Chapter 395: Rock Mountain Outpost—Killing Wolves, Logging, and Building Defenses

Several hunters were hiding carefully behind a rock not far away, only exposing half of their heads, all quietly watching the battle at the boundary between the Rock Mountain and the Forest.

The young hunters were somewhat nervous; both held their hunting bows tightly, and their right fingers were nervously gripping the fletching of an arrow, pinching the feathers until they were somewhat deformed.

Noticing the young hunters' nervousness, the old hunter, also hiding behind the rock, patted the young men on the shoulders and whispered comfortingly: "Relax, Jier has plenty of skill. If he can't win and is in danger, he will naturally call out to us."

The two young hunters nodded reluctantly, though they were still muttering under their breath.

"Taking on so many wolves alone, isn't he being a bit arrogant?"

The old hunter let out a breath: "Before Jier joined us, he always dealt with wild beasts and monsters alone. Don't be nervous." As he spoke, they saw Jier in the distance draw that Long Sword.

The Long Sword was wreathed in white light, not only illuminating Jier himself but also making the Northland Wolves he was fighting clearly visible one by one.

The sky had turned dark, and the Northland Wolves had naturally dilated their pupils, allowing more faint light to gather at the back of their eyes so they could see in the natural night.

But when Jier drew his Long Sword, the light he deliberately controlled to shine from the sword to illuminate the surrounding environment instantly dazzled the eyes of the several Northland Wolves fighting him.

This was naturally something he had anticipated; in battle, besides on-the-spot performance and pre-prepared equipment, a small stratagem could also play a big role.

Seeing the moment the sword was drawn, the several Northland Wolves opposite him all squeezed their eyes shut or turned their heads, not daring to look at him; Jier knew this was an excellent opportunity.

He lunged at a Northland Wolf that had turned its head. After closing in, taking advantage of the opponent's counterattack, he thrust his Long Sword straight toward its face. After dazzling the Northland Wolf's eyes, he gathered his strength and delivered a heavy, diagonal kick, knocking the Northland Wolf over to the ground.

Afterward, he pressed his Shield down, pinning the opponent's two front paws as it scrambled on the ground, then stabbed the sharp Long Sword into the Northland Wolf's lower abdomen.

"Wooo-fuff." The Northland Wolf let out a wail.

Jier could judge that he had pierced several Viscera just by the tactile feedback from the sword hilt. Relying on his previous experience skinning dead wolves many times, Jier had roughly mastered the distribution of the Northland Wolves' Viscera, so this strike was aimed directly at the Northland Wolf's heart.

Feeling that he had almost pierced the opponent's heart and some other Viscera, Jier hurriedly pulled back his strength and stopped the Thrust; he was afraid that if the sword body went in too deep, it would be bad if it got stuck on the bones of the Northland Wolf's back.

The sword body was pulled back after being inserted more than halfway, but the fallen Northland Wolf no longer had the strength to roll over and get up.

Its body twitched, its four paws constantly paddling the air, its mouth wide open but with nothing to bite.

Ignoring this Northland Wolf, Jier flicked his Long Sword, then turned and used his Shield to block a Northland Wolf that was pouncing on him.

Thud. Jier, with his solid footing, shifted his body back by the length of a foot, but he had directly blocked the opponent's pounce.

The Long Sword in his right hand swung forward, using the momentum of the swing to Thrust directly into the Northland Wolf's head. The reforged hunting weapon was exceptionally sturdy and very sharp; just by stabbing into the wolf's head during the swing, it instantly split open the wolf's head that he had been unable to cleave before.

There were quite a few bones in a wolf's head, and they were thick, so apart from their claws, their heads were actually the sturdiest part of their bodies. Ordinary Arrows could hardly leave much effective damage on a wolf's head, unless they hit the eyeballs or some other vital spot.

But Jier's swing of the Long Sword, though not using much force, instantly sliced open the sturdy wolf skull. Not to mention breaking the roots of several wolf teeth, it at least stunned the Northland Wolf slightly, similar to the effect of punching a Human in the chin.

He had no time to finish off this Northland Wolf, because at the same time, another Northland Wolf was squinting its eyes and pouncing from behind Jier.

Jier noticed it, but it seemed too late.

Yet just as this Northland Wolf was leaping in mid-air, two Arrows flew through the air with a *whoosh*, and like an antelope hanging by its horns, they struck the body of the ambushing Northland Wolf right in mid-air.

The force of the Arrows was not small, and the Northland Wolf could not leverage itself in the air, which forced its pounce to change direction, causing it to miss entirely. It landed on the ground beside Jier and rolled into a ball.

