Yet none of it was over. For the dwarven defenders stationed within the Path of Tempering, this was merely the beginning of the nightmare.
With the detailed intelligence provided by Cassius, the Cinder Empire's military engineers understood the fortress's internal structure inside and out, crafting tactics tailored specifically against it.
For the empire today, obtaining accurate, unerring intelligence was virtually enough to guarantee victory in war.
*Boom—*
Engines roared, steam billowed, and the steel behemoths let out dull growls as their tracks ground across the floor of the Path of Tempering.
The tripwires, caltrops, and other traps laid by the dwarves were ruthlessly crushed under the tanks' hardened tracks, brushed aside as if they were a joke.
Nor could the triggered venom-tipped arrows, burning boulders, or plunging iron spikes pierce the steam tanks' thick armor in the slightest.
In wars past, the dwarves had used all manner of stratagems against the orc legions, inflicting horrific casualties and gathering a wealth of experience. Yet when turned against the imperial army, these measures proved completely useless.
Instead, sweeps of imperial gunfire tore into the dwarves lurking in the shadows, inflicting devastating losses.
"Kord, hurry to the third hidden chamber!"
"Quick, release the rolling boulders!"
"We have to smash these iron lumps to pieces, or there's no stopping them!"
"Damn it, how did they get chunks of iron that big to move? What in the world are these things?!"
Dwarven warriors darted back and forth through the tunnels, shouting urgent messages to one another and bringing all their hallmark skills to bear, yet they remained helpless against these terrifying "iron lumps."
Listening to the dense crackle of gunfire and looking at the dwarven corpses blanketing the ground before him, Kord felt his legs trembling. Even so, urged on by his comrades, he rushed to the hidden chamber to trigger the mechanism.
Cowering in the watchpost at the top of the canyon, Kord muttered to himself, "It has to work. When faced with the rolling boulders I designed, even the mightiest beast giants get crushed into meat paste. Those iron lumps can't possibly..."
With a crisp clatter, the lever was thrown, instantly tripping the mechanism.
*Crack!*
Through an ingenious series of chain reactions, boulders weighing hundreds of tons tumbled one after another from the heights of the Path of Tempering. Dust billowed, stone chips scattered, and the earth trembled to a muffled, rumbling thunder.
*Rumble—*
The massive boulders rolled end over end, roaring as they hurtled toward the steam tanks. In the narrow gorge, there was simply no room to evade them.
Watching the boulders gather terrifying momentum as they drew closer, Kord's heart pounded against his ribs. "Hurry," he muttered under his breath. "Smash them! Drive these Imperials out of the Mountain Kingdom..."
In earlier wars, Kord's rolling boulders had wrought devastating slaughter upon the orcs. Against rocks weighing hundreds of tons, even the strongest beast giants had been powerless—after all, they were only flesh and blood. A single falling boulder could often wipe out hundreds of foes, flattening throngs of orcs into paste.
Yet at that very moment, the situation shifted abruptly. The steam tank leisurely traversed its main turret, aiming its dark, gaping muzzle at the boulder, and erupted in a blinding flash of fire.
*Boom!*
With a deafening blast, the shell struck the boulder dead-on, blowing it apart on the spot. Under the slack-jawed gazes of the dwarves, it shattered into countless fragments of rubble.
Under the force of the blast, the entire gorge quivered, and grit and dust showered down from the roofs of the secret passages.
Inside the cockpit, a goblin sat in the gunner's seat, shouting excitedly, "Boss, direct hit!"
"Ouch!"
Behind him, the tank commander, a dragonblood goblin named Bill, cuffed him hard across the back of the head and barked, "Didn't I tell you? Don't fucking fire the main gun in a narrow gorge! You trying to bury us all alive?!"
Rubbing the back of his head, the goblin shrugged, while the tank's spotter shouted, "Boss, here comes the next wave!"
Bill snapped his order: "Engage impact defense!"
The remaining boulders tumbled down in rapid succession. Positioned at the vanguard of the column, Bill's crew had to bear the brunt of the assault.
Just as the boulders were about to slam into the tank's frontal armor, several steel spikes resembling jagged fangs thrust outward, their tips shimmering with the magical aura of a permanent *disintegrate* spell.
