Three days passed in the blink of an eye. At dawn on the fourth day, desolate horns sounded. Nearly three thousand soldiers of the Ye Character Camp stood in orderly ranks, their armor gleaming brightly. Led by Ao Ye, Lin Yan, and the others, they advanced northwest toward the bleak and perilous Cold Spine Mountain Range.
The Cold Spine Mountain Range lived up to its name.
Towering mountain peaks resembled the jagged spines of colossal beasts, blanketed year-round in never-melting mysterious ice and gray-black snow. Bitter gale winds howled through rugged rocks and deep ice crevices, producing sounds like wailing ghosts and howling wolves.
Following the intelligence reports, the Ye Character Camp entered the outskirts of the mountain range and made its way along a hidden, treacherous ancient Ice Valley toward the heart of the range.
The first few days went fairly smoothly. The fierce beasts they encountered were mostly scattered small groups and not particularly powerful. Under the Vanguard Battalion's assault led by Ao Ye, they were swiftly crushed and exterminated. Lin Yan's Deduction Sand Table ran constantly, accurately avoiding several areas suspected of containing natural traps or unstable space. The force suffered minimal losses.
Yet the mountain paths were winding, and the large fierce beast group they sought remained nowhere to be seen.
Lin Yan did not dare lower his guard. On his Sand Table, the regions representing the deeper parts of the mountain range were always shrouded in a blurry shadow, either because energy interference was too strong or because they were too far away to be detected clearly. From time to time, he also felt as though someone was watching him.
"Something's off." Lin Yan pondered in secret. Although the Deduction Sand Table had not detected any large group of fierce beasts, a faint sense of