98 A reconnaissance mission.

"Captain Irene. Reporting..." She said, hiding behind an ice dune. With her eyes fixed on the Mining stronghold no. 4, she reported her position to the nearest relay station, "Target at sight."

"All clear, Captain. You can continue." The operator verified that he received live video feeds from their helmet. The relay point then transmitted the feed to the headquarter at the stronghold.

Leeroy and two other generals, three leaders of the remaining three military strongholds, sat in the underground chamber of a distant stronghold.

"It looks like they didn't freeze the stronghold inside the enormous chunk of ice, like the last one," Blackmoor said, gazing at the feed displayed on the screen.

"Didn't they mention that because of the clouds they couldn't send the data back to the stronghold?" Leeroy was curious about it.

"It's an ancient technology. SRD860. They increase the effective range to 12 km. It didn't need a satellite. We only set up two relay stations to escape the affected area." Even as he spoke, Gunther's eyes didn't shift away from the screen.

Captain Irene was in command of a squad of five special soldiers. All the six feeds from their helmets were showing on the screen.

They sprang into action as soon as they received the order. With the help from the wind mana spell, they were moving over the snow without leaving footprints.

"They're mages, aren't they?" It was Blackmoor who asked. The assistant who stood behind him explained, "Captain Irene is level 4 grade D mage. Vice-captain Eric is level 4 grade E. And the others are level 3 grade S mage."

"Hmm." as Blackmoor nodded, Irene signalled others to stop.

In reality, the video feed showed what the wearer of the helmet saw. So in the stronghold, they too could see the warning of approaching enemies.

"3 big ones at 1 O'clock. 7 by 4 and 2 by 9." As soon as they stopped, Irene relayed the situation.

The sniper, with superior eyesight, added, "A horde of small monsters, 840 meters at 12 O'clock"

"Set the traps, retreat 50 meters. Kita and Niyo keep your distance, supported with basic spells. I'm in the front, Bill on right, Eric on left. Miya, conserve mana, use [Heal] only when needed."

As Irene was talking, they continued to do as they ordered. And…

*Boom*

The mana surface charges, which they had scattered around them, blew up one after another. Black smoke rose as the traps activated the fire mana crystal bombs, one after another. It didn't just melt the snow down below, blue blood spread in the air with the explosion.

"Yes." Blackmoor shouted in excitement, "Those fire mana crystal surface charges performed better than expected. We should order more like these."

"Hmm." Leeroy nodded, "To think it could detect the beasts moving under the snow and direct the explosion towards it…"

It was as they had said. The stench of burning flesh filled the air. Out of all the monsters that approached them from the underground, only two of them remain unscratched.

However, as soon as they popped their heads from the ground, two [Water Spear], that came from the rear, sent them flying. They took care of the remaining wounded first circle troll easily. But it was just the beginning.

*Howl*

As the first one cried, the other joined it. The acoustic in their helmet analyzed the resonance and determined that the number of the wolves was 27. However, it was the direction of the wolf pack that shocked them.

"The herd of wolves is 245 meters in the back. Small fully armed humanoid monster horde 485 meters in front." Even if the sniper repeated the data, their sudden appearance shocked him.

"We're surrounded," Eric said in simple terms.

"Move to 10 O'clock. Use movement spells. We will retreat." With another precise order, they pushed to the northwest.

Even if they had signed the papers when they had agreed to join the so-called 'suicide mission', none of them wanted to die. And it wasn't a capturing mission, it was more like a mission to taste the water, a reconnaissance mission. So it was just a tactical retreat.

As soon as they started running, the pack also changed course. That was just what she had expected. The pace of the wolves are faster than the small monsters, so they had a greater chance to escape the encircle in this direction. However…

"7 two-headed big monsters. 872 meters. Front." Even without the sniper's reminder, their helmet was already scanning the distant monsters, and they were well aware of the fact that they had just lost their only path of escape.

"Are you still going to say that they're all mindless monsters?" Looking at the live feed, Leeroy frowned. And the other two generals didn't dare to refute his words; they were well aware of this team's inevitable fate. However, they had underestimated the severity of the crisis.

The wind picked up around the squad, bringing soft snow along with it. With each step, it was getting harder for them to see, as Irene screamed, "Stay closer. Get your taser ready."

Even with the visual correction settings of the helmet, they couldn't see more than five meters in front of them, and that made the matter worse. They could see the dark shadow behind the white curtain of a blizzard.

