Chapter 512: Magical Bombardment

Chapter 512: Chapter 512: Magical Bombardment

More than ten Gray Dwarves charged forward to meet them.

Under the effects of Enlarge Person, they looked like tall Warriors, nearly rivaling Kase in stature. They raised their Wooden Shields, forming a literal "shield wall."

With two whooshes, a pair of Javelins flew out from the gaps between the Shields.

One of them struck Colin’s shoulder plate, barely glancing off the armor’s curved surface.

Just then, a small golden orb flew in from behind and landed on the central Wooden Shield. The orb blossomed, instantly erupting into a massive golden fireball.

The three enlarged Gray Dwarves, along with several of their comrades behind them, were blasted to the ground, falling silent and still.

Colin took a step back and flipped his Spellbook to the page for Lightning Bolt.

As he recited the Spell, sparks of electricity crackled to life at his side. The invisible Magic Net was woven into a knot by his incantation and gestures, ready to unleash its stored energy at any moment.

Seeing this, several Gray Dwarves immediately charged forward with their shields raised.

Kase met their charge, holding his Giant Axe horizontally. He single-handedly withstood the pushing of three Gray Dwarves while enduring the attacks from their sharp war picks.

"Kase, get out of the way!"

As Colin shouted, Kase immediately sidestepped and ducked against the wall.

CRACK!

A thick bolt of lightning tore through the Gray Dwarves who had just charged up, along with several of their companions behind them. Most of those caught in the Magic were scorched black. The few who survived could only tremble where they stood, clearly incapacitated.

The remaining Gray Dwarves unhesitatingly threw down their Shields, Helmets, and other gear, then bolted back down the corridor they had come from.

Seeing this, the slaves controlled by the Gray Dwarves also turned and ran after their masters deeper into the passageway. A huge, dense crowd of people crammed into the narrow corridor.

’If only I had another Lightning Bolt right now,’ Colin thought as he began Spellcasting. ’An Acid Ball isn’t well-suited for a corridor.’

"Kaz-Du-Bolok!" Donkexes’s voice echoed from another corridor.

The moment he spoke, a piercing sound of grinding stone blocks followed.

The ground in front of the Gray Dwarves suddenly shot upward, and a thick stone wall completely blocked their escape. A familiar crackling sound echoed from the side again.

CRACK!

A thick bolt of lightning shot straight into the corridor. The Gray Dwarves and slaves packed inside were all torn apart by the powerful Magic, and a burnt smell, several times stronger than before, filled the air.

’Looks like my Magic won’t be needed after all,’ Colin thought, interrupting his casting of Acid Ball.

Donkexes and the other Dwarves emerged from the corridor.

Colin glanced at the Dwarves’ casualties.

Donkexes’s group was fine, of course. As for the other Dwarves, although some were injured, no unlucky souls had been killed. After all, Colin had lured away the few Soul Blade Masters, so they had only been fighting the slaves.

"You took longer to finish off those short-stacks than I thought," Kase yelled at them.

"If we’d used High-tier Magic from the start, those bastards wouldn’t have dared to charge so far forward," Donkexes said with a laugh. He then snapped his fingers, and the stone wall at the end of the corridor crumbled, collapsing into a pile of shattered stone blocks.

"Should we go find Dorn now?" Colin asked, walking over to the garbage pit and pulling up Orelia, who was in the middle of climbing out.

"Thank you, Mr. Colin," Orelia said with a smile. "You seem to have gotten a lot more muscular."

"Maybe I’ve been eating too much lately."

As he spoke, Colin looked at the fallen Kuo-toa and members of the Grimlock Race on the ground.

Both of these races live in the Underground. Like the Gray Dwarves, they were once enslaved by Mind Flayers using Spiritual Energy.

After the Mind Flayers’ Empire collapsed due to slave rebellions and joint attacks from other intelligent races, the Kuo-toa were driven insane from years of Mind Control.

Basically, every Kuo-toa tribe imagines a god to protect itself. The absurd part is that when a Kuo-toa tribe’s piety reaches a certain level, the god they imagine can actually manifest a sliver of Divine Power capable of influencing reality.

The origin of the Grimlock Race, however, is slightly different.

They were a group of humans who willingly submitted to the Mind Flayers. While the Mind Flayer Empire still existed, they even adopted the Mind Flayers as their object of worship and mimicked their practice of eating the brains of intelligent creatures, viewing it as some kind of "holy communion."

After the Empire’s collapse, these people were completely purged and driven into the darkness of the Underground. Over time, even their eyes completely degenerated.

’For a bunch of trash who betrayed their own race to meet such an end is truly satisfying,’ Colin thought. ’They were just astonishingly stupid.’

By this time, the party had finished regrouping.

Guided by Kase, the group proceeded down the path the Gray Dwarves had come from.

Suddenly, Colin felt a faint vibration under his feet.

As the party advanced, he could feel the tremors beneath his feet growing stronger and the surrounding temperature rising. Garbage and sewage also started appearing along the sides of the corridor.

A large number of iron rings were fixed to the walls, likely a place where slaves were chained.

’It seems Dorn has successfully activated the Stone Golem in the temple. The Gray Dwarves might be fighting the Golem right now.’

The party reached the end of the corridor and arrived at a massive portico in front of the temple.

The space inside the portico was enormous, filled with black tents and iron cages of various sizes. More than half of the tents had now been overturned.

The ground was littered with pulverized flesh. The most conspicuous sight was a twisted green corpse.

The corpse had a hideous head, its pale green skin covered in pustules and warts. The nails on its fingers were long enough to be used as Daggers.

’Is this a Troll? Was it also a slave captured by these Gray Dwarves?’

As powerful monsters capable of regeneration, Trolls are notoriously difficult to deal with. Even a single one poses a huge threat to a small village in the wild.

But now, it lay on the ground like a broken toy.

The cause of all this was a stone statue of a Dwarf carved to look like it was wearing Full Plate Armor. Intricate Dwarven Runes were etched on its chest, and its every movement was accompanied by the harsh sound of grinding rock.

The stone statue was clearly damaged in multiple places. A faint blue magical light flickered from within the cracks.

The wear and tear from the passage of time, combined with the recent battle, had inflicted considerable damage on this Golem. The thing looked like it was about to collapse.

This enormous Rock Golem was still swinging its war pick in the portico hall. At its feet, a short figure dodged and weaved, evading the Golem’s attacks.

Kase took a closer look and shouted, "Wait, why does the one getting beaten up look like Dorn?"