96：The Cursed Ring
The entire lower half of the slope was littered with severed limbs and steeped in the thick stench of blood.
The deafening rumbles finally subsided, leaving a thick cloud of dust and pulverized rock hanging in the air of the mine shaft.
The Scar-faced Commander leaned heavily against a recessed alcove in the rock wall. The once-arrogant orc commander was now bleeding profusely from his head, having forcibly deflected a grazing boulder just moments before.
Yet, despite suffering such heavy losses, the innate brutality carved into his very bones had not faded.
"Charge! Their traps up there are completely exhausted!"
Shoving aside the crushed corpse of one of his subordinates, the Scar-faced Commander roared, "Climb up there and slaughter this entire nest of filthy beasts!"
The remaining thirty or so battered and bloodied survivors unleashed frenzied war cries, trampling over the corpses of their fallen comrades as they surged upward.
However.
When the gasping commander finally led his troops over the steep incline and set foot onto a relatively flat stone plateau, his solitary eye locked onto the sight above.
Directly in his line of sight was what should have been a circular wooden walkway leading up to the upper hall of the solitary peak.
But at this very moment, that wooden walkway was engulfed in a towering inferno.
The goblins had taken torches and ruthlessly set the suspended wooden structure ablaze, completely severing the only path connecting the upper and lower levels!
Massive, flaming wooden beams crashed down into the abyss below.
All that remained before these Blacksteel Orcs was a sheer, vertical cliff face. There was no path left to ascend.
Across the impassable, fiery chasm, standing in the safety of a cave mere dozens of paces away, the goblins waved their torches and let out shrill, ear-piercing cackles.
"Aaahhhhh!"
The Scar-faced Commander flew into a violent rage. Raising his heavy axe with both hands, he hacked hysterically at the empty air before him.
To have more than half his men wiped out like playthings by a bunch of lowly mud-dwelling creatures—and to have their path completely cut off—was a profound humiliation. It was a disgrace worse than death!
Grinding his molars hard enough to crack them, he forced a humiliating order through his teeth.
"Retreat! Everyone, fall back to the base of the mountain! We make camp there!"
……
At the foot of the solitary peak, on a flat patch of ground bordering the toxic, muddy swamp.
A cold rain washed over the defeated, battered remnants of the orc vanguard.
The Scar-faced Commander slumped into the mud, tossing his battle axe aside. His solitary eye glinted with murderous intent as he glared at the towering peak looming in the darkness.
"Commander, this mountain is cursed. Forcing our way up is impossible. Should we... should we request further orders from Warchief Blackstone?" his adjutant asked, trembling as he wiped a mixture of blood and mud from his face.
"Request orders? If we return empty-handed after a defeat like this, the Warchief will have us skinned alive and our tendons pulled out!"
The commander roughly smeared his last handful of healing herbs onto his battered face and tightly gripped a compass made of bone. Driven by magical fluctuations, the needle of the compass continued to twitch rhythmically.
The stolen spatial storage ring was hidden somewhere within this very mountain.
Since a direct assault through the interior was impossible, and the exterior walls were sheer, vertical cliffs, they would just have to change their tactics.
"We wait here!" the commander growled, his eye fixed on the dark silhouette of the peak. "I've already sent a runner back to relay a message. The esteemed Shaman from the rear guard is rushing here at top speed."
He took a deep, ragged breath.
"Once the Shaman arrives, we will rely on his spiritual perception—which far exceeds the tracking of this stupid compass! We won't just pinpoint the exact location of that ring inside this damned rock! We will have the Great Shaman use his mental probing to chart a path up the exterior cliff face! We'll bypass all the traps hidden within the mountain's belly and map out a new route where we can construct siege ladders and scale the peak from the outside!"
He bared his fangs. "Even if we have to chop down every tree in this swamp to build ladders hundreds of meters long, I will climb up there! I will gut that so-called goblin chieftain and reclaim the Warchief's spatial ring!"
……
"Hahaha! Did you see that, human lord?!"
Luger abruptly leaped up from his iron seat, waving his thick, muscular arms as he pointed toward the wails of the orcs echoing from below.
"Two entire waves of charges! Those arrogant Blacksteel Orcs didn't even manage to touch a single hair on my kin's heads before they were burned to ash and smashed into pulp!"
"Now that the wooden walkway to the upper level is nothing but ashes, there’s no way in hell those greenskins in their clunky iron shells are getting up here!"
The Hobgoblin Luger was incredibly smug. He was using this victory to show off to Soren, eager to demonstrate to the human commander who had massacred the Drybone Highlands that the goblin race possessed a military prowess that should not be underestimated.
