Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 923 - 151:

In this barren heartland locked in eternal winter, a few geothermal areas are like the land's last breaths before dying, stubbornly steaming in the chill of minus forty degrees.

Scalding spring water struggles out from the depths of the permafrost, tearing open wispy wounds on the vast icefield, transforming into the only remaining vitality in this land of death.

The cluster of black tents of the tribe resembles a group of frozen rooks, huddled tightly around the hot spring.

The felt of the tents has long been hardened by sulphur, yet still tightly wraps the shivering lives inside.

This is the only mercy in the extreme cold desert—the hot steam from the spring circulating among the tents, providing the next breath of warmth to lungs about to freeze.

Ragged tribals, wrapped in long-solidified felt, hunch over by the spring working.

The women kneel on ice-cold rocks, pounding hardened clothes, each strike causing the cracked skin of their palms to bleed; the men scoop up hot spring water with rusty iron pots, cooking unknown wild herbs and a scattering of grains.

The children chase barefoot along the shallows, their purple-red ankles crusted with thick frostbite, their laughter shattered by the biting wind as soon as it escapes their lips.

A few gray-haired elders squat by the spring, trembling, grinding withered herbs—these ancestral prescriptions once cured fevers, but now struggle to alleviate even the mildest frostbite.

Yet beneath this seemingly calm surface, tribal king Azhar is like a serpent coiled within a warm nest, secretly plotting rebellion.

The burly tribal leader stands beside the largest hot spring, his armor shimmering with a chilling sheen in the misty steam.

The wool stuffed in the seams of his armor has long been blackened and hardened by sulphur, much like his increasingly twisted ambitions.

His hawk-like eyes scan every tribal resource: those few camels, skeletal and barely able to stand; the last, moldy provisions in the cellar; even the heirloom copper kettle held by an old woman—these are nothing but bargaining chips for power in his eyes.

Whether the tribe survives or not is far less important than his personal ambition.

"Imperial People have taken our grazing land!" he loudly declares to the gathered young warriors, deliberately bypassing the fact that extreme weather had withered the pasture.

His voice is like a curved blade laced with snake venom, precisely opening every warrior's old wounds.

"Now, they even want to lay hands on these hot springs!" With this, he suddenly kicks over a basket of freshly picked hot spring algae, the green juices splattering on the ice and freezing into twisted patterns instantly.

This calculated action immediately stirs the young warriors into a roar of anger.

Their faces flush red, their fists clenched white, yet no one notices those ruined algae are one of the few sources of vitamin replenishment in this harsh winter.

In the depths of the underground chamber, Azhar's confidants are counting weapons acquired by trading the tribe's food supply.

They sell the last bit of stored grain on the black market for rusty swords and knives.

Underage boys are forcibly conscripted, given weapons under the guise of "ancient tradition," practicing obsolete combat skills in the cold wind.

No one dares to speak the brutal truth: These warriors, on weak camels and wielding inferior weapons, are just moving targets against the Empire's steam Mecha and repeating rifles.

At the edge of the springs, several tribal elders wrapped in tattered felt silently watch all this.

Their silence is more suffocating than the howling north wind, their chapped lips trembling slightly, yet they utter no sound.

Cloudy old eyes count the freshly dug graves in the snow—the pits are pathetically shallow, the frozen ground as hard as iron, a pickaxe only leaving a few white marks.

In some pits, the deceased's rigid fingers still jut above, as if trying to grasp the last thread of life.

A commotion emerges as Azhar's confidants carry the frozen body of a woman past.

The elders' gaze quickly averts, some feigning interest in the cracks on the ice, others fiddling with divination bones long ineffective.

Their hunched figures are laden with helplessness and fear—these elders know better than anyone the cost of rebellion.

Images from memory remain vivid: after the last uprising, the entire corps of young hunters was nailed to the icefield like twisted ice sculptures, hollow eye sockets forever staring at the grey sky.

At this moment, Azhar is in his warm tent, playing with a malachite-inlaid curved blade.

The gemstone on the hilt is piercingly blue, acquired by trading thirty winter furs from the tribe—those meant to warm the elders and children.

The alchemy furnace burns whaleblubber fiercely, melted snow collecting into beads on the silver goblet, casually splashed onto the rug by him.

A weak baby's cry faintly drifts from outside the tent, quickly swallowed by the howling storm.

He leisurely sips mead, the amber liquid swaying in the cup.

To him, the clansmen freezing and starving outside are merely numbers, bargaining chips for power.

He is already calculating how many lives must be sacrificed to earn the illustrious title of "hero resisting the enemy" in history.

As for the tribe's future? It is but a pawn on a chessboard, ready to be abandoned at any moment.

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In the biting cold wind, Azhar's envoys silently traverse the desert, their footprints quickly buried by fresh snow, yet conspiracies grow in the shadows.

Deep within the Black Stone Mountain formed by volcanic lava, several tribal kings gather in secret.

They sit circled around a sulphur pool, firelight reflecting on their grim faces.

Azhar stands in the center of the sulphur pool, the rising steam obscuring his ferocious visage.

He slowly raises his hand, palm facing up, as if lifting the tribe's entire rage: "Look at those tail-wagging dogs! The Empire rewards them with an Energy Tower, so they can live like livestock in warm houses—"

His voice suddenly rises, grabbing a clay cup and smashing it against the rock wall: "And us? We warriors who refuse to kneel must freeze to death like wild dogs by the hot spring!"

The shattering of the clay cup against the rock startles all the kings.

Azhar steps forward through the hot mist, bronze boots crushing the shards on the ground: "When my sister froze to death on the migration route a year ago, those traitors were drinking hot wine under the Energy Tower!"

His voice suddenly chokes, then quickly turns to fury: "Now, it's our turn!"

The kings exchange uneasy glances, rumors say Azhar's sister committed suicide unable to bear the shame because he tried to violate her.

But no one dares to mention this now.

The aged Ursa Khan touches the scar on his face left by an Imperial rifle, his withered fingers trembling slightly.

Yet Azhar gives them no time to think—he suddenly claps three times, and his confidants carry out an iron-bound wooden box.

When the lid is lifted, everyone gasps: twenty old-fashioned matchlock guns are neatly arranged, emitting a dark metallic glow.

Azhar grabs one, the stock carved with New Moon Tribe's totem: "I traded twelve of our most beautiful girls for these; they are now serving those traitors in New Moon Tribe's tents!"

He laughs wildly, tossing the gun to the nearest king, "But soon, these guns will make the New Moon Tribe beg for mercy!"

In the sulphur pool's hot mist, Azhar's figure is like a demon: "We strike tonight, seize their Energy Tower! Let those traitors taste what it's like to have fingers frozen off!"