Mogdin was furious and kept roaring.
But in response, more and more dwarves instinctively crouched, retreated, or even cowered behind their shields.
The situation worsened further after the defenders deployed the Cannon.
The battlefield ahead was littered with corpses. The fallen warriors were not grazed by arrows or pierced by spears, but their limbs were blown apart, their chests collapsed, and their skulls were shattered—the horrific wounds far exceeded their generations of experience fighting in mines and caves.
A young soldier knelt beside his comrade's body, trembling as he reached out to check for breath, only to find that half of the man's face was missing, and his brains mixed with blood flowed into the soil. He vomited violently, and the axe in his hand clattered to the ground.
"This is not a battle…" he cried out in terror. "We are being unilaterally slaughtered."
Another older dwarf warrior tried to boost morale: "Hold the line! Raise your shields! If we charge fast enough, we can make it to the wall!"
But before he could finish speaking, a bullet struck the seam of his shoulder armor. The metal pellet tore through his flesh, creating a cloud of blood. He screamed and fell to the ground, his shield slipping from his grasp. His companions around him were thrown into chaos.
The dwarven warriors were not cowards; they fought monsters from the depths of the mines and cleared paths with their bare hands beneath collapsing rock formations. They were all tough and resilient men.
But they had never experienced a war like this before—no shouts and charges, no clashes of axes and shields, no close-quarters combat and fierce battles of strength, only tongues of fire spewing from behind a gray wall a hundred paces away, accompanied by a shrill whistling sound that tore through the air, each flash taking away a life.
Fear seeped into the mine like groundwater, and began to spread silently.
Mogdin roared and slammed his hammer into the ground, trying to subdue the rout with his authority: "Anyone who dares to retreat, I'll chop him down with my own hands!"
He watched helplessly as another burst of fire erupted from the top of the wall. Three of the bravest warhammer wielders fell simultaneously as they ran. One was shot through the throat, another's knee exploded and he was forced to his knees before being shot in the head, his blood and brains splattering onto the rubble.
He was consumed by rage and was about to roar and urge the charge again, but when he looked around the battlefield, he saw thick smoke and blood mixed together, and the surviving soldiers huddled behind rocks, none of them daring to look up, none of them taking another step forward.
At that moment, Mogdin's anger subsided, and he had no choice but to face the cold reality.
They couldn't break through, not because of a lack of courage, but because of a complete imbalance of power.
His soldiers were torn to pieces a hundred meters away, without even seeing the enemy's face. Continuing the assault would only lead to the complete annihilation of the Stonemason Clan's elite troops before this gray wall.
"Retreat!" he roared suddenly, his voice hoarse and unwilling, as if it were being torn from the depths of his chest. "The entire army retreats! Back to the mountain path!"
The dwarf warriors were immediately relieved, and without hesitation, they dragged the wounded and carried the broken shields, rushing back into the mountain path.
Inside the fortress, at the command of the Ausser Army commander, the heavy iron gates roared open.
A squad of infantry quickly charged out, advancing in skirmish lines, pursuing the dwarves along their retreat route.
The chase lasted for nearly half an hour, the terrain gradually rising and becoming overgrown with shrubs. The dwarves were no longer in sight; only mountain paths branching off in different directions stretched out before them.
The commander abruptly raised his hand: "Cease the pursuit!"
He crouched down and examined the footprints on the ground carefully—the dwarf's boot tracks began to disperse, leading along several different paths into the depths of the mountains.
As he looked up and around, the cliffs on either side cast deep shadows, like the jaws of some giant beast.
"Too dangerous," he whispered. "Those dwarfs know the terrain well; if we go any deeper, we'll probably fall into their ambush."
So he decisively ordered: "Maintain formation, retreat to the fortress!"
In the main hall of the Stonemason Clan, Chieftain Imar slammed the battle report onto the stone steps and roared, "Useless! Mogdin is utterly useless!"
He glared at Mogdin kneeling in the hall, his eyes bloodshot, and said, "You led so many elite warriors, and you turned and ran away because of a wall of unwashed gray? You've made the whole clan a laughingstock! If the orcs of Abar heard this, they'd laugh their heads off!"
Mogdin knelt on the ground and argued in a low voice, "Chieftain... their weapons are not bows, not crossbows... they are tongues of fire. Within a hundred paces, our shields cannot stop them, nor can our armor. If we continue to charge, we will be wiped out!"
"A cowardly excuse!" Imar roared.
Mogdin slowly raised his head, a final trace of resentment igniting in his eyes.
"Chieftain!" His voice was low and hoarse. "If we don't want our warriors' blood to be shed in vain… there is another way."
He met Imar's icy gaze and slowly said, "Release the Throat of the Abyss."
The air in the hall suddenly froze, and several elders gasped.
"Are you insane?" Imar shouted angrily. "Those are divine beasts guarding the sacred cave! Not war dogs for charging into battle!"
"They exist solely for war!" Mogdin suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot. "They can gnaw through rock like tearing cloth, bite through iron gates, and turn an entire squad of soldiers into mincemeat with a single sweep of their tails! Let them crawl out of the ground and charge into human camps, and their walls will crumble like sandcastles before them! Just one is enough to flatten that gray fortress!"
Tolkien, the clan's treasurer, frowned: "These enormous worms are difficult to control. If they get out of control, they will tear not only humans apart, but also our mines and outposts."
Imar nodded. "Indeed, the Maw of the Abyss cannot be used lightly; it should only be used when there is absolutely no other way."
He seemed to regain some composure and looked at Tolkien, "I will organize another powerful force to conquer humanity."
"Chieftain," Tolkien's voice was very calm, as if the recent defeat had not affected him, " Mogdin is right. Human firearms are powerful, and a frontal assault will only cause our warriors to die in vain."
Imar's eyes turned cold again: "Then what's your plan? Are you just going to wait for them to build the fortress right in front of us?"
"No." Tolkien shook his head. "It's to lure them into the mountains."
He pointed to the mountain road map on the stone table: "Our strength lies not on the plains, but in the deep mountains and underground. We can send out flexible squads to constantly harass human camps, feigning attacks and then luring them into pursuit."
He traced a deep chasm with his finger: "Once they venture deep into narrow mountain paths or underground tunnels, our main force can ambush them, trapping them with long axes and rolling logs, or even create a landslide to bury their entire force in an instant."