Chapter 94: Thousand-mile Raid

Mist rose and churned in the air; water droplets fell from the clouds and mist, landing in the scorched, blackened fields.

Crowds of stone dwarves wielded crude tools, carefully turning over the dried, hardened fields that had been burned, and bit by bit re‑crushing the sintered soil.

They turned over the thick soil, burying the scorched hard surface layer deep in the field, then re‑formed neat ridges of soil in the field.

One by one, the carcasses of the Flaming Gold‑eating Ants had their shells stripped; all flesh was pulverized, mixed with various plant ashes, and then buried deep in the fields.

They destroyed half of the crops outside Dashicheng; their flesh would serve as fertilizer, nourishing this wounded tract of land.

A dozen or so Dashicheng archmages stood in a line, slowly walking through the fields. They summoned mist, brought down water droplets, and together with the stone dwarves carefully repaired the burned farmland.

"What a sin!" a gray dwarf in leather armor, axe in hand, crouched beside the earth, grabbed a clump of hardened, burned soil and slammed it against his head, weeping from heartache.

What a sin, those Yan family scoundrels.

In this cruel world, in this damned age, any tiny plot of land is incredibly precious.

A field a few meters square can grow enough mushrooms to feed one stone dwarf or two or three rat‑folk; a field forty or fifty meters square can sustain an ox‑tribe warrior with a huge appetite but also immense strength.

Like the Wu Family Shibao where Wu Tie once lived, its few small plots produce only a limited amount of mushrooms, enough for a limited number of stone dwarves; any excess newborn stone dwarves will go hungry and starve.

That is why the young Wu Tie secretly shared his own food with those little ones, allowing them to survive.

Even when Wu Tie first gained understanding, he knew how precious the land was, how precious food was.

Every plot of land is not just soil; it is a line of lives that struggle to survive by relying on its yield.

The Yan family, in order to strike Dashicheng, actually deployed Flaming Gold‑eating Ants, directly burning half of the farmland outside the city.

Insane… truly insane…

Wu Tie stood in the distance, watching that gray dwarf secretly shedding tears.

He still remembered that bearded dwarf; on the day the Yan family launched their surprise assault, the Flaming Gold‑eating Ants charged the walls, and this stout dwarf, wielding two great axes, held the front line with fearless courage.

His body was scorched to a ruin, but until Wu Tie drove back the ant swarm with an Ice Wind Dragon Twister, not a single Flaming Gold‑eating Ant could breach the short stretch of wall he defended.

He was a man who feared no death.

Yet he alone crouched beside the field, clutching a lump of hardened, burned earth, his mouth twisted as he silently shed tears.

Not only him…

Many Dashicheng warriors stood far apart, either squatting or standing in the fields.

They were all secretly weeping, but they avoided their comrades so no one would see them crying.

From afar came the soft, quiet sobbing of stone dwarves.

A large band of dwarves gathered near the ruined huts.

Those huts had been built for convenience in tending the crops, and many stone dwarves normally lived in them.

When the Flaming Gold‑eating Ant swarm attacked, at least ten thousand stone dwarves failed to escape; the fire rolled over them, turning them into charcoal.

Stone dwarves are naturally small in stature.

Burned by the fire, some were reduced outright to ash, while the luckier ones left behind clumps of charcoal the size of fists.

The stone dwarves tidying the fields wept softly, digging deep pits in the soil and burying every trace of those hut settlements inside.

These stone‑dwarf slaves of Dashicheng intermarried, forming a great dwarf tribe; many of those burned to death were their kin, friends, brothers…

Even as slaves, they had the right to sorrow and tears…

In this regard, whether they were Dashicheng's elite warriors or lowly slaves, their rights were equal.

Wu Tie wore a leather armor made of python skin almost like a jiao dragon, a wind‑cloud banner hung from his belt, and he was wrapped in a large cloak, standing silently at the field's edge, watching these grieving warriors and slaves.

Lao Bai led six hundred hand‑picked rat‑folk warriors; Hei Pi and One‑eye led a hundred wolf‑tribe fighters and a hundred lizard‑folk archers; Tie 88 led fifty ox‑tribe braves; plus the two chief lieutenants of Shi Meng, each commanding two hundred of Dashicheng's elite.

