Because situations like highway robbery or thieves robbing each other are so common in the intricate tunnels of the Underdark that they are nothing big at all.

Especially Vinar, the leader of the team, who had ambushed and robbed no less than six caravans on the way to the surface. He successfully arrived at Luskan, the City of Sails, relying on the precious survival supplies seized from the other side.

What's more, the gray dwarves themselves are not good people.

Even though they always act well-behaved in front of the dark elves and are sometimes even bullied, blackmailed and extorted, they are absolute bullies in front of other races.

Some large enough gray dwarf caravans don't mind looting some small settlements, turning the captured deep gnomes, goblins, and orcs into slaves and selling them in the next city.

So even though the situation of the gray dwarf caravan seemed very bad, Zuo Si and Drizzt just stood by and watched without any intention of intervening.

In addition to these two groups of people, hidden in the pitch-black darkness, there is a group of monsters that look like a hybrid of clumsy beetles and apes.

These guys have a scientific name, called "earth giants", and are one of the most dangerous monsters in the entire Underdark.

Its hard shell is as protective as the strongest plate armor, and its barbed claws can tear a person in half alive.

The reason why they were not controlled by their instinctive desire to eat, but rushed forward to kill indiscriminately, was that behind the earth giant there were seven or eight mind flayers waving octopus-like tentacles.

Obviously, this is a good show of the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole is behind.

When the Kuo-Toa and the Gray Dwarves began to suffer heavy casualties, the Mind Flayer controlled the Earth Giants to rush forward, and without saying a word, threw a bunch of mind blasts at the area with the most dense crowds.

As a result, the defenseless Kou Tao fishmen were the first to be hit, and were stunned by this mental attack and unable to move.

In contrast, since the gray dwarves were born with a certain degree of mental resistance, only about one-third of them were infected.

The rest quickly activated their innate ability [Giant Transformation], which rapidly increased their body size and enhanced their strength attributes to a certain extent. They actively charged forward like little giants.

Because they all know very well that if they do not take the initiative when facing the Mind Flayer, it will not take long for them to be controlled and captured by the powerful psychic power, and eventually become slaves and puppets controlled by the opponent.

Some gray dwarves activated another innate ability, [Invisibility], first disappearing from the opponent's sight, and then looking for an opportunity to use the crossbows in their hands to shoot sneak attacks.

Even the stingy caravan owner didn't care about saving money at this moment. He immediately took out a magic scroll that exuded a strong elemental aura from his pocket and chose to activate it without hesitation.

A dazzling yellowish-brown light flashed, and an extremely huge stone elemental giant immediately rose from the ground, waving his sandbag-sized fist and knocking the earth giant in the front to the ground with a bang.

Judging from its size and strength, this is at least a giant earth element that can only be summoned by a sixth or even seventh ring magic.

With the addition of the giant earth element, the gray dwarf caravan, which was originally at an absolute disadvantage, immediately began to fight back frantically as if they had been injected with chicken blood.

The guys who had used invisibility to hide before now came out from the dark corners, aiming at the mind flayer and shooting crossbow arrows coated with poison.

There were two mind flayers who had not cast any protective spells on themselves, and were pierced through the body and head by sharp crossbow arrows on the spot. They fell to the ground screaming and began to twitch violently, and then they breathed their last.

But the Mind Flayer was obviously not a pushover, and immediately began to activate his innate psychic powers, either trying to invade and charm the gray dwarf warriors, or controlling the frightened Kuo-Toa murlocs, allowing them to continuously join the battle as cannon fodder.

In an instant, blood splattered everywhere, and the original confrontation between the two sides turned into a three-way melee. The scene was a complete mess.

"What do we do now?"

The female leader of the dark elf team, Vinar, asked Zuo Si using sign language.

"I think we should help the duergar. At least these guys can talk and communicate, but those terrible mind flayers are obviously only interested in capturing slaves and eating brains."

Trist also quickly expressed his views using sign language.

In his opinion, although the gray dwarves are not good people like the dark elves, they can at least be classified as intelligent creatures.

As for the Mind Flayer, although it also has a very high level of intelligence, it has always been classified as a monster like the Eye Flayer.

"Help those gray dwarves? Don't be ridiculous! There are at least eight earth trolls and almost ten mind flayers over there. If a fight really breaks out, even if we succeed in our sneak attack, we will have to pay the price of three to four lives." Vinar rejected the ranger's proposal without hesitation.

"What do dark elves usually do when faced with this situation?" Zuo Si asked in sign language with interest.

