Chapter 74: Chapter 74: "I Will Name This Defense ’Meat Grinder
"Time to head back."
Chen Fan stood alone in the Wilderness, scanned his surroundings, then mounted his horse. He galloped back toward the camp without pause, following the Copper Pipe.
The Copper Pipe was active.
The Clear Wind Array, active within the camp’s radius, made his travel through the Wilderness exceptionally smooth, like driving on a highway.
Just as he returned to the camp, he happened upon Zhou Mo, who was riding a Skeleton Horse and pulling several flatbed carts, also just arriving.
"Chief."
Seeing Chen Fan, Zhou Mo immediately went up to him, his voice tinged with excitement. "There’s a Copper Pipe connecting this place to the old camp, so the round trip is much faster now. Plus, I saw a lot of Ghost Corpses at the old site."
"Quite a few Ghost Objects have attacked the old camp these past few days."
"The Ghost Objects are still running rampant during this rainy season."
"There are about three hundred Ghost Corpses, but I didn’t find any from particularly strong ones, and no Exotic Treasures or anything like that."
"Mm."
Chen Fan nodded with a slight smile. "Just give the corpses to Wang Kui to handle."
The camp now had a complete procedure for processing the corpses.
Ghost Stones were dug out and placed in the Warehouse.
All usable Ghost Materials were extracted, the blood was drained into containers, some corpses were buried in the Farmland, some were sent to the Sacrificial Tower, and some were taken to be roasted. The entire process was fine, aside from a shortage of manpower.
...
「Inside the camp.」
Chen Fan took stock of the camp’s assets. He had built five unmanned stations today, leaving the camp with 3,155 Ghost Stones.
The number of Ghost Stones was getting low.
’I’ll see what the unmanned stations bring in tomorrow.’
As for now, he took control of the Level 5 Cannon Tower standing on a bunker outside the City Wall. He aimed it at a spot on the cliff face above the wall, about thirty meters off the ground, and blasted a shallow crater into it.
"Hey."
Having done that, he looked at the crocodile, which was waiting to be fed. The creature seemed to think "Hey" was its name; every time he called out, it would look at him. It now waddled eagerly across the ground toward him and lay down quietly by a mound of dirt.
"Go into Cave No. 1 and dig a tunnel from the inside to that crater. Can you do it?"
Just as he was preparing to use body language for a more detailed explanation, he saw the crocodile lift its head toward the high crater on the cliff face. It opened its mouth, and a thin stream of green liquid shot out, hitting the crater with perfect accuracy. It then quickly crawled to the City Wall in front of Cave No. 1 and looked back at him, signaling for him to open it.
"Did you really understand me, or are you faking it? Don’t you dare dig blindly."
Slightly hesitant, Chen Fan made the City Wall fade away, letting the crocodile enter Cave No. 1.
About the time it takes for a stick of incense to burn...
BANG.
A crocodile head suddenly poked out from the crater thirty meters up the cliff face above the City Wall, then quickly vanished again. A moment later, the crocodile scurried out of the cave to him, thumping its tail as if seeking praise.
...
At the mouth of the new opening, thirty meters above the ground over Cave No. 1.
Chen Fan led Zhou Mo and a few others through the tunnel to this spot.
"Oh my god..."
Wang Kui lay on the floor and cautiously peeked out of the opening, looking down at the canyon floor. He glanced down, then quickly pulled his head back. "This is way too high. If you fell from here, it’d probably hurt a little."
"..."
Chen Fan didn’t get too close to the edge; he was also afraid of falling. Standing back, he leaned forward to peer down at the canyon floor, his eyes filled with satisfaction. ’That creature’s more efficient than I imagined. Compared to a major project like digging a main cave, a smaller tunnel like this is even faster.’
"How did that crocodile so accurately find the spot you marked, Chief?"
Wang Mazi scratched the back of his head, completely baffled.
"It probably used that spit for Positioning," Zhou Mo answered, resolving Wang Mazi’s confusion, before turning to Chen Fan. "But Chief, do we really need to install a Cannon Tower this high up?"
