Winter departed and spring arrived; snow vanished and rain came.
A month later.
The snow that had fallen for over half a year finally stopped completely. Not only that, temperatures were rising at a visible pace, melting layer upon layer of snow. The earth grew warm and damp, as though spring had arrived.
And on this very day!
A lingering, silken drizzle arrived unannounced, signaling that the blizzard-ridden winter that had plagued ten thousand miles of the Black Mountain Range had finally passed.
The spring rains had come.
The rain came suddenly and lingered. For three straight days, the drizzle washed the snow around the entire Black Mountain Demon Stockade into scattered fragments. Exposed earth was visible everywhere, along with muddy pools and puddles of varying depths.
By now, the Frontier Exploration Team had finally stopped as well. There was no longer any need to clear the snow from the Northern Mountains. Spring would turn all the snow here into trickling streams, nourishing in return the earth, mountains, rivers, and all living things frostbitten by this winter.
Everything was wet.
Su Changsheng's underground tunnel was especially damp. Moisture constantly seeped through the surrounding rock walls, and even sealing them with ice did no good.
He had no choice but to move all the supplies stored underground into the tunnel in the rear mountain. It was relatively less humid than underground, but only marginally so, barely fit to live in.
"I kept hoping winter would end, but now that it really has, there are all sorts of inconveniences instead. Thinking about it that way, winter isn't always the worst season."
Smack!
Su Changsheng slapped a fist-sized mutant spider to death. Tender-green blood splattered everywhere, reeking horribly.
With winter over, all kinds of insect mutants were gradually becoming more numerous. Inside the