Chapter 1086 - 885: Wise Stone Ore Vein_2

Duke descended at the mouth of an abandoned mine and reached out to touch the rock cross-section on the inner wall.

On the cross-section remained faint traces of Dark Red Crystals—tailings left in the Wise Stone Ore Vein after Philosopher’s Stone had been mined. Judging from the degree of weathering of the tailings, this mine had been abandoned for at least a hundred years.

He turned back into a breeze and continued along the ancient riverbed.

Soon he saw more signs of human activity: a rudimentary gravel road surface, mine tunnel support frames reinforced with wooden posts, several handcarts abandoned by the roadside, and a few wisps of cooking smoke rising between distant hills.

Below the smoke was a settlement built on the alluvial plain of the ancient river, not large in scale—about a hundred low houses of gray-white stone. Between the houses wound narrow, crooked dirt paths, their surfaces paved with cobblestones taken from the riverbed.

A ring of fencing stood around the settlement’s perimeter, a mixed construction of sharpened round logs and stone walls, with a crude watchtower at each corner.

Duke did not rashly move closer, but kept observing from high above.

He discovered that in the open ground at the center of the settlement, dozens of ore blocks freshly mined from the veins and not yet refined were neatly stacked. Each block was about the size of an adult’s fist, the dark red crystals shedding a deep, faint gleam beneath the sunlight.

That was merely one day’s output for this camp—and camps of this scale numbered at least dozens across this mining area.

Duke circled half the valley rim in flight, and once he had confirmed there was no obvious threatening presence nearby, he quietly dropped in altitude, wrapping himself in the aura of the World Tree and hiding his presence.

He did not recklessly infiltrate the interior of the settlement. In a tribe that had clearly lived here for generations, every person knew the others; any unfamiliar face would immediately trigger alarm—just as the villagers of Iron Tree Village had recognized him as an outsider at a glance.

Duke turned into a breeze and drifted along the edge of the perimeter fence made of sharpened logs and stone walls. Wheel ruts crisscrossed the gray-white gravel road, and the air was thick with a pungent mix of stone dust and animal hide tanning fluids.

At that moment, a rapid horn blast sounded from the eastern side of the settlement, its penetrating note echoing across the entire valley.

The gravel road inside the fence was thrown into instant turmoil. A dozen men in leather armor burst out of their stone houses—some gripping heavy mining picks, some carrying broad, well-honed chopping blades—running toward where the horn had sounded.

Duke stepped aside to the roadside, his gaze following the flow of people. On the eastern watchtower by the fence, a sentry was shouting down, his voice torn into fragments by the wind.

But Duke’s ears caught it clearly: trouble in the eastern pit—the Stone Hammer Tribe had crossed the Boundary River, and the two sides were already clashing near the disputed ore vein.

...

Kao had been used to hearing horns for as long as he could remember.

The Black Stone Tribe’s settlement was built on the alluvial plain of an ancient river, surrounded by low Limestone Hills, and between those hills ran the Philosopher’s Stone veins on which the tribe’s survival depended.

The horn was the most commonplace sound on this land—blown when enemies attacked, when a mine tunnel collapsed, and every rainy season when flash floods broke loose.

So when the old horn rhino on the eastern watchtower let its horn blare again, Kao was in his father’s study, flipping through last season’s ore vein production records; the hand holding the parchment did not even tremble.

But what the sentry shouted next made his fingers clench sharply.

"The Stone Hammer Tribe has crossed the Boundary River! The eastern pit is already in combat!"

He put down the parchment, took down the one-handed War Axe from the wall, and pushed the door open.

The settlement was already in chaos. Women were dragging elders and children out of the stone houses closest to the fence, fleeing toward the safer foothills behind.

The men were rushing out of their houses—some still struggling into leather armor, others already gripping Weapons and running toward the eastern fence.

Kao stood on the stone steps before his father’s study and began issuing orders in a deep, steady voice.

Two squads of Warriors were to assemble at the eastern fence; all miners in the eastern pit were to withdraw to the settlement immediately; the western and northern watchtowers were each to be reinforced with two additional squads of sentries.