Besides these, farther off stood five stone giants each over ten meters tall.

Their bodies were clad in full metal heavy armor, they wielded specially made large weapons, each armed to the teeth, standing like five iron towers; beside them were ten iron dwarves and fifty gray dwarves.

These square‑built dwarves also wore heavy armor and bore various weapons.

The great force stood far away on a tunnel leading to a distant mine pit, silently watching this side in silence.

Lao Bai muttered to himself: "What a sin… so much food, so much food… how many livestock could it raise, how much meat could be butchered…"

The faces of the giants and dwarves alike were also grim.

"So much grain… so much wine…" a giant rumbled in a deep, hollow voice: "Yan family… hum."

Wu Tie turned and strode purposefully toward the direction of the distant mine pit.

Without having experienced it, you can never imagine what it means in this age for so much farmland and grain to be burned.

Perhaps many elders would end their own lives.

Or many children would be abandoned by their parents.

In short, these are lives being strangled by lack of food.

The air was thick with a heavy sorrow; what could be the root of all this? It's utterly ridiculous… simply because a few elders of the Shi and Yan families had defected to the Changsheng Sect.

Wu Tie could not judge whether Shi Fei and Shi Meng's actions were right or wrong, but he believed that colluding with those elders of the Changsheng Sect was wrong.

If they did wrong, they would have to be punished.

The matter is that simple.

Led by Wu Tie, the force Shi Meng had cobbled together for a raid on the Yan family's vital point marched mightily along the mine tunnel, soon reaching the most remote mining area of Dashicheng.

Here they produced ordinary iron ore, of little value, and a small vein had nearly been exhausted, so few people normally came here.

Only the Shi family's high echelons knew that deep in this mining area lay a secret passage leading into Yan family territory.

Near Dashicheng, there are actually three such secret passages.

The Shi family is the largest ore supplier in the Cangyan Realm; its mining crews love to dig everywhere, and over the years they have dug countless similar secret passages leading to various places.

Of the three passages, one has already been used by the Yan family to raid Dashicheng, clearly its secret had been leaked by some Shi family elders to the Yan family.

However, Shi Meng did not believe the Shi family elders would be foolish enough to leak all their secrets to the Yan family.

So Wu Tie and his companions entered this most remote mine pit, shuffling up and down the tangled, web‑like mine tunnel for several hours, and finally arrived at its deepest point.

A stone giant strode up to a rock face, placed both hands on the wall, his whole body flickering with a pale yellow light, and chanted a very strange incantation in a deep, resonant voice.

Yellow light surged on the rock face; the next moment, a slab of rock several dozen meters in diameter slid silently to one side, revealing a huge opening. A bitterly cold wind howled out of the opening, blowing out more than half of the torches in the party.

Old White let out a sharp cry.

A band of rat‑people warriors scrambled about in disarray, their timid nature fully exposed here.

Wu Tie gave a heavy grunt, rubbing his hands together repeatedly as white fireballs the size of water jars rose up with a roar, hovering above his head and illuminating a radius of several hundred meters.

"Just the wind, just the wind…" Wu Tie bellowed at Old White, whose fur was standing on end.

"Ha, just the wind… I know, it's just a gust, nothing serious…" Old White gave a dry laugh and hastily stowed his left‑hand heavy crossbow, right‑hand short sword, mouth‑blown dart tube, and the poison‑coated steel spike wrapped around his tail.

Wu Tie looked at Old White, speechless.

Black Skin, One‑Eyed Child, and Iron Eighty‑Eight, a few old acquaintances, burst out laughing; Old White gave a dry laugh, produced a whip from somewhere, and began to give his sons, grandsons, and great‑grandsons a few light‑hearted lashes.

After finally getting the scattering rat‑people warriors into formation, Wu Tie and several stone giants led the way, elite troops followed close behind, and the rat‑people warriors, in small groups, darted here and there passing messages as the whole force entered the opening.

At the rear of the column, a stone giant waited until everyone had entered the secret passage, then stamped his foot heavily; a slab of rock several dozen meters wide and nearly a hundred meters thick slid silently back into place, sealing the entrance tightly.

"What a spacious passageway." As they walked through the tunnel, Wu Tie and the others looked around and couldn't help but marvel.

Even at its narrowest point the passage is thirty‑to‑fifty meters high and dozens of meters wide, spacious and deep with a level floor, making walking effortless.

Not only did Wu Tie and his company move with ease, but even the four‑wheeled wagons hauled by the gray‑rock lizards in the party ran very smoothly.

It is obvious that after the Shi Family excavated this passage they must have expended great amounts of labor, material, and time to specially widen and smooth it; otherwise such an effect would be impossible.

"You… did you just happen to discover this passage… Are you always ready to go to war with the Yan Family? If not, why have you kept this passage in such good shape?" Walking at the front of the column, Wu Tie curiously asked the stone giant who was strolling along with a leisurely, small‑step gait.

Several stone giants blinked their eyes, thought seriously for a moment, and then one stone giant said in a deep, resonant voice: "This is a kind of… devotion…"

"These caves and passageways are the world's veins and meridians…"

"Clearing them can bring good fortune to us giants and dwarves…"

The stone giant looked earnestly at Wu Tie: "This is the innate mission of our giants and dwarves… to make the whole world interconnected, to keep the world's veins and meridians flowing smoothly—this is our mission…"

"Only giants and dwarves who fulfill this mission can, after death, have their spirits merge with the stone ancestors…"

Wu Tie stared at these big fellows in astonishment.

Is this a religious faith?

"Religious faith"—Wu Tie could barely find that term in the knowledge passed down by Old Tie.

For giants and dwarves, this is their faith; they are clearing the world's veins and meridians…

All right, that is their understanding.

But Wu Tie always felt that the Shi Family people certainly weren't clearing this passage for that purpose.

He also felt that the existence of these passageways had a somewhat sneaky, furtive motive.

Someone like Shixi, an elder of the Shi Family, is no good person, so the intention behind building these passageways is… questionable, to say the least.

He lightly tapped the giant's shin beside him and asked Wu Tie: "This passage…"

The stone giant raised two fingers in a deep, resonant voice: "Two thousand three hundred li long… it will probably take about half a month to get there… if these little mice can persevere."

The stone giant lowered his head to look at the scrambling rat‑people warriors, curled his lip in disdain, and shook his head.

Old White jumped up as if his tail had been stepped on, darted from the shadow to Wu Tie's side, and shouted at the stone giant while shaking his fist: "Big guy, don't think you lot are the only tough ones… none of Old White's sons and grandsons are weaklings!"

The stone giants broke into grinning, simple‑minded laughter.

"Strength? You lot can't…" The five stone giants simultaneously bent their arms; their bulging muscles strained the steel vambraces, making a creaking sound as they blatantly flaunted their developed muscles and fearsome strength.

Old White's face drooped, and he weakly shook his head.

Comparing strength with the giants?

Ha, is he that stupid?

The Shi Family managed this passage well, planting a great many luminous plants inside it.

Clusters of glowing mushrooms, strands of glowing vines, individual glowing ferns, and in many places even large chunks of luminous ore were set into the walls.

Thus the lighting in the passageway is quite good; no torches or Wu Tie's fireballs are needed, and everyone can walk through the tunnel easily and freely.

The Shi Family even kept many small creatures in the passage.

Lizards, mice, non‑venomous snakes, non‑venomous spiders and bats, and so on.

Under natural regulation, this passageway over two thousand li long has already developed into a small, self‑sufficient ecosystem.

The rat‑people hunted these little creatures everywhere, eating to their heart's content and greatly saving the provisions the party carried.

What further shocked Wu Tie was that, every two to three hundred li along the passage, the Shi Family had established small outposts garrisoned at all times to monitor any movement within the tunnel.

Along the way, Wu Tie and his company also took on the task of replenishing these outposts with various fresh provisions…

Thus, after half a month, they arrived at the end of the passage.