Page 19

“Roar—”

With a loud roar, the red dragon flapped its wings and swept past Rock Fortress.

The ogre guards on the ground immediately waved their clubs, cheering, while the wyverns stationed on either side of the gate stretched their necks and raised their heads, letting out long cries to welcome the return of their lair’s master.

Upon Cassius’s return to the Giant’s Maw Cave, even the Chimera approached respectfully, not daring to show the slightest neglect.

“Langpu, how have things been these past few days while I was away?”

Standing before him, the ogre mage was now wearing a finely crafted pair of silver-rimmed glasses, which he had clearly stolen from somewhere. The small glasses struggled to sit on his large head, making for an oddly comical sight.

Langpu adjusted his glasses deliberately, unfurling a scroll and flipping through it carefully as he spoke: “The Embers Nest now has 38 ogres, 435 goblins, 26 wargs, 27 bugbears, 121 kobolds, and 15 wyverns.”

He paused in his report before saying, “Three days ago, Hobgoblin Leader Dolo sent out 27 warg riders to the Lost Mine. The losses were heavy; only six riders returned, three of whom were injured. The remaining 21 warg riders are missing.”

“Where is Dolo?”

“He’s still at the goblin camp. The goblin camp and the kobolds’ nest overlapped, so he’s busy tearing down those pups’ nests,” the ogre mage said with a sly gleam in his eye.

“Understood. Continue studying your spells,” the red dragon replied, his tone neutral.

“Lord Dolo, you can’t tear this down! We have eggs to hatch here,” the kobold leader with the golden tooth said, smiling obsequiously as he looked up at the towering hobgoblin.

“Get out of here, you filthy pups. Don’t get in our way,” Dolo waved his hand impatiently.

Gold-Fang hesitated a moment but still blocked the hobgoblin, saying, “Sir, we specifically reported to Overseer Langpu, who approved it. Changing things last minute seems a bit unreasonable, wouldn’t you say?”

In the hobgoblins’ warlike eyes, these weak kobolds were worthless, not even fit for cannon fodder, especially as their intel had indirectly led to the loss of dozens of warg riders, earning Dolo repeated mockery from Langpu.

Thinking about it, the hobgoblin leader grew even angrier, his already red-brown face flushing further as he kicked the kobold away and spat at it.

“Langpu, Langpu, Langpu again. What’s an ogre worth anyway?”

“If it weren’t for him getting recognized by the master, I’d have—”

Just as he was about to kick the kobold again, he realized his shadow was now covered by a massive silhouette, and the kobold looked up with a look of relief.

“You’d have done what, exactly?” The red dragon’s voice was cold.

Dolo’s face immediately underwent a complete transformation, switching to a fawning smile as he turned and said, “Master, you’re back! I apologize for neglecting to greet you at the gate and wasting time here instead.”

Gold-Fang, meanwhile, knelt on the ground, snot and tears streaming down his face as he cried, “Master, please defend us kobolds! Lord Dolo means well, but without a nest, how will we...”

Dolo shot him a vicious glare, then turned back to Cassius with a sycophantic smile: “You misunderstand. I was supervising the construction progress at the goblin camp when this pack of kobolds came and disturbed things, so I—”

Cassius had had enough of the farce and cut in directly: “Enough, Dolo. Make room for the kobolds. Don’t stir up any more trouble.”

Gold-Fang, satisfied, kept pouring out words of praise, his lips moving so fast they nearly left a blur.

“Oh, great master, your mercy and justice are unmatched, your power…”

“Go back and continue working on your nest.”

The red dragon ignored Gold-Fang’s flattery and instead spoke casually to the hobgoblin, “Bring the surviving warg riders. I want to see what exactly caused them to suffer such heavy losses.”

Hearing the mention of the warg riders, Dolo grew a bit uneasy, but seeing the red dragon wasn’t particularly angry, he sighed in relief and went to carry out the order.

With the howls of wolves, several wargs carrying goblins rushed out from the barracks, gathering submissively before the red dragon.

The six goblins before him looked terrified, most of them injured, with one barely held on the back of a warg, covered in charred wounds and wrapped in medicinal herbs, looking like it wouldn’t survive long.

Dolo cracked his whip, commanding harshly, “Tell our mighty master what you experienced.”

“It… it was a terrifying monster,” one of the goblins said.

“It ate everyone,” added another.

“It… it was a shadow.”

Much like the kobolds’ earlier description, they spoke of a creature that devoured everything, its form obscured in the dark mine, appearing as only a vague shadow, but large in size.

“Is there no useful information at all?” the red dragon demanded.

Sensing the red dragon’s frustration, Dolo cracked his whip louder, yelling, “Your cowardly retreat has shamed our master. Now you have a chance to redeem yourselves—can’t you be of any use?”

Although afraid of the whip, the goblins truly knew nothing. They were too dim-witted to even invent a decent lie.

Dolo looked up at the red dragon with a pleading expression, “Master, trust me once more. I’ll make these wastes useful, next time, I swear…”

Just as Cassius was starting to feel disappointed—

The goblin lying on the warg’s back weakly opened his eyes and struggled to speak in broken words, “I… I saw… lightning… it… it could use lightning, blue…”

The goblin’s mind was already half gone.

But evidently, the lightning had left a deep impression on it.

Lightning?

Blue lightning?

Could it be a blue dragon?

But Cassius quickly shook his head. Blue dragons prefer deserts, not the depths of dark mines, and their pride would never allow them to hide in darkness.

Besides, blue dragons are notoriously territorial; they wouldn’t tolerate kobolds or smugglers intruding into their domain.

“It seems I’ll have to go personally and investigate,” thought the red dragon.

Under the current circumstances, sending minions would only deplete his forces further. According to the warg riders’ descriptions, even if he sent wyverns, they’d likely just be offering themselves up as easy prey.

And he wasn’t about to let this gold mine escape his grasp.