I can evolve everything

"Damn it! Why now?"

The smug look on Valen's face vanished instantly. Almost instinctively, he threw the lantern he was holding to the ground and turned to grab his weapon.

"Enemy attack! All personnel! Immediately go on combat readiness!"

His roar drowned out the howling wind and snow overhead, exploding nearby.

The soldiers, who were clearing snow and moving supplies, paused for half a second before quickly and orderly starting to move.

They seemed to have been prepared for this situation, and in a very short time, they quickly jogged to the armory where weapons were stored. Some soldiers, who were always dressed in full armor and equipped with weapons, also quickly lined up and climbed the city wall.

This is the northern fortress.

Here, a panicked person cannot become a qualified soldier.

Ryan didn't waste any words. His reaction was faster than most soldiers.

He turned and rushed into his stone house behind him, intending to retrieve his weapon.

Renn's gaze first fell on the two-handed greatsword leaning against the corner of the wall. He had been practicing with it every day for the past two weeks, but he was still a bit rusty.

In normal training, he would pick it up without hesitation. But the situation is urgent now.

"It's not the right time yet."

Renn's fingers lingered on the hilt of the sword for a moment, then decisively moved away and grabbed the familiar longsword beside him.

For him now, the two-handed greatsword, though incredibly powerful, is not yet fully tamed.

If you were to immediately find yourself on a battlefield where life and death are at stake, a familiar sword would be far more reliable than a weapon you are not yet accustomed to.

He quickly fastened the straps of his leather armor, hung his longsword at his waist, and finally put on his full set of armor.

The whole process took less than a few minutes.

When he rushed out of the room again, Valen was already standing not far away, fully armed.

The vice-captain of the Griffin Squadron was completely different from his usual calm demeanor when he was talking to Rein and the others; he was now exuding a sharp aura.

"Stay close to me!"

Valen turned back and shouted to Renn, then rushed up the stone steps leading to the city wall without stopping.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Climbing the 30-meter-high city wall, the view suddenly opens up.

The wind here is at least twice as strong as it is at ground level. If it weren't for the battlements, an ordinary person probably wouldn't be able to stand up at all.

Raine squinted, peering through the slits in his helmet out of the fortress.

"Oh God..."

Even though he was mentally prepared, the scene before him still made his scalp tingle.

At the edge of the horizon, on what should have been a vast, white wasteland, a black wave was now surging.

Renn felt he hadn't exaggerated at all; what he was seeing was a real wave.

Hundreds and thousands of monsters, densely packed together, were writhing on the ground.

Behind the beast tide, several enormous figures could be vaguely seen appearing and disappearing in the wind and snow, perhaps the very things that had driven them here.

This looks like a complete disaster.

A storm made of flesh and blood.

"call……"

Just as Raine gripped the hilt of his sword, his palms slightly sweaty, Valen, standing beside him, saw this scene and instead breathed a sigh of relief.

"You scared the hell out of me."

Valen reached out and wiped the frost off his visor, his previously tense shoulders slowly relaxing.

"I thought it was something important. Turns out it's just the winter hunt."

"Winter Hunt?" Renn turned to look at him, not understanding the meaning of the term.

The scene before us clearly shows that the Northern Fortress is the target of the hunt, the one that needs to be defended.

Shouldn't that be called "being hunted in winter"?

"They're just a bunch of monsters that've been frozen senseless and gone mad with hunger."

Valen pointed to the seemingly massive beast tide below, as if he were already used to this scene. "Don't be intimidated by the numbers, Renn. In the North, this is only considered a medium-sized beast tide."

He turned around and shouted loudly to the row of nervous new recruits behind him:

"Stop shaking! Get your crossbows ready!"

Valen looked at Ryan again and explained:

"This is the ecology of the North. Every winter, the temperature drops to a level that even monsters cannot withstand. The food chain in the depths of the wasteland collapses, and all living things have only two choices: either freeze to death in the caves or instinctively run towards heat sources."

Renn understood instantly.

"The heat source... is it the Northern Fortress?"

"That's right." Valen stamped his foot on the stone brick. "The giant magic circle of the [Eternal Furnace] buried underground, although most of the heat is blocked by the city walls, is like a straw to drowning monsters. They are not smart enough to band together and attack the Northern Fortress. They simply don't want to die."

It's simply out of the will to survive. That is indeed the most primal driving force.

"However..." Valen's eyes became serious as he focused on the enormous yeti figures behind the beast tide. "This year's scale is indeed larger than in previous years. In previous years, there were at most some dire wolves and various small monsters, but this year even yeti from the deep mountains have come out."

He glanced at Raine. "It seems the intelligence was indeed correct. That dire wolf king, or something else, has definitely disrupted the ecosystem deep in the wasteland. These monsters are driven not only by the cold, but also by fear."

"But unless it's an organized army, these rabble will only be sent to their deaths no matter how many they come."

Valen sneered and gestured for Renn to look around.

It was then that Raine noticed a series of winch turning sounds coming from around the city wall.

