Chapter 313: The Show Is About to Begin

At the end of a narrow mountain pass opening onto a vast, open plain, a long column of dwarves pressed forward in desperation.

Some twenty thousand of them, crammed into an endless march, fleeing what had, until recently, been their home.

Their great underground metropolis, the city that had kept them safe and hidden from the world for two centuries, now lay behind them.

Roughly half of them were civilians.

Elders who could barely walk, women carrying children in their arms, kids who didn’t fully understand why they’d had to abandon their homes overnight.

The other half were warriors — men and women of sturdy build, clad in armor and weapons, marching along the flanks and at the rear, protecting their people with clenched jaws and tense eyes.

At the head of them all, leading the column, marched a dwarf of broad, powerful build.

He had hair and a beard of deep red, and across his back he carried an enormous war hammer.

Every step he took carried authority, and the others followed him without question.

"Warlord Ragna!"

A voice called out to him from behind.

Ragna turned and saw a dwarf running toward him at full speed, shoving through the crowd, gasping for breath, his face twisted with urgency.

"Warlord Ragna! I need to speak with you! It’s urgent!"

Ragna frowned the moment he recognized him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, his voice deep and rough. "You’re supposed to be defending the capital with the rest of the boys. Why have you left your post?"

"I didn’t leave it, sir," the dwarf answered between gasps, coming to a stop in front of him. "It was them... my comrades... They sent me to reach you no matter what, to bring you a message."

"A message?" Ragna’s face darkened. "Speak. Fast."

The dwarf swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to catch his wind before going on.

"The situation’s gotten much worse than we feared, sir," he said, clearly shaken. "It wasn’t just the half-humans. Someone else showed up... the one in command of all of them."

His voice trembled slightly.

"A demon."

The dwarf looked down for a moment, still shaken by what he’d just witnessed.

"An extremely powerful demon calling himself Focalors. By the time I saw him, he’d already cut through our last lines of defense like they were nothing more than paper."

Ragna felt his blood run cold at the word demon.

"The boys knew they didn’t stand a chance against something like that," the messenger went on, his eyes wet. "That’s why they ordered me to run. They wanted me to reach you and warn you before it was too late."

He lowered his gaze, unable to hide the fear still written across his face.

"By now... they’re most likely all dead, sir. And if that demon really is heading our way with his whole army, it won’t take him long to catch up."

A heavy silence fell over the two of them.

Ragna clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked. Every one of those warriors at the rear had been a brother in arms.

Men and women he’d shared moments of joy with, drunk alongside for years.

But he had no time to mourn them. Not yet. If he did, more would die.

"Damn those demon bastards to hell..." Ragna muttered through gritted teeth.

The messenger swallowed before asking the question neither of them wanted to consider.

"Do you think it could be some remnant of the Demon Lord’s army?"

His expression grew even more troubled.

"Or, worse... do you think they’ve come back?"

"I don’t know."

He stayed silent for a few seconds, but then took a deep breath and pulled himself back together.

He couldn’t afford to think like a frightened man anymore.

He was the leader of his people, and right now, everyone depended on his decisions.

"But whatever’s going on, there’s no time to lose."

Ragna turned toward the vast plain stretching out ahead of them.

"Our only chance is to cross it as fast as we can and reach the lands of the beastmen or the elves. Either territory will do."

His expression hardened.

"I know we’ve never gotten along with either of them. And I know they might refuse to help us, might even slam the doors in our faces. But it doesn’t matter. If we have to crawl to their gates and beg for asylum on our knees, that’s what we’ll do."

Ragna’s jaw tightened.

"The only thing that matters now is saving our people... Pride is worthless if we’re dead."

The messenger nodded with renewed resolve.

Ragna, however, knew running wouldn’t be enough. Not with an entire army bearing down on their heels.

If the rest of them were going to have any chance of escaping, they needed to buy time.

And there was only one way to do that.

He turned to the warriors marching nearby, the ones still left to him, his elite group, the best and most loyal of them all.

"Warriors!" Ragna shouted, his voice carrying over the murmur of the column. "Listen up, all of you! The enemy’s coming, and coming fast. If it catches us while we’re fleeing, it’ll be a massacre."

He paused, looking each of them in the eye, one by one.

"I need volunteers to stay behind, hold the line against the enemy, and slow their advance as much as possible."

Not one of the warriors hesitated at the request.

One after another, they stepped forward, raising their weapons and silently accepting the fate waiting for them.

"For our people, Warlord Ragna," each of them declared, their voices steady. "To the end."

After that, Ragna and his elite group hurried on ahead with the remaining ten thousand dwarves.

But fate, that day, was not on their side.

Because they’d barely made it halfway across the plain when they saw it.

In the distance, on the horizon, a massive dark stain appeared at the mountain pass and began spilling out across the plain at a terrifying speed.

It was the bulk of the half-human army.

Thousands upon thousands of them, an unstoppable tide of claws, fangs, and fury, surging straight toward the column of dwarves.

"Shit..." he muttered, his heart clenching. "We won’t make it... not at this pace."

There was no time for an organized defensive line. There was no time for anything.

"CHANGE OF PLANS!" Ragna roared, drawing his massive hammer. "Elite, with me! We’re going to buy the civilians every second we can with our own blood! Cover the retreat!"

His group fanned out around him, forming a wall of bodies between the horde and the fleeing crowd.

The tide of half-humans closed in. Four hundred meters. Three hundred. Two hundred.

Ragna raised his hammer, planted his feet in the ground, bracing for battle.

And then, it happened.

A colossal shadow swept across the sky above their heads.

An instant later, a massive rain of fire came crashing down from above onto the half-human army, sweeping away the entire vanguard in a single pass.

Hundreds of the creatures were incinerated instantly, reduced to ash before they even understood what had hit them.

The heat struck Ragna’s face even from a distance, and the shockwave of the impact shook the plain.

"What... what the hell is going on?" he said, staring up at the enormous dragon above them.