"I Name This Defense 'Meat Grinder'"

"Time to head back." Standing alone on the wasteland, Chen Fan cast a glance around, mounted his horse, and rode along the copper pipe at a breakneck pace back toward the camp. The copper pipe was active. Empowered by the Clear Breeze Array within the camp's bounds, his journey across the wasteland felt remarkably smooth, as though he were cruising on an expressway. He had just returned to camp when he ran into Zhou Mo, who had also just arrived back, astride his Skeleton Horse and pulling several handcarts. "Stationmaster." Seeing Chen Fan return, Zhou Mo immediately stepped up to greet him, excitement in his voice. "With the copper pipe linking here and the old camp, the travel time is far quicker than before. And I saw quite a few ghost creature corpses back at the old camp." "Quite a few ghost creatures have assaulted the old camp over the past few days." "The ghost creatures are still running rampant in the rainy season." "There were about three hundred carcasses, though I didn't spot any especially strong ones, nor were there any exotic treasures or the like." "Mm." Chen Fan nodded with a slight smile. "Just hand the carcasses over to Wang Kui." By now, the camp had established a complete procedure for processing corpses. The ghost stones were extracted and stored in the warehouse. All usable ghost materials were harvested, their blood drained into containers, while portions of the remains were buried in the farmland, portions sent to the sacrificial tower, and portions used for barbecue. Aside from being short on hands, there was nothing to fault about the entire process. ... Inside the camp. Chen Fan took inventory of the camp's assets. He had erected five unmanned outposts today, leaving 3,155 ghost stones in the camp. Ghost stones were running low. He would see tomorrow what the unmanned outposts managed to harvest. As for right now... Directing the tier-5 cannon tower perched atop the pillbox outside the wall, he blasted out a shallow crater roughly thirty meters above the ground on the cliff face. "Hey." Having done that, he turned toward the crocodile waiting to be fed. The beast seemed to treat 'hey' as its name; every time he called out, it looked his way. Now it lumbered joyfully across the ground toward him, settling quietly beside a mound of earth. "Go into Cave No. 1 and hollow out a passage inside leading to that shallow crater. Can you do that?" Just as he was about to resort to body language to explain in more detail, he watched the crocodile look up at the crater high on the cliff face, open its maw, and spit a thin stream of green liquid straight and true into the pit. Then it quickly crawled up to the wall outside Cave No. 1 and looked back at him, gesturing for him to open the wall. "Do you actually understand, or are you just pretending? Don't go digging blindly on me." After a brief hesitation, Chen Fan made the wall phase out, allowing the crocodile into Cave No. 1. About the time it took an incense stick to burn later... *Thump.* A crocodile head suddenly popped out from the shallow crater thirty meters up the cliff wall, vanishing again almost immediately. Moments later, the crocodile scurried out from the cave to stop before him, wagging its tail to claim credit. ... At the opening thirty meters above the ground, perched over Cave No. 1. Chen Fan led Zhou Mo and the others through the passage until they arrived at the ledge. "Sweet mother of..." Wang Kui flattened himself against the ground, cautiously poking his head out of the opening to peer down at the canyon floor. After one glance, he quickly yanked his head back. "This is way too high. Falling from here would definitely sting a bit." "..." Chen Fan did not venture close to the edge either; he was also afraid of taking a tumble. Standing a step back, he craned his neck to look down at the canyon floor, his eyes brimming with satisfaction. The beast's efficiency surpassed his expectations. Compared to a massive undertaking like excavating an entire primary cave, a minor project like this passage went even faster. "How did that crocodile find the exact mark you gave it, Stationmaster?" Wang Mazi scratched the back of his head, thoroughly perplexed. "It probably used that saliva to pinpoint the spot." After clearing up Wang Mazi's confusion, Zhou Mo turned to Chen Fan. "Still, Stationmaster, is it really necessary to set up a cannon tower this high up? I feel our camp is already safe enough." "Of course it is." Chen Fan glanced sideways at Zhou Mo. "Remember how the old camp fell?" "The wall's tier wasn't high enough to withstand the lantern strikes from the mourning ghost chieftain." "No." Chen Fan shook his head. "That was only part of it. The primary reason was the limited number of arrow towers we could place on the wall. The wall was only so large, so the arrow towers you could mount were limited. If our firepower had been overwhelming enough, even if that mourning ghost chieftain could split, it would have been snuffed out the instant it reached its limit." "A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit." "We can't repeat past mistakes." "Our defense is indeed high enough right now, but defense can never protect us entirely. No matter how sturdy the defense, a day will come when it gets worn down. What we must do is withstand the enemy's opening offensive, then crush them with sheer firepower." "The bottom of this canyon boasts natural cliffs on all four sides." "These are all prime positions for cannon towers." "As long as we mount enough cannon towers around the surrounding cliffs and high on the walls of the canyon passage, this place will become an impregnable bastion. No one will ever breach it." With that, he spent one white mourning lantern and 480 ghost stones to build a tier-5 cannon tower right at the opening. He then took out the remaining small batch of copper pipes from today and laid them along the passage, connecting the tower directly to the tier-5 ghost fire to supply it with power. He spent another 60 ghost stones to forge a one-meter section of tier-2 wall at the opening, perfectly concealing the entrance. For the tier-2 wall's upgrade path, he chose seamless camouflage with the surrounding scenery. ... Chen Fan and the others descended back to the canyon floor. Looking up toward the opening thirty meters above the ground, not the slightest flaw could be seen from outside; the wall had blended completely into the cliff face. The moment the wall opened, this cannon tower hidden high above would unleash a torrential barrage. "Stationmaster..." Zhou Mo stared in a daze at the sight before him. "The ghost fire's camp domain only extends up to fifty meters at most. If we set up cannon towers higher than fifty meters, they won't be able to target ghost creatures that breach our boundaries." The camp domain provided by a ghost fire had a height limit. Fifty meters. Hardly anyone paid attention to that figure, however, as it was practically never relevant. "That's simple," Chen Fan said placidly in a low voice. "All we need to do is build another ghost fire fifty meters above the ground, extending the height by another fifty meters. Repeating the process allows us to continuously stretch the camp domain's ceiling. These ghost fires won't be activated under normal circumstances—only when we face a dire enemy." "Activating them even once would come at a tremendous cost..." Zhou Mo hesitated. That meant that once lit, these ghost fires would effectively become single-use structures. By the stationmaster's plan of covering the canyon passage and the four cliff faces around the canyon floor with a sea of cannon towers, it would require at least a hundred ghost fires. At Jiangbei Market prices, that would consume around six thousand ghost stones. And that was only the cost for tier-1 ghost fires. The domain provided by tier-1 ghost fires certainly couldn't sustain such an operation; they would need at least tier-2 or tier-3 ghost fires. The cost of the ghost fires alone would be an astronomical sum. "The cost will be a bit steep, yes." Chen Fan smiled. "But these ghost fires won't be lit under ordinary conditions. Once they are, it means we have reached a matter of life and death. I name this defense 'Meat Grinder.'" "When the Meat Grinder turns on, if we lose, the cost won't matter anyway." "And if we win..." "Any enemy worthy of making us start the Meat Grinder will surely bring us an ample return." Besides... With his Eternal Night Lord interface, crafting a basic ghost fire cost him a mere three ghost stones. To him, the cost was not particularly great at all.