88: Chapter 88 Providing timely help

The sound of the ice shell cracking echoed through the wind and snow.

Lucas stopped moving, staring at the black slit, his mouth curling into a grin.

The moonlight was dim, but it was just enough to illuminate the opening on the upper side of the Ice Waterfall.

That slit was hidden under an overhanging eave, flush against the cliff face, just wide enough for one person to pass through sideways.

A greedy light glinted in Lucas's eyes.

"Found it!"

Martin stood in the snow, shivering all over.

"Lucas, don't go up there!"

Lucas ignored him.

He blew warm air onto his frozen fingers and drew the dagger from his waist with his other hand.

"There must be fire inside!"

"And food!"

"If they could hide the entrance like this, they must have plenty of supplies!"

Martin's voice trembled.

"Are you crazy?"

"People who can carve a path on an Ice Waterfall are absolutely not to be trifled with!"

Lucas turned his head and glared at him.

"If we don't rob them, we'll die tonight!"

"I'd rather be hacked to death than freeze into a block of meat by tomorrow morning!"

Behind the ice slit, Lin Ye crouched in the shadows.

The cold wind poured into the cave through the gap, tugging at the fur cloak on his body.

He didn't make a sound.

Lucas stepped onto the ice wall, drove his dagger into the ice slit for leverage, and climbed upward half a meter.

Lin Ye pulled the trigger.

"Whoosh!"

A wooden arrow shot out of the ice slit and pierced Lucas's right hand.

"Squelch!"

The bone arrowhead pierced through his wrist, bringing out a spray of blood from the other side.

A scream instantly drowned out the sound of the wind.

"Ah!"

The dagger slipped from his hand and fell into the snow below.

Lucas lost his balance and tumbled straight down from the ice wall.

A large crater was smashed into the thick snow.

Lucas clutched his right hand tightly, rolling frantically in the snow.

"My hand!"

"My hand!"

Martin stood where he was, his lips moving, but he couldn't make a sound.

He stared at the blurry dark shadow behind the ice slit.

He turned and ran.

His legs scrambled desperately in the snow.

Lin Ye tossed the crossbow backward.

Zhao Mengmeng caught it, expertly shouldered it, and lowered the muzzle.

"Brother Lin, one got away!"

Lin Ye didn't answer.

He raised his right arm slightly, and several Nano-wires shot into the rock crevices above the cliff.

He swung out from the ice slit, his wide cloak catching the cold wind in the snowy night.

Lin Ye landed steadily, his boots stepping on the thin ice at the edge of the Water Pool.

The cracking sound was crisp.

Martin had already dashed over thirty meters away.

He shouted without looking back.

"Don't kill me!"

"I didn't want to rob you!"

"It was all Lucas forcing me!"

Lin Ye flicked his wrist slightly.

A strand of Nano-wire slithered out along the undulating snowy surface.

Just as Martin stepped into the tree line, his lower leg tightened abruptly.

The Nano-wire suddenly pulled taut.

"Ah!"

Martin lunged forward heavily, his face plowing a deep furrow in the snow.

The clothing on his lower leg was sliced open, and blood splattered onto the surrounding white snow.

He clutched his leg and howled, his voice intermittent.

"My leg!"

"I surrender!"

"I surrender!"

Lin Ye walked over and stood two meters away.

Martin scrambled backward using his hands and feet.

"I didn't want to kill you!"

"I just wanted to survive!"

Lin Ye looked down at him from above.

"You want to live, and I want to live too."

"You knocked on the wrong door."

Martin opened his mouth.

In the snow crater in the distance, Lucas forcibly pulled the wooden arrow from his wrist.

Blood sprayed out from his wrist.

He roared toward the ice slit.

"Don't kill me!"

"I'm willing to admit defeat!"

"I'll be your underling!"

"I'll give you all my supplies, and I'll accept the points deduction for my motherland!"

Zhao Mengmeng stood above the cave entrance, locking onto him with the crossbow.

Lucas spoke extremely fast.

"I know a piece of intel!"

"A major piece of intel!"

"It's about a Level 4 Floating Island!"

Zhao Mengmeng narrowed her eyes.

Although the distance was far, she could see clearly.

While Lucas was begging for mercy, his left hand was slowly reaching toward his waist under the cover of the wind and snow.

A short knife was tucked there.

"I swear!"

"I really know!"

"As long as you let me live, I can tell you..."

Zhao Mengmeng pulled the trigger.

"Whoosh!"

The wooden arrow struck down heavily, utilizing the drop in elevation, and pinned directly into Lucas's throat.

The roaring stopped abruptly.

Blood foam gushed from his mouth, quickly staining his chest red.

Lucas's eyes widened, his left hand frozen beside the short knife at his waist.

His body swayed twice, and he collapsed headfirst into the snow crater.

Martin watched that scene, tears and snot streaming down.

"No!"

"Don't kill me!"

"I'm from the Maple Leaf Nation!"

