HPDBC Chapter 596 Fierce Battle at the Barbarian Camp
Chapter 596 Fierce Battle at the Barbarian Camp
The runes flowed slowly inside the ice, like glowing seaweed sealed inside a block of ice.
The light was not dazzling, but it was still clearly visible under the midday sun, indicating that the energy intensity of the rune itself was not low.
This rune system differs from the totemism of orc shamans. It appears more primitive, but it is also more stable—lacking the aggressiveness of shamanic totems that are always ready to erupt. Instead, it acts like a wall, quietly and continuously radiating a warning energy.
The barbarian sentinel at the top of the tower was at least a size larger than the orc.
Its skin was grayish-blue, and its shoulders and back were covered with a layer of coarse white hair, making it look like it was wearing a snow cloak from a distance.
They weren't wielding the iron axes and javelins of the orcs, but rather spears formed from condensed ice crystals. The spearheads reflected a blinding light in the sunlight, brighter than steel, so bright that staring at them for too long made one's eyes blur.
Lin Tian stopped at the edge of the camp.
This distance is just outside the watchtower's normal detection range, but close enough to observe activities within the camp.
Celia emerged halfway from the shadows, her eyes piercing through the icy mist and landing in the direction of the main tent of the camp.
Her pupils contracted slightly, and shadow energy circulated around her, projecting her perception to even greater distances.
A few seconds later, she sent a message back to Lin Tian's consciousness.
"There are no shamanic totem fluctuations in the camp. The sacrificial energy residue from the bone pillars is zero, and the shadow totems commonly used by the orcs are also absent. I scanned the area three times to confirm that nothing was missed."
There were no shamans, no totems, and no orc envoys.
This means that the negotiations between the barbarians and the orcs either haven't even started, or haven't been completed at all. If it's the latter, then it's good news for Great Gorge City.
"Let's go a little further," Lin Tian responded in his mind. "Listen to what's being said near the main tent. This distance isn't enough; we need to get closer to hear the specifics."
The Star Leap silently transported him to the back of an ice ridge at the edge of the camp.
The moment he landed, he lowered his body, his silhouette blending into the shadow of the ice ridge.
This location is less than 100 meters from the camp fence, and a group of barbarian warriors are gathered around a fire in the open space in front of the main tent.
Even from this distance, you can feel the heat emanating from the fire; the air above the flames is slightly distorted.
The fire wasn't burning firewood—there are no trees on the ice plains. The barbarians used fuel blocks made from a mixture of dried dung and grease from snow wolves. It burned without smoke, and the flames were pale blue.
The blue flames danced in Lin Tian's vision, reflecting on the barbarian warrior's bone armor and emitting an eerie, cold light.
A tall barbarian clad in bone armor stood beside the fire, addressing the surrounding warriors.
His bone armor was inlaid with ice crystal fragments, each one engraved with intricate runes.
According to the barbarian data collected by the Allied Forces' intelligence department, barbarian warriors would embed a piece of ice crystal into their bone armor for every powerful enemy they killed—the bone armor in front of us is so dense that the underlying animal bones are almost invisible, indicating that the person wearing it has lived on the battlefield for at least several decades.
He grabbed a giant axe and brandished it in the air, the blade still covered with undried ice shards.
The barbarian language he was speaking was carried intermittently to Lin Tian's ears by the wind. Some words were swallowed by the wind, but he still managed to hear the key parts.
"...The number of Screamers in the Ironclad Den has recently doubled. If this drags on any longer, and that old thing fully awakens, our supply lines will be cut off. Another hunting party didn't return yesterday, and we didn't even find their remains."
"The Blackrock Tribe shaman came the day before yesterday. Their offer was—we would help them hold off the forces of Great Canyon City, and they would help us clear the underground spider nest to the south. I didn't agree. The orcs still haven't fulfilled their promises from last time; signing their blood sacrifice pact is like selling yourself. I don't care what they say; I've been fooled once, that's enough."
"Let's put this matter aside for now. We'll talk about it after the reconnaissance team brings back the specific data on that old thing in the Ironclad Beast's Den. Regardless of whether we form an alliance or not, we need to ensure that we have the ability to handle the troubles on our doorstep. If we can't even defend our own territory, then forming an alliance with anyone will just make us cannon fodder."
Lin Tian quickly went through the information in his mind.
The barbarians have indeed not agreed to the orcs' alliance request—at least not yet.
The Blackrock tribe sent shamans, but the barbarian chieftain rejected their offer.
Moreover, the barbarians themselves have trouble to deal with—the Ironclad Beast Den, where a threat known as "the Old Things" is awakening, and it seems to be of a high level, enough to make a barbarian leader who has lived for so many years speak in this tone.
We have enough intelligence.
Lin Tian mentally confirmed the key information: the barbarians and beastmen were not allied, there was a crisis within the barbarians involving armored beast dens, and the leader preferred to deal with local threats first.
Just as he was preparing to retreat, Celia suddenly sent back an urgent signal—and then she herself emerged from the shadows.
Normally, she would never intentionally reveal her location during a reconnaissance mission unless there was truly no time to spare. A red warning instantly exploded in Lin Tian's senses.
The ice crystal watchtowers in the barbarian camp simultaneously emitted a blinding blue light.
Anti-stealth rune.
The barbarians hid a special rune sensitive to shadow energy within the ice brick layer. It wasn't a regular perception barrier, but a reverse detection network specifically designed to counter shadow stealth skills.
Celia had moved a little further to get clearer information, and that tiny error triggered the threshold.
Celia's Shadow Stealth triggered its threshold—the ice crystals on the tops of all the watchtowers lit up simultaneously, the blue light illuminating the entire camp.
The barbarian warriors in the camp reacted almost instantly.
That reaction speed didn't seem like something trained; it was more like an instinct honed by life and death in the harsh environment of the icy plains.
The six warriors in the front row completed the action of drawing their axes and raising their shields in less than a second, and the charging formation immediately unfolded—three in the front row with shields raised, and three in the back row with arrows nocked.
Ice crystals condensed at the seams of the shields, connecting the three shields into a temporary ice wall.
The hum of the ice crystal bowstrings exploded around the camp as three icy arrows shot in from different directions simultaneously.
As the arrow flew through the air, it continuously absorbed moisture, thickening the ice layer. Lin Tian could clearly see the ice crystals growing outward layer by layer as the arrow flew, like a living thing breathing.
When it hits a target, it will explode in a splash radius, which, in his experience, is at least five meters wide.
Shinra Tensei.
The repulsive force erupted outward from Lin Tian as the center.
The air was compressed into a visible shock wave, which rolled out in all directions in a spherical shape.
The three ice crystal arrows were shattered into fragments less than two meters away from him, and the frost from the exploding arrowheads was dispersed by the repulsive force field before it could spread.