Chapter 16: Anomaly

On the walls of the underground palace, torches were making a slight "crackling" sound.

This is an underground stone chamber, but unlike the dirty and crowded residence built by the rat man, it is very clean and tidy. Under the fire, your eyes cannot see any obvious garbage, let alone excrement or something. The hall is very spacious, and in the center is a small platform, with a rock-carved staircase continuing onto the platform. At the core of the platform, it is a throne carved from stone.

The surroundings have been carefully organized and decorated. The entire hall is neatly tidy, with marble slabs on the ground. But if you look at it with a pair of picky eyes, there are still many places to improve here - there are some cracks on the walls, some unmodified natural stalagmites on the ceiling, and even water droplets fall from these stalagmites, accumulating pools of water on the ground. In the corner, you can find many scratches and gaps left by weapons.

A whole row of guards equipped with heavy armor and two-handed warhammers were arranged on both sides of the high platform steps, because at this moment, the master of the underground hall was sitting on his throne.

These guards are about half the height of humans, but they will never give people the feeling of being "weak". Because their bodies are very thick and strong, and even look like beer barrels. Their long beards extend from the lower end of their helmets and braid them into one or two braids. This conspicuous feature of body shape makes any human being present subconsciously shout out their names. "Dwarves!"

Yes, this is the dwarf. In the eyes of humans, the dwarfs are one of the few races that cannot be called "hostile", and of course, this is not certain. Due to the differences in greed nature or customs, a friendly business negotiation ended in embarrassment - there are not many such examples.

But in any case, dwarves are indeed a race that can coexist peacefully with humans. They have a technological level far exceeding humans in terms of craftsmanship and machinery, especially metal processing. In fact, many contemporary scholars have verified that the muskets used by humans are technical teachings from the dwarves. Not only muskets, but the full-body armor commonly equipped by knights is also smelting technology teachings from the dwarves. It can even be said that even now, the steel products made by the dwarves are still much stronger than those made by humans. A pair of full-body armor made by the dwarves is more than three times the price of ordinary human craftsmen in the market.

At this moment, all the dwarves in the hall looked serious because they knew that there was important news coming.

At this moment, the sound of hurried footsteps came from the entrance, and the footsteps echoed in this slightly empty hall, and they would not go for a long time.

Accompanied by footsteps, it was a fully armed dwarf warrior, or to be more specific, a dwarf ranger. The ranger is a special name in the dwarf language, calling those well-equipped veteran warriors, who are the eyes and ears of the dwarf lords outside the palace and hallways, serving scouts and reconnaissance missions.

"Your Highness Prince Hoga." The ranger came to the high platform, knelt on one knee in front of the lowest stairs.

"How is the situation?" asked the dwarf lord, known as the "Prince", on the throne. "Have you found the source of the strange sound?"

Ranger shook his head.

"Your Highness, I led my team and searched carefully for the passages. But I found nothing. At first I thought it was the dirty rats who were trying to dig a tunnel to attack us. But I carefully explored every key position. Your soldiers were loyally guarding their posts. They were not attacked, and there was no report of the disappearance of the patrol team. Later I suspected that it was a natural phenomenon underground, but similar incidents could not be found in the records of our ancestors. Finally, I suspected that this was a conspiracy planned by the Green Skin, but in the end I could not find reliable evidence."

The prince pondered for a moment. "So what about green skin, is there any new news?"

"There is no new situation. Your Highness, we all know the savage monsters with green skin, and I can only say they are preparing to launch a large-scale offensive."

"We haven't fought for six months. Has my people relaxed?"

"Your Highness, your warriors are still full of vigilance. They will never let the sharp axe and sword rest until the glory of our ancestors are completely restored."

The prince nodded with satisfaction. Carac Grom had two vicious neighbors, Greenskin from the surface and Ratman from the underground world. However, the last unexpected battle allowed him to temporarily get rid of both. Every time he looked back, he couldn't help but smile.

