Chapter 133: Transformation of the Fjord

The next day, at the Lizardmen Faction’s port.  

By late January, the northern region was still bitterly cold, but the sunrise had started to come earlier.  

Wade, wrapped in a robe that concealed his entire body, followed the dragonkin and a small group of catfolk to the port where he had arrived that night.  

Three warships were buried in the ice and snow, thick ice layers growing along the cabins and decks.  

Fifteen days had passed, and half of that fortress-like warship was frozen into the icy sea.  

No one was tending to the ships; the decks were piled high with white snow.  

Those skeletons were also frozen into the snow-covered ground.  

Behind the dragonkin, Number One, Number Two, and Number Three picked up iron shovels and dug out the buried skeletons from the snow.  

When they unearthed a soldier wearing a standard military uniform, the pupils of all three contracted sharply, and they momentarily froze.  

More than a month ago, they wore the same uniforms as this skeleton. They had sat on that ice-locked ship, following their officers, docking at this port, but now all their fellow countrymen on the ship were dead—only the three of them had survived.  

When the dragonkin signed slave contracts with them, the three thought they were the unluckiest, but in reality, they were the luckiest to have survived until the end.  

If they had not been captured and had stayed in the army, what fate would have befallen them?  

They would have become one of these piles of bones, not even knowing how or why they died.  

No one had ever told them they would become sacrifices for the demon’s arrival.  

The moment they boarded that ship, they had been abandoned by those above.  

All three wondered what Iceland had become and whether their families had also become demon sacrifices or were about to.  

A chilling cold crept through every fingertip from the inside out.  

Before witnessing such a tragedy with their own eyes, they did not understand what demons truly were, but now they did.  

Before today, their hearts still hoped to return to the army and homeland.  

But after today, all they felt was a bone-deep chill.  

After spending half a day, Wade led the demi-humans to clear out the port.  

Everyone who had been here had turned to bones; no one had survived.  

The once chaotic Dragon’s Spine had truly become a no-man’s land.  

There were originally few lawbreakers operating here, and a faction’s stronghold usually had only about fifty to a hundred people. Especially before winter came, many lawbreakers crossed the border to small towns where they could spend winter safely.  

When the icy sea melted in previous years, people would gradually increase their activity nearby.  

Viking pirates, smugglers, slave merchants… In summer, these lawbreakers would become active, gathering at ports and bays to exchange information and goods.  

Those who stayed in the bay during winter, besides catfolk like Jessia who simply enjoyed living in the wilderness, were only the guards watching over warehouses. The actual number probably did not exceed a thousand.  

Of those thousand, subtracting the ratfolk and catfolk under Jessia, at most half remained.  

Among that half of five hundred, after the Icelanders rampaged, some died, some fled, and those captured became bones alongside the Icelanders.  

“Is it really just us left alive around here?” Jessia sighed.  

Through the clothing of the dead, she recognized a few familiar faces.  

Not friends, as there were no friends in Dragon’s Spine.  

But they were people she knew, who had once spoken to her, had once drunk together at the tavern.  

Those fierce and noisy fellows were all quiet in death.  

“Honored One, what’s the next step? Are we taking over this port?” Jessia asked the dragonkin.  

The dragonkin shook their head. “Just take inventory of the supplies here. We’re going to build our own port.”  

If they moved in, there were already facilities—doors, beds, a harbor, food—better conditions than the ratfolk cave.  

But this place was too conspicuous, easy to be discovered.  

In the past ten days, Igna, according to Wade’s instructions, studied the maps of the Lizardmen Faction and the Deer Blood Faction, and selected several new port construction sites.  

Wade planned to build a secret port of his own and move those ships over there.  

“Understood,” Jessia replied.  

After counting the supplies, they loaded some food onto the snowmobile pulled by reindeer and then returned to the cave.  

The demons had vanished from Dragon’s Spine. The entire snowfield seemed to be inhabited only by the demi-humans and reindeer.  

No one passed through here, and even animals were scarce. From day to night, the only sound was the endless howling of the cold wind.  

In the following days, Wade and Igna traveled back and forth between potential sites on snow, finally deciding on a location for the new port and base in a naturally recessed fjord.  

One February morning, Wade brought the dragonkin once again to the fjord.  

The fjord’s location was very hidden, situated beneath a cliff. It was hard to imagine anyone using this place as a port; the terrain was too treacherous.  

Below was a black watch wall dozens of meters high, with long-standing marks from ocean waves. The sea had eroded holes into the rock.  

That natural fjord resembled a pocket-shaped city wall, with a narrow entrance and a wide interior. The surrounding rocks shielded the sea wind.  

On the last visit, Wade had broken through the ice layer, summoned skeletons to dive with ropes, and measured the depth and width. Below was a shallow sea about twenty meters deep. Judging by the erosion marks on the cliff, the tide fluctuated about ten meters at high tide, within acceptable limits.  

The biggest downside of using this as a port was the cliff directly behind it, making the terrain extremely dangerous.  

But what Wade wanted was precisely danger; compared to convenience, he valued concealment and security more.  

The more unexpected the location, the more he liked it.  

Besides, he was not without the ability to transform it.  

He climbed down the cliff alone and stood on the frozen sea surface inside the fjord.  

Miracle Card—summon.  

A flash of light, and a huge stone golem appeared on the ice.  

The ice beneath its feet cracked under its weight, the heavy construct pressing spiderweb-like fractures into the ice.  

To prevent the golem from falling into the sea, Wade asked Mia to reinforce the icy sea.  

The ice barely held the golem’s weight, then the massive figure began to walk across the ice.  

Wade gestured to the dragonkin to move further away.  

After they retreated, the golem faced the cliff and raised its arm.  

With a muffled crashing sound, the golem smashed the cliff wall open.  

Its thick arm caused rocks and ice pillars to fall down.