Had it been a duel against the red dragon alone, even at the cost of expending His divine essence, Gruumsh was fully confident He could swiftly slay the beast and return to His beleaguered divine realm.
Yet with the addition of an intermediate deity, the scales of victory tipped toward the red dragon.
Whether against Cassius or Dumathoin individually, Gruumsh was certain He could slay either; but fighting together, they were just enough to counter Gruumsh's avatar.
Time was running out for the orc god.
*Crack!*
Gruumsh hurled His spear, striking Dumathoin's massive ore shield with savage force. Countless shattered mineral shards sprayed into the air, yet for the moment, the spear failed to pierce it.
Cassius seized the opening, lunging from the flank as a terrifying torrent of flame erupted from his jaws, instantly engulfing the spear formed of divine power.
Gruumsh could only manipulate the weapon with His divine power, gnashing His teeth as He recalled the bloodstained spear. He took half a step back, facing the dragon and the stone dwarf across the distance.
His face contorted in wrath and malice, His single eye blazing with towering fury. His voice boomed like thunder across the devastated battlefield: "Dwarf, I never imagined that you, who boast of righteousness, would keep company with a cruel, greedy red dragon!
"Only months ago, this red dragon slaughtered your people and occupied your city, yet now you stand shoulder to shoulder with him! You are truly unworthy of the title 'Guardian Deity of the Shield Dwarves'!"
Gruumsh's intent was plain—to sow discord and tear the alliance between dragon and dwarf apart.
Dumathoin remained silent. He merely stood rooted in place, His stone-cast face flickering with shifting expressions, as if deep in thought.
In the end, He stepped forward and slammed His heavy greatshield down into the ground, causing the earth to cave in and buckle.
*Boom!*
Countless grains of gravel and ore fragments surged up from the soil and adhered to the shield, making it even thicker and encasing the stone dwarf in an impenetrable layer of armor.
An earthy-yellow divine light spread outward, forming a hemispherical divine domain that strained against Gruumsh's blood-red domain, carving out and holding a modest sanctuary.
Cassius watched the orc in the distance, grinning playfully as he mocked, "If the dwarves still occupied Evindeldan, there would indeed be irreconcilable friction between us.
"But now, Evindeldan has been renamed the Wyvern Capital. The misunderstandings and conflict between the Cinder Empire and the dwarves have been fully resolved; there is no need for us to keep fighting.
"Instead, we have a common enemy—you, old greenskin. Your threat to the dwarven race far eclipses mine. Even if they must exhaust every effort to aid a former foe like me, they are bound to stop the orcs from expanding across the Material Plane.
"Am I right, my temporary ally—Lord Dumathoin?" Cassius smiled at Dumathoin, his enemy from months past, laying bare the cold reality of their interests.
In truth, months earlier, Cassius had sensed a familiar aura and surmised that Dumathoin had never completely left the Material Plane, having buried His divine essence within the earth.
The Guardian Deity of the Shield Dwarves had remained here presumably to fulfill His unfinished mission—halting the orcs' southward advance.
And this was precisely why Cassius had never retreated to the empire's heartland. He knew that when faced with the orc god descending upon the earth, the dwarven deities would never sit idly by and watch from the sidelines.
Dumathoin offered no reply, only gazing silently at the orc god with resolute determination, His choice clearly made.
He knew that for the dwarves, the best outcome would be mutual destruction between dragon and orc—ideally with the red dragon slain and Gruumsh gravely weakened. Yet the dwarven deities could see that Cassius lacked the power to drag the orc god down with him.
Thus, they could only aid the weaker side, doing their utmost to maintain the balance and prevent the orcs from expanding uncontrollably, which would only bolster the might of Gruumsh, lord of war and strength.
Dumathoin was certainly not naive enough to treat the red dragon who had slaughtered shield dwarves as a true ally.
Yet under the present circumstances, He had no choice but to grit His teeth and enter a temporary "military alliance" with this red dragon, joining forces to resist Gruumsh and thwart the orcs' rabid expansion.
Gruumsh grew infuriated. Raising His spear, He roared, "Dumathoin, you are a hopeless coward! One day, your people will be butchered to the last by that red dragon!"