It was over three meters tall and was carrying a thick blunt weapon on its shoulder. The helmet had correctly guessed the beast, but the reference data seemed anything but reassuring.

Without an ounce of hesitation, they all fired their spells and tasers. They were confident their attacks had hit the target, but they soon realized that it wasn't effective at all. They looked in fear that the shadow raised and brought the weapon down on them.

"Spread." Irene cried as she did the same thing. Yet, her instinct screamed the next moment… her line of sight descended, and she couldn't find the reason. Soon no more blood reached her brain, and the top and the bottoms of her view constantly interchanged with each other until her view darkened.

Yet the feed from her helmet continued to reach the stronghold. Even after they understood that Irene had died, the desperate scream continued to reach them.

When they could see again, they found that another shadow of a monster was dragging one of their operatives by his/her leg. Their desperate struggle was nowhere near strong enough to save them. It took about 2-3 minutes for everything to calm down.

It took a few more moments before the area cleared up. It was then that they got another unrestricted view of the stone pillar carrying horned monsters. But as soon as it put its enormous leg stepped on the helmet containing the severed head of Irene and crushed it, the video feed blackened.

"What with the other feed?" Blackmoor screamed out, "Don't say you sent them with no backups."

They cut all the six feeds on the screen almost at the same time. But another feed soon appeared in front of them. The assistant explained, "This camera was 2700 meters away from the place where the alpha team had died."

The scout took the feed from the top of a dune. It showed from the moment the monsters surrounded the alpha team from three sides and… before the Alpha team could respond; a dome of a blizzard covered them. Yet the wind outside the dome was calm and clear.

"What the hell is that?" Blackmoor yelled, "Are you trying to tell me that these monsters could influence the weather?"

Yet none in the chamber could answer him. They noticed that as soon as the dome of Blizzard had disappeared, the pack of wolves turned around, split into small groups, and ran away from the city. The view wasn't clear from such a distance, but one could see the outline of the beast.

And with each passing moment, the pack of 4 wolves became clearer. Only then did the operator realize that these four were aiming for him. He hastily tried to recover the camera but failed. The camera fell and obstructed the view.

Nobody needed an explanation about what happened after that.

But many small video feeds filled the giant screen in front of the three generals. The operator explained with fear that it wasn't just that scout; the beta team, the first relay post, and multiple scouts were all killed.

"And it was not just them, they even attacked the final relay points. They could only withdraw because of air support." In this suffocating silence, the operator realized that it was becoming very difficult for him to utter simple words.

"What about the analysis?" the only four-star general on EXO-04, Gunther Arcunas, asked in a calm voice.

An image of the mining stronghold no.4 appeared on the screen, with parts of it zoomed in.

"From the initial analysis, we have found three key points. First, rather than destroying the city they are fortifying the city. Fortification of the walls, construction of towers and..."

He checked their expression before adding, "They have even constructed weapons." As he spoke, the screen zoomed in and showed the weapon under construction.

"Weapon?" Leeroy asked what everybody wanted to know.

"We can't confirm it, but it looked like trebuchets." The operator waited for the response, but there was none, so he continued, "because of the distance, the Alpha team's portable scanner was not powerful enough to scan the entire city."

"However, there were almost 15,000-17,000 living beings present in the scanned area. None of them is human, and we measured the scan area as one-fifth of the whole stronghold."

"So they have an army with them." Blackmoor scratched his beard and asked, "Where the hell does this enormous population come from?"

Alas! Neither the operator nor the generals could answer him. Leeroy ignored him and asked, "What is the third point?"

The operator adjusted the screen again. Now it showed two images side by side. "Both of them are images of mining stronghold 04. The one on the left is from the archive, and they have recorded the right one today."

The operator took a deep breath and said, "There is a new mountain on the northeast of the stronghold. It wasn't there before."

"Are you sure about it?" To Gunther's question, the only thing the operator could do was nod.

"What the fuck?" Blackmoor slammed his fist on the table, "you are telling me they don't just control the weather, but also can change the freaking geography of the land?"

However, the operator had no answer to this question. Gunther frowned as he added, "they had frozen an entire stronghold into a small ice hill. Is it still surprising to you?"

Blackmoor grumbled but chose not to add anything. It was Leeroy who asked, "what should we do? We can't just send the solders in suicide missions. It's better to conduct an all-out attack. The chance of winning..."

Gunther just raised his hand and added, "we need to inform the council."