That was the blessing of our ancestors. At that time, the Ratman Legion from the Underground World suddenly appeared at the city of Karak-Grom. However, because the guards of Karak-Grom were really wary of the Green Skin attack, the Ratman's raid was immediately resisted. Soon, cannons, bullets and axe blades formed a solid line of defense to block the Ratman's attack. Under the attack of the dwarves, the Ratman had to retreat in a hurry, but at this time, the Green Skin came.

Of course, Greenskin originally came to attack Karak Grom. However, the groups of rats in front of him were blocking, so Greenskin did it according to their simple logic - those who were blocking the road were enemies. Greenskin broke out in a big battle with the Rat Man, and the dwarves were in a safe position, using long-range firepower to attack the two sides with cautious attacks (of course, most of the attacks fell on the Rat Man’s head).

The result of this war is imagined. The rat people were finally annihilated under the situation of attack between the two sides. Then, the dwarfs were intact and unscathed, easily defeating the green skin that had become tired in the battle with the rat people. The entire wilderness of Karak-Grom was covered with the bodies of the enemies of the dwarfs. This was a great and brilliant victory, and the small price paid for this victory made all the dwarves happy. It was this great victory that made Karak-Grom finally change the situation of the original three-day and one-day battle, and enjoyed the next six months of peace.

However, as the Ranger Captain said, the Greenskins will never give up. They must be planning a new plan to attack Karak-Grom. But as long as you win again and win again, the Greenskins will no longer be a problem. However, the Rat Man's motive is unknown - but they have suffered such a crushing defeat that has been wiped out by the entire army, so they should not dare to come again.

However, the strange sounds of underground excavation recently make people feel inexplicably uneasy.

The strange sound appeared a few months ago. When the initial report was sent, Prince Hoga hardly paid much attention. Because the dwarves considered themselves the best miner in the world and expert in tunnel digging. They were very familiar with underground geological structures. When the rat man digging the underground tunnel for the first time, he had an unexpected advantage, but with the dwarves' knowledge of geological structure, they could not give the rat man a second chance.

The dwarves quickly dug up the defensive tunnels and set up posts in all positions that may be used by the rats to attack, with observers or soldiers. It is precisely because of this that the rats tried to dig tunnels and raided, and they were immediately intercepted by the dwarves in the middle of the journey and suffered heavy losses.

"However, is it possible that the rats are digging holes in a position where our army is not on guard?" the prince asked.

"Your Highness Prince Hoga!" The Ranger Captain increased his tone of speaking. "I can guarantee that this is impossible. Since the last raid, we have completely controlled that area. All possible excavation areas of the Rat Man have been controlled, and we have set up corresponding alert positions. You have accepted the most capable miner captain to take charge of this work. The beard is on! We should not doubt his abilities and experience."

"You're right," Prince Hoga replied. "We shouldn't doubt... But in other areas, although most of them are heavy rock layers that cannot be excavated, there are still some soft soil areas. Large-scale tunnels cannot be excavated in soft soil areas, but there is no problem if you excavate narrow tunnels."

"What's the point of digging a narrow tunnel?" Captain Ranger replied. "Even if the Rat Man does this, they cannot rely on small holes that can only pass one or two at a time to transport the army. If the Rat Man is not large, then what danger can they be considered to be to us? The most important thing is... the excavation sound from the underground is definitely not the sound of digging soft soil. It is more like digging rock layers."

"Digging the rock formation?" Prince Hoga hesitated. "But even if we ask our engineers to perform such excavation tasks, it will take a long time."

"That's true, so His Highness. I think this strange sound may be caused by some geological phenomenon in the underground world - deep in the earth that none of our tribes can reach. The evidence is that although we cannot determine where the sound came, we can believe that the sound has been moving in place."

"Well, tell the soldiers to strengthen their vigilance in underground defense. Any abnormal movement must be reported." Prince Hoga concluded. "We should focus on Greenskin. Has the location of Greenskin Base Camp not been found yet?"
Chapter completed!