Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

The huge gains at the Frost Fang Mountain Range’s entrance pass greatly boosted the fighting morale of the Hesse Territory and the Dwarf Alliance Army.

After all, that Book of Hatred recorded that there was a vast amount of ancient dwarf treasure buried within; as long as they could wash away the Deep Hatred inscribed by the Dwarf King on the Book of Hatred with the enemy’s blood, they would be able to find the buried treasure.

This made both sides of the Alliance Army impatient to press on into the Frost Fang Mountain Range. To be sure, the battle at the entrance had already been extremely fierce: the dwarves fought in a blood-soaked frenzy and even blasted open a passage before they could advance inside. Yet the immense incentive of wealth and of reclaiming their homeland still set everyone’s passion ablaze.

But once they entered the intricate ancient mine tunnel network, the danger level of the fighting quickly exceeded their expectations. The light was dim, the air foul; every step could trigger an ancient trap or run into an ambush.

More importantly, there were even more terrifying enemies entrenched here!

Deep within an abandoned miner camp, the Alliance Army ran into dwarf corpses and human miner skeletons awakened by Dark Magic. They surged out of the shadows without a sound, their decayed weapons carrying lethal curses. The dwarves were outrageously furious at the desecration of their ancestors’ remains; Warhammers and axes flared with the light of dwarf Runes, dealing extra damage to the Undead. The soldiers of Hesse Territory relied on dense Crossbow Arrows and fire to hold them back and purify them.

In a huge mine chamber that had been transformed into a desecrated altar, the Alliance Army encountered a true nightmare—a Chaos Egg formed from the fusion of several twisted bodies. It lashed about with misshapen tentacles, spewed corrosive slime, and spread maddening whispers. Ordinary weapons were barely effective against it. The battle was brutally savage: dwarf Heavy Infantry formed a defensive line with Shields and their own bodies, tanking the Chaos Egg’s horrific impacts to buy time for the ranged troops and the elites wielding weapons Enchanted with Moon Crown Tree Flower. In the end, only when a human Champion Knight, golden Longsword in hand, pierced its skull was this warped creation utterly destroyed, and the price was the deaths and injuries of more than a dozen valiant Warriors.

Only then did the Alliance Army truly understand why Blue Mirror Territory had taken so long to come reclaim this Frost Fang Mountain Range. The Monsters inside were simply beyond counting!

The Green Tide Baron Grant had defeated was merely the Green Skin Monsters that had surged out of this mountain range, and that victory was won down on the plains at the foot of the mountains.

If he’d lost his head, and after his great victory over the Green Skins had marched straight into the Frost Fang Mountain Range, the Monsters hidden in the mountain valleys and dark lairs, in the dwarf tunnels, would have swarmed out. It might well have turned his previous triumph into a crushing defeat.

The dwarves, having come this far, were also stunned. They had already paid a tremendous price in casualties, explored nearly a hundred li into the mountains, and reclaimed a large number of ancient dwarf structures and ruins.

If they shrank back from further losses and turned away now, it would mean all previous sacrifices had been utterly wasted. Because for the Monsters, those losses were almost negligible—if not even a drop in the bucket, then at least of no consequence. As long as the dwarves could not hold this mountain range, those empty palaces, tunnels, and valleys they had cleared would soon be crammed with Monsters again. Beastmen and Green Skins would crawl out of every corner to seize those camps. In the empty tunnels, the scattered stones and the dead souls would, under the influence of the Wind of Death, quickly warp once more into Skeletons and Monsters, filling those dark burrows.

The just camp in this world is forever under assault from evil Monsters—that is no empty phrase.

The situation is always like rowing upstream: if you do not advance, you retreat. As long as you don’t occupy this area, it will be filled with endless Monsters.

So after a brief hesitation and rest, the Redbeard Clan and Gray Rock Clan decisively chose to send more troops!

The Redbeard Clan brought in the most powerful artillery and Stone-Throwing Vehicle units from their Territory, while the Gray Rock Clan summoned their clan’s fiercest Long-bearded Warriors.

Long-bearded Warriors, that is, that special troop type with the Veteran’s Complaints ability. This is a unique Bloodline Ability of the Gray Rock Clan: as long as a Long-bearded Warrior with this Bloodline Ability has not fled, then any friendly dwarf within sixty meters of him, upon hearing his grumbling and roaring, will receive a morale boost, with a chance to become Immune to Fear—including fear caused by Magic!

The deployment of the Gray Rock Clan’s Long-bearded Warriors proved that these two clans truly intended to burn their bridges behind them! If they did not take this place, they would absolutely not withdraw.

Seeing this, Su Li, besides cheerfully collecting another ten thousand Golden Crowns in immigration fees, also dispatched the Black Steel Redemption Knight Order to aid the battle. He likewise could not accept a scenario where the dwarves were defeated.

If these fifteen hundred most elite Dwarf Warriors were to die inside Frost Fang Mountain, and several thousand humans and dwarves of the Alliance Army were wiped out, that would absolutely shake the very foundations of rule and the stability of the situation in the entire Border Province.

If the two clans suffered such severe damage to their Primordial Qi, they might not even be able to hold their ground in the Gray Mountain Range. Then the surroundings of Hesse Territory would become like a sieve, leaking everywhere. Su Li would likely have to send troops to help them stabilize the situation!

So although he had not wished to be overly involved in this war, in the end Su Li was still dragged in. The Hesse Territory forces already committed to the Frost Fang Mountain Range had exceeded a thousand men, and he had no choice but to dispatch Royal Griffin Knight Edwin to act as Commander-in-Chief of this Dwarf Alliance Army.

And as facts proved, it was fortunate that he intervened and directed this war in time, for once Edwin entered the Frost Fang Mountain Range and took over command of the human forces, he immediately discovered a problem: the enemies were not all Monsters fighting purely on instinct.