Vinar answered without hesitation: "If we follow the dark elves' way of thinking, we should sit here and wait patiently for them to fight to a draw, and then strike out to wipe them out. Kill all the mind flayers, turn the remaining gray dwarf captives into slaves, and take away everything from the entire caravan."

Zuo Si stroked his chin and thought for a few minutes, then quickly responded in sign language: "Since I am now acting as a dark elf mercenary group, let's do things the way the dark elves do. Let your people get ready and follow my instructions later."

"As you wish, my Lord."

Vinar's mouth corners slightly raised, revealing a very evil and cruel smile, and it was obvious that he was very satisfied with Zuo Si's judgment and choice.

Because she knew very well that in the cruel underworld, only by completely abandoning unnecessary compassion and morality can one survive better.

Moreover, this female drow had already received a promise from Zuo Si that as long as she completed the journey safely, she would be able to break away from the control of the Municipal Council after returning to Luskan and directly become a subordinate intelligence agency registered in the Mage Tower.

Not only do they have more privileges, but they can also recruit troops in secret and fully utilize their own and their subordinates' expertise in stealth, tracking and assassination.

So Vinar hopes more than anyone else to reduce and avoid danger as much as possible and deal with various troubles in the safest way.

Soon, under her command, more than a dozen dark elf warriors and assassins quickly gathered together and began to poison their weapons.

The skillful movements of these people and the strange glow of the weapons after being poisoned made Drizzt, a ranger, frown.

But he was not a paladin after all, and he did not stop this behavior, which was absolutely despicable and shameless in the eyes of a paladin.

When almost half of the gray dwarf warriors on the battlefield were killed or wounded, and the entire front line was on the verge of collapse, Zuo Si, who had been watching the show for a long time, finally made a gesture to all the dark elves to prepare for the attack.

Then, under the stunned gaze of everyone around him, he completed a large amount of enhanced magic and divine arts at an extremely fast speed.

[Blessing]! [Group Bear's Fortitude]! [Group Bull's Strength]! [Group Cat's Grace]! [Anti-Evil Array]! [Group Advanced Magic Weapons]! [Group Advanced Magic Armor ]! [Group Mage Armor]! [Group Stoneskin]! [Group Speed ​​​​Up]! ...

In just a few seconds, the dark elves present realized that they were strengthened by all kinds of extremely powerful magical powers.

The level of some divine arts was so high that even the family matriarchs and high-ranking priestesses they once served were unable to perform them, so they all showed expressions of shock and disbelief.

After all, any magic with the prefix "group" is basically no lower than the sixth ring.

Because above the sixth ring, whether it is magic or divine arts, spell slots are often very tight and scarce.

Most high-level wizards and priests would choose to memorize spells that are more powerful rather than memorize a bunch of group enhancement magic that they don't know if they will come in handy.

What's more, in the eyes of spellcasters, the warrior profession is basically equated with "cannon fodder".

Except for a very small number of high-level warriors, ordinary warriors are not qualified to enjoy the blessing of divine arts.

"attack!"

Feeling his body becoming extremely powerful under the influence of magic, Vinar gave orders to all his subordinates using sign language without saying a word.

The dark elf warriors and assassins quickly made use of their racial advantages, dispersed at an extremely fast speed, and with the help of powerful stealth skills began to quietly approach their chosen targets.

When they reach the designated location, they immediately release their spell-like ability - Demonic Fire, marking the enemy with purple flames that have no ability to cause any damage.

Immediately afterwards, he released another racial spell ability - darkness, which completely shrouded the enemy in pitch darkness.

In this way, these natural assassins and killers can not only easily hide all their whereabouts, but also use the light generated by the demonic fire to lock the enemy's position.

As a result, in the first round of fatal sneak attacks, four mind flayers had their hearts and heads pierced through, and they died on the spot without even having time to scream.

As for the remaining mind flayers, they used their psychic powers to sense the dark elves' thoughts in advance and successfully avoided these deadly poisoned weapons. They even wanted to wave their tentacles to pry open the attackers' skulls and taste the delicious brains.

But unfortunately, with the help of protective magic such as mage armor and stoneskin, they couldn't even pierce the outermost layer of stone skin, and were kicked away by the dark elves whose strength and agility attributes were greatly enhanced, or their tentacles were torn off.

As for the legendary ranger Drizzt, he rushed into the middle of the earth giants at the first moment, wielding two magic scimitars and entering a berserker mode as if the god of death had descended.

Because he had lived in the Underdark as a barbarian for a period of time when he escaped from the city of Menzoberranzan in his early years, he mastered the special ability of going berserk on his own without any instruction.

