Smoke blanketed the battlefield, staining the sky in mottled hues of gray and sulfur. The two armies stood poised against each other, the air heavy with slaughter.
The dwarves held their ground, waiting in grim anticipation. Yet the imperial forces showed no haste to attack; instead, they deployed methodically across the plains, calmly arraying their battle lines.
*Boom—*
With low, mechanical rumbles, steam carriages hauling heavy artillery rumbled across the flatlands. Ogres in small teams dragged massive field guns into position, while imperial infantry moved swiftly like a churning, orderly tide to lock into crisp formations.
Even the wyverns overhead flew in disciplined ranks. After banking smoothly through several high-altitude orbits, they descended in sequence to land near the armored supply transports.
"What in the world are they..."
Watching this unfold, the dwarven king knitted his brows in deep concern.
In his imagination, the armies of the Cinder Empire ought to have been like orcs—relying on razor fangs, iron scales, and sheer overwhelming numbers, an undisciplined horde of savage, blood-crazed dragonkin monsters.
Yet the reality before him was a Cinder Legion that moved with textbook precision, displaying a discipline and tactical clarity that rivaled—if not surpassed—the army of the Mountain Kingdom.
Bjorn approached the king's side and let out a soft sigh. "Have you not seen it, Your Majesty? The world has changed. A new era of warfare is upon us...
"The Harpers brought many reports. While we dwarves were still deep in our mountains mining ore and hammering iron, imperial firearms had already spread across the lands..."
"So that's how it is," Ed said, lowering his head with a bitter, helpless smile.
The situation was far direr than he had anticipated. Sending Zayn to lead a portion of their people away in migration had indeed been the right call, Ed realized with grim certainty.
Murmurs rippled through the dwarven ranks at the sight of the imperial deployment, yet none showed fear—only perplexity and confusion.
To these brave, reckless traditionalists, victory in war came down to simple truths: who had the stronger arm, whose weapon was forged harder, and who was readier to die.
As for tactics—what even was that?
"What are these damn invaders playing at?"
"Who cares! Whatever schemes those dragon puppets have cooked up, we'll bash their skulls in with our warhammers!"
"Orc-spawned beasts!"
"Aye! Damned mongrels, I'll make them pay for our fallen kin!"
Boiling with indignation, the dwarves gathered on the ramparts to shout curses and jeers, dredging up every foul word in their vocabulary, though they still couldn't manage to squeeze out more than a few choice curses.
None of them realized that the imperial artillery regiments and aerial bombardment wings had completed their deployment. Poised and ready, they were about to unleash an unsparing storm upon Evindeldan.
***
Up on the ridge, the hobgoblin general Dror raised his saber high, its polished tip gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight.
Radiating confidence, Dror fixed his gaze on the distant fortress of Evindeldan and barked out a gravelly command: "All units hear this—fire!"
His saber cleaved downward. Relayed through communicators, the crisp order rang throughout the Cinder Legion, carrying to the ears of every officer and soldier.
"Full barrage!"
Three hundred and twenty-seven heavy cannons and eighty-six tank main guns fired simultaneously. The iron-forged war machines unleashed a deafening roar, their thick barrels belching terrifying plumes of fire.
*Boom—!*
In a split second, the ground shook and the heavens trembled as a rolling tempest of dust and thunder surged forward.
Streaks of brownish-gray smoke scarred the sky, resembling raw, bloody gouges torn open by giant claws.
Shells trailing tongues of fire traced graceful parabolas through the air, bridging more than a thousand meters in an apocalyptic swarm destined for the majestic dwarven stronghold.
"By the gods, what is that?"
"What... what in the world are those things?! How is that possible from a thousand paces away?!" Panic finally cracked the dwarves' composure.
Looking up at the apocalyptic sight, even the battle-hardened Ed went pale, muttering under his breath, "Father Moradin above..."
Only now did he grasp the terrifying meaning behind Bjorn's words: *a new era of warfare*.
Realizing the mortal peril, the dwarven king snapped out of his shock and turned toward the battlements, roaring at the top of his lungs, "Quick! Raise the barrier arrays!"
Because the enemy stood over a thousand meters away, the Mountain Kingdom's priests and wizards had let down their guard. Expecting a conventional march, they never dreamed artillery could plunge from the skies at such range.
By then, the shells were already directly above Evindeldan, plummeting toward the ramparts—it was too late.
*Boom!*
Deafening detonations ripped through the air as dozens of shells struck home, erupting into a horrific inferno of flame and black smoke.
