From the High Ground, Crush the Fools

Chen Fan swung himself onto the horse. The skeletal saddle automatically conformed to his seat. He had never ridden a horse before, yet the moment he mounted, he felt a direct connection form between him and the Skeleton Horse. It was as natural as moving his own limbs. "Hyah!" There were no reins and no whip. He leaned forward, and the Skeleton Horse surged into a charge. In the blink of an eye, it burst out of Cave No. 2, turning into a streak of blue light skimming along the ground, trailing a fleeting streak of flame in its wake. It was faster than he had imagined—far faster than the tricycle he had put together by hand. ... The instant he plunged into the canyon passage, the world abruptly tightened around him. The sheer rock cliffs, stretching a thousand meters long on either side, were dead straight. Howling wind roared past his ears. The gale grew sharp and concentrated, clashing and compounding with the thunderous pounding of hooves. Mingled with the driving rain, it whipped stinging against his face—a faint prickle of pain that sent a rush of exhilaration through him. He couldn't resist letting out another loud yell. "Hyah!" He needed a whip. The thought popped into his head out of nowhere. Although controlling the Skeleton Horse required no whip, at this moment, he craved the gesture of cracking one to vent his surging spirit. The scenery blurred on either side. Then, bright light loomed clearly ahead—the exit of the canyon passage. It was also the foot of this "Nameless Mountain." The moment he burst free of the canyon passage, he saw heaps of crushed rock and earth piled beneath his mount's feet—undoubtedly all the dirt the crocodile had dumped here while excavating Cave No. 2. This place faced the sea. The ocean lay directly ahead of the canyon passage. The distance was short, roughly a thousand meters away. Dozens of breaths later... "Whoa—!" Chen Fan rode the steed up to the edge of the sea. The horse reared up on its hind legs, the cold white flames in its eye sockets flickering erratically like a silent whinny tearing through the curtain of rain, before skidding to a halt at the rim of the jagged reefs. There was no beach nearby. Beneath him lay an expanse of craggy reefs rising out of the water; a sandy shore could only be glimpsed several hundred meters off. Great swells rolled in from the misty distance, one after another, crashing violently against the rocks and throwing up waves of spray. Alone with his steed atop the highest reef, soaked to the bone as he gazed out into the ocean depths, Chen Fan suddenly laughed. He had been here for several days already. This was his first time seeing the sea. He had no idea what lay on the other side. But it didn't matter. Whatever was out there across the waters, he would go and see for himself. A moment later, he turned and rode the Skeleton Horse back toward the camp. Through the rainy mist, the silhouette of the mountain loomed faintly—it wasn't particularly tall. Retracing his steps along the canyon passage, he arrived back at camp and dismounted. He looked over the Skeleton Horse with keen satisfaction. Its speed was impressive. The ride was quite comfortable too, without the jarring hardness one might expect from bare bone. Above the horse's back was an indentation formed of bone. Opening the indentation revealed a ghost stone nestled inside, supplying power to the entire mount. Once depleted, a fresh ghost stone could be swapped in, though he wasn't yet sure how long one stone would last. Having just taken it for a full run, he hadn't noticed any obvious drain on the ghost stone. "Not bad at all." Chen Fan spent another hundred ghost stones to craft a second Skeleton Horse, then called Zhou Mo over to instruct him: "There's still some time before dark. Get familiar with this horse today and head over to the old camp to see if there's anything to scavenge. Starting tomorrow, resume bringing back resources from the fallen outposts in the wild." "No problem!" Zhou Mo, who had long been itching to try it, rubbed his hands together eagerly. Looking at the Skeleton Horse, his eyes were alight with excitement and wonder. To someone who had dreamed since childhood of roaming the world with a sword, this Skeleton Horse was the ultimate fulfillment of a boy's fantasy of a heroic steed. ... There were still two shichen before dark. He decided to first finish laying out the copper pipes accumulated over the past few days. "..." Standing in the camp, Chen Fan gazed toward that straight canyon passage. When he had ridden out earlier, the towering cliff walls on either side had sparked an idea. The canyon was a thousand meters long and roughly fifty meters wide. If the ghost king led an army to attack him near the end of the rainy season, or if anyone else came looking for trouble, the only route into the camp was this very canyon passage. As the saying went: take the high ground and crush the fools—hit them once, and they won't utter a peep. Therefore... He planned to mount multiple cannon towers high up along the cliffs on both sides of the canyon passage to form a crossfire. At both the front and rear entrances of the canyon passage, he would erect walls that would remain sunken into the ground during normal times. Once the enemy ventured deep into the canyon passage... The cannon towers would activate, and the walls would rise. Shutting the gates to ruthlessly beat the trapped dogs. He named this defensive layout the "Meat Grinder." There were two main difficulties with this plan. The first difficulty was how to dig the hollows... To build cannon towers high along the canyon cliffs, he would first have to excavate alcoves at elevation, and these alcoves would also need internal shafts connecting back into the camp through the mountain interior so copper pipes could be laid. That was a nearly impossible engineering feat. Using cannon towers to blast out large, crude caverns was feasible. Using them for delicate, precise excavations like this was asking the impossible. That was why he hadn't even entertained the idea before. But now... Chen Fan glanced over at the crocodile lying beneath the wall not far away, its mouth wide open as it obediently waited to be fed. Didn't he now have an engineer crocodile? That fellow was an expert digger. He could first test whether it could handle an engineering project with more intricate requirements. The second difficulty was that cannon towers could only target creatures entering the camp's designated territory. How could he bring the canyon passage into the camp's boundaries? He had already devised a solution for this as well. He would lay out numerous ghost fires along the inner cliffs, keeping them unlit under normal circumstances. Once an enemy stepped into the canyon passage, he could ignite the ghost fires simultaneously via the copper pipes, instantly incorporating the entire passage into the camp's domain. That would allow a full barrage of concentrated firepower to pour down. As for now, Chen Fan mounted up and activated the line of copper pipe he had previously laid through the canyon passage. In an instant, a straight corridor within the passage was incorporated into the camp's boundaries. Within camp territory, he could reposition the copper pipes at will. His immediate task was to lay out all these pipes, establishing the network for the unmanned outposts according to his earlier plan. "Huh?" The moment the copper pipe activated, Chen Fan noticed the horse's speed increase significantly. A fresh breeze swept across the path—within the camp's territory, the Skeleton Horse actually benefited from the buff of the Clear Breeze Array, boosting its speed by several tenths. Before long, almost all the copper pipes accumulated over the last three days were laid out. ... "Phew..." Standing alone on the wasteland, Chen Fan exhaled softly as he looked at the freshly built unmanned outpost before him. The copper pipe was coiled around several extra times here, resembling a knot tied in hemp rope, demarcating a camp of modest size. Here, he had constructed four-meter-long tier-1 walls forming a square bunker. And mounted atop the walls were four tier-2 arrow towers. Beyond that, there were no other structures. Total cost: 160 ghost stones. Tier-2 arrow towers were plenty against ordinary ghost creatures, and if a powerful ghost creature came along, walls like these wouldn't hold anyway. He had built five such unmanned outposts in one go this afternoon, spending a total of 800 ghost stones. Like nodes on a spider's web, they spread across the wasteland via the copper pipes. Once Eternal Night fell, these unmanned outposts would act like massive bear traps, yielding him an endless harvest. Even if one were breached, it wouldn't hurt a bit.