Chapter 55: Cheers

"Roaaar!"

"Hahaha, it’s the earth dragons!"

"Burn! Burn it all! Burn these cursed demons and cleanse this defiled land with fire!"

Amid the roars of dwarves whose eyes had gone red with killing, or perhaps who had been "infected" by the demons’ own madness, earth dragons were led into the tunnel one after another on special chains.

And these so-called dragons... don’t get the wrong idea, they were not real dragons.

Compared to the proud and mighty dragon race, mythical beasts at the very least, the true earth dragons looked more like a crossbreed of lizard and giant worm.

Their protruding mouths and turned-out nostrils did look a lot like a lizard’s.

But for some reason their heads had lost their eyes entirely.

And like worms, their bodies had no scales at all. Instead they had bare, slick, half-transparent skin.

Even through that skin, everyone could see the dragons’ disgusting organs underneath.

On that translucent skin they constantly oozed a clear slime, harmless but foul-smelling, so these twisted creatures could move through the tunnels.

But as ugly as these "dragons" were, they were not unworthy of the name.

Because they truly had a power only dragons possessed.

Dragonfire!

"Roar!"

At the earth dragons’ roars, streams of "flame" rose in the tunnel and washed over the imps that could not dodge in time.

The dwarves held the dragons on their chains and used the flames to take back their ground, inch by inch.

And this was no ordinary fire.

A trace of dragon blood lived in those flames, so the fire the earth dragons spat could help the dwarf kingdom melt even the hardest metals.

An imp’s skin could not compare with metal.

At a single touch, countless imps were completely set ablaze by the dragonfire.

Burning, they shrieked and howled and rolled on the ground, trying to put out the flames.

But it was no use.

One imp after another was roasted through under the earth dragons’ fire. Their corpses could not even stay as charcoal, because the flames burned them down to a wisp of ash.

"Ahh! My children!"

Karolith, the Imp Matriarch, saw the misery of the children she loved and cared for, and charged forward with a roar.

She caught several imps in her arms, turned at once, and used her back to block the second wave of dragonfire for them.

No matter how the flames raged across her back, she did not move.

Her bloated but sturdy body also kept a few imp souls from returning to the Abyss.

But the dragons’ fire could threaten Karolith too.

Her huge body was set alight just like her children.

Countless growths burst open and splattered the ground with foul pus, and the thick fat beneath her skin was quickly scorched by the dragonfire.

She lost more than a fifth of her life in an instant.

Seeing this, Koda reacted at once.

But he was different from Karolith.

He did not truly care whether imps and lesser demons died. What he cared about was the earth dragons themselves!

’At last, it has appeared,’ he thought.

’The creature the Bloodline Corruption Chamber can be used on has finally appeared!’

In the darkness, a pair of eyes with thin pupils appeared.

From a great distance, across the silent dark, those eyes looked at the hideous earth dragons.

But unlike the other demons, who feared the flames, Koda’s eyes lit up.

’No. This time, whatever it costs, even if I must set aside the assault on this tunnel for now, I must capture one earth dragon alive.’

With that thought, he began to command.

In the blink of an eye, the battlefield, thrown into chaos by the dragons’ arrival, was turned around.

Under the pressure of Koda’s will through the throne, countless imps were forced to follow his plan.

Imps that had been fleeing the flames formed lines almost ten meters long, nearly all at once.

And there were dozens of such lines!

In this formation, the first dozens of imps died almost instantly the moment dragonfire touched them.

But that was exactly what Koda wanted.

He did not care about the lives of these imps. He cared about his target.

Because the imps in the back still had plenty of strength after the dragons spat their fire. At least until the next breath of fire came, they had plenty of strength.

So, under this formation, countless imps swarmed around several earth dragons.

They attacked so quickly, in such a strange formation, that many dwarf warriors guarding the dragons never had time to react, and died where they stood.

Karolith, on Koda’s orders, forced herself to give up some of the children she loved, swallowed several imps, and healed her wounds.

Then she bound one earth dragon with her chain and began to drag it backward with all her strength.

Seeing this, the other dwarves charged at once, trying to keep the precious dragon from being dragged away.

But it was bound to be in vain, because Koda had foreseen it.

Many earth dragons were still under assault, but his real target from the very beginning was this one dragon.

So the demon warriors around it were the most numerous.

One imp after another gave its life willingly, only to delay the dwarves by a single second.

And after their sacrifice, Karolith finally captured one living earth dragon.

But...

"They’re retreating!"

Since Koda had changed his goal on the spot, he did not take the important end of the passage. For now, he could only pull his demon army back to its earlier position.

Seeing those terrible demons finally retreat, all the dwarf warriors could not help but cheer.

But these poor dwarves did not know what Koda’s retreat truly meant for them.

Koda had given up his old goal for the time being, but he had retreated because he had won something far more important!

The dwarves would regret today’s cheers for countless years.

Because the true monsters were about to appear.

And the captured earth dragon would be the source of them all!