Chapter Sixty-Six: The Spiral Horn Desert

“As soon as you hear its name, blood will start pouring from your eardrums.”
—A common saying in Southport.

This saying refers to the Spiral Horn Desert, a wasteland lying west of the Zephyr Bastion.

Compared to the conditions in the north, the environment to the west is far more unforgiving—an endless desert, an unchanging sea of sand, severe and solemn, its stern face always shrouded in that monotonous, dull yellow.

Beyond the extreme heat, there exists here a terrifying radiation that severely distorts the senses. Even if all around is deathly silent, your ears will still be assaulted by sharp, shrill whistles in relentless waves. For those with weak cellular activity, just this piercing noise alone can drive a person mad, even to death.

Ordinary people, unless they are gifted with special powers, would not survive more than ten minutes exposed to such an environment. Only those with abilities, or with unique genetic origins—Phoenixes and the like—can mine here.

Under the blazing sun, a sudden rhythmic tremor stirs a sand dune in the Spiral Horn Desert. The grains leap like droplets of water, issuing a dense, crackling patter. More and more dunes begin to quiver, the surrounding hundred meters seething as though an oil pan set to boil.

Three base vehicles appear silently within the sea of sand, rolling forward like dragons, forging ever westward. To avoid attracting the chalk sand worms with noise, these vehicles have been ingeniously engineered by the Southport Research Institute to convert all sound into seismic waves, which the desert then absorbs.

The treads crush the sand in utter quiet, breaking through dune after dune. Though silent, their passage is unstoppable, exuding a grand, inexorable presence. Greyish dust billows outward, revealing scattered debris—the remnants of timed smoke grenades, a measure to keep the base vehicles safe from mutant beasts.

On White Mountain Star, base vehicles have long since ceased to be novel. Since the planet lost contact with the Empire fifty-five years ago and underwent drastic environmental changes, a scholar wrote a paper titled “Post-Disaster Era, Third Generation Logistics Management: On Base Vehicle Command and Supply Systems.”

He argued that for long-term mining operations in the wilds, base vehicles capable of resupply, defense, command, and recuperation were absolutely indispensable.

Experience and repeated lessons have since proven his foresight correct.

These three base vehicles are identical in design: fifty-two meters long, four rows of treads, and massive central axles supporting the superstructure above, providing essential shock absorption. Beyond their transport systems, each vehicle’s main body is a manned living module, with additional compartments attached for various purposes—armories, instrument rooms, temporary labs—fully meeting the needs of those with abilities for combat and research in the wilderness.

Yet what truly brought the base vehicle to the forefront was a subtle change made by researchers thirty-two years ago.

—After comprehensive assessments and countless interviews with those gifted with abilities, they installed entertainment systems in the living modules of the base vehicles.

At this moment, inside the central base vehicle, Ji Cheng was pointing out the window, explaining to Luo Rao.

Because the vehicle could not fully block out the radiation—some trace amounts inevitably lingered—for safety’s sake, he still wore his all-terrain advanced combat suit, its special materials shielding most of his body.

“The Spiral Horn Desert gets its name because, according to the Institute’s estimates, if you remove all the sand, the bedrock beneath this desert forms a downward-spiraling horn shape.”

“Why is it only an estimate? Aren’t there pre-disaster images of the area?” Luo Rao asked, her curiosity evident.

“There are, but before the disaster, this place was actually a flat-topped plateau. Later, it must have been uplifted—you could call it a terrace, but in any case, the terrain beneath the sand is different now, nothing like before.”

“So does that mean the Spiral Horn Desert is actually an enormous mining area?” she pressed.

As a rule, unusual landforms often indicate the presence of a ‘natural entropy-reduction marvel’—in other words, a mine—beneath the surface.

“There’s been speculation,” Ji Cheng replied. “Some have suggested there might be ultra-large energy crystal veins below the desert. But there’s no evidence, and with such a vast mining area never before seen, the idea’s remained just that—a rumor.”

Feeling his throat dry, Ji Cheng uncapped a bottle of mineral water, took a sip, and handed it to Luo Rao.

Since he’d brought her along, he had no choice but to cram these basics into her head. The decision to include her had been made at the last minute, leaving only two or three days to teach her what he could. Even on the road, he had to make use of every spare moment.

Sharpening your blade on the eve of battle may not make you fast, but at least you’ll shine.

Luo Rao listened with relish, bottle to her lips. “Anything else interesting?” she asked.

“Oh, well…” Ji Cheng glanced at her, marveling at how she managed to talk while gripping the bottle with her mouth. He could only admire her skill in secret.

He wondered what use it had, if any.

“…Another thing: it’s very difficult to orient yourself in the desert. To most people, everything looks the same—every dune is almost identical.”

“Walking in there is like riding a roller coaster. One moment you think you know where you are, but slip once and scramble back up, and you can’t tell left from right anymore.” Ji Cheng admitted he didn’t know much about the Spiral Horn Desert’s history, so he changed the subject after a few remarks.

“Is it like being at sea?” Luo Rao replied, her beautiful eyes never leaving Ji Cheng’s profile, not sparing even a glance for the window. “Not even a compass works?”

“The magnetic fields are a mess, navigation systems don’t reach—people rely mostly on experience and control points for coordinates.”

Coordinate control points are, in fact, massive iron columns buried beneath the wilderness, equipped with instruments that periodically emit low-frequency signals, serving as beacons.

The wilds are complex, but low-frequency waves have longer wavelengths, better diffraction, and thus a broader coverage.

The all-range headsets that every surveyor carries can pick up these signals, allowing them to estimate their distance from a control point by signal strength.

If you pick up signals from several control points at once, you can use a resection method to calculate your exact location.

All schools on White Mountain Star teach these skills, so even Luo Rao, who skipped class as often as she could, knew a bit about them, nodding along.

“Cheng, if it’s so hard to find your way, why not just build more supply stations? Wouldn’t that make mining easier? It can’t cost much, can it?” she asked.

“It’s not about money.” Ji Cheng turned her head with his hand, making her look into the distance. “See that ring-shaped rock out there?”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Page 195 of the ‘Energy Crystal Mining Compendium’ mentions that spot. Southport New City once tried to build a supply station there, but the foundations never held. They poured cement seven or eight times, and over a thousand people died from radiation. In the end, mutant beasts wiped out the rest.”

Luo Rao licked the fingers Ji Cheng had pressed to her cheek, pursed her lips, and asked, “So now only this one ring-shaped rock remains?”

“Not quite. Get closer and you’ll see some remains of buildings.” Ji Cheng smiled. “Building a supply station involves a lot—cost, transport routes, mutant activity, foundations, the surrounding mines.”

“In fact, from the Zephyr Bastion westward, there isn’t a single supply station in the entire Spiral Horn Desert—not one. The radiation here would destroy every function of an ordinary person’s body.”

“Even inside a supply station?” Luo Rao watched the ring-shaped rock recede from view, her angelic eyes now filled with nothing but endless yellow gloom.

“It would be a little better, but after some poor soul was tortured by radiation until his body rotted, his ribs exposed, the authorities realized that ‘a little better’ has strict limits.”

Ji Cheng spared her the worst details out of concern.

The original records described how that unfortunate man spent two weeks in the hospital, howling in agony, dying with nothing left but a shell of bones and shriveled organs, even his eyes melted to liquid.

“How pitiful…” Luo Rao’s eyes softened, on the verge of tears, but she quickly blinked and asked, “Are there any pictures? I want to see.”

Well, Ji Cheng thought, nearly forgetting the future title she would bear—Lady of Desolation. He pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed.