"Master Ying, you don't have to act with us."

Nearing the fire dwarf fortress, Galian once again whispered to the shadow beside him.

In front of the two of them, the arrogant Scorpion acted as the leader of the team.

Scorpion and Shadow were dispatched for this secret investigation at the same time.

"It's okay. This will reduce your burden."

His gaze shifted from the other man to the fortress, Shadow's voice remaining as calm as ever.

Of course she couldn't say that she came here to ensure Scorpion's safety. If anything unexpected happened, she could use Shadow Step to take Scorpion away.

That was really demoralizing.

On the walls of the fortress, the fire dwarves had already seen the drow team.

A fire dwarf who looked like a team leader ordered his men to lower the drawbridge, and then he went down the city wall with a few fire dwarves.

"Master, do you have any instructions?"

As soon as he saw the scorpion, the fire dwarf asked this in the muffled language of the Fire Tribe.

Generally speaking, the relationship between Fire Dwarves and Fire Giants is close to that of mortal enemies, and as elemental creatures, they cannot reproduce under normal circumstances.

Normal fire dwarves are born from another fire dwarf who casts a bronze body and then infuses it with the fire of life.

But the situation of these fire dwarves enslaved by the fire giants is somewhat different.

They were forged by the fire giant after he captured a lone fire dwarf and enslaved him with magic.

During this process, the fire giants used the djinn magic they mastered to try to interfere with the form of the fire dwarves, making them more similar to fire lizards.

After giving birth to Fire Elementals with the drow, the fire giants of Obsidian City tried to let the Fire Elementals combine with the fire dwarves, giving birth to beings that had the talents of the fire dwarves but were easy to enslave.

The result of the experiment was not ideal. The fire elementals born in this way had only a little forging talent and a strong rebellious mentality.

However, the fire giants will still reward the drow who made mistakes to the fire dwarves or salamanders, trying to wait for a coincidence to give birth to an individual that meets their expectations.

"Two groups of slaves escaped from Obsidian City before. Are they coming to the fortress again?"

Before Scorpion could speak, Galian stepped forward and started communicating with the fire dwarf opposite.

Scorpion naturally didn't know the Ignatian language. During the previous action, everyone had completely forgotten the fact that the Fire Giants had already begun to change the official language of Obsidian City to the Ignatian language.

Fortunately, people like Jialian were aware of the situation, otherwise the infiltration operation would have been exposed as soon as it began.

"No!"

After giving a very tough answer, the fire dwarf glanced at the leading scorpion with dissatisfaction, then turned and left.

At this time, Galian continued, "We need to go in and take a look! The leader of the Salamanders said that you sometimes hide those slaves."

Hearing this, the team leader turned around and stared at Galian with his bronze eyes, his flaming beard and hair burning even more fiercely.

The situation suddenly came to a standstill.

"What did you just say?"

Seeing that the atmosphere was a bit strange, Scorpion finally couldn't help it.

Taking advantage of the fact that these fire dwarves could not understand the elven language, she turned around and started talking to Galian as if no one was around.

I told Scorpion about the conversation just now. Scorpion thought about it quickly and soon came up with an idea.

"Tell him that we will just take a turn inside and leave. This is all to comply with the master's orders."

Hesitantly, he told the fire dwarf this sentence. The fire dwarf, who had been staring with his eyes wide open, blinked suspiciously, and then actually stepped aside and allowed everyone to enter.

"How do you know he will let us in?"

This action shocked Galian. She couldn't understand why the fire dwarf suddenly became so easy to talk to.

On the side, Scorpion sneered.

"Because he thinks that what you just said is more likely to anger the fire giants than their hiding of the drow. If we see something we shouldn't see later, they will use it to threaten us."

In a world with magic, an event that does not involve high-level power can be verified through a variety of channels.

If the scorpion and the fire dwarf captain go to court, the fire dwarf can easily verify it with spells from the school of divination or the school of enchantment.

Sure enough, after crossing the fortress's inner city and entering the real fortress, the fire dwarf immediately threatened Scorpion and the others in the fire language.

Galian expressed his protest with an angry expression and in the Fire Tribe language, but finally nodded and agreed to help the fire dwarves conceal the fact that they were hiding the drow.

After confirming that he had this team of drow under his control, the Fire Dwarf Captain ignored Scorpion and the others and went straight back to the city wall.

Walking in the fortress, people could occasionally hear the painful roars of the drow.

Ying used Shadow Step to secretly check the situation inside a house, but soon returned with a gloomy face.

"What's wrong?"

Seeing Ying's strange expression, Scorpion asked quickly.

"Those fire dwarves poured their own life fire directly into the bodies of the drow, trying to use this method to give birth to the next generation. They seemed to want to use some characteristics of flesh and blood life to break free from the control of the fire giants."