Kao was extremely composed, not flustered at all. His voice was like nails being driven between those chaotic footsteps and shouts.

He was twenty-four this year. From the first time at twelve he followed his father down into the pit, to killing his first adult Stone Armor Rhinoceros alone at sixteen, and then breaking through to Level 3 at twenty—his growth trajectory had been cited again and again by the tribal elders as the benchmark for the younger generation.

But the word "benchmark" meant nothing to him. For a Clan Leader’s son who would sooner or later inherit the entire tribe, other people’s praise was far less solid than a War Axe that suited his hand.

Outside the eastern fence, the first batch of miners withdrawing from the pit were pouring in through the main gate into the settlement.

Their faces were a paste of dust and sweat. Several were carrying wounded men on their backs; a few lying on stretchers had chests caved in by blunt impacts, blood still seeping from the corners of their mouths.

Kao strode forward, grabbed a young miner who had just retreated from the pit, and asked how many the Stone Hammer Tribe had brought.

The miner was panting so hard he could barely speak, squeezing out broken phrases to the effect that at least a hundred men had come, led personally by that fierce general named Oraque who served at the Stone Hammer Tribe Clan Leader’s side.

Oraque—Kao silently repeated the name, his brows knitting even tighter.

A Warrior of the Stone Hammer Tribe, Tier Three High Stage. If he was leading a team across the border, it was never as simple as sneaking a few cartloads of ore.

Kao pressed a hand to the War Axe at his waist, his knuckles whitening slightly from the force of his grip.

He did not return to the settlement’s interior, but went against the stream of refugees, striding eastward.

The gravel underfoot creaked and crunched beneath his boots. On both sides, wind-eroded stone pillars cast long shadows in the setting sun, like ranks of silent giants looking down with cold eyes on the endless strife of this land.

The air was thick with stone dust and a faint waft of blood scent drifting from afar, merging into a peculiar, unsettling odor unique to this mining district.

Kao had crossed weapons with Oraque before—that was last year, during the struggle over Pit No. 5.

That brute wielded a giant stone hammer nearly as tall as himself, its head carved from ore accompanying pure Philosopher’s Stone veins. Every swing that fell felt like a small mountain crashing down overhead.

Their bout had lasted only a moment before Kao’s tiger’s mouth split from the impact, forcing him to order a retreat.

The blood feud between the Black Stone Tribe and the Stone Hammer Tribe could be traced back several generations.

This stretch of desert wasteland known as the Blood Ridge Mine was the lifeline of the entire tribe.

Those dark red ores lay buried deep in the gray-white rock strata, holding the purest Life Energy found on this continent.

A fist-sized Philosopher’s Stone was enough for a Warrior to break through a bottleneck that had plagued him for years.

A single rich vein could see an entire tribe prosper for decades.

In the struggle for these veins, enough blood had been spilled to stain the Boundary River the color of rust.

Kao followed a dried-out drainage channel from the mine tunnel at a brisk pace and soon reached the higher ground of the eastern mining area.

He did not rush to reveal himself. Instead, he crouched behind a massive wind-eroded boulder, his gaze sweeping the open ground below—the disputed ore vein—like a hunting hawk.

This vein lay right by the Boundary River, with both tribes claiming sovereignty over it. Most of the minor clashes in recent years had erupted here.

The afterglow of sunset washed over the gray-white gravel flats, making the fragments of dark red ore look like clotted blood.

The Stone Hammer Tribe had already assembled near the vein. A rough count put their numbers at at least a hundred men, all of them main-force Warriors in heavy leather armor.

They stood with their backs to the Boundary River, forming a ring around the vein’s core area, seemingly in the midst of moving something.

Kao narrowed his eyes, trying to see what lay at the center of the circle of Warriors.

Just then, he saw Oraque.

That man, built like a moving fortress, was standing above a protruding giant ore rock at the core of the vein, both hands resting on his signature giant stone hammer, the hammerhead buried deep in the ore.

He seemed to be waiting for something, his gaze repeatedly turning in the direction of the Black Stone Tribe settlement.