"Even if he were Zhuge Liang reborn, he couldn't conjure soldiers out of thin air!" Fan Wujiu shook his head. "We only have thirteen hundred men left, and our ammunition is depleted. How can we break through?"
Did I miscount earlier? Two thousand was an overestimate? Is this all that's left?
"Conjure soldiers from thin air? In this cursed place, I wish we had even beans," Ma Jiaojiao said with a bitter laugh, her stomach rumbling. "Too bad, all we have is ice."
With that, she picked up a piece of shattered ice from the ground and let it melt in her mouth, a makeshift drink.
I looked down. There were many fragments of ice on the ground, showing signs of being chiseled. It seemed the soldiers below had used swords and other tools to chip away at the clean ice layer, for the esteemed superiors.
I felt a bit thirsty myself. I tried a piece, but inexperienced, my tongue stuck to the ice. Xie Bi'an had to pull it off for me.
"Why is it bitter!" I exclaimed, disdainfully tossing the ice shard away.
"Who knows. All the ice here tastes like this. Eating too much will give you diarrhea," Ma Jiaojiao said.
Just as she finished speaking, a sharp crack echoed from the corner. I focused my gaze and saw the ice shard I had discarded earlier sliding across the ground, hitting the wall and shattering.
Huh? The coefficient of friction between ice and ice is extremely low. On an ice field, horses and soldiers would be restricted in their movements. But could this limitation, through reverse thinking, be transformed into a source of power?
"What are you thinking about?" Xie Bi'an asked softly, noticing my gaze fixed on the ground, lost in thought.
"Nothing. I'll go up and take a look," I replied. It was just an idea, not yet fully formed. I needed to consider the specific terrain to determine if it could be effective.
I climbed from the wind-battered platform to the top of the cliff, overlooking Black Wind Cliff. The large slope resembled a ski resort, with an overall gradient of about twenty degrees. The top fifth was occupied by the Xuanjia soldiers. The bottom four-fifths were all rebel camps, and below that lay the north city wall of the Sanyin Hall.
Wait a moment. My gaze followed the city wall westward and I spotted a hole in it. The interior of the hole was entirely filled with ice. Because I was looking down, I could clearly see that inside this hole, within the city walls, there was an ice channel. It was about a hundred meters wide, like a small river. In winter, a frozen river's surface would be significantly larger than its unfrozen state.
This ice-covered "river" extended through the city, flowing out from the south city wall. However, I couldn't see if there was a water outlet on that wall. Looking further south, I found no sign of the ice river. Could the river have frozen over, blocking the southern outlet?
"You stay here. I'll go down and scout the terrain," I told Xie Bi'an, who had followed me.
"Be careful."
As we spoke, a commotion arose from below. A group of about five hundred rebels, forming three ranks, with shields in their left hands and sabers in their right, began to attack the ice wall.
Without the Young King of Hell's command, the Xuanjia soldiers automatically formed ranks, splitting their forces to defend. Soon, the rebels reached the ice wall, and both sides engaged in fierce combat.
"Why aren't you going down to help?" I asked Xie Bi'an.
"The enemy is merely harassing us. No high-ranking generals are here to be sacrificed," Xie Bi'an said calmly.
Watching the scene, it was indeed true. The five hundred men were utterly incapable of shaking the ice wall's defenses. Very few rebels managed to cross the ice wall, perhaps only twenty or thirty. Those who jumped in were essentially eliminated by the Xuanjia soldiers immediately, posing no threat to the Young King of Hell behind them.
More rebels were slain on the ice wall, their bodies rolling down the slope, sliding a considerable distance back towards their camps.
It seemed my idea had some potential for implementation, depending on the situation within the city.
I invoked the Swift Wind Art and, under the cover of the chaotic battle, sped towards the location of the ice river. Reaching the base of the city wall, I found a semi-circular culvert. Due to the ice layer raising the river's water level, the culvert was now less than two meters high, but its width was ample, about thirty meters. I passed through the culvert and continued along the ice surface, soon reaching the opposite city wall.
As expected, there was another culvert here, but it was blocked by ice. The ice layer had accumulated at the base of the city wall, forming a small "ice mountain" over ten meters high.
I need to break through this ice mountain...