The entire wall shuddered violently. Countless shards of masonry cascaded downward, and vast stretches of stone collapsed on the spot. Swaths of dwarves were consumed by the blast or hurled through the air like ragdolls.
With just a single volley, deep wounds were carved into Evindeldan's once-impregnable walls, and hundreds of dwarves were swallowed by the blaze.
After Zayn led their kin away and the Path of Tempering fell, barely nine thousand seven hundred dwarven warriors remained inside Evindeldan. Losing hundreds in an instant was a devastating blow.
Worse still, they had not even crossed blades with a single imperial soldier. This was merely long-range bombardment!
No—more accurately, it was a one-sided slaughter!
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Shell after shell detonated in succession. Blistering fire and choking smoke nearly devoured the battlements, while jagged shrapnel severed limbs and lopped off heads with horrifying ease.
*Boom!*
A stray shell landed squarely in a cluster of defenders, engulfing the caught-off-guard warriors. When the smoke cleared, all that remained were a dozen charred, unmoving bodies.
Watching this unfold before his eyes, King Ed felt his heart searing with grief and rage. His people were being butchered!
They were not dying in honorable combat; they were being massacred by bizarre, explosive magic weapons from afar!
"Damn it! We cannot just stand here!"
Ed ground his teeth and slammed his palms against the ground. An earthy yellow glow radiated from his body as he burned through his dwindling life force to force the ramparts' defensive array awake.
*Hum—*
*Aegis of the Mountains!*
With a resonant hum, ancient dwarven runes etched across Evindeldan's stone flashed with sudden brilliance.
The earth rumbled beneath them, and the vast, indomitable might of the mountains surged up the walls, knitting into a thick, luminous barrier that absorbed the pounding shells.
Simultaneously, Ed raised his warhammer to the heavens and let out a thunderous bellow.
Earthy yellow radiance burst from the hammer. Dozens of fractured boulders soared into the air under his will, colliding with plunging shells and detonating them mid-air.
He was not alone. The strongest warriors among the dwarves rallied with their own feats, loosing arrows or hurling massive rocks to deflect the incoming bombardment.
One reckless dwarven berserker even leaped high into the air, bringing down a jumping cleave on a plunging shell—only to be blasted back down, charred black and riddled with shrapnel.
Yet the imperial onslaught had barely begun. The artillery was merely an opening salvo; right on its heels came the air raid.
*Screeech—*
An ear-piercing scream sliced through the sky as dozens of wyverns dove from the clouds in tight, orderly formations, plummeting like arrows.
The outer edges of their wings were fitted with razor-sharp metal membranes, slicing through the air with a shriek that frayed the nerves.
Beyond their physical lethality, the sound inflicted psychological terror. Even now, many folk across Aethel still trembled at that very sound, haunted by the nightmare of the bombings.
Spotting the wyverns bearing down on them, Ed's heart sank. "Watch the skies! Beware the wyverns!"
*Whoosh—*
The wyverns swept low over Evindeldan at breakneck speed. Bombs rained down like hail onto the dwarven defenders, detonating in relentless succession.
*Boom! Boom! Boom!*
A string of explosions tore through the parapets. Surging fire consumed even more warriors, and agonized screams echoed above the walls.
"Moradin preserve us!"
"Ahhh! My arm!"
While the Aegis of the Mountains could halt horizontal artillery strikes against the walls, it could barely shelter them from munitions dropped straight from above.
By the time the dwarves raised their weapons to retaliate, the wyverns had already banked upward and vanished into the clouds.
Watching his people blasted to pieces one by one, a volcanic fury swelled in Ed's chest.
*Boom!*
A bomb detonated right beside him, though the protective aura around his body deflected the blast, leaving him unharmed save for soot and torn fabric.
Paying no heed to his blackened face, the dwarven king shook his head, muttering softly, "No... this is not the fate my people deserve! They should not die such meaningless deaths..."
Watching the dragonkin regrouping in formation for another pass, Ed's eyes turned bloodshot, blazing with pure hatred. "I will make you pay for this—in blood!"
Along a section of the wall, dwarven ballista crews were clumsily struggling to maneuver a massive steel ballista over three meters tall.
Ed strode forward with a dark, menacing grimace, his voice a contained growl: "Step aside. Let me!"
"Y-Yes, Your Majesty!"
The crew scrambled back, not daring to argue.
Ed stepped before the ballista. With practiced ease, he racked a giant bolt into the firing groove.
Bracing the stock with one hand to aim at the distant wyverns, he seized the massive crank with the other and hauled the cable back, loading immense tension into the frame.