"I didn't do anything!"

Lin Ye looked at him.

"You would bring people back if you went back."

Martin shook his head frantically.

"I won't!"

"I swear I absolutely won't!"

Lin Ye slightly bent his right hand.

The Nano-wire wrapped around Martin's leg tightened.

Martin screamed until his voice cracked.

While kicking the ground, he tried to grab the invisible thread with his bare hands.

Lin Ye didn't wait for him to continue screaming.

The mechanism on his right arm clicked softly.

The Nano-wire retracted from Martin's lower leg, wrapped around his neck, and snapped tight.

There was no sound in the snow.

Lin Ye walked over to Lucas's body and crouched down to search it.

Lucas's clothes were ragged, and his cuffs had frozen into hard plates.

There were only a few pieces of frozen, low-quality jerky and a lump of soaked cloth in his backpack.

Lin Ye reached his hand to the bottom and felt a piece of metal with his fingers.

He pulled the item out and shook off the ice shards on it.

The metal piece unfolded, revealing a shovel blade, a pickaxe point, and a short handle.

A folding entrenching tool.

The edge was slightly curled, but the blade was thick enough.

Lin Ye stared at this shovel, his thumb scraping off a layer of residual ice from the back of the blade.

Zhao Mengmeng leaned half her body out of the cave entrance.

"What is it?"

Lin Ye looked up.

"An entrenching tool."

Zhao Mengmeng was stunned for a moment, then her voice pitched up.

"Holy crap! Isn't this just a shovel for digging dirt?"

The Great Xia Live Stream was flooded with dense barrages of comments.

[They really are delivering packages!]

[Just said during the day there were no pickaxes or shovels, and tonight Brother Gaul brought them himself.]

[Lucas: I didn't manage to steal anything, but I delivered the key to clearing the level.]

[Thanks to our Gaul buddy, currently in the Void Sea, payment upon delivery of the shovel.]

Lin Ye continued searching.

There was also a broken aluminum box in Lucas's waist pouch.

The lid was deformed and stuck, so Lin Ye pried it open with his dagger.

Inside was a piece of folding waterproof cloth, a flint, and half a pack of coarse salt.

Lin Ye walked toward Martin.

Two semi-wet tree bark ropes and a small knife with a curled edge.

There was also an empty iron can the size of a palm.

Zhao Mengmeng lowered the Wind-Chasing Claw.

The grappling hook dangled beside Lin Ye.

"Hook it on, I'll pull it back up."

Lin Ye tied the entrenching tool, waterproof cloth, coarse salt, and small knife onto it.

Zhao Mengmeng activated the retrieval, and the loot ascended along the cliff wall back to the cave entrance.

"I'm going to dispose of the bodies."

Lin Ye moved his right arm slightly, the Nano-wires wrapping around the collars of the two corpses.

He dragged them across the snow.

Two long streaks of blood spread across the white snow.

Lin Ye specifically took a curved path, avoiding the direct route to the shelter, and dragged the bodies to a depression downwind.

Here, the scent of blood would be carried by the wind toward the distant forest belt.

The two corpses were casually tossed into the bottom of the pit and half-buried in the snow.

On the return trip, Lin Ye casually broke off a tree branch and swept away the drag marks on the snow.

Returning to the bottom of the Ice Waterfall, the traces of the fight by the Water Pool had already been mostly covered by the heavy snow.

Only a few chunks of broken ice were still conspicuous.

Lin Ye smashed them with the back of his axe and kicked them into the snow pit.

He crawled back into the ice slit along the cliff wall.

The moment the wooden door closed, the heatwave inside the cave enveloped his whole body.

Zhao Mengmeng was crouching by the fire pit, carefully wiping the entrenching tool with a piece of rotten fur.

"Brother Lin, can this shovel dig up that underground treasure?"

Lin Ye took the entrenching tool and pressed down hard on the handle with both hands.

The hinge was sturdy.

"Yes."

Zhao Mengmeng stared at the entrenching tool.

"Are we going tomorrow?"

"First thing tomorrow morning."

Lin Ye leaned the shovel against the fire pit to dry.

"The extreme cold is still continuing, and the snow is piling up thicker and thicker; if we drag it out, we won't even be able to find the path."

Zhao Mengmeng nodded.

"I'll take the first half of the night watch."

"No need."

Lin Ye pressed the gaps in the wooden plank door shut again.

"They're dead, and no one else will come for a while."

Zhao Mengmeng pursed her lips.

"Stop jinxing it; last time you said it was fine, and then a beast tide popped up right after."

Lin Ye brushed the snow powder off his body.

"Then you take the watch."

Zhao Mengmeng was speechless on the spot.

"You really don't play by the rules."

The firewood in the fire pit burned glowing red.

Outside the cave, the wind and snow whistled past, and the smell of blood had long since been blown away.

Tomorrow.

On that northeastern ice field, the first shovel must be dug.