Man on the ark, forced to become king

This operation is very risky, and they must maintain complete secrecy to prevent anyone from leaking the information. Therefore, not a single living creature can be released until they have complete control of the area.

Compared to the rudimentary defenses inside the mine, surrounding a mine with a considerable area undoubtedly requires more manpower. The Yetis are experienced in gathering intelligence and are much more mobile than the Shield Guards and ordinary Infected, making them perfect for helping the main force complete the encirclement.

As for intelligence gathering inside the mine, Yelena felt she could do it herself; her body was no longer as strong as before, making her capable of such work.

slap~

The snow piled up under the fence was trampled into deep holes. Even though there was no one nearby, Yelena subconsciously lowered her body and scanned her surroundings and the distance.

Originium mines like these usually don't have any decent buildings inside. The only decent thing is the simple watchtowers built at the four corners. Due to material limitations and the harsh wind and snow environment, they are not very tall and their function is very limited. They are better than nothing.

Besides that, there is the soldiers' dormitory area, with a small patch of simple wooden houses used to shelter them from the wind and rain.

The infected also had places to sleep, but in the eyes of both officials and soldiers, they were merely tools that could be replaced at any time, cheap consumables, not even considered human. Naturally, no one would build them suitable living quarters. A small, abandoned mine shaft, with some extremely rudimentary repairs, served as the miners' 'dormitory.' The main body of the dormitory was located underground and could not be seen from the ground.

Yelena loathed it; she had been rescued by Bozocaste in a similar place and had a profound and unforgettable experience of the mine's darkness.

She stared at the tower standing in the distance, slightly hazy in the wind and snow, and the neat rows of small wooden houses below the tower, and clenched her fists.

Despite having met her many times, she still found it difficult to control her emotions. After all, she was just a young girl who hadn't been out of the Icefield for the past ten or twenty years and whose contact with people was limited to members of the Reunion Movement. She couldn't possibly have perfect self-control.

Call ~

The wind blew by, stirring up a flurry of snowflakes. Amidst the swirling white snow, the edge of a cloak flashed by, and silently, the white rabbit that had landed on the snow had vanished from its spot.

With her body recovering and Oripathy improving, Yelena has also made her out-of-control Originium Arts controllable, far better than the previous uncontrollable state. Therefore, Yelena can now achieve some precise Originium control that was impossible to achieve before.

The magic would not become an extension of her limbs, but rather wings to help her glide, propelling her body forward silently—something she couldn't do on her own, even after regaining her health.

Her previous severe Oripathy and loss of control over Originium Arts prevented her from engaging in strenuous exercise. Even if she used spells at too high an intensity, she would fall into a coma. Therefore, she usually relied on long-range spell attacks in combat, and her physical exercise experience was almost zero. The only experience she had was learned from the Yetis.

Moreover, due to certain special reasons, her weight is slightly... a bit high, and her flexibility is not very good. In order to make the expected agile movements and move freely in the wind and snow, she can only rely on the help of Originium Arts. So far, it seems to be working quite well.

Thanks to the improvement in her Oripathy, her more refined control over Originium Arts allowed her to manipulate ice more precisely, enabling her to move swiftly through the snowstorm like a nimble snow hare, propelling her body from the outside.

With the ice and snow as a backdrop, the color of her white cloak almost blended into the ground. Her figure swept across the land, leaving only a very shallow mark on the snow, which disappeared with a gust of wind. Neither the soldiers on watch in the tower nor anyone else noticed her.

Being sent to such a desolate and bitterly cold place is a punishment in itself for soldiers in the army. If possible, who wouldn't want to live in a better and warmer environment and enjoy a better quality of life? Under such circumstances, the soldiers who are sent there are not very willing in their hearts and are full of resentment. How can you expect them to be loyal to their duties?

Impossible. As long as there are no major problems, the mine will continue to operate. They simply don't care. In fact, the so-called sentry duty is not much different from going through the motions, because no one will come to such a place.

Click~

Fine snowflakes drifted down, and suddenly a strong wind swept by, stirring up a large swath of mist.

No one noticed that amidst the swirling snow, a faint white shadow, almost invisible, swept across the snow-covered mountain at an incredible speed and leaped onto the tower.

With the sound of bones cracking, the soldier on guard duty on the tower had his throat crushed before he even knew what was happening.

