Sifusco looked in the direction of the soldier who was holding a dead vulture in his hand.

  Sifusco said in surprise.

  “Where did you find that?”


  The soldier smiled and said, “I set a part of my food as bait outside the sentry tower. At first, my intention was just to attract some small rodents like rats, but I didn’t expect to attract this thing!”


  “When the vulture approached the food and was about to take it away, I took the opportunity to kill it with one shot!”


  Upon hearing this, Sifusco beamed.

  “Good! Very good!”


  After receiving Sifusco’s affirmation, the soldier continued to speak.

  “Not only that! I found that many vultures are hovering around our sentry tower. As long as we set up some traps, we won’t need to worry about the food problem!”


  Upon hearing this, Sifusco’s mood improved greatly.

  However, this happy mood immediately changed.

  Sifusco was thinking to himself, ‘Even if we manage to catch vultures every day, there are eight hundred people here.

  ‘How many vultures will we need to catch every day to fill the stomachs of so many people?’


  Although this was what Sifusco was thinking, what he ultimately said was, “Well done! As long as we set traps every day, we won’t need to worry about the food shortage problem!”


  Hearing this, the soldiers present also began to get excited.

  “Yeah, as long as we can catch vultures every day, we won’t have to worry about the food shortage problem!”


  The soldiers exclaimed.

  Everyone’s mood started to improve again.

  While everyone was still immersed in the joy of catching vultures, only Sifusco continued to contemplate his future plans.

  As he was thinking about it, Sifusco tiredly lay down again and eventually fell asleep.

  Even after hearing such good news, Sifusco still had not eaten the food that the soldiers had forced on him.

  Gradually, Sifusco fell asleep.

  In the dream, he dreamed that he had returned to Lecter City after having accomplished the mission well.

  He had completely broken through the defense points of the northern front of the three Dundun tribes and the whole of Lecter City was filled with joy.

  Following such a sweet dream, a heartfelt smile appeared on Sifusco’s face.

  …


  Time passed day by day, and soon forty-eight hours had gone by since the excavation had begun.

  The excavation process had made tremendous progress by now.

  Now, the low hill had revealed a huge, wide passage, and the straight part of the U-shaped passage had been completed.

  They could now dig their way down the mountain.

  What made Sifusco happy was that they had not encountered any obstacles in the excavation, and there had not been any sudden collapse.

  Everything was going smoothly.

  Also, in these past two days, heaven seemed to have blessed them.

  A steady stream of vultures had taken the initiative to fling themselves into their traps.

  Just in the past two days, they had already managed to capture hundreds of vultures.

  These hundreds of vultures were enough to provide enough food for these eight hundred people to eat for two days.

  Everything seemed to be developing in a good direction.

  Sifusco was standing by the low hill, as he continued to guide the excavation team.

  Sifusco raised his head and looked at the sky. The snow was still falling and showed no signs of stopping.

  Sifusco seemed to have gotten used to the weather and accepted everything calmly.

  “A little more to the left! Dig harder!” Sifusco said loudly to the digging soldiers.

  …


  Three days later, the excavation had already gone on for 120 hours.

  Today was the eighth day that the vanguard team had been trapped on the Broken Cliff Mountain.

  A lot had happened in the past three days.

  First of all, the progress of the excavation.

  Perhaps it was because of the snow, or perhaps it was because the weather was getting colder.

  The progress of the excavation started to get slower and slower.

  The tunnel did not seem to have changed much compared to three days ago.

  It was only two meters deeper than it had been three days ago.

  And the vultures, who had been harvested every day for the past few days, seemed to have disappeared.

  Since two days ago, no vultures had been caught.

  Sifusco made a calculation.

  Not all vultures could be caught.

  Taking into account the food that managed to be taken by any escaped vultures, catching vultures was not turning out to be a good deal.

  And today, several soldiers who had been digging the tunnel had frozen to death.

  Sifusco felt that the temperature seemed to have dropped more than ten degrees compared to when they had first arrived.

  However, their thermal protection measures had not improved at all.

  Even among the soldiers in the sentry tower, some of the weaker soldiers were suffering from frostbite.

  Everything seemed to have taken a turn for the worse.

  The hope Sifusco had been given a few days ago, now seemed like a joke had been played on him by the Heavens.

  Sifusco looked up at the sky in a daze.

  He let the wind and snow hit his face.

  Closing his eyes, Sifusco momentarily felt as if he had removed himself from reality.

  Just as Sifusco was enjoying this moment of peace, a soldier called loudly to him once again.

  “Captain! Captain! Another one of our men has fallen!”


  Sifusco heard this and abruptly opened his eyes.

  He walked in the direction of the tunnel.

  Sifusco looked at the person who had fallen to the ground.

  He squatted down and pulled up his hand.

  Sifusco could feel that the man’s hands were completely frozen.

  When he touched his hands, it felt like he was touching an ice sculpture.

  Even the man’s blood seemed to have completely frozen.

  So, even though his hands were full of wounds, the cold wind had followed the wounds and frozen everything in his body.

  “Bury him, he’s dead!” Sifusco ordered.

  A soldier looked at Sifusco and said, “Captain, this is the seventh brother that we’ve lost!”


  Sifusco felt even worse at this moment. He obviously felt worse than anyone else about the death of his men, but now even more so.

  He was helpless to do anything anymore.

  He could not fight against the forces of nature alone.

  Thus, Sifusco announced to everyone, “From now on, everyone’s excavation time will be changed from one hour to half an hour!”