Cassius retorted mercilessly, "A tedious conjecture. If you had the chance, the entire dwarven race would be driven to extinction. Lord Dumathoin knows very well which evil is greater.
"Waste your breath no further, old greenskin. The expansion of orcs across the Feanso Continent—ends here!"
The red dragon reared his head and unleashed an earth-shattering roar. A towering sea of flame poured forth alongside the roar, painting half the sky in crimson.
Gruumsh's face darkened, His hands gripping the spear and battleaxe trembling faintly. "Good, very good... Is this where your confidence comes from?
"You truly know nothing of the gulf between gods. I will show you—what a greater deity is!"
The divine domain belonging to the orc god expanded once more. The blood-red divine light blanketed heaven and earth, growing all the more frenzied and unbridled.
Be it Cassius's progenitor dragon fear or Dumathoin's divine domain, both could only struggle under the crushing aura Gruumsh exerted, fraying and fracturing like frail skiffs tossed in a raging tempest.
*Whoosh—*
The muscles of Gruumsh's arm bulged, veins standing out in stark relief. The bloodstained spear tore through the air, driven by conical divine force potent enough to pierce anything.
Grasping the spear with a single arm, the orc charged toward the nearby dwarf with terrifying momentum.
Dumathoin abruptly braced His great ore shield before Him.
The spear struck home with savage force. In an instant, shattered stones flew and various ores tumbled free, but this time, the shield woven of stone and mineral veins was actually pierced through by the spearhead!
The tip was steeped in the blood of dwarven and elven deities and enveloped in blood-red divine light, inflicting devastating destruction upon anything bearing the essence of "dwarf."
"Dumathoin, just as I slew your brother, I will destroy this avatar, and in the end, I will slay your true body!"
Gruumsh roared wildly, throwing all His strength into the thrust.
Having pierced the greatshield, the spear surged on toward the dwarf's heart. As a deity who had waged war against the dwarves for millennia, Gruumsh knew their weaknesses intimately.
Moreover, an insurmountable chasm truly separated a greater deity from an intermediate deity. In a clash between avatars, this manifested as Gruumsh's divine power effortlessly annihilating and crushing that of Dumathoin.
At Gruumsh's words, fury flared across Dumathoin's normally impassive face. In a flash, He marshaled all His divine power, and craggy peaks rose with deafening crashes to block Gruumsh's path.
Yet the orc god was unstoppable. In the span of a single breath, He impaled and shattered peak after peak.
Seeing the bloodstained spear about to plunge into Dumathoin's chest and pierce His heart, a fierce roar suddenly rang out from the heavens.
*Roar!*
Gruumsh hastily looked up to see the red dragon beating his wings, plunging from the sky as he spewed flames suffused with manifold primal essences straight toward His head.
Yet Gruumsh had been wary all along. He jerked His left arm up, raising His battleaxe horizontally to block the flames with the broad blade. Even so, the surging fire washed over and eroded the blood-red divine light protecting His body, scorching His skin black.
At the same time, Gruumsh's right hand continued to thrust forward, driving straight for the dwarf's chest. The killing intent unleashed by a greater deity was enough to silence all creation.
A glimmer of resolve shone in Dumathoin's eyes. Dodging no longer, He channeled the divine power within Himself, thickening the earthy-yellow aura surrounding His form. With all His might, He swung the massive Magma Hammer down directly toward the orc's head.
As the great hammer swung, the earth fractured violently, and countless plumes of magma erupted, bombarding the orc in succession.
Simultaneously, Cassius swooped down from midair. The dragon crystal at his chest flared like the sun, trailing variegated streams of flame as he barreled toward the orc's back.
"You think that with just the two of you—"
A profound gleam flashed in Gruumsh's single eye. In an instant, His towering, burly form radiated an awe-inspiring pressure, His blood-red divine domain expanding across a hundred miles.
"—you dare oppose Me?!" The shout boomed like a volcanic eruption, a roar signaling the end of the world.
Within that tempest of divine power, Dumathoin and Cassius both froze for an instant, the ancient battlefield of tens of thousands of years ago rising once more before their eyes.
And Dumathoin, who had lived through that war and bore its indelible scars, saw with His own eyes His brother pierced through by Gruumsh's spear, golden divine blood splashing across the heavens.