"Thanks!" Jier knew what was going on without looking, so he roared, then threw himself back into the battle.

Taking large strides forward, Jier led the way with his Shield, squeezing the Northland Wolf pressed against the opposite side of the Shield until it kept retreating.

The lightweight Shield was quickly pulled back and then slammed out with force, forcibly opening the Northland Wolf's wildly scratching front paws and biting. Immediately following was a straight Thrust of the Long Sword, but as luck would have it, this Thrust was actually caught by the Northland Wolf in front of him as it tilted its head.

The two engaged in a contest of strength; Jier's one-handed strength was naturally no match for the power of the Northland Wolf's entire head and neck. So, unable to pull the sword back, Jier directly lifted a foot and kicked the Northland Wolf in the chin.

His Long Sword was exceptionally tough, so Jier was not afraid of the sword snapping under complex stress. He shook his right hand left and right, and feeling that the Long Sword could move slightly, he gripped the hilt tightly and Thrust it straight into the depths of the Northland Wolf's mouth.

The Northland Wolf's teeth were biting tightly onto the sword body, but it was still pushed inch by inch into its mouth. With a mouthful of sharp teeth as thick as fingers biting the white-light-splattered Long Sword, it felt as if it were swallowing a segment of light into its throat.

When the tip of the Long Sword pierced through the Northland Wolf's throat, the Northland Wolf's resistance quickly dissipated. Then the tip of the Long Sword pierced open the neck behind the throat and poked out from the fur on the back of the Northland Wolf's neck.

The white light wreathed the surface of the sword body at an extremely close distance, but it did not directly touch the sword body, so even though the sturdy sword body was covered in the Northland Wolf's blood, its radiance was not affected.

Jier saw the tip of the sword emerge from behind the Northland Wolf's neck, then twisted the Long Sword in his hand, pulling and rotating the entire hilt by a segment.

*Sss-hiss-hiss-hiss*, thud.

Accompanied by the spraying of blood and the sound of metal shearing through bone and fascia, the Northland Wolf's head was more than half severed, then dropped down while maintaining a ferocious expression. It was only connected to the body by a tiny bit of fur and muscle at the end.

"Huff, hah." Jier exhaled a hot breath, then took a deep breath and turned around.

Accompanied by the occasional *whoosh* of Arrows flying past, that Northland Wolf that had been hit by an arrow had been unable to cross the hunters' control zone to attack Jier after landing from its pounce.

After Jier finished off the Northland Wolf at hand, he wiped the dripping blood off the sword body with wolf fur. Then he strode toward the last remaining stubborn Northland Wolf.

These lonely hunters of the Forest had very stubborn personalities; even when it was the only one left, it did not flee, still keeping its narrowed eyes fixed on Jier.

Fierce and desperate.

Jier was naturally not afraid; the successive battles had made him a mature Warrior. The enemies his weapon could deal with were all opponents he could fight.

*Clang, clang, clang. *

The Long Sword and Shield collided, the rhythm matching his footsteps.

Every step he took closer to the Northland Wolf, he struck his Shield with the Long Sword. Each collision made the Northland Wolf opposite him twitch its ears; although it had not yet shown a feeling of fear toward Jier, the comparison of their combat power was obvious.

It could not win; it knew this.

"Hah, hah, awooooo!" After its final howl, the Northland Wolf, carrying the several Arrows that had hit its body, accelerated and ran toward the Human enemy.

The hunters, considering that Jier was also moving, did not fire any more arrows.

Jier swung his Long Sword, delivering a diagonal Heavy Cleave to meet the Northland Wolf's attack with an attack. The glowing blade traced a semicircle in the air, slicing diagonally into the Northland Wolf's neck just right, entering the flesh half a palm deep; the immense force stopped the pouncing Northland Wolf in mid-air.

Flying up with a kick, he knocked the Northland Wolf up, and Jier's body turned a full circle horizontally, the Long Sword also stirring a full circle inside the Northland Wolf's body along with the rotation of his arm.

Afterward, Jier, having changed his posture, slammed his left-hand Shield down toward the other side of the Northland Wolf's head and neck.

*Sss. *

The Northland Wolf's body retreated under the force, causing its head and neck to collide more into the Long Sword blade that had already been hacked in by a small portion. A large amount of blood flowed down from the sword body, and even more blood was vomited out from the Northland Wolf's mouth.

Jier withdrew his sword, and the Northland Wolf fell to the ground, eyes wide open as it looked at him, its eyes full of killing intent.

Seeing the Northland Wolf's final gaze by the white light of the sword body, Jier was not very pleased; he thrust his Long Sword, piercing the sword tip through the wolf's eye and the brain behind it.

