"The timing is perfect," Mogudin muttered to himself.
He then waved his hand, and a dwarf messenger, holding a short staff that symbolized an envoy, strode toward the fortress's front gate, which was not yet fully closed.
He stopped a short distance away, raised his head, and shouted in the deep, rough aldo language:
" Lord Mogdin, son of the Stonemason Clan, guardian of the ridge, hammer of the Rocky Mountains, by order of the clan chief, hereby issues a notice to the illegal wall-builders!"
He shouted even louder: "You have built a fortress here without permission, desecrating the territory of Stone Father. This fortress must be demolished."
"Within three days!" the dwarf gestured with three short, thick fingers, "all the walls must be torn down, all the fortifications burned down, and then everyone must roll back to where they came from!"
"If you obey, you may leave alive. But if you choose to defy—" he pointed to the silent legion of dwarves behind him, "the mountains will crumble, the walls will crumble, and your bones will become the first foundation stones for the new walls!"
After the messenger finished speaking, he turned and strode back.
After he finished speaking, the fortress construction site fell into a deathly silence.
The soldiers stopped what they were doing, gripped their weapons, and stared intently at the silent and furious dwarf legion at the northern mountain pass.
The engineering captain frowned and muttered, "They really dare to attack? The wall isn't even dry yet..."
Just as Mogdin's lips curled into a slight smile, believing that humanity had been utterly terrified by his thunderous ultimatum—
"Ha—" A suppressed laugh came from the watchtower.
Immediately afterwards, as if a powder keg had been ignited, the entire fortress erupted in deafening laughter.
"Haha! Did you hear that? Tell us to go back?" An artilleryman slapped his thigh. "That's it? This bunch of short-legged guys standing in a row with hammers, trying to scare us away?"
"Hey! Are you guys here to fix the sewers? Why are you threatening us?" another man shouted. "Do you want us to give you shovels?"
Laughter swept through the camp like a tidal wave. Some people imitated the dwarves' deep voices to sound like ultimatums, while others deliberately bent over, leaning on shovels to walk like dwarves, which made even more people burst into laughter.
To humans, the short, stocky bodies of dwarfs are already quite comical, but when combined with a serious threat, that feeling is amplified.
But to the many dwarves, the laughter was nothing short of blatant mockery.
Mogdin stood at the front of the battle, his battle tattoos seemingly flushed instantly, turning from bronze to iron blue. He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white from the force.
"They...are laughing?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
"Yes, Lord Mogdin, how dare humans mock us!" a young warrior roared, raising his axe high. "Let's charge forward and nail their tongues to the wall!"
The entire dwarven legion stirred, their deep roars like thunder from the earth, their battle axes slamming against their shields with deafening thuds.
These mountain people, who value their dignity above all else, have never been so contemptuously ridiculed in public before. Even beastmen have never done this, let alone been ridiculed by humans whom they despise!
Mogdin suddenly looked up, staring intently at the figures inside the fortress who were laughing so hard they were doubled over, his reason burning away in his rage.
"The ultimatum has been issued!" he roared, his voice so loud it seemed to shatter rocks. "But they choose to ridicule us! Then let's wash it away with blood!"
He raised his warhammer high, his roar echoing through the valley: "Warhammer above! Charge! Smash their stone walls! Tear out that damned human tongue!"
"Roar!" A thousand dwarf warriors roared and surged forward like lava bursting its banks.
The laughter within the fortress abruptly ceased, replaced by urgent bugle calls and the officers' angry roars.
"All personnel in position! Prepare for engagement!"
The dwarven warriors advanced like an iron torrent, the sound of their boots striking the ground like dense, muffled thunder. They formed a wedge formation, with the front row holding heavy black iron shields engraved with ancient runes that gleamed coldly in the gloomy sky.
They held their axes and hammers high, roaring the Stonemason Clan's war song, their voices rough and ferocious, unafraid of arrows or high walls—in the war experience passed down by the dwarves, no matter how many arrows and catapults there were, no ranged weapon could ever create a truly deadly net that could tear steel apart. They believed that once they reached the walls, the city would fall.
However, when they rushed within a hundred meters, less than a hundred paces from the fortress walls, a sudden change occurred.
Suddenly, a series of blinding flashes of light erupted from the gray walls of the fortress!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of muffled, rapid explosions tore through the air, as if Thor were swinging his hammer at close range. Almost simultaneously, thick white smoke billowed from the top of the wall, swirling and rising like ghosts.
The first rank of charging dwarves fell instantly as if struck by an invisible giant hammer.
A warrior holding a shield had his chest explode with blood as he flew backward. Another man's head snapped back, blood spurting from the back of his head. A heavy iron shield was pierced by a bullet, and the shield-bearer's arm and shoulder blade exploded together, limbs and scraps of iron flying everywhere.
The dwarven vanguard was instantly thrown into chaos, their formation disrupted. They had never heard such a terrifying sound, nor had they ever witnessed such precise and deadly attacks.
Humanity's offensive capabilities are too powerful. Their prized heavy armor is as fragile as paper in the face of those small but high-speed metal projectiles.
"What is that?!" a soldier roared as he knelt down to help his fallen comrade up, only to find that his chest had collapsed and he was breathing more gas than he was breathing.
"It's not a bow and arrow! It's not a crossbow bolt!" another dwarf cried out in terror. "It's...it's fire spewing at us!"
The dwarves in the back row began to hesitate, their steps slowing. They instinctively crouched down, trying to protect themselves with their shields, but the flames and explosions from the city walls continued to assault them, with multiple firing ports simultaneously spewing flames.
Mogdin witnessed all of this from behind, his eyes bloodshot, but he was too shocked to speak.
He knew that humans possessed fire-breathing weapons, but he never imagined that their power could be condensed into such a dense and swift web of death.
"Charge! Keep charging!" he roared, though his voice trembled slightly. "They're slow to reload! As long as we get close, we've won!"
But the dwarves' charge had already collapsed.
"Warhammer above! Forward! Don't let them scare you with their paper walls!" Seeing his people stop in their tracks, Mogdin roared and raised his warhammer high, trying to regroup the charging ranks.
He glared at the soldiers who staggered and stopped a hundred meters away, yelling, "Are you the offspring of Stone Father, or rats in a cave?! Charge! Charge over there now!"