Thin leather armor, crude swords and blades, feeble bows and crossbows, boots with flimsy leather soles—five thousand soldiers who looked as though they belonged to no word but "cannon fodder" stood trembling before a cliff face.
This stretch of cliff was wholly grayish-yellow, with jagged crude rocks jutting out all over it. More than two thousand meters high and nearly a hundred li wide, it looked as if it could collapse at any moment and crush every living thing before it into pulp. Anyone without exceptional courage could not even stand steady before this cliff.
At the foot of the cliff lay an irregular pit, no more than a hundred meters high and roughly a li wide. Strange gray vapor billowed from the cave, carrying a sharp, fishy stench. Anyone experienced could recognize it as the distinctive scent of certain venomous snakes, scorpions, and poisonous insects from the Abyss.
Several li from the cave stood a crude stone fortress. More than two thousand fierce Highlander warriors had once been stationed here year-round, including quite a few formidable fighters. They were a patrol force spontaneously organized by the Highlander tribes, stationed here to guard against invasions by Abyssal creatures.
But now, the fortress had been washed clean in blood. The Highlander warriors' heads had been impaled on spears and hung from the fortress walls. Arthur's Prince of the North Sea banner fluttered above the stronghold. This tiny fortress, only a li or so across, had already been requisitioned by Arthur as his new command headquarters.
Lin Qi stood atop a boulder, looking down over the great gorge beneath the cliff.
Countless soldiers were converging here along passages between several mountain ridges, like several venomous dragons rolling through the mountains. Within the gorge, tens of thousands of tents had already been erected.