"Huff, finally finished killing them. The rest probably won't come to provoke or stare at us anymore." Jier muttered to himself, holding the Long Sword above his head, then shaking it left and right.

The hunters responded with a shout and came over carrying the rack for loading things.

Everyone said nothing, patted Jier's armor on the shoulder, and began to load the corpses of the dead Northland Wolves, then carried them back in pairs.

Jier himself grabbed the tails of two wolves, one in each hand, and dragged them along as he followed the others back.

Afterwards, with the Northland Wolves that had been affecting their logging work gone, the efficiency of Jier and his group increased significantly. Everyone could venture a bit deeper into the Forest to specifically look for trees that weren't particularly large, fell them, and then chop off the excess branches.

During this work, Jier's axe truly performed a great service. Not only was its lethality against Monsters and fierce beasts astonishing, but it was also exceptionally effective for logging. For a tree trunk as thick as a person's waist, he only needed one swing on each side to fell the tree directly.

If it weren't for the fact that it was too heavy—among everyone, only Jier could use it for long periods, while the others found it too heavy even just to carry—this axe should have been able to bring them more timber.

However, Jier calculated that they had already felled many large trees over the past two days. After totaling it up with his companions, it should be roughly enough.

Therefore, everyone stopped logging and instead used Ropes to drag the trunks, taking advantage of the snow on the Forest floor to pull the simply cleared trunks back to the Rock Mountain Channel.

Under Jier's instructions, the Hunters began digging Trenches on both sides of the entrance to the Rock Passage at the base of the Rock Mountain.

They didn't need to be very deep, nor did they need to be very long; they just needed to be wide enough.

They dug pits one meter deep and four meters wide along both sides of the Rock Passage exit, following the direction of the entrance. Although they lacked proper tools, everyone used wooden shovels with their tops flattened to resemble shovels to begin digging.

The hard soil dug out was piled on both sides of the Trenches.

Jier, meanwhile, carried back bundles of tree branches left over from the logging in the Forest, chopped them into thirty-centimeter-long pieces, then used his Long Sword to split them into four sections, sharpening one end and roasting it over a fire to carbonize it.

In the areas already dug, Jier inserted these Wooden Spikes into the ground one by one, with the tips pointing upward and outward, and had an old Hunter pour ice water from a simple wooden bucket they had dug out into the bottom of these pits.

The cold weather caused this ice water, which had only just melted from the snow, to refreeze into solid ice.

Besides this, Jier also chopped the wood on the ground outside into sizes he could pull by himself, then had the Hunters take charge of digging the Trenches outside the Rock Passage entrance, while the two old Hunters were each responsible for processing the Wooden Spikes, and one collected snow from the ground outside, which they then melted over a fire at the Rock Passage entrance before finally pouring it into the bottom of the pits to freeze.

To maintain the physical strength for their work, the five of them did not throw away the carcasses of the Northland Wolves they had killed earlier; they cut off the meat, soaked it in cold salt water, and then skewered it to roast.

Everyone ate the fishy, astringent, and coarse wolf meat in large mouthfuls, supplementing their intake with the salt from the soaking process while using the all-meat diet to replenish the fatigue and hardship brought on by two days of heavy physical labor.

Of course, hard as the work was, at least there was no danger. The Hunters only needed to follow the instructions of the young and clever Jier, and if they encountered problems, they just needed to call Jier over.

Not only did they work hard during the day, but at night, when it grew dark early, they lit up various campfires for illumination and continued to work without stopping. When they were truly too tired to go on, they would return to the Stronghold Camp to rest in this safe place.

Because Jier had a constant supply of energy from the sword hilt, whenever he felt exhausted, he would sit down and rest while holding the sword hilt and Sword Sheath. A visible cyan light would emanate and shine upon him, allowing him to quickly recover enough strength to work for a while longer.

Of course, he would still return to the Stronghold to rest in the middle of the night. His body and brain still needed real sleep time.

He himself was not some kind of Monster.

Because they had killed the Northland Wolves that were scouting the perimeter and intimidated them, the group worked with peace of mind, and their efficiency was high. The pits on both sides of the Rock Passage were completed quickly after Jier joined the work.

Everyone then took the Metal Clamps out from the Stronghold and placed all the Metal Clamps on the ground facing the Rock Passage entrance in sequence.

Each Metal Clamp was connected by a large number of Wolf Skin Ropes, which had been cut into strips from the previously processed Northland Wolf skins, stretching all the way to the entrance.

Here, Jier began to build the First Position to obstruct the Northland Wolves.