Dozens of enormous ballistae were pushed out. Between the ballistae were rows of catapults, filled with earthenware pots burning with oil.

"preparation--"

The city defense officer's voice pierced through the wind and snow.

The beast horde below seemed to sense the threat from the city walls as well; they roared even more frantically and charged forward with increased speed. The hooves of the frost-covered boars crushed the snow.

The beast tide is getting closer and closer to the walls of the Northern Fortress.

500 meters.

Three hundred meters.

"put!"

The air was torn apart.

Dozens of crossbow bolts, as thick as an arm, whistled through the air, covering a distance of hundreds of meters, and plunged into the densest part of the beast horde.

puff-

Blood exploded on the snow.

All of this was a foregone conclusion.

The monsters charging at the front resembled strings of pierced, mangled flesh, each bolt pinning them to the frozen ground, even knocking down a group of snow goblins behind them.

Next came the catapults.

After calculating the landing point, the burning pottery jar fell into the beast tide and shattered in the blink of an eye.

Red flames spread across the white wasteland.

Raine had previously witnessed the power of the specially made oil from the Northern Fortress, which could burn fiercely even on snow.

The horde of monsters, which had been charging wildly, instantly fell into chaos. Ignite-filled monsters let out agonizing screams and scattered in all directions, trampling many of their own kind to death.

The current situation is clearly nothing more than a one-sided massacre.

Relying on the city walls and equipment, without even needing the knights to be mobilized, these soldiers alone were able to harvest the lives of these monsters as if they were cleaning up garbage.

Raine stood at the edge of the battlements, watching this scene unfold.

He didn't feel relieved; instead, his brows furrowed even more.

"Valen," Raine suddenly spoke, "the defenses at the Northern Fortress are indeed impregnable. But what about the defensive lines?"

He pointed to the city walls extending into the depths of the snowstorm on both sides. "The northern defense line stretches for hundreds of miles. Apart from this main fortress, the other beacon towers and outposts don't have such strong firepower and walls. What if this beast tide splits up and attacks those places with only a few dozen people stationed there?"

Just like the days he spent stationed in Shattered Tooth Canyon. If a beast tide of that size were to rush towards that not-so-large stone tower, let alone twenty people, even two hundred people would be instantly overwhelmed.

Upon hearing this, Valen turned to look at Renn.

He didn't answer directly, but instead smiled mysteriously.

"Don't forget the [Eternal Furnace] I mentioned to you before."

Valen pointed to the area below the city wall, "Don't just look at the distance, look at your feet."

Raine looked in the direction he was told.

At this moment, although the main force of those monsters was blocked by fire oil and crossbow bolts, some still managed to escape and reach the foot of the city wall.

Those were several extremely agile monsters. They avoided the frontal barrage of fire and, relying on their speed, arrived at the foot of the city wall first, attempting to climb up the vertical wall.

These monsters are the most troublesome creatures in siege warfare; once they climb up, they pose a great threat to the defending soldiers.

However, a strange scene happened.

The instant those monsters' claws touched the surface of the city wall

"Sizzle—"

A sound like grilling meat came clearly.

This was followed by a piercing scream.

The monsters convulsed violently, their claws, which had been attached to the cracks in the city wall bricks, instantly loosened, and their bodies, emitting blue smoke, crashed heavily back to the ground.

They weren't dead, but they were rolling around on the ground as if they were on fire.

"Did you see that?"

At this point, Valen couldn't help but feel a little proud.

"The 【Eternal Hearth】magic circle not only heats the entire Northern Fortress and the encampment with the beacon tower, but it also forms a barrier covering the entire defensive line."

He patted the stone bricks of the city wall.

"Although the core of this magic circle is underground in the Northern Fortress, its energy extends along the interior of the city walls to every corner of the defense line. Any area connected to the main city wall, and even those remote beacon towers, are under the protection of this barrier."

Valen explained, "This barrier releases a special kind of magic. For humans or ordinary beasts, this vibration would only feel a little hot. But for those monsters..."

He gave a cold laugh.

"It felt like being doused in hot oil and then set on fire."

Raine stared in shock at the monsters struggling in agony at the foot of the city walls.

"So, as long as the magic circle is still active, low-level monsters simply can't climb the city walls?"

"That's right." Valen nodded. "That's the strength of the Northern Defense Line. Unless it's a high-level monster with thick hide, or a rare monster that is immune to magic, we don't even need to draw our swords against this kind of beast tide that is purely based on numbers."

"As for the rest of the defense line, the garrisons at those beacon towers only need to guard the gates. The city walls themselves are the strongest guards."

Renn took a deep breath.

In comparison, individual martial prowess does indeed seem insignificant in the face of such a grand magical miracle.

"So, relax, Ryan."

Valen patted Renn on the shoulder, looking down at the beast horde that had begun to scatter and flee.

"This level of attack isn't even enough to tickle the [Eternal Furnace]. We just need to stand here, watch them struggle, and then send someone to dispose of the corpses when it's over..."

Before Valen could finish speaking, a sudden change occurred.