, nearly dropping the crimson ore he was clutching.

"These undead on the surface are dangerous enough, let alone burrowing underground? It's pitch black down there, not even a glimpse of snow. What if it collapses..."

"If it collapses, you'll just be buried in there," a senior disciple chimed in irritably. "It'll save you the trouble of transporting it; you can just bury it on the spot, saving you the trouble of digging a grave."

"Senior brother, don't scare me."

"Scare you? I'm telling you the truth. Do you think mining is an easy job? At least you can run on the surface, but where can you run underground? There's frozen ground above you, ice under your feet, and what if a horde of undead crawls out from under you..."

"It shouldn't be our problem, right? The transport team is already in a terrible state. If they have to go to enemy-occupied territory to mine..." The skinny disciple's face turned pale.

The senior disciple rolled his eyes: "You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? Anyway, this godforsaken place is uninhabitable, neither above nor below ground."

The centurion in front turned and glared at him: "Shut up, all of you! The goods haven't been delivered yet, what are you talking about, underground and above-ground stuff!"

The two shrank back, not daring to utter another word.

This murmur was lost in the crowd and was quickly drowned out by the wind and snow.

The queue for delivery continued to move forward, with the barehoofed oxen silently puffing out white steam as truckloads of ore were weighed, and no one uttered another word.

At the settlement point, Master Zhang and Master Li exchanged a glance but remained silent.

With the transport mission completed, the two men each led their teams toward the rest camp.

Behind them, hundreds of blood-scaled earth dragons lay on the snow, their tails swishing lazily, completely unaware that they were about to burrow into the dark depths of the frozen earth.