Grayish-black ice crystals climbed up his body, freezing his movement in that moment forever, turning him into a motionless sculpture. Even if someone were bored enough to look up at the tower, they would only see him still standing guard up there.

Looking down from the edge of the tower, Yelena had a clear view of the entire dormitory area. After a brief observation, she took advantage of the wind and snow to jump off the tower and stealthily made her way towards the dormitory.

Admittedly, even if all the soldiers in this mine were gathered together, they probably wouldn't be a match for her, but she still maintained a degree of caution and wasn't so arrogant as to think that she could look down on everyone just because she had made some progress.

If you can achieve your goal in a more relaxed and safer way, and solve the problem secretly before the enemy even notices, there is no need to engage in a flashy frontal assault. That is a brainless act and will only expose you to danger.

Click~click~

The howling wind masked the tiny ice crystals spreading beneath the snow, silencing the subtle sounds of icing and cracking.

Beneath the snow, a crystalline gray expanse silently extended towards the dormitory. Under Yelena's deliberate guidance, it went unnoticed, quietly spreading across the entire dormitory area and merging with the existing ice crystals.

If a soldier were to try to open the door and leave his room at this moment, he would be surprised to find that the doors and windows of the house were sealed and jammed by inconspicuous ice crystals, making them unusable.

In fact, if necessary, Yelena could easily kill everyone in the dormitory without anyone noticing. These soldiers, who had lost their motivation to move forward and only thought about getting by and getting by, were even lazy in training. They didn't even have any fighting power in front of her. In addition, since she was launching a sneak attack, it would be too easy for her to kill the soldiers who had lost their vigilance.

But she couldn't do that.

The Reunion Movement needs this mine as its base and foundation for development. The situation here cannot be exposed in the short term. Therefore, they need more detailed intelligence about the mine, especially the contact methods and dates between the mine and higher-level officials. The soldiers stationed here later knew that these people could not die, or at least not all of them, before they could get information from them.

However, Yelena had extensive experience in how to restrain people without killing them.

Despite the cold wind, the mine continued to operate as usual, and no one noticed that a gray shadow had quietly descended.

Chapter 224 Giant Mutant Originium Worm

The Ursus people overthrew the rule of the Eagle Empire, and a thousand years have passed since then.

Time is an irresistible terror for most things in this world; it can erase history and bring decay.

Over the course of a thousand years, Ursus has grown from weak to powerful, but today, beneath its seemingly glorious throne lies utter corruption.

Even though the late emperor was a man of great talent and ambition, leading Ursus to conquer vast territories and making the Ursus Empire stand at the pinnacle of the world, he was still dead.

The young emperor was unable to suppress the nobles of the old era. Imperial power declined, and the nobles effectively controlled the country. They were hypocritical, cruel, and greedy, seeking every benefit and vying for greater power.

Ursus, though seemingly intact, was in fact internally fragmented. The wheels of war came to a halt, and the once-powerful army was branded as nobles and split from within.

The struggle for power spread from top to bottom, covering every corner of this vast empire.

In particular, with the wars that could benefit everyone now over, internal struggles have become increasingly fierce. In this process, some win and some lose. The winners rise to higher positions and gain more wealth, while the losers are brought down to earth and squeezed for their meager remaining value.

Most of the soldiers sent to guard the mines on the ice fields were like this.

Of course, their status and strength were insufficient to allow them to truly participate in the upper-level struggles. The reason they were ostracized was simply because they carried the label of certain losers. Many of them did not even know what had happened before they were suddenly punished and expelled from the orthodox army.

This is obviously very unfair, but just as infected people cannot fight against the army, soldiers who encounter injustice have no right to demand fairness and can only silently endure it.

The icy plains are bitterly cold and covered in snow and ice year-round, making transportation and communication extremely difficult. Being sent to such a place is practically a slow death. Even if a mining area is completely depleted, the soldiers stationed on the icy plains will be sent to the next area to continue repeating their work. Leaving is virtually impossible.

In such a situation, how can anyone truly work hard?

Moreover, no matter how hard they try, no one will see it.

Therefore, most soldiers who saw no hope made the same choice—to slack off and just get by.

They vented all their negative emotions on the infected in the mine, living off the supplies they brought back regularly, taking it one day at a time, and even slacking off in training. In terms of combat effectiveness, they were probably no match for those strong and robust infected.

Now it's time for them to pay the price for their laziness.