Such was the aura of a greater deity! It was enough to plunge even a true god of intermediate power into terror and trance.
Gruumsh's expression turned increasingly savage and feral, His single eye bloodshot.
In that instant, the orc swung His battleaxe with His left hand at the colossal red dragon descending from above, while His right hand thrust the spear toward the stone dwarf standing firm upon the earth.
Just as the axe was about to cleave the red dragon's skull, Cassius finally tore free from the divine pressure. Seeing the razor-sharp blade descending upon him, he could only wrench his head aside to protect his vitals.
*Rrrrip!*
The axe blade, wreathed in blood-red divine light, effortlessly sheared through scales, tore through flesh, and bit deeply into the red dragon's shoulder.
*Aargh!!*
Shattered scales scattered and scalding dragon blood sprayed in every direction. Under the agonizing pain, the red dragon let out an instinctive, gut-wrenching roar.
Under the axe's cleaving force, the bone in the red dragon's shoulder was nearly exposed. Had the wound fallen merely a few meters further to the right, his wing would have been severed whole—even for a progenitor dragon with astonishing regenerative powers, this was a grievous injury.
Yet under the agony of such a wound, the ferocious, frenzied, and belligerent progenitor bloodline within Cassius was ignited completely. A thin veneer of blood-red light washed over his golden slit pupils before two pillars of flame burst forth.
Ignoring the axe embedded in his shoulder, Cassius lunged at the orc, sweeping his massive claw savagely at Gruumsh's back as he roared gutturally, "I'll kill you!"
At the tips of his talons, primal powers of Chaos and Order manifested, tearing straight through Gruumsh's protective divine aura.
Confronted by this maddened red dragon, Gruumsh did not dare be careless. He ripped the battleaxe free, sending dragon blood spraying into midair, before hacking viciously toward the red dragon's head once more.
Yet in the next moment, Dumathoin snapped awake from the vision of His brother's gruesome death. Consumed by rage, He swung the Magma Hammer, His divine power surging forth like an erupting volcano.
In this blow, He burned His divine essence; a burst of divine blood even sprayed from the stone dwarf's mouth!
*Boom!*
Caught off guard, Gruumsh took the full brunt of the Magma Hammer directly against His skull.
The earthy-yellow divine light erupted, forming a colossal spherical force field in midair. A shockwave laden with sand, stone, and dust swept out thousands of meters in an instant, followed by pillar after pillar of magma erupting from beneath the earth.
Taking an all-out strike straight to the head, the blood-red divine light coating Gruumsh's form rippled violently before spiderwebbing with cracks.
Yet that was not the end. Cassius swept his claws through the air, completely shattering the fractured protective aura of a greater deity!
In an instant, accompanied by a muffled crash, Gruumsh was knocked sideways by the great hammer. A broken tusk and divine blood sprayed into the air, leaving Him battered and looking thoroughly wretched.
The bloodspear slipped from His grasp, spinning several times in midair before plunging deeply into the distant earth.
Had an ordinary mortal—or even a demigod—suffered a blow of this caliber, they would likely have died on the spot, their skull smashed to pulp.
Yet Gruumsh's avatar was bolstered and tempered by the power of a greater deity, possessing physical resilience beyond comprehension. The blow had merely inflicted minor injuries upon Him.
"You are courting death! Red dragon, you have provoked My absolute fury! I will drag your soul back to the Realm of Nishrek, where you shall suffer a million years of torment!"
Gruumsh exploded with rage, roaring insanely as the divine blood within Him burned. He swung the battleaxe at the red dragon once more, unleashing over a hundred blood-red blade crescents in an instant.
Yet Dumathoin summoned His great ore shield once more to shelter Cassius. Meanwhile, Cassius gathered energy like mad, channeling all the complex, chaotic powers within his body into the dragon crystal upon his chest.
Blinding flames flared from the dragon crystal in rapid succession, blazing with extreme heat as incandescent red and orange light interwove.
Countless motes of light scattered, flowing flames intertwining like threads of fire. As they fluctuated violently, pouring forth intense light and radiation, they formed a coronic halo around the dragon crystal.
The sky took on a sweltering, tumultuous, and magnificent sight as powerful shockwaves rippled outward in endless waves.
Chapter 680