He did not place the main body of the position, the Wooden Wall, near the entrance to avoid the Northland Wolves suddenly rushing out from the sides of the entrance where they couldn't be seen or hit. Instead, he placed it fifteen meters inside the Rock Passage.

There was already enough timber left here by Jier to build a Wooden Wall one person high. The Wooden Wall didn't need to be very high, just high enough that a Northland Wolf couldn't jump directly over it.

The Hunters and he would defend by the Wooden Wall when the time came; as long as the Northland Wolves couldn't rush through in one go, they would be able to inflict heavy casualties on the charging Northland Wolves here.

He wasn't afraid that the Northland Wolves wouldn't come to attack them. As long as the Northland Wolves living scattered throughout the Forest gathered together, due to the overall food problem, the gathered Northland Wolves would only be able to attack them first during the first few days when they weren't too hungry. Once they had been gathered for a long time, the hungry Northland Wolves would either disperse or have to race against time to kill them all.

Jier used his Hunting Longsword and Yueshui Skull Two-Handed Axe to test them in the Rock Passage, and both weapons could chisel the rock in the Rock Passage without sustaining damage.

Due to the weight of the axe, Jier handed his Hunting Longsword to a young Hunter in the team who was the second strongest at the time, having him follow Jier to carve out indentations in the floor of the passage where the wood could be inserted for leverage.

There was no need to dig very deep, because the entire passage was not very wide; when the pieces of wood were placed one against another, they could easily be connected tightly by using the tooth marks left on the wood by human effort.

Everyone first dug several deep pits on the left and right sides of the passage, then placed several long, thin tree trunks horizontally across, propping them against both sides of the passage. Next, they dug pits in the ground—only needing to dig shallowly for ten centimeters or so—and placed the thick tree trunks upright into the indentations, then pressed them tightly against the horizontally placed trunks; very quickly, a Wooden Wall was completed.

Following Jier's instructions, the old Hunters poured the prepared ice water bit by bit along both sides of the Wooden Wall. Before it could even flow down the wooden wall, this ice water was frozen into solid ice crystals by the cold weather.

Previously, when reinforcing the Wooden Spikes, the old Hunters had quickly mastered when to pour it—it was best when the ice water in their hands was just about to freeze. Once they poured it, the skilled old Hunters quickly made the simple Wooden Wall freeze into a single whole.

The Wooden Wall designed by Jier had no entrance or exit, so he specifically prepared two long, thin pieces of wood to lean against the outside of the Wooden Wall. He used his Long Sword to chop rough tooth marks into the wood that could be easily stepped on, so that both people and horses could walk over quickly.

The Wolf Skin strips connected to the Metal Clamps placed outside earlier could come in handy this time. The Metal Clamps were placed on the position in front of the Wooden Wall, with the long Wolf Skin strips trailing all the way behind the Wooden Wall.

During the subsequent battle, the Northland Wolves caught by the legs by the Metal Clamps would be the first targets of their strikes; when there was a gap in the battle, they could drag the Metal Clamps and the wolf carcasses back together. In this way, the Metal Clamps could continue to be used at the Second Position.

After setting up the first defensive position.

Jier also tried using his axe to split the bases of several half-person-high rocks on the upper sides of the passage; when the rocks were teetering, he used a block of wood to barely prop up the base of the rock. A Rope was tied to the wooden block and connected to another rock the size of a human head nearby.

This small rock was placed on the edge of the Rock Passage, and it could be seen from the Wooden Wall of the first position.

Jier had asked the old Hunters if it was possible to move this smaller rock by shooting it with a bow and Arrow from below. For this, he even specifically prepared a rock of similar size for the Hunters to try.

The result was feasible.

As long as the small rock wasn't placed very stably, it could be knocked down with an Arrow, and it would then fall into the passage, pulling the Rope and snapping the support point of the other large rock.

After this was set up, Jier and his group began to work through the night to set up the second defensive line while it was dark.

Because the next day was the final return time they had agreed upon with Knight Lanisha. The team that went out on an adventure to disrupt the large-scale assembly of Northland Wolves would return by tomorrow at the latest. Since they hadn't returned today, they would definitely return tomorrow.

Jier calculated in his mind that they could finish half of the second defensive line tonight, and another half-day of work tomorrow should be about enough. Once the people who went out returned and they had sufficient numbers, they might even be able to finish the third defensive line before tomorrow midnight.

As for the final fourth defensive line, it would actually use their Stronghold as the main body. Jier even prepared to set up a final line of defense in front of the mountain peak behind the Stronghold, utilizing the steep terrain of the final mountain peak and the flat rock platform on the summit.

He even arranged a retreat route. He just didn't know if there would be enough time.