Chương 95: 95：The Price of Arrogance

A hundred Black Steel elites marched relentlessly forward. Their unparalleled arrogance had accustomed them to solving every problem with a brutal, head-on crush. However, just as the vanguard passed beneath a seemingly ordinary stalactite archway and stepped into a broad, flat limestone cavern... An orc spearman in the third rank brought his heavy black steel boot down on a slightly raised stone slab, completely oblivious. Click! The sharp snap of a triggered mechanism echoed loudly through the silent cavern.

"What was that?" The scar-faced commander's pupils shrank. Before the orcs could even raise their guards, the ground gave way. The seemingly solid limestone floor beneath their feet collapsed entirely, without a single warning sign! Beneath the loose soil, hundreds of hidden black clay jars were violently crushed together as the hidden trap's gears contracted. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! The clay jars shattered, instantly releasing a thick, acrid stench into the air.

"It's alchemical fire oil! Fall back! Fall back!" As a veteran of a hundred battles, the moment the scar-faced commander caught the scent, every hair on his body stood on end. But it was too late. From the ceiling of the cavern, a few insignificant sparks drifted down. BOOM! It was as if the God of Fire had roared within the enclosed space. The highly adhesive, pale-blue Goblin Alchemical Fire Oil ignited.

Tongues of flame raced along the oil slicks spreading across the ground, swallowing the entire cavern at a speed faster than a galloping horse! Black Steel was tough, but it did not insulate against heat. The intense temperature instantly baked their heavy armor into branding irons. Worse yet, the fire oil was pervasive, seeping through the armor's joints and soaking straight into their gambesons.

"Arghhh!" Agonizing, bloodcurdling screams threatened to shatter the cavern's ceiling. Over a dozen Black Steel elites caught in the center of the inferno didn't even have the chance to swing their weapons. Instead, they clutched their burning heads, thrashing and rolling in agony across the ground. Had it been just the fire, the formidable physique of the orcs might have afforded them a chance to escape.

But this was a trap painstakingly crafted by goblins—creatures who had poured all their cunning into surviving this chaotic world. Accompanying the raging inferno came a new sound. Twang! Twang! Twang! The lethal snap of heavy ballistae mechanisms firing merged into a continuous, deafening chord! The rock walls on both sides of the cavern suddenly flipped open.

Powered by the snap-back of massive tension springs, thousands of razor-sharp wooden spikes—their tips coated in a deadly, dark-purple poison—were unleashed into the center of the cavern in a torrential crossfire! Poisoned spikes hammered against the Black Steel heavy armor, sending sparks flying. While the vast majority of the wooden spikes were deflected by the plating, the sheer volume of the volley was overwhelming. Thwack! A poisoned spike found its mark, piercing through the narrow eye-slit of an orc's visor.

The dark-purple venom seeped directly into his brain. The orc's bull-like physique convulsed merely twice before he collapsed, his body soon reduced to a charred husk amidst the flames. Thwack! Crunch! The back of a knee joint. An exposed nape missing its gorget... One by one, massive, heavily armored bodies slumped to their knees.

"Bastards!! Despicable rats!" The scar-faced commander roared, swinging his battleaxe to shatter a poisoned spike aimed right at his head. The inferno reflected fiercely in his single eye, and he gritted his teeth so hard that blood seeped from his gums. In just a single exchange—without having seen so much as a shadow of the enemy—a huge swathe of his elite forces had been laid to waste.

"Hold the line! Raise your shields and form up! Hug the walls and bypass the center! Change routes—we force our way up the rear-flank incline!" the scar-faced commander bellowed in sheer exasperation, ordering an immediate evacuation of the killing floor. High above, within a spacious cavern hall near the ceiling. Beside the flickering light of a clay oil lamp, Soren held up an earthenware cup. The sharp, earthy, and slightly tart scent of fermented berries filled his nostrils.

Across from him, Luger's cup was frozen in mid-air. All around the hall, goblins gripped their crude weapons tightly. Their eyes were locked onto the tunnel leading to the lower levels. The tension was so thick it felt as if the air itself had frozen solid. BOOM! An earth-shattering explosion reverberated upward through the rock layers beneath their feet. The tremor was so fierce it sent ripples across the surface of the berry wine in Soren's cup.

Immediately following the blast came the agonizing screams of the orcs, amplified and echoing endlessly through the deep subterranean tunnels. Pat, pat, pat. An agile goblin scout scrambled up the vines along the rock wall on all fours, dropping to his knees with a heavy thud.

"Reporting to the Chief!" the scout cried, his face flushed with adrenaline.