However, as Luger turned his head mid-cackle, hoping to catch a look of shock or awe on Soren’s face, he froze.
Soren remained seated on his stone chair, his posture impeccably straight. He still held a coarse clay goblet in his hand. The surface of the berry wine inside was perfectly still, without a single ripple despite the boisterous goblin revelry around him.
Soren’s eyes were tranquil, like an unfathomable, bottomless pool.
This commanding aura—the absolute composure of a general who wouldn't flinch even if a mountain collapsed before him—felt like a bucket of ice water poured directly over the ecstatic Luger's head.
Luger was secretly startled. The puff-chested pride he had been flaunting instantly deflated.
He had thought this victory would be enough to overawe any human commander. He hadn't expected that in Soren’s eyes, it seemed as trivial as a squabble between lesser imps.
Soren gently placed the clay goblet onto the stone table beside him. It made a soft clink.
As if cued by that single motion, the raucous cheers in the great hall subconsciously died down. All the goblins quietly turned their heads, fixing their eyes on the human.
"I must admit, your use of oil traps and rolling boulders was exceedingly clever. Your defense, leveraging the terrain advantage, was textbook," Soren began, offering an objective compliment.
Just as smiles of pride began to resurface on the goblins' faces, Soren abruptly changed his tone, shattering their delusions.
"However, you are celebrating far too early."
"A passive defense and burning your only walkway merely prolongs your dying breaths. You have successfully trapped yourselves in a dead-end with no route of escape."
"More fatally," Soren continued, coldly dissecting the battlefield situation, "considering the military composition of the Blackstone Warband, do you honestly believe a broken cliff face will stop them?"
"Their shamans are likely already on the way. The moment a single battle shaman arrives, the mighty power of magic will easily reshape the terrain."
"A single Rock Spike spell can forge a new staircase for them. Or they could simply use Wind-element levitation magic to float right past your broken pathway."
"The moment high-tier magic is introduced to the battlefield, your so-called 'impenetrable defense' will be rendered utterly useless!"
His words struck like a thunderclap.
The goblins, who mere moments ago had been reveling in their victory over the orc vanguard, froze stiff.
He was right! Standing behind the Blacksteel Orcs was the Blackstone Tribe, a force with an organized, institutionalized magical corps! How could a burned wooden bridge possibly stop a Shaman?
The atmosphere in the cavern instantly plummeted to freezing. The crushing weight of despair caused some goblins' hands to tremble so violently they could barely hold their spears.
Just then, a goblin lieutenant with an anxious face, who had been cowering in Luger's shadow, finally succumbed to his inner torment. He stepped forward, trembling.
He cast a glance at his profusely sweating chieftain. Luger gritted his teeth and slumped back onto his shield-throne like a deflated balloon, giving a silent nod of permission.
The lieutenant dropped to one knee before Soren. With a miserable, tearful expression, he confessed the true cause of this apocalyptic disaster.
"L—Lord Soren! It’s all because of this cursed object!"
The lieutenant clapped his hands. A moment later, the chief goblin engineer hobbled forward, shaking like a leaf as he presented a metal lockbox.
The box clicked open.
Inside rested a ring inset with a dark purple crystal. The gem was pulsing rhythmically—expanding and contracting—radiating faint, concentric ripples of magical energy.
"A few days ago, our scavenging party was picking through the edge of an ancient battlefield near the swamp. They pried this out of the chest armor of an orc corpse that had rotted down to the bone..."
"This is a [Spatial Storage Ring] inscribed with a high-tier [Tracking Mark]!"
"We can't open it, nor can we destroy the mark."
"It’s the signal continuously emitting from this ring—acting like a blazing torch in the dead of night—that lured this rare unit of elite Blacksteel Orcs straight to our doorstep!"
Soren narrowed his eyes as he listened.
No wonder.
No wonder an elite, high-tier personal guard unit like the Blacksteel Orcs would bite onto this desolate, profitless goblin peak like rabid dogs.
In this world, a spatial storage ring was equivalent to a mobile treasury!
If it contained highly classified secrets of the Blackstone Tribe, or wealth of incalculable value, the orcs would hunt it to the very ends of the earth to reclaim it.
At that moment, Luger forcefully slammed a fist onto his own thigh and spoke in a sullen voice.
"Lord Soren, since we can't stop a Shaman, I plan to strike before he arrives. I’ll lock the ring in this box and toss it straight down the chasm from the crevices in the back of our mountain!"
"As long as the ring falls into the mud below, the Blacksteel Orcs will grab it and leave immediately. We’ll lose a treasure, but we’ll avoid a massacre. Our home will be preserved."
"Utterly foolish," Soren replied coldly.