A steel city covered in metallic colors. There was a clear dividing line that separated it from the gray rock just a few steps away on the other side of their line of sight. The world beneath their feet seemed to be trembling slightly with the movement of machinery and the eruption of furnaces. This was one of the Dwarf's cities on the surface.
From time to time, gray furballs flew by in the air. The only thing that could be gathered from their occasional stray words were some trivial matters about the Dwarf's life and forging work. There was no important information—at least the elite Imanity who had painstakingly learned the Dwarf language confirmed to each other that they had not found any important content.
Crouched in a gap in this steel building, two people were patiently waiting for the right moment.
"Say, that thing is getting smaller and smaller, isn't it... Brother Lenny," Credo leaned in toward Lenny's ear and whispered.
"...After all, it's been used so many times... Be quiet, don't talk," Lenny lowered his voice and squeezed the words out through his teeth, pressing Credo's head back.
Lenny was a bit helpless with Credo's impatient behavior. After all, according to the rules, they should maintain absolute silence and only communicate with gestures at this time... This kid has two children who are so big, but he still acts like he's not grown up, all flustered.
The thing they were referring to was the core of Devil as a Phantasma. Every time it was used, a part of it would be consumed. And after being used so many times as an important material to guide the sea of spirit, this core was now left with only a small piece, which could even be carried in a pocket.
According to the estimates of Think and the Old Deus of Doubt, it could only be used one more time at most. But compared to this matter that was already expected, what made Lenny feel so nervous right now was what Su'er had warned him about privately before they set off.
Compared to the other races, Su'er didn't know if Lóni, who had a brief encounter with him and Think's combination, would have installed a device in the Dwarf's city that could detect the activity of a non-Elf, flesh-and-blood being.
Su'er did believe what the God of Forge, Okein, had said, that He wouldn't reveal any information to Lóni. And upon reflection, he also hadn't shown any strange abilities in front of Lóni. At most, he had just said a sentence that the Dwarf found agreeable, so... it probably wouldn't happen, right?
Thinking about it carefully, there had been no news related to Imanity from the Dwarf alliance until now. Neither the Phantasma nor the Dwarf had noticed small bugs like Imanity.
This could not be confirmed, but in any case, the plan could not stop because of this fear. Su'er could only ask Lenny, as the team leader, to be extra careful.
[Get ready, they're almost here.]
Su'er's voice suddenly sounded in Lenny's mind. The man's body tensed up, and at the same time, he quickly reached out and signaled. In an instant, both he and Credo became alert, trying their best to hide themselves in the shadows.
Buzz—
A huge sound that seemed to directly blast their bodies. Even every hair on their bodies was trembling and itching intensely, but no one reached out to scratch. For the Dwarf, this was undoubtedly the highest level of alert, and this long humming sound also quickly stopped.
To be honest, before this alarm really sounded, the two people including Lenny would never have believed that there would be so many Dwarf in this city that seemed to only have one surface level. Like a Fiend that opened its giant mouth, the entire steel city also opened its stomach. Several airships shot out from the wide-open holes.
Lenny only felt as if a rain of gray furballs was falling in his line of sight, but this rain was going from the ground up to the sky. Those gray furballs and the female Dwarf with visibly less hair and clearer skin, like dense raindrops, were shot out directly into the ships as the airships flew toward the sky.
The airships did not stop or wait. There was no extra communication between these Dwarf. They were like a group of machines that were precise to the extreme, assembling together smoothly and perfectly. It was a pleasing performance just to watch.
Snap.
Suddenly, to the shock of Lenny and Credo, who felt their hearts and lungs stop, they suddenly found that the steel ground beneath them was tilting—the entire building was tilting!
Like the lid of a cardboard box being opened, the side where Lenny and Credo were, along with the steel building on top of it, opened directly outwards. The angle was too steep for them to maintain a flat, prone position. They rolled into a ball like collapsing blocks, but they supported each other out of fear of being discovered, twisting their limbs to push against the overturned steel wall to prevent making too much noise.
The two of them didn't even dare to take a breath. In a wave of heat that came rushing at them and completely submerged their bodies, a giant airship flew out directly from this opened steel giant mouth. The huge ship's body rumbled for several seconds before it barely flew away. Its ferocious cannons, the dim lights with an orange glow, and an unparalleled sense of oppression. The dense figures of the Dwarf who flew from the air and fell into it completely covered the crimson sky. Lenny felt as if he had instantly arrived in a lightless underground.
He forgot to breathe. Even after the tilting steel wall closed again and everything around him returned to that non-stop trembling, he still did not exhale the stale air in his lungs. It wasn't until his body could no longer take it and his eyes were dim that he realized this.
Between the two urgent gasps for air, Lenny tried his best to look up at the scene in the city. At this moment, there was no doubt that he no longer had to be as careful as before. All the Dwarf in the entire city had come out. And their enemies were also very obvious.
He only needed to look up to see the huge flowers and leaves flying in the air in the distance, which were the Elf's floral airships and grass airships. Countless green magic arrays flickered around these ships like stars, and what was even more impossible to ignore were the two Dragon flying around the central floral airship.
The pure white dragon scales gleamed brightly. Even from such a long distance, one could feel that sacred beauty, purer and more flawless than the glaciers in the Arctic Ocean. The Dwarf, who took off in a hurry, looked particularly powerless and weak in front of such an army.
"Stop looking, let's go," Lenny stumbled and stood up from the ground, holding Credo and steadying his body before calmly saying.
"It's our turn to play our part."