*Clang—*
The instant the boulder touched the spikes, dense cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, and it shattered apart, disintegrating into fine powder midair.
"What in the world... Moradin above, God of Craftsmen preserve us, how can such things exist...?"
Up in the watchpost, Kord gasped. These impenetrable iron monsters completely defied his comprehension.
He had heard how fearsome the Fadlan Empire's iron golems were, but even Fadlan would never deploy hundreds of iron golems all at once.
The Cinder Empire's steam tanks, however, were an entirely different matter. They forced their way into the Path of Tempering in a steady surge, rampaging forward and brutally tearing through the dwarven defenses.
At the far end of the Path of Tempering stood dwarven heavy infantry bearing massive shields, arranged like a wall of living stone. But could they truly withstand the charge of the empire's tide of iron?
In his mind, gruesome scenes from the caverns flashed before him: dwarven bodies piled on the ground, riddled with bullet holes, the stench of blood and acrid gunpowder smoke clinging to the air.
Kord's heart sank to rock bottom, drowned in boundless despair.
Could they truly withstand an army like this?
Out on the plains, Dror watched the gorge echo with endless gunfire and asked the adjutant beside him, "Have the first armored battalion's thirty tanks all entered?"
"Yes, General. They have all advanced into the Path of Tempering, and everything is proceeding smoothly," the adjutant replied in a deep voice.
Dror grinned ferociously, switched on his radio, and murmured, "The timing is about right. Let these dwarves... have a taste of the empire's special barbecue."
At the hobgoblin general's command, several metal barrels extended from both flanks of the steam tanks within the gorge, exuding the sharp, pungent scent of gasoline.
A terrible premonition instantly seized Kord atop the canyon.
Having witnessed the devastation of their machine guns and main cannons, the dwarven craftsman dared not underestimate those mysterious metal pipes, and he had caught the distinct smell of burning oil...
Kord muttered, "Could it be... Not good!"
*Fwoosh!*
With the crackle of bursting air, searing dragons of flame erupted from the barrels, surging directly into the dwarves' secret tunnels.
This was the special gift the empire had prepared specifically for dwarves who liked to hole up in hidden passages: flamethrowers, affectionately dubbed "barbecue experts" by the imperial military.
This was no magical fire, but a technological creation that sprayed a mixture of napalm and thickening agents, unleashing a flowing liquid fire that effectively reached blind spots that bullets could never hit.
When the operator pulled the trigger, a spring valve opened, sending high-pressure flammable liquid across the ignition mechanism and spewing out from the nozzles.
*Whoosh! Whoosh!*
Terrifying flames surged into the secret tunnels. Caught off guard, the dwarves lurking inside had no time to evade, and their bodies were engulfed in flames. Even those hiding behind stone barricades were splashed by the clinging fuel and swiftly caught fire.
"Fire! Fire everywhere! Damn it!"
"I'm burning! Where's water?!"
"I—I can't see! The smoke is everywhere! Moradin above, is this hell?!"
Heavy black smoke billowed through the caverns. Stocky, burning silhouettes writhed and wailed in the fire and smog, eventually burning to death and leaving behind charred corpses across the floor.
Yet even that was not the worst of it. The burning napalm sustained its inferno, churning out thick smoke and rapidly consuming the oxygen within the tunnels. Soon, dense fumes poured through the interconnected passages, sending many dwarves into coughing fits until they suffocated or choked to death.
"Hell... This is hell! We're trapped!"
Hearing the dwarves' screams, Bill, the dragonblood goblin inside the tank's cockpit, could not help humming a popular tune.
He grinned wickedly. "Hehehe, let these stubborn dwarves taste gasoline and fire."
By now, the maze of tunnels flanking the Path of Tempering had become a living hell, thick with fire and choking smoke, filled with the unending screams and hacking coughs of dwarves.
Kord was fortunate enough to be perched at the highest vantage point beside an exhaust vent, spared the worst of the carnage.
"No, no... How could this be...?"
Yet hearing the crackle of fire, hearing his kinsmen's desperate pleas and coughing fits, and feeling the stinging smoke and waves of heat wash over him, Kord's mental fortitude neared total collapse.