"The chain-traps of black fire oil and poisoned spikes on the lower level were fully triggered! Almost twenty of the Black Steel vanguard were burned or skewered alive! We've completely broken their first wave!" The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. A deafening cheer immediately erupted throughout the hall. Some of the older goblins were so ecstatic they tossed their clubs aside, embracing each other and jumping up and down in joy.

They, who had always been treated as nothing more than weeds by the outside world, had actually used traps to slaughter twenty Black Steel elites! Luger's heart, which had been trapped in his throat, finally settled back into his chest. He took a deep breath, brought his suspended cup to his lips for a steady sip, and cast a provocative glance at Soren. His expression screamed: See that, human? That is what we goblins are capable of. Feigning utter composure, Luger issued a nonchalant order to the scout.

"Do not let it go to your heads. Continue scouting."

"Tell the boys operating the traps down there: the real show is just beginning." Soren gently lowered his cup and offered an objective evaluation.

"A sound defensive tactic."

"You're trading space for casualties. However, fire oil burns out eventually. Now that the orcs have been humiliated, their next push will be the true assault." He was right. It didn't take long. Having abandoned the flat cavern floor—now a raging sea of fire—the remaining seventy or eighty Black Steel Orcs, led by the scar-faced commander, surged forward in bloodthirsty fury. They soon arrived at the only path leading up through the mountain.

It was an exceedingly steep rock incline, angled sharply at forty-five degrees. The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for three to walk abreast. Furthermore, constant seepage of underground water over the years had covered the stone in a treacherous, slick layer of green moss. The commander roared up the shaft.

"Listen well, you rats up there! The moment I reach the top, I'm going to grind your bones to dust, inch by inch!" The Black Steel elites abandoned their tight legionary formations. Instead, they hoisted their massive shields over their heads. Relying entirely on their monstrous, inhuman stamina, they dug their heavy war boots ruthlessly into the mossy crevices of the stone, scrambling upward on all fours. Twenty paces. Thirty paces. Forty paces... The raw power of these heavily armored orcs was on full display.

Even in such a steep, slippery chokepoint, they pushed forward, hauling hundreds of pounds of gear. They crawled upward relentlessly, resembling a swarm of steel-plated beetles! They reached the halfway mark of the incline—the absolute dead-zone where their physical stamina was taxed to its absolute limit, and where advancing was just as difficult as retreating. Hidden within the dark alcoves at the very crest of the slope, over a dozen of the most muscular goblins received the signal they had been waiting for.

"Pull the levers!" A chilling, crisp clack echoed from the hidden mechanisms. The goblins violently yanked away the massive wooden support beams barricading the top of the passage. Instantly, a deep, rumbling growl vibrated through the air, as if the entire mountain was caving in. From out of the darkness, seven or eight massive granite boulders, each the size of a millstone, hurtled down from the top of the slope.

The acceleration of gravity down the steep chute granted the granite boulders an utterly unstoppable momentum! Scraping violently against the cavern walls, the boulders sent showers of sparks flying through the darkness as they plummeted! RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

"SHIELDS UP!" the scar-faced commander roared hoarsely, his eyes nearly splitting from their sockets. The vanguard row of Black Steel elites threw everything they had into locking their heavy tower shields together. They desperately tried to pit their powerful bodies and forged steel against the avalanche. However, it was a futile gesture. CRASH! The first boulder, carrying a catastrophic amount of kinetic energy, slammed dead center into the shield wall. The screech of buckling metal was deafening.

Those massive Black Steel shields—shields capable of deflecting bolts from a heavy siege ballista—crumpled inward like wet paper beneath the crushing weight of the stone! The boulder rolled straight over them. CRACK! The elite orcs behind the shields unleashed inhuman shrieks of agony. Their arm bones shattered into splinters in an instant, followed immediately by their entire ribcages being flattened into pulp!

Rather than offering protection, their sturdy Black Steel heavy armor had become a lethal hindrance, preventing the orcs from dodging out of the way! Powerful limbs and steel plating alike were violently battered, launched into the air, and crushed by the terrifying momentum of the boulders. A gruesome trail of blood, mixed with pureed internal organs, painted the slope as the stones ground their way down.

Like a gruesome game of bowling, the boulders unleashed an absolute massacre down the straight, narrow chute where there was no cover to be found. The elite orcs—unable to dodge in time, or simply having nowhere to go—were tossed into the air by the avalanche of stone. Screaming in terror, they were left with crippled bodies, or simply reduced to bloody paste on impact. It was an absolute slaughter. Dozens more of their proud, elite warriors had been wiped out.

And yet, they still hadn't seen the face of a single goblin.