Chapter 20: Luo Si

The Kanchi Tribe has a rigid hierarchy; every goblin knows its place, who is above it, and who is below it.

Above all goblins are two.

Brokenfang Groluk, the goblin chieftain who commands the Giant-Armed Miners, and Pustule Groz, the shaman of the Kanchi Tribe and also an alchemist, wielding alchemical spells considered lofty and miraculous by other goblins.

At this moment.

Brokenfang Groluk was on the tribe’s open ground, skewering a goblin who had challenged his authority, hoisting its body on a wooden frame, lighting a bonfire, and roasting it alive while ordering other goblins to feast on it.

This goblin chieftain was very old.

Nearly thirty years old.

Goblins live about fifty years, but thirty is already advanced age.

Survival in the wild is harsh, and the Kanchi Tribe has limited resources; very few goblins live past thirty, often dying in their teens.

Generally speaking.

Goblins of Groluk’s age are usually overthrown by younger ones.

But through his cruel killings and decades of hardened experience, he still firmly controls every aspect of the Kanchi Tribe, seated atop its highest throne.

Only he can command the Giant-Armed Miners.

The tribe had spent a great cost—starving many of its own—to gather enough coin from passing caravans to purchase them.

The Giant-Armed Miners are humanoid alchemical golems.

Eight meters tall at the shoulder, their bodies are stitched with exposed steel plates, crude and primal in design; their massive arms are thick and long, their shovel-like hands reaching nearly to the ground, capable of shattering marble with a single tap.

From its name alone, it was designed for mining, but its size and weight make it equally deadly in slaughter and battle.

Inside the cockpit mounted on the Giant-Armed Miner’s chest.

Brokenfang Groluk felt himself grow towering, looking down upon the tiny goblins below, a sublime sensation of supremacy, of absolute power over their lives, rising within him.

Especially after recently scaring off a young dragon.

This inflated Groluk’s vanity to its peak—he now believed dragons were nothing special, and if he had better alchemical golems