Fan Debiao seemed to realize the gravity of the situation. He was now less than ten meters from the ice shelf ahead, but at his current speed and angle, he would plunge off the bridge about two or three meters short of it. A minuscule deviation in his slide trajectory had inadvertently hurled Fan Debiao into a death trap.
In that instant, Liu Dashao’s mind went blank. He stared blankly at Fan Debiao, who was about to fall into the chasm, utterly unable to help. All he knew was that his heart had twisted into a knot, the pain so intense he nearly screamed out loud.
It is often at the brink of death that latent human energy is instantly unleashed, much like a cornered dog will leap over a wall. At this critical juncture, Fan Debiao swiftly unholstered his entrenching tool from his waist. Gripping it with both hands, he sharply thrust the shovel diagonally down and to his left.
The blade of the entrenching tool barely caught the edge of the ice bridge, kicking up a plume of shattered ice. Using the force of that desperate thrust, Fan Debiao forcibly shifted his entire body half a meter to the right—that half meter was precisely what dragged him back from the precipice of death. His body grazed the edge of the ice bridge as he shot across, finally landing hard on the solid ice shelf where the others stood. He spun and slid for a dozen meters before finally stopping.
All these dramatic changes occurred in a fleeting moment. Everyone stared dumbfounded at Fan Debiao, safe across the gap, still reeling from the sudden terror.
“Damn it, you were absolutely magnificent!” Cai Qingchong shouted excitedly as he slid over from the opposite side of the gorge.
Fan Debiao lay motionless on the ice, his gaze vacant, staring up at the cavern ceiling, his face devoid of color. It seemed he hadn't quite recovered himself either.
The others rushed to his side. “Debiao, are you alright?”
Fan Debiao’s eyes darted around, then he exhaled a cloud of cold vapor and roared hoarsely, “Cai Qingchong, I’ll kill your entire ancestral line!”
Cai Qingchong scrambled up from the ice, and the moment he stood, Fan Debiao flung a chunk of ice that struck him squarely on the head.
“Ouch!” Cai Qingchong clutched his head and tumbled back down. “Why are you throwing things at me?”
“Throwing things? I ought to chop you up!” Fan Debiao hefted the entrenching tool and lunged forward.
Everyone quickly grabbed hold of him. “Calm down! Calm down! Don’t be rash!”
After a while, Fan Debiao finally cooled down, his cheeks puffed out with residual anger.
Liu Dashao chastised Cai Qingchong. “What was that just now? You nearly killed Debiao!”
Cai Qingchong looked utterly wronged. “He clearly asked me to help push him! Besides, Yang Weidong managed to slide across just fine. I think Fan Debiao’s backside must not have been properly aligned, causing his trajectory to shift!”
Fan Debiao, who had almost regained his composure, heard this, and his hair stood on end with rage. “What?! My backside isn't aligned?! Dashao, move aside! Let Fatty teach him a lesson!”
Cai Qingchong yelped and turned to bolt, with Fan Debiao chasing after him, waving the entrenching tool and shouting. The others just shook their heads helplessly from behind. “What a pair of clowns!”
Carefully navigating the cracks in the ice sheet, the group advanced slowly. They felt as if they were walking inside a crystal palace, an illusion both real and unreal.
As they walked, Liu Dashao felt an increasing heaviness upon him, as if carrying a great weight. He quickly looked down and saw that a layer of frost had already crystallized on his outer garment. In a few more moments, he feared it would turn into armor of ice. Liu Dashao glanced at the others; everyone looked the same, though they hadn't noticed yet. It turned out their exploration suits were only heat-resistant, not cold-proof. If this continued, their entire bodies would freeze solid.
“Take off your outer layers, quickly!” Liu Dashao immediately instructed them.
“Those precious things? Why take them off!” Fan Debiao muttered, touching his chest, then suddenly cried out, “Heavens, how... how is this freezing over?”
The others then realized that every one of them was covered in a layer of frost.
Cai Qingchong exclaimed, “No wonder I felt like I was exerting more effort walking; I was turning into an ice sculpture without even knowing it!”
“Hurry! Take them off! Or we’ll be frozen solid!” With these words, Jia Zhuangyuan, suddenly realizing the danger, was the first to shed his outer coat. The frost clinging to the material made it stiff and difficult to remove.
Liu Dashao pulled out his tungsten-steel dagger and helped everyone scrape the thick frost off their coats to make removal easier. The group tossed their outer garments onto the ice, but in the blink of an eye, a thick layer of frost rapidly accumulated on them. Those high-end items, each worth thousands, had instantly transformed into six heavy slabs of ice armor.
Looking at the six icy shells on the ground, the group could only shake their heads in resignation.
Fan Debiao lamented mournfully, “Ah! That’s money earned through risking our lives!”
Walking on the ice proved exceptionally arduous, as the group hadn't equipped themselves with ice-breaking boots. Despite walking with extreme caution, they kept slipping and crashing onto the hard ice surface, teeth rattling from the impact.