At last, accompanied by piercing screeches, the wyvern flock soared back into range at blinding speed.
"Die!"
With a light squeeze of the release, the bolt shot forth with devastating momentum, tearing through the air and skewering two wyverns in a single strike.
*Skreee—!*
The wyverns plummeted from the sky with shrill shrieks, dragging their riders down to smash into the earth below.
Yet the dragon flock maintained its formation without breaking stride. Rear wyverns surged up to fill the gap, continuing their high-speed run toward Evindeldan.
Iron wings cut the sky, filling the air once more with that deathly, screeching roar.
"Still coming, are you... damned reptiles."
Rage twisted Ed's face. He glared at the incoming flock, every muscle in his body coiled tight, veins bulging across his skin.
The dwarven king roared, bathed in a dense, earthy glow: "Dragon spawn, let me show you—"
*Boom!*
With a concussive blast, dust erupted and deep footprints indented the solid stone rampart beneath him.
Ed vaulted skyward. Bolstered by the power of the mountains, this legendary dwarven warrior vaulted hundreds of meters into the air as if taking flight.
He tore straight through the cloud layer, emerging right above the wyvern formation!
Facing the oncoming flock, Ed raised his warhammer high and roared with every fiber of his being, "—the true might of the sons of the mountains!"
The hammer's metal head shone with a brilliant yellow radiance, carrying catastrophic kinetic force as it struck down.
The dwarven king plummeted toward the flock. Behind him materialized the majestic phantom of an entire mountain range, bearing down like the crushing weight of Blackrock Mountain itself!
"Perish!"
*Boom!*
The warhammer slammed into the chest of the lead wyvern. The resulting shockwave unleashed an aerial tempest.
Under that monstrous force, the lead wyvern burst instantly into a mid-air spray of gore, raining down as crimson mist without leaving a single intact scrap of flesh behind.
And that was only the beginning!
A brilliant yellow gale swept across the sky, churning with endless sand and stone as it engulfed the trailing wyverns.
*Skreee—!*
The wyverns shrieked in horror, beating their wings furiously to escape the vortex, but none could evade being ripped into bloody tatters.
Some of the bombs strapped to their feet detonated in the tempest, obliterating their handlers in mid-air.
In the span of a single breath, the legendary dwarven warrior obliterated the entire twelve-wyvern bombing wing, leaving them no chance to resist.
Blood and shredded meat rained from above as Ed plunged back toward the earth, cratering the ground upon landing.
Dust billowed and the earth shook, but the king stood unscratched, clutching his warhammer and glaring at the Cinder Legion in the distance.
*Crack!*
A sharp gunshot cracked across the field as a bullet crossed over a thousand meters, hurtling straight for the dwarven king's skull.
More shots rang out from different angles, several high-velocity rounds aiming for his forehead, throat, and heart.
Sniper fire. Honed by years of brutal warfare, the empire routinely set up a dozen or more sniper rifles specifically tasked with picking off enemy champions.
During the campaign in North Aethel, countless extraordinary champions had died abruptly under focused sniper fire without ever knowing what hit them.
Yet tempered by centuries of battle, Ed possessed an intuition bordering on prescience, and his senses far surpassed ordinary mortals.
Sensing the danger long before it arrived, the king swept his warhammer in a vicious horizontal arc.
Countless stone fragments rose at his command, intercepting the bullets mid-flight and deflecting their trajectories away from his body.
Ed plucked a still-scalding casing from the dirt, inspecting the intricate runes carved onto its surface. "Anti-magic runes, armor-piercing runes..."
*Crack!*
More rounds whistled toward him, joined by artillery shells raining down from overhead. The dwarven king merely looked up with calm resolve, raising his warhammer in one hand...
***
"He blocked it that easily...?"
Far behind the imperial lines, the hobgoblin general Dror lowered his brass spyglass, having watched the dwarven king effortlessly swat aside their specialized enchanted ammunition.
Dror shook his head in grudging admiration. "Tsk. The famed Lord of the Mountain certainly has some bite to his bark."
Turning to the adjutant beside him, he commanded, "Inform Colonel Mir: cease all aerial deployments. There's no need to waste our wyverns in this assault.
"Besides... the prelude is over. Prepare for the full assault!" Dror grinned, already savoring the glorious vision of his upcoming promotion to duke.
"Understood, General!"
At Dror's signal, the colossal iron beasts began to roll forward. Low mechanical rumbles flooded the battlefield, making the very earth shudder anew.
The true siege had begun!
Chapter 646