Because of the dwarven magic, these enslaved fire dwarves can only resist the fire dwarves' orders to a limited extent.

For example, the captain of the fire dwarves did not want to guard this fortress where almost no accidents would happen of his own will, but the orders of the fire giant restricted his actions.

The fire giants are certainly aware of this situation, otherwise they would not try to hybridize to create a new race to accept their enslavement.

In this regard, the fire giants are far inferior to the mind flayers.

Because of the influence of psychic energy, slaves controlled by the mind flayers all sincerely support their masters, unless they break free from the influence of psychic energy.

Scorpion did not express his opinion on what Ying saw.

"Hurry up and investigate the defense situation here. Once you have investigated enough, leave. We are not here to save them, we just want to leave here!"

Without any sympathy, Scorpion gestured to disperse the rest of the drow, leaving only Galian and Shadow to follow him.

The fire dwarves were somewhat interested in these drow who could move freely, but the team leader seemed to have already informed everyone of Scorpion and the others' identities, so they could only watch.

If they kill these people and attract the fire giants, the life of these fire dwarves will be difficult.

Half a day later, Scorpion took Shadow, Galian and the rest of the drow out of the Fire Dwarf Fortress.

…

That night, Carl looked at the fortress defense map drawn by a group of drow and fell into deep thought.

This defense map is quite detailed, and even includes the model and general structure of the crossbows on the city walls.

This allowed Carl to use his professional knowledge to infer the approximate range of the ballista.

The reason why Carl was in deep thought was that he had a new idea after talking with Bane and Thorin not long ago.

In Carl's previous life, there was a rumor that when three or more males got together, one of them would automatically evolve into the Idea King. He would come up with many strange ideas and try to put them into practice.

Carl is almost in this state of being an idea king now.

His source of inspiration came from Bane's battle to wipe out the Obsidian City drow squad.

When both sides have the advantage of firepower coverage, what can make one side dominate? The answer is range! If you can't hit the enemy, no matter how strong your firepower is, it's useless! Therefore, Carl thinks that the firepower of his constructs can be upgraded.

"I remember the principle of the rocket should be...

It should be similar to the rain bomb, right? "

Taking out the design drawings of the construct, Carl woke up from his contemplative state and began to write down his ideas on the draft paper.

That night, lying on the big bed surrounded by Hope and Ying, Carl closed his eyes and entered the dream world.

During this period of time, Carl has been studying the manufacturing methods of the teleportation array device, because this is their last resort.

But today, Carl started to simulate something else for once.

In the second layer of the dream, which had already been added with many runes and mechanical structures, Carl observed a rocket that looked standard, and continuously optimized its structure and the magic patterns that needed to be attached.

Not only that, he even conducted a combat drill with a simulated mini fortress using scaled-down rockets and an army of constructs.

The simulation results did not look too optimistic, because it was unreliable no matter how you looked at it to wipe out more than 3,000 fire dwarves at once.

The construction of the constructs has already kept Carl and Galian busy, and with the addition of rockets...

"How about a three-stage attack? First, fire a salvo from the electromagnetic cannons, advance a certain distance, then fire rockets to attack the enemy, and then, when the enemy is at the gates, use solid nitrogen and the remaining electromagnetic cannons to bombard the enemy in turn?"

After learning that the connection between the fire dwarves and the fire giants was not as close as he thought, Carl no longer had any awe for how much trouble he could cause.

His previous plans were mostly based on blitzkrieg and sneak attacks, but now the only thing left is to "bomb him to death."

This is because the fire dwarves are too resistant to fire, otherwise Carl would have tried a few white phosphorus bombs no matter what.

Carl pondered over it all night long until Hope got up and prepared to cook, then he finally woke up.

However, at this time, he had already decided on his strategy and planned to use the three-stage attack he had previously conceived to attack the Fire Dwarf Fortress.

Of course, before that, he needs to prepare enough ammunition.

…

Storm Bay, Bastion Base.

With the rapid construction of those buildings, Storm Bay is becoming prosperous again at an astonishing speed.

Those adventurers who survived various events have begun to go out on adventures, and ordinary people who have installed bionic prostheses have also begun to emerge with the power of prostheses.

At least among ordinary adventurers around level three, those who have undergone prosthetic transformation have certain advantages in physical strength and attack power.

This has resulted in ordinary jobs in Storm Bay disappearing in a strange way.

People were surprised to find that as Carl gradually improved the town planning, many seemingly important tasks did not require any waste of labor.

Just some relatively crude structures can take on those dirty and tiring tasks.

But people soon realized that once they were too weak to take risks and gain anything, they were not even qualified to beg.

But there are almost no such people in Storm Bay today.

The plague of the Winterchildren and the subsequent tree monsters wiped out most of the truly weak people.

This seaside town is left with only young and middle-aged workers and middle-aged people who are still in good health.

(End of this chapter)