Faced with Yelena's Originium Arts, the soldiers remaining in the dormitory had absolutely no chance to resist. As the gray-black ice crystals penetrated the room and climbed onto their bodies, dozens of men were frozen in place without making a sound, unable to do anything except move their eyes.

The heat emanating from the stove inside the house wafted onto the ice, sending out wisps of cold air. Yelena walked through the wind and snow, this time without needing any disguise, and pushed the door open directly.

Before long, the dozens of soldiers left in the dormitory were gathered in a room while unable to move. Their eyes met and they all saw the fear in each other's eyes, but their bodies were frozen solid, and they could not even beg for mercy.

Snapped!

Yelena snapped her fingers, and the ice on the soldier at the front melted away, allowing his head to move freely.

"I ask, you answer. I don't like listening to nonsense, understand?"

Yelena knew nothing about interrogation techniques. She imitated the characters in the incomplete storybooks the Yetis had found, coldly scanning them over.

The pervasive chill seeped into their clothes and penetrated their flesh, causing the relaxed soldiers to shiver and nod hastily, fearing they would be killed on the spot if they hesitated.

Those who guarded the ice plains were practically in a state of semi-exile, cut off from news, and had no way of knowing where this suddenly appearing powerful figure came from.

However, it is obvious that this person dared to directly attack the Empire's mines and use Originium Arts without any scruples, so he must not be a good person. He must also be quite confident in his own strength. In addition, casting spells with his bare hands without a staff means he must be an Infected.

No one knows what a reckless infected person might do. In the soldiers' minds, Yelena was synonymous with madwoman, and no one dared to try to show any toughness in front of a madwoman and see what would happen.

"How do you contact the outside world?"

“A convoy comes every month, leaving behind necessary supplies and taking away the mined Originium. Some time ago, the army group came once and left behind a radio capable of short-to-medium-range communication, requiring us to report any abnormalities immediately.”

The soldier chosen to answer the question spoke quickly and clearly, without uttering a single wasted word, his fear evident in his voice.

He didn't care about leaks or anything like that. They had been exiled to this desolate and bitterly cold place, and they didn't even know if they would ever leave. How could he expect them to risk their lives for him?

"Where is the radio station?"

Yelena nodded thoughtfully and continued to ask questions.

The answer was pretty much what she expected. That's basically how the mines operate. Even if there are some differences, they're not that different. What really caught her attention was the radio that could communicate over short to medium distances. Since the army group left that thing behind, they must have a way to contact the various mines through the radio.

“He wasn’t in the dormitory, but was patrolling the mine shafts.”

The soldier glanced cautiously at Frostnova, then lowered his head and answered in a low voice.

The so-called inspection of the mine tunnels was actually just a way to have fun. The only form of entertainment for them was to humiliate the infected people who were sent in. Some of them, including their captain, would find a few people to beat and scold when they were in a bad mood, and the infected people would not fight back anyway.

However, he dared not say that in front of Yelena, who was clearly infected. Instead, he found a more plausible word: "Tell the truth." If he angered her, would he have any chance of survival?

"When will the convoy come again?"

"It should be five days from now. It's usually around this time every month, but sometimes it might be a day or two earlier or later."

"How many of you are there?"

"Ninety-three."

This number was also within Yelena's expectations. The defense force of a mine is usually only about a hundred people, but how absurd is it that these hundred soldiers can ride on the backs of thousands of infected miners?

In Yelena's view, these soldiers who only knew how to loaf around could not possibly suppress the large number of infected people in the mine. Even if there were many elderly people, children, and patients with advanced Oripathy who were barely alive and had little fighting power, the rest of them, even if not many, two or three hundred people resisting would be enough to overthrow the garrison's oppression.

Unfortunately, no one was willing to do so. Or rather, it wasn't that they were unwilling, but rather that they had been oppressed for so long that the Ursus army had left an invincible impression on them, making them afraid to even think of resisting.

However, now it's all over. Yelena is fully confident that she can control all ninety-three people on her own. These good-for-nothings have no chance to resist her magic.

The only thing to be careful about is the radio that can contact the army group, but that's not a big deal. If we act quickly enough, no one will be able to send out the intelligence.

Thinking of this, Yelena casually froze the soldier who had just been released from his restraints again, walked out of the house, and took out a golden leaf from her bosom.

According to Talulah, this golden leaf is a degraded version of the one she had seen before. It has no other abilities; its only use is to deliver messages between people blessed by the Golden Tree, no matter how far apart they are.