Not only the dwarves nearby, but also those figures farther away who had their heads buried deep in the animal skins, subconsciously raised their faces.
On the numb faces covered with erosion by star-blue ice crystals, the turbid eyeballs unexpectedly turned towards Mark at the same time.
To be precise, it was the piece of steaming hot pot meat covered with red oil on his chopsticks.
“Sizzle…”
The slight sound of the meat slices falling into the sauce in front of Mark was almost drowned out by the extremely suppressed heavy breathing sounds that came one after another.
Mark finished the piece of meat slowly, then picked up a piece of radish that was cooked in the mushroom soup pot until it was soft, sticky and tasty, soaking up the soup.
He felt an unprecedented concentration of eager attention in the air.
It was not murderous intent, nor was it anger. It was a naked desire that was rekindled after a completely forgotten instinct was rekindled, mixed with confusion and disbelief.
A desire for food, for temperature, for the normal reactions of life.
He raised his eyes and caught sight of Chief Torge, who had been sitting opposite him and observing silently.
Those gray-blue eyes were no longer as dead as before.
Although fatigue was still deep, at this moment, deep in those rock-like pupils, were reflecting two steaming iron pots and the tempting food boiling in the pots.
There was an extremely complex light flickering in his eyes, mixed with shock, a hint of confusion, and... a barely perceptible touch of emotion, as if the ice was melted by a heat current.
Mark put down his chopsticks, pushed the dipping sauce dish to the middle of the table, took out another clean set from the space ring, and gently placed it on the table in front of Torge.
"Chief Torge." Mark's voice broke the dead silence, deep but clear through the gurgling of the boiling pot and the heavy, suppressed breathing. "Try it? The food outside. Warm yourself up and eat well, so you can have the strength to face... the next storm."
His calm gaze swept across those deep blue faces that revealed such obvious hunger and struggle for the first time under the reflection of starlight, firelight and hot pot steam, and finally fell on the glimmer in the old patriarch's eyes.
The thick steam from the hot pot rises and rolls in the cold and strange star-lit blue ice cave.
The long-lost, exciting aroma of food and fresh heat are quietly gnawing at the thick ice layer that has been silent for who knows how many years in this hopeless, frozen land with an unstoppable and domineering attitude.
The food Mark prepared was not much. Even if his space ring contained the team's supplies, it would not be enough to feed and nourish dozens of people.
Therefore, each dwarf present only got two or three slices of meat at most.
Accompanied by the fresh smell of cooked food.
Even though the dwarves tried their best to suppress it, some indescribable liquid still seeped out from the cracks in the animal skins. Before it could slide down, it had already condensed into tiny crystals in the icy air.
Don't get me wrong, these are not ice crystals solidified from saliva.
Those were just tears of emotion left by the sudden impact of the aroma of the food in front of them after years of living a life of low desire.
Torge's gray-blue eyes reflected the flickering fire of the stove and the tears of his tribesmen, but his face, like an ancient rock carving, remained motionless.
But the rough, un-crystallized hand placed on the table curled up almost imperceptibly, and the pallor of its knuckles intensified.
Mark focused on eating to inject necessary calories into his tired body.
He knew that just a few pieces of meat and a pot of soup could not melt the star debris ice that had settled for two hundred years.
He did not deliberately observe the dwarves' reactions, but just silently replenished his strength.
Xiao Mu also recovered a little bit of his energy. He stretched out a tiny tentacle from his arms and carefully absorbed energy from the not-so-hot mushroom radish handed to him by Mark.
After being well fed and warmed, the cold becomes even more biting.
Mark didn't delay any longer and looked directly at Torge: "I want to go out, the sooner the better."
His voice regained its usual calmness and efficiency.
This time, Torge did not dissuade him, but just nodded.
He stood up, his movements steady but with an indescribable heaviness, and walked towards the dark blue barrier deep in the cave that emitted the most intense starlight.
He did not pick up any tools, but slowly pressed his hands, covered with cracks and calluses, onto the indestructible blue ice.
Silent power spread from his aging body, which still contained the heavy power of the earth. The starlight surging inside the ice wall instantly became chaotic.
Mark used a cross necklace to chisel away at the blue ice wall for a whole day but couldn't even carve out a meter of it.
But in Torge's hands, it was as fragile as paper.
A tiny crack spread silently between Torg's hands, and the blue ice at the edge of the crack slowly squirmed and retreated like a living slime.
This process was obviously extremely exhausting. The veins on Torge's forehead bulged slightly, and the chill between his gray hair and beard seemed to be even stronger.
Finally, a passage made of twisted and wriggling blue ice, wide enough for only one person, briefly appeared on the star debris barrier, leading directly to the icy wind in the rift valley outside.
Mark took one last look inside the cave.
The bonfire was dim, and the dwarves lowered their heads again, some slumped over, some curled up, and a deeper silence descended, as if the trace of tears and sobs just now were just an illusion in the wind and snow.
Torge stood at the entrance of the passage, his figure mostly engulfed by the dark blue light, and his expression could not be seen clearly.
"Take care, human."
Only the hoarse and tired voice could be heard, and then it was mostly swallowed up by the cold wind that rushed in.
Without hesitation, Mark stepped into the passage that was wriggling like a wound on the wall of a star.
A sticky and cold breath hit him in the face, which was more corrosive than the previous chiseling attack, but there was still residual warmth in his body and the weak but tenacious active energy emitted by Xiao Mu, which barely resisted the tearing of this force.
The passage was not long. After a dozen steps, the biting cold wind from the far north came blowing with snowflakes. The passage closed silently behind him, the dark blue halo disappeared, and only a huge, integrated icy wall remained.
The coldness deep within the Frostwhisper chasm is worse than imagined.
Mark identified the direction, wrapped his clothes tightly, and increased his speed to the extreme.
The soles of the boots stepped on the thick snow and hard ice, making rapid "crunching" and "cracking" sounds.
He must rush back to the Fortagan gathering place as soon as possible, as the layout above the rift may be activated at any time.
We crossed the ice field without stopping, and time passed in the endless whiteness.
When he finally saw the rough and chaotic outlines of the settlements at Fortagan Settlement in the distance, he calculated that nearly half a month had passed since he left.
The construction fortress that Black Anvil was responsible for must be nearing completion or already completed, like anchors nailed to the edge of the rift ready for launch.
The atmosphere in the detention center seemed even more stagnant than when I left.
The wind and snow continued, but there was a subtle tension on the faces of the guards patrolling the streets and the church members hurrying around.
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