In the northern lands, a unique type of temporary structure existed called an underground ice house.
Because of the cold storms, when temperatures plummeted at night, evolved would dig into the snow and hide in snow caves, which provided warmth and effectively shielded them from ice storms.
Over time, in higher latitude regions, some evolved began constructing underground ice houses along frequently traveled hunting routes using blocks of ice. These ice houses were exceptionally sturdy, offering protection from ice storms and attacks by mutated creatures.
Beneath the seemingly endless ice plains of the northern lands, there were numerous safe points—these underground ice houses.
At that moment, near the foot of the mountains on the backside of Mount Kas, many people were staying in a row of five connected underground ice houses, waiting to endure the approaching night.
The next day, they would reach the assembly point before heading to the Collapsed Canyon north of Black Dragon City, where they would fight to the death against those from the country.
They had long coveted the fortified city of Black Dragon City. There, the weather was relatively warm, resources of mutated creatures were abundant, and several naturally formed hunting grounds were at just the right distance.
That place was far more suitable for human survival in this post-apocalyptic world.
Capturing it would make life easier and less prone to death. And with it as a springboard, they could even reach the warmer southern regions.
What qualified as a seasoned warrior? Those with relatively complete jobs and skills, extensive hunting experience, and an evolution level surpassing four stars.
Compared to the population of Black Dragon City, the number of these warriors might not have seemed large, but each was a fearless and valiant fighter, hardened by bitter cold and death, nothing like the weaklings from the country who only knew how to hide behind high city walls.
Fifty thousand of them were more than enough to crush five times or even more opponents from Black Dragon City.
“Hey, old Barry, couldn’t you have gone outside to piss? We didn’t want to smell your piss all night while we slept!”
A man with a flushed face from drinking had yelled at another man in the corner who was relieving himself, his breath reeking of alcohol. His tone had been teasing, as if he wasn’t really telling the man to go outside but just trying to get a laugh from the others.
“Damn it, you wanted me to hold it in?” The man called Barry had retorted indifferently. After finishing, he deliberately turned around, aimed his lower half at the twenty-some people in the ice house, and then provocatively flipped off the man who had spoken.
The ice house had immediately erupted in laughter and chaotic whistling.
“Look, she is embarrassed!”
Everyone had turned to the only woman among the group of twenty. Leaning against a block of ice, she had been chewing on a piece of half-raw meat still streaked with blood. The so-called “embarrassment” had just been a blood smear on her face.
Most of the men in the ice house had tasted this woman before, but that had been two years ago, when she was just a two-star evolved human who had joined this team called Ural.
Low level, weak, and quite pretty—in a survival-of-the-fittest team where no one cared as long as no one died, her fate had been predictable.
Back then, almost every man on the team was intimate with Nova.