Although his basic strength attribute was only thirteen points, with the additional four points of rage it reached seventeen points, and with the four points of bull's strength, it reached an astonishing twenty-one points.

You should know that this level of strength has surpassed that of ogres and reached the level of hill giants.

The strength of an adult earth giant is only twenty points.

So Trist was surprised to find during the battle that he actually had the upper hand in the confrontation of strength attributes for the first time. He did not need to do any defense or dodge at all. With the strength of just one arm, he was able to repel the behemoth in front of him that was over two meters and five meters tall.

No! Not just repel!

Relying on the enchantment level of the two magic scimitars and the blessing of high-level magic weapons, he could actually tear apart the hard shell of the opponent directly.

Thus, his dance of death, which was originally full of agility and elegance, unexpectedly turned into an extremely brutal meat grinder.

In just a dozen seconds, three earth giants fell in a pool of blood. Not only were their limbs brutally dismembered, but the shells in front of their chests were also chopped into a bloody mess, with blood plasma and minced meat continuously gushing out of the wounds.

strength!

Powerful power! Unrivaled power! For the first time, Drizzt, who was enhanced by so much magic and divine arts, felt like a tireless and omnipotent god of war.

At this moment, he truly realized how reckless and ignorant it was for him and his friends to travel and adventure without any spellcaster's help in the team.

If there is a spellcaster like Zuo Si among the enemies who knows how to cooperate with warriors, the results will be disastrous.

Of course, now Trist is obviously enjoying this feeling of being greatly enhanced.

In particular, the effect of acceleration allowed him to swing the scimitar faster and more swiftly, cutting through the cracks in the hard shell of the earth giant at a speed that was almost indistinguishable to the naked eye.

A mind flayer apparently noticed the invincible killing spree of the dark elf ranger, and immediately released powerful psychic powers to try to invade his spiritual world.

But before Trist felt dazed, he saw Zuo Si, who was standing on a huge stalactite behind him, raise his hand and shoot out a small red fireball.

The next second...

boom!!!!!!!!

Dazzling white flames shot up into the sky.

The mind flayer didn't even have time to react before his entire body was instantly evaporated by the terrifying high temperature.

What was even more unbelievable to the surrounding dark elves was that this incredibly powerful fireball did not cause any accidental injuries.

The terrifying high-temperature flames and heat waves seemed to have eyes, accurately avoiding every one of their own people within their impact range.

There is no doubt that this is a fireball spell that uses the super magic skills of "Spell Power" and "Spell Extreme", while also using the archmage profession's advanced arcane ability - Shaping Control to change and control the affected area.

The difficulty of its operation has already surpassed the level of three-ring magic.

Not to mention an ordinary mind flayer, even a giant mind flayer would be seriously injured if hit by one.

Smelling the pungent smell of burning in the air, Drizzt shook off the blood stains on his scimitar and couldn't help but complain in a low voice: "Damn it! I actually started to feel a little sympathy for these octopus heads, because they encountered a real monster."

"Hehe! I really like this feeling now. With the powerful magic power that the master possesses, he can move freely among the major families even if he enters the city of Menzoberranzan. Because no mistress will easily give up on attracting such a talent into her family." Vinar licked his lips and said in a tone full of excitement and anticipation.

"Yes! I can already foresee that entering Menzoberranzan will inevitably lead to a bloody storm."

After saying that, Drizzt couldn't help but sigh slightly, and casually chopped off the head of the last earth giant.

The battle started quickly and ended quickly.

When the last mind flayer was pierced through the heart by the dark elf's sword, the drama of the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole behind finally came to an end.

Among them, the mind flayers and the earth giants they brought were all killed.

Although two of the mind flayers expressed their willingness to surrender, Zuo Si obviously did not want any prisoners, especially those with the ability to spy on memories and minds, so he ordered the dark elf warriors to chop off their heads.

As for the Kou Tao murlocs, most of them served as cannon fodder and died under the control of the Mind Flayer. The rest, after regaining consciousness, jumped into the underground rivers and pools and escaped.

Seeing that all the enemies were killed by the dark elves who suddenly appeared, the guards of the gray dwarf caravan, more than half of whom were killed or injured, did not even resist, but chose to lay down their weapons and surrender.

They were not stupid and they understood how powerful the dark elf team in front of them was. With their limited manpower, they would all be killed in one encounter.

Being a slave is better than being dead, and the gray dwarves have always been very sensible in this regard.

At the beginning, the caravan owner wanted to redeem the carts and the goods on them, especially his own freedom, by paying money.

But after being slapped in the face and having all his valuables and magic items stripped off, he silently accepted the cruel reality that he was already a slave...

(End of this chapter)