"I feel like our camp is already safe enough as it is."
"Of course we do."
Chen Fan turned his head to look at Zhou Mo. "Do you remember how the old camp was destroyed?"
"The City Wall’s Level wasn’t high enough. It couldn’t withstand the attacks from the Mourning Ghost chieftain’s Mourning Lantern."
"No."
Chen Fan shook his head. "That was part of the reason. The main issue was the limited number of Arrow Towers we could place on the City Wall. The wall is only so big, so there’s a limit. If we had enough firepower, even if that Mourning Ghost chieftain could split, it would have been instantly annihilated once it reached its division limit."
"We have to learn from our mistakes."
"We can’t make the same errors again."
"Our defenses are indeed strong now, but defense alone can never completely protect us. Even the best defenses can be worn down eventually. What we must do is withstand the enemy’s first wave, and then crush them with firepower."
"This canyon floor is naturally surrounded by sheer cliffs on all four sides."
"These are all perfect placements for Cannon Towers."
"As long as we place enough Cannon Towers on the surrounding cliffs and high up on the canyon walls, this place will become an impregnable fortress. No one will be able to break through."
With that said, he consumed one white Mourning Lantern and 480 Ghost Stones to construct a Level 5 Cannon Tower at the opening. He then took out the few remaining Copper Pipes from the day’s work and laid them along the inside of the tunnel, connecting the tower to a Level 5 Ghost Fire to provide it with energy.
He then spent another 60 Ghost Stones to build a one-meter-long section of Level 2 City Wall, which perfectly covered the opening.
For the Level 2 City Wall’s Upgrade Direction, he chose to have it blend perfectly with its surroundings.
...
Chen Fan and the others returned to the canyon floor.
Looking up at the opening thirty meters above, they could see no flaw from the outside. The City Wall had completely merged with the cliff face.
The moment the City Wall opened, the Cannon Tower hidden high above would begin to unleash a torrent of firepower.
"Chief..."
Zhou Mo stared blankly at the scene. "The camp radius provided by the Ghost Fire only extends fifty meters high. If we place a Cannon Tower higher than that, it won’t be able to attack Ghost Objects that enter our territory."
The camp radius provided by a Ghost Fire had a height limit.
Fifty meters.
But this was a detail that almost no one paid attention to, since it was rarely relevant.
"That’s simple."
Chen Fan said calmly, "All we have to do is build another Ghost Fire at the fifty-meter mark to extend the height by another fifty meters. By repeating this process, we can extend the camp’s effective height indefinitely. These Ghost Fires won’t be active on a daily basis; they’ll only be turned on when we face a powerful enemy."
"But the cost of activating them even once will be huge..." Zhou Mo said hesitantly.
This meant that once activated, these Ghost Fires would essentially be single-use structures. According to the Chief’s plan to place a large number of Cannon Towers throughout the canyon pass and on the four surrounding cliffs, they would need at least 100 Ghost Fires. Based on the prices at the Jiangbei Marketplace, that would cost around 6,000 Ghost Stones.
And that was just the cost for Level 1 Ghost Fires. The camp radius provided by a Level 1 Ghost Fire definitely wouldn’t be enough for this plan; they would need at least Level 2 or Level 3 Ghost Fires. The cost of the Ghost Fires alone would be astronomical.
"The cost will be a bit high," Chen Fan smiled. "But these Ghost Fires won’t be activated on a normal day. The moment they are, it will mean we’ve reached a life-or-death situation. I’m naming this defensive setup the ’Meat Grinder’."
"The moment the Meat Grinder is activated, if we lose, the cost won’t matter anyway."
"And if we win, an enemy worthy of forcing us to activate the ’Meat Grinder’ will surely provide us with sufficient rewards."
Besides...
With his Eternal Night Lord Panel, building a basic Ghost Fire only cost him three Ghost Stones.
For him, the cost wasn’t particularly high at all.
