Alarms blared through Goldflame Fortress.
The two most elite forces, the Flamebeard clan’s Flame Guard and the Blacksteel clan’s Heavy Legion, assembled rapidly and marched fully armed toward the Molten Fire Dungeon entrance.
Vimark Deepforge, heir of the Deepforge clan and Thorin’s elder brother, stood at the window of the clan tower, tugging anxiously at his meticulously groomed beard, face growing darker by the second.
His good-for-nothing little brother had caused this much trouble on his very first day at Molten Fire?
Compared to the dungeon suddenly going berserk after centuries of peace, Vimark was more inclined to believe Thorin had simply tripped some alarm.
“Father is going to skin him alive this time!” Vimark muttered. Though he often scolded his useless brother, he couldn’t just watch him suffer.
He hurried after the troops.
But when he reached the dungeon entrance, he saw dwarven soldiers forming a shield wall, desperately holding back a flood of elemental creatures pouring from the depths…
…
BOOM!
Glenm smashed a storm elemental trying to squeeze into the passage with his shield, but another immediately filled the gap.
The two were trapped in the communication room, only able to defend the narrow corridor.
“We’re done for! We should’ve run the moment it started!” Glenm shouted in frustration while blocking attacks.
Thorin hacked apart a fire spirit trying to close in, panting as he apologized. “Sorry! I didn’t expect…”
“Never mind,” Glenm cut him off. “My fault too for not dragging you out! We sounded the alarm. Hold on! Reinforcements should be here any second!”
Then he couldn’t help complaining about their luck. “The last time this dungeon had trouble was over fifty years ago! That was just a forge furnace overheating and blowing a hole. Nothing like this life-or-death mess!”
The two held the entrance desperately for who-knows-how-long.
Their personal healing potions were long gone. Their arms trembled from exhaustion. Yet the elementals outside showed no sign of thinning.
“What the hell are the guards doing?!” Glenm spat blood. “It’s not that far! They should be here by now!”
Their position wasn’t far from the entrance. Reinforcements should have arrived ages ago.
On the other side, Thorin was too exhausted even to curse. He leaned against the wall, gasping, his battle axe impossibly heavy.
Then the ground shook violently!
A voice filled with oppressive might thundered through the entire dungeon:
“You wretched insects… today, you will pay the price!”
With the roar, even stronger tremors came from deep below. Dust and pebbles rained from the ceiling.
Whatever was speaking clearly possessed terrifying power.
“W-what is that thing?” Thorin’s voice quavered.
Glenm was slightly better, but his face was still ashen. “Whatever it is, looks like reinforcements won’t make it in time…”
Another elemental forced its way in. The two exchanged a helpless glance. They had little strength left.
A chill suddenly crept up Thorin’s back.
He instinctively turned and was shocked to see a familiar object had appeared in the room!
While Thorin stood stunned, the berserk elemental charged. Glenm gathered his last strength to block with his shield, roaring hoarsely, “Stop spacing out! If we’re going to die, die like warriors!”
“Die?” Thorin suddenly had a flash of inspiration and frantically rummaged through his pack. “Hold on! We might not have to die!”
“Huh?”
Glenm didn’t react before a fire spirit’s flames scorched him, making him scream. His already battered shield finally shattered.
They were about to be overwhelmed when a magical force suddenly acted on them.
Thorin and Glenm’s bodies rapidly shrank. In moments they were tiny figures.
Looking at the now-gigantic fire spirit, Glenm completely lost it. “What kind of plan is this?! We’re even more dead now!”
But Thorin grabbed him and turned to run!
Only then did Glenm notice a palm-sized spatial rift had appeared in the corner, radiating intense cold.
The two barely dodged another heavy blow from the fire spirit and leaped into the rift. The instant they passed through, the spot they had occupied was engulfed in roaring flames.
At the current size of the rift, even elemental creatures would struggle to pass.
The two survivors collapsed on the ground, panting heavily, but soon scrambled up again.
“It’s… so cold!”
The two dwarves huddled back-to-back. As their bodies cooled, bone-chilling cold set in!
“Are you kidding? We finally escaped just to freeze to death?”
“Do you have anything to start a fire?”
“How would I?!”
*Puchi—*
As the two cursed, a familiar figure appeared before them. To the shrunken dwarves, it was a mountain-sized Puchi.
Faced with the incoming mycelial tentacles, Glenm decisively dropped his warhammer.
He clearly remembered what happened last time he swung at a Puchi in its dungeon!
Besides, he had no strength left to fight. He could only leave it to fate.
His only confusion now was: where the hell were they? It looked different from the Puchi Dungeon they had seen in human lands.
…
Another dungeon opening a rift right onto his territory… first time for Lin Jun!
And two little thieves had snuck in!
Did they think shrinking made them invisible?
Lin Jun immediately grabbed the two dwarves and dispatched lizardmen leading Puchis to guard the rift.
The scorching heat coming through was unsettling. He had no idea what it connected to. He needed to interrogate these uninvited guests properly.
And the rift seemed to be growing. To be safe, Lin Jun planned to send more forces to defend.
He just hoped this was an accident, not the prelude to some enemy attack.
The rift expanded quickly. By the time reinforcements arrived, the first elemental creature had already squeezed through.
A blazing fire spirit emerged from the now Puchi-sized rift, wantonly spraying flames in all directions.
Then,
without being attacked at all, its flames grew smaller and colder… until with a “pff,” it extinguished itself…
(End of Chapter)
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