In the almost forgotten northern continent of Pai Shang, there is a piece of frozen land. Although the climate of this planet is generally humid and hot, the everlasting scream of ice breaking echoes here every day.
There is a valley with cliffs 9 kilometers deep, stars shining at the top, and ancient ice so white that it can hurt the eyes just by staring at it for a while.
As the ice layer descends, the ice gradually changes from pure white to translucent blue, deep purple, and finally a deep red similar to the algae that were frozen in the rock ice billions of years ago.
Fuel and sap color the ice.
The screaming cold wind sliced through countless sharp ice cubes on the top of the valley, and the howling wind was distorted and amplified by the narrow valley.
Howling sounded in his ears, Hank Evans was slipping and rolling all the time as he walked on the scarlet ice slope at the bottom of the valley, and the harsh wind kept coming, trying to blow away his camouflage cloak.
Despite the insulation provided by his cloak, gloves and cold-weather clothing, he still felt numb from the cold.
This feeling - or the lack of feeling - has replaced the discomfort of an hour ago.
Even though he just wanted to lie still, he never understood why he, a matchmaker, would run to this damn planet full of heretics and demons, and be chased by a large group of howling cultists as soon as he landed.
?
More and more gunfire sounded, and countless bullets flew in his direction. He had even become accustomed to the strange sound produced by the bullets colliding with the ice here: when the hot bullets hit the ice, they first made a moist sound.
There was a popping sound, followed by the hissing of steam.
The ice melted around the black bullet holes and quickly refrozen, and countless blackened wounds and perfect circles dotted the red ice around him.
Soon, he slipped into a deeper depression in the ice and lowered his body.
But the gunshots became more and more frequent, low and desperate.
One of the bullets was almost a hand-width away from his head, and its echo was buzzing.
Soon after, the noise turned into silence, or in other words, the enemy's continuous howling was almost silent in the vast ice and snow.
Hank Evans rolled over, his chin on his chest, and looked back along the valley the way he had come.
Except for a crumpled black object a hundred meters behind him, there was no sign of anyone or anything. He knew that it was the unlucky guy who had stepped into the trap.
But he only had two of these portable traps, and the boss only gave him two.
Speaking of his boss, Rozim, the best chef in the battle group and investor in the hive city chain restaurant brand, Hank Evans didn't know if he was dead.
However, based on Rozim's usual behavior, he felt that the cultists might have no choice but to avoid each other.
He struggled to stand up and glanced at his gun. The sight lens of the gun was cracked and covered with ice formed by the evaporation of water in his eyes.
Hank Evans cursed a few times, stepped back, and fired three random shots into the darkness of the canyon. In response, a dozen guns fired at him simultaneously, creating a man-made blizzard in the ice dust.
He then hid in a cave, a low-vaulted cave with a steep roof formed by the slow movement of the earth's crust on an ice cliff.
Hank Evans was panting, the shrapnel wounds on his thighs constantly stinging his nerves.
He half-knelt at the spot closest to the cave entrance, face down in the ice, and worked hard to install the trap until the severe pain of the cold caused him to turn over.
But the heat in the cave was suddenly suffocating. Although it was only a few degrees above zero, compared with the ice and snow, it was almost tropical.
So Hank Evans took off his cloak and gloves, and after a while, his thermal vest. He shivered, feeling wet and hot, and sweat flowed down his back like steam in a sauna, a lot of it.
Sweat soaked his thermal suit.
He checked his legs and found a hole in his pants mid-thigh that looked like something melted had burned through it.
Then he realized that the reason why he didn't bleed was because his blood had been frozen by the cold environment, so he endured the severe pain and broke off the black ice cube from his thigh, and then saw the wet scars on his leg.
He cursed Rozim's name, not for the first time in his career as a Chapter servant, and certainly wouldn't be the last, then reached for his medical kit and opened it.
Hank Evans took out the wire clip and followed the instructions given during basic medical training.
But the worst thing was that the wire clamp was frozen, and his numb fingers could only push it hard on the ground, but still couldn't open it.
In desperation, it took him a long time to take out a needle from the sterile paper bag. He had already taken out several needles before.
Hank Evans bit down on the needle, trying to find the loose part of the suture.
Finally, his numb fingers grasped the end of the thread, picked up the needle, and tried to insert it into the needle hole.
But compared to shooting a laser gun with extremely poor accuracy at a bullseye ten kilometers away, he found it more difficult to penetrate a pinhole.
After trying 20 times, Hank Evans took the needle again with his teeth and tried to twist the frayed thread together with both hands.
Suddenly, something hit him hard from behind and smashed his head onto the snow.
Hank Evans lay on the ground in panic, and gradually heard the grunting and whimpering from behind. His tongue hurt, and his mouth was full of blood.
A huge thing came slowly.
He slowly turned his head and glanced sideways at the thing, like a person looking into a mirror while shaving.
This is a dirty mutant, almost two meters tall, wearing simple iron armor, its shoulders and arms are covered with huge muscles that ordinary people can't imagine, and its head is very big, almost twice the size of a human.
It is very similar to a goat, with huge horns extending forward, and black teeth protruding from the rotten gums like chisels.
He couldn't see the thing's eyes, but he could smell the foul smell and the corrosive saliva dripping from the half-open mouth.
Hank Evans, who was pretending to be dead, saw it playing with his medical bag with its big hands that could easily break a human throat like a branch, and pulled out a roll of gauze, bit it, chewed it, and then spit it out.
It's hungry——
Hank Evans was so frightened by this idea that he became motionless.
Suddenly, it came towards him, pulled his hair, pulled him back like a puppet, and rummaged through his clothes with its other hand.
Hank Evans twitched and opened his mouth, and blood flowed out, splattering on his chest.
He continued to pretend to be dead, but his left hand quietly reached for the knife at his waist.
The giant beastman shook him repeatedly like a bag of bones, and then sniffed behind Hank Evans' ears with his muzzle.
The heat hit him, and the rancid smell swirled in his nose.
The dirty mutated creature muttered a few mysterious words, which made Hank Evans nervous and he quickly slid the knife out of its sheath.
He moved at an extremely fast speed, preparing to stab the opponent with a knife.