"The traps I made, the tunnels I built... they were supposed to be flawless..."
The dwarven craftsman did not know that while they spent their days and nights forging endlessly within the mountains, the world outside had quietly changed.
The streams of fire gushing from the steam tanks were like ferocious red dragons, mercilessly slaughtering the dwarves trapped inside the tunnels. Rolling smoke choked the canyon, billowing endlessly from the openings. The secret passages the dwarves had taken such pride in—defenses that had once stymied orcs and giants alike—had now become their tomb.
"Charge! Charge! Crush these dwarves and take Evindeldan!"
Inside the cabins, dragonblood goblins cheered wildly, howling as they drove the steam tanks through the smoke toward Evindeldan.
Through the haze, Kord watched those massive, dark silhouettes with an ashen face, reaching a trembling hand toward Evindeldan.
"Evindeldan... must not fall..."
*Bang!*
A single gunshot rang out. A bloody hole appeared between Kord's brows, and his body slumped to the side.
Just like that, the dwarven craftsman's body tumbled from the canyon's heights, falling into silence. On this battlefield, life was just that cheap.
The old dwarf, who had prided himself as a "master craftsman" and "master of traps," never imagined he would meet such a simple end.
"Got him!"
An imperial rifleman below cheered.
Under the tactics formulated by the imperial General Staff, the tanks spearheaded the advance, while infantry followed behind the armored units to provide cover and mop up resistance. Ordinarily, an artillery barrage would have preceded the assault, but due to the gorge's terrain and the risk of triggering a collapse, they had refrained.
The soldiers following the armored units to conduct mop-up operations were mostly scaly half-red dragons who feared neither fire nor smoke, moving freely through the inferno. Thus, even dwarves who managed to scramble out of the tunnels and hide atop the gorge were picked off with ease by their sharp marksmanship.
"Kord... Kord is dead, just like that!" Atop the gorge, another dwarven warrior witnessed the old dwarf's—his master's—death and fell into absolute panic.
His name was Berne, also a dwarven craftsman. Unskilled in combat, he was often called a "coward" by his peers.
Having witnessed his master's gruesome fate, Berne huddled trembling in a cleft between rocks, doing his best to keep out of sight of the imperial soldiers below.
Suddenly, the light above Berne was blotted out. A foul-smelling, viscous liquid dripped onto his face. He wiped it away, an icy dread instantly seizing him.
"What's this... It can't be."
The dwarf looked up in despair, only to see a colossal wyvern landing right above him, thick drool dripping from the corners of its maw.
*Roar—*
The wyvern spread its menacing wings and unleashed a roar, blasting him with hot, foul breath.
"No, don't eat me! Dwarf meat is tough!" Berne shook violently, clamping his hands over his eyes and wedging himself deeper into the rocky fissure.
Moments later, the wyvern plucked the dwarf out and tore him to shreds midair, raining gory limbs and mangled flesh down below.
By now, hundreds of wyverns were beating their wings, descending one after another upon the top of the gorge to slaughter the dwarves stationed above.
Never had the dwarves imagined they would have to face both subterranean fire and death from the skies above.
*Boom—*
The steam tanks continued their relentless advance, on the verge of breaking through the Path of Tempering to reach the walls of Evindeldan.
The spotters in the cabins could already see the light at the canyon's exit, glimpsing the majestic fortress built into the mountainside ahead.
Soon, however, a "wall" appeared before the armored column—dwarven heavy infantry.
Clad in gleaming, heavy plate and bearing massive shields, these heavy infantrymen formed a dense phalanx blocking the gorge's exit, their eyes gleaming with resolute determination.
This legion had repelled countless orc assaults in the past, turning back tides of greenskins.
Yet against imperial tanks nearly three meters tall, the dwarves blocking the exit were hardly a wall. They weren't even a low parapet—at best, a minor mound of dirt. If the tanks drew any closer, the drivers inside wouldn't even be able to see them over the bows.
Inside his cabin, Bill looked at the dwarven heavy infantry ahead and grinned ferociously. "Trying to stop an imperial tank charge with mere flesh and blood? What a pipe dream!"
Chapter 644