In the East Region of Ice Star, raging waves deep within the Endless Sea battered an unnamed giant island all year round.
There was no turning of the four seasons here, only ceaseless wind and snow wrapping the entire island in a heavy, pure-white prison.
The mountains on the island were frozen glaciers, their edges sharp as knife-cut blades. When sunlight fell upon the ice, it reflected not warmth, but a cold gleam that pierced to the marrow. Even birds were unwilling to linger here.
Except for those bound by iron chains!
The ravine on the island's western side was the only gathering place for "living things" in this Ice Snow World. The Lan Family's mine was embedded within a glacier fissure.
Several frozen corpses hung from the Ice Wall at the mine entrance year-round. Rusted iron shackles still encircled their wrists, like warning signs erected for every living person.
This was the Lan Family's private property. The one in charge was Lan Sitong, the third son of the Lineage—a short, fat man with a face full of flesh. He loved tying his greasy hair behind his head, exposing several savage knife scars on his neck.
He had nearly two thousand soldiers under his command, each dressed in leather armor studded with iron, curved blades at their waists and short whips hidden in their boots.
Most of them were desperadoes gathered from all over the East Region. They obeyed Lan Sitong's every command and treated torturing miners as everyday entertainment.
Not one of the nearly fifty thousand laborers in the mine had come willingly—some were fishermen abducted from coastal villages by the Lan Family's fleet, some were peddlers who owed the Lan Family usurious loans, and others were captives from defeated tribes.
They had only one identity: slaves!
There was