Imar was furious. He grabbed the battle axe next to his seat and strode down the steps.
The axe blade gleamed coldly in the firelight, and his eyes were bloodshot as he lunged forward to cleave Helson in two.
"You reckless madman, I'll grant your wish! I'll use your blood to sacrifice to the ancestral stone tablet!"
At that moment, the treasurer Tolkien suddenly stepped forward, blocking Helson and the patriarch.
"Chief, you mustn't kill him!" he roared, mustering all his strength. "Killing him would mean falling into this human's trap!"
Imar roared, "Get out of the way! This arrogant human dares to demand that my race kneel and submit! He doesn't deserve to live!"
Tolkien did not back down, but instead looked directly at the chieftain: "Can't you see? This cunning human is not negotiating, he is seeking death. He deliberately provoked you so that you would kill him—then Aldor would have a legitimate reason to completely destroy us. He wants to use his own life to put a noose around our necks!"
The stone chamber fell into a deathly silence.
Imar held the battle axe, his arm still trembling, but he stopped walking.
He stared intently at Helson, the despicable human who still stood ramrod straight, his expression calm, even with a hint of contemptuous sneer, like a martyr already prepared to die.
Imar slowly lowered his battle axe. "You mean... he wants to die?"
"Yes." Tolkien nodded. "He doesn't care whether he gets back alive or not; he cares whether the Stonemason Clan will turn against humanity because of him. If you lay a finger on him, Aldor will say we killed the messenger and rejected peace. At that point, the explosives won't just destroy the tunnels; they'll destroy every single one of our villages."
Imar slowly took a step back, his face turning from anger to ashen.
It turns out that this human never intended to leave alive from the beginning; he would rather die than let the Stonemason Clan be pushed into the abyss.
"Insidious and despicable humans!" Imar murmured, a chill running through his voice, "They even turned themselves into material for traps!"
He looked at Helson, the dwarf chieftain's eyes filled with complex emotions, a mixture of anger and awe bordering on fear.
"Lock him back up," Imar finally ordered, his voice weary. "Lock him in the deepest part of the cell, and forbid anyone to touch him. I want him alive."
The guards stepped forward and took Helson away. Before leaving the stone chamber, Helson glanced back at Imar but said nothing.
That glance was like a knife piercing the dwarf chieftain's heart.
Tolkien whispered, "Chief, we can't wait any longer. Either surrender, or… find another way out."
"Are there any other ways?" Imar asked in despair. "I asked the orcs for help, but there wasn't even a message from the plains. That bastard Abar."
Faced with a desperate situation, the dwarf chieftain lost the last shred of awe he had for the orc Great Chieftain.
As the embers died down, the shadows cast on the rock face twisted and swayed.
Tolkien looked at the silent chieftain and said in a low voice, "There is a way. We can ask other clans for help—the Ironbeard Clan of Anvil Valley, the Stonefist Clan of Deepwell Ridge, and even the Graystone Clan far away in the Southern Mountains... They may not want to fight against humans, but if we ask them for help based on our shared dwarven bloodline and promise to share our mines and ironware with them in the long term, they might respond."
Imar suddenly looked up, his eyes piercing Tolkien like knives.
"What did you say?" His voice was low, but the anger within it was like a volcanic eruption. "You're asking those cowardly, selfish kin who hide underground and gnaw on rocks for help?"
He slammed his hand on the armrest of the throne. "Do you remember what I was like when I was young? After my father died, I was driven out of the Anvil Hall by the usurper and wandered among the clans seeking help. I went to the Ironbeard's Forge Hall, where they made me stand outside the door all night before they would give me a bowl of cold soup! I went to the Stonefist's Ancestral Hall, where they laughed at me in front of the entire clan, saying that I couldn't even protect a battle axe, yet I wanted to lead a clan?"
His voice rose higher and higher, his eyes burning with the humiliation of the past: "In the end, it was the orcs who helped me. It was Abar who sent his army to help me fight my way back here and cut off the head of the usurper! And what about my own kind? They didn't dare utter a single word! Now? Now they'd love for me to die at the hands of humans so they can divide up my mines!"
He sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "I'd rather be killed by human firearms than bow down and beg for their mercy. I, Imar, may lose, may die, but I will never kneel again."
Tolkien lowered his head, tapped the ground lightly with his iron staff, and said nothing more. He knew that Imar's hatred was not a momentary anger, but a scar etched into his bones; those brothers and clans who had stood by him in his time of need were long regarded as traitors.
"Then we can only use Mogdin's method…" Imar muttered to himself.
Three days later, a 30-man vanguard squad of the Ausser Army was advancing along a stone ridge toward the dwarven heartland.
They had just blasted down a side road and were preparing to survey the terrain when suddenly, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble irregularly.
"Earthquake?" A combat engineer frowned.
Before the words were even finished, the rocky slope in front of them suddenly rose up, and rubble tumbled down. The next instant, a huge gray-white body burst out of the ground—the monster arched out of the ground, its mouth opened, revealing ring-shaped serrated teeth, and silently pounced on the nearest soldiers.
"My God! What kind of monster is that?"
"God Father above!"
Some screamed, some fell down, and many more turned and ran. Before the platoon leader could give the order, the entire squad had already collapsed, abandoning their explosive boxes and surveying instruments, and retreated frantically.
The monster slowly rose up on the hilltop, dripping slime, like a living hill. It did not pursue, but merely vibrated its body, emitting a low-frequency hum.
When the news reached Mountain Throat Fortress, Derrick was ashen-faced.
"You mean… a giant worm that can burrow underground?" He stared at the scout. "Are you sure it's not a hallucination? Could it be a rockfall?"
"Sir, that thing…it's absolutely real." The scout's voice trembled. "It…it moves, like a snake, but more like…a mountain range that came to life on its own."
The following morning, Derrick personally led a reinforced squad toward the rocky ridge where the incident occurred. The squad included two firearm platoons, a team of engineers, and two light mountain cannons— the most elite mobile firepower of the Ausser Army, with barrels specially made by the Lakeheart Town arsenal and capable of firing explosive and shotgun shells.
He didn't believe in any "underground monsters," only in what he saw with his own eyes. If it was truly a living thing, it had to be destroyed by artillery fire; if it was just a hallucination caused by the soldiers' fear, then he needed to go to the front lines in person to stabilize morale.
The mountain path was extremely rugged, and the artillery carriage, pulled by mules, slowly made its way between the rocky ridges. Along the way, one could see the equipment left behind by the vanguard squad when they fled the day before: overturned surveying frames, scattered explosive boxes, and a military cap covered in mud. There was an indescribable stench in the air, like rust mixed with putrid mud.