Meanwhile, in the distant Snezhnaya, at the top of Northland Bank.
Pantalone's private study isolated him from the howling blizzard outside and the burning tension of the front lines. Beyond the massive floor-to-ceiling windows lay the silhouette of a frozen city, but inside, it was warm as spring, where an expensive crystal chandelier from Fontaine cast a soft yet chilling light. He sat behind a spacious desk, nearly buried by mountains of piled documents. The unrolled war reports painted a grim picture: on the eastern front, the main Snezhnaya legions, battered by the relentless black tide of Abyssal Monsters, were forced to shorten their defensive lines and abandon certain salient positions, retreating orderly as a whole toward the preset second Bulwark. Though losses were heavy, the main force survived and was regrouping its defense, relying on a cluster of fortresses. Reports from the southern front indicated that the defenders successfully checked the advance of the Abyssal vanguard near the Southern Rift; although some forward outposts and observation points were abandoned, the southern section of the core defense node, the Iron Curtain line, remained largely stable, launching limited local counter-offensives and wiping out a considerable number of infiltrating monsters. Yet, the corrosion of the Abyss was like a maggot in the bone, silently eating away at the earth itself—a slow attrition far more unsettling than the brutal slaughter on the battlefield.
The heavy ca…
Chapter 151