After another tumble, Fan Debiao clutched his rear end and yelled, “Break time! Break time! I can’t walk anymore, or my backside will be split into quarters!”
Jia Zhuangyuan quickly agreed. “Yes! Let’s rest; these old bones of mine feel like they’re about to shatter!”
Seeing their miserable state, Liu Dashao called for a halt. They sat on the ice, panting heavily; this was more exhausting than fighting the six-headed snake earlier. He glanced back: they had walked for nearly half an hour and covered barely a hundred meters.
“I really don't know how long we have to walk like this!” Yang Weidong muttered glumly.
Fan Debiao quipped, “Actually, this underground ice cavern is quite a decent place to be buried!” As soon as he finished speaking, he received a barrage of ice shards thrown at him from all directions, making him yelp in pain.
“Listen! What is that sound?” Jia Zhuangyuan suddenly interrupted.
The banter stopped. They strained their ears and clearly heard a faint, rustling sound, much like an ice shaver grinding away.
A few seconds later, with a soft pop, a lizard's head, the size of a glass marble, poked through the ice surface.
“Holy Mother! What is that?” The lizard head was less than a meter from Yang Weidong, scaring him into rolling backward.
Everyone gripped their weapons tightly, staring fixedly at the lizard head. It swayed left and right for a moment, then whoosh, it leaped out from beneath the ice.
The group stared in astonishment at the creature a short distance away. It was completely snow-white, its skin dotted with slightly protruding black specks, making it look like a sticky rice cake sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Its eyes were the strangest feature: blood-red, the size of mung beans, rolling frantically in their sockets. The lizard was tiny, barely half the length of a hand, and it crouched quietly on the ice, its scarlet eyes coldly assessing the uninvited guests.
Liu Dashao mused doubtfully, “What kind of monster is this? It looks like a lizard, but somehow not quite. What’s even stranger is that it lives in such a cold underground ice cave—I wonder what sustains it!”
Fan Debiao remarked, “Blast it, first we meet something fire-natured, now we meet something ice-natured—truly a duality of ice and fire! If I were a biologist, I’d definitely take this thing back for research!”
At that moment, Jia Zhuangyuan suddenly stood up. “This thing isn’t a lizard. Judging by its appearance, I think it’s a salamander!”
A salamander? What was a salamander? Liu Dashao had never heard such a strange animal name.
Jia Zhuangyuan explained that salamanders, due to their lizard-like appearance and their preference for damp environments like ponds and streams, are also known as water lizards. Most salamanders are poisonous, but they can also be used in medicine for effects like dehumidifying, relieving itching, easing pain, and detoxifying heat.
After explaining this, Jia Zhuangyuan muttered to himself, “But I’ve never seen a snow-white salamander like this, especially one living beneath the ice. It’s truly bizarre!”
Liu Dashao stood up. “The world is full of wonders. Let’s not worry whether it’s a lizard or a salamander; pressing on is what matters. Let’s go!”
They hadn't traveled far when they heard rustling sounds all around them, and the sounds grew denser, like countless venomous snakes flicking their crimson tongues. The shhh-shhh-shhh sound was exactly the same as when the first salamander had broken through the ice. Everyone’s expression changed instantly; just hearing the noise told them that countless salamanders were lurking beneath the ice sheet.
Immediately following, a string of pop-pop-pop sounds echoed, and one salamander after another erupted through the ice beneath their feet. They looked identical to the first one: pure white bodies, black specks on their backs, and horrifyingly blood-red eyes.
In a short time, the ice surface surrounding the group was crawling with these snow salamanders. Like maggots, they wriggled ceaselessly, covering the ice within a radius of several meters. The group was trapped in the middle of them, watching these terrifying creatures slowly converge.
Yang Weidong exclaimed in horror, “Why are there so many snow salamanders?”
Fan Debiao worried, “Maybe they’re starving and crawled out from under the ice specifically to eat us!”
Liu Dashao asked Jia Zhuangyuan, “Do salamanders eat meat?”
Jia Zhuangyuan glanced at him and answered with a single word: “Yes!”
Upon hearing this, Yang Weidong shrieked in terror, “I’d rather fall off the cliff and die than be slowly devoured by these disgusting things!”
Liu Dashao addressed the group. “What are you waiting for? If they come with ill intent, they won’t be friendly later! While these snow salamanders haven't completely blocked our path, let’s work together and charge through!”
“I absolutely hate seeing these slimy things; they’re revolting! Old Fan, lend me your entrenching tool!” Yang Weidong snatched the tool from Fan Debiao, shouting curses as he swung his arms in a wide arc, bringing the shovel down hard on the nearest snow salamander, smashing it into a pulp. Dark blood oozed out, releasing a pungent stench. Yang Weidong followed up with a series of smack, smack, smack swings, leaving a large patch of salamander paste at his feet.
Fan Debiao was not to be outdone. He snatched the Crescent Shovel, the Saint of the Desert, from Liu Dashao’s hand, swinging it with a furious whoosh. The shovel cut arcs of chilling light through the air, its sharp blade descending with a whistle, hacking the snow salamanders into pieces, splashing dark blood everywhere.
Facing this endless horde of salamanders, only the two long-handled weapons were effective. Liu Dashao’s dagger was a close-quarters weapon and useless here, so the group relied entirely on Yang Weidong and Fan Debiao to act as the vanguard.
The others stumbled along behind them. The ice was too slippery, and their pace was less than half of what it would be on solid ground. The snow salamanders, however, slid across the ice with surprising speed, nearly flat on their bellies, using all four limbs for traction.
“Yowza!” Yang Weidong suddenly shouted.
Liu Dashao looked back and saw several snow salamanders biting into his heels and trouser cuffs. No matter how hard Yang Weidong struggled to shake them off, they held fast, tenacious as leeches.
Slash!
Jia Zhuangyuan flicked his sleeve, and several throwing knives shot out, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh, piercing through the bodies of those salamanders and pinning them to the ice.
Yang Weidong looked down. Several holes were bitten through his trouser leg, and a piece of his heel was chewed off his boot. As Yang Weidong caught his breath, Jia Zhuangyuan grabbed his sleeve and pulled him forward. “What are you waiting for!”
The surging tide of salamanders behind them was like a flood. No matter how fast they ran, they couldn't outpace them! To prevent being attacked from the rear, Liu Dashao ordered Fan Debiao to the back of the group to fend off the pursuing salamanders. He and Yang Weidong would remain at the front clearing the way. With an offensive front and a defensive rear, they hoped to maintain the safety of the entire team.
After less than fifteen minutes of running, everyone was gasping for air. Yet, the salamander army showed no signs of slowing or retreating; instead, it grew stronger, churning like successive ocean waves. Their escape speed slowed further and further until they were almost just shuffling in place. With every step forward, the ground became sticky with the pulverized corpses of snow salamanders, and they advanced millimeter by millimeter over this gruesome carpet.
Danger pressed in steadily. Fan Debiao and Liu Dashao dared not think of resting. Yang Weidong was already injured; they had to fight desperately with the entrenching tools to keep the creatures from overwhelming them. The blades were already coated with black blood and white flesh paste. Fan Debiao and Liu Dashao swung their arms mechanically, but as time passed, their arms grew heavier, almost too heavy to lift, yet both gritted their teeth and persisted.
Fan Debiao gasped, “This isn’t working; there are just too many of these disgusting things—you can’t kill them all!” As he paused to breathe, two snow salamanders lunged forward, their mouths clamping onto the edge of the entrenching tool’s blade. Fan Debiao roared, slamming the shovel down onto the ice, instantly slicing the two creatures in half with the sharp blade.
To Fan Debiao’s astonishment, the upper halves of the two slain salamanders lunged forward again, their tenacity extreme.
Fan Debiao yelled, “Why won’t these damn things die?” As he spoke, he noticed that many severed limbs and tails still belonged to salamanders pushing forward within the horde.
Jia Zhuangyuan explained, “Salamanders have incredibly strong regenerative abilities; they can grow new limbs and bodies!”
Fan Debiao’s mouth fell open. “So, they’re practically invincible?”
Jia Zhuangyuan clarified, “Remember, their fatal weakness is the head. Once you sever their central nervous system, they are completely dead!”
“I see! Die!” Fan Debiao swung the entrenching tool and brought it down with a smack on the heads of those two salamanders. The two heads flew off accompanied by dark blood, and the severed lower halves finally stilled.
Cai Qingchong suddenly pointed towards a jutting ice rock ahead. “Let’s get onto that ice rock!”
Although the rock wasn't a guaranteed escape route, it offered the immediate hope of a place to rest.
Liu Dashao encouraged the two in the back. “You two, put some muscle into it! Let’s try to reach that ice rock!”
Fan Debiao nodded. They both shouted, summoning their last reserves of strength, swinging the entrenching tool like rapidly spinning wheels. It was clear they were fighting with all their might.
Under their combined assault, the surrounding tide of salamanders parted, leaving a trail littered with snow salamander corpses piled high.
Liu Dashao’s eyes were bloodshot from the killing as he relentlessly pushed forward. Fan Debiao, at the rear, swung his entrenching tool like a protective screen, blocking the incessant, wave-like attacks from behind.
The ice rock was only ten meters away, but those short ten meters took the group nearly ten minutes to cover. Countless salamander bodies paved that brief distance. After a frenzy of slaughter, they finally reached the base of the rock formation.
This ice rock felt like a lifeline. Cai Qingchong turned around, taking over Liu Dashao’s front-line position, gripping the entrenching tool alongside Fan Debiao to guard the perimeter and provide cover. “Climb up, quickly!”
The ice rock was about two meters high. Fortunately, its surface wasn't smooth but covered in countless irregular edges and corners, making it easier to scale.
Liu Dashao quickly squatted down, allowing Yang Weidong to step onto his shoulders. Then, he straightened slightly. Yang Weidong easily gripped the jagged edges of the rock and scrambled onto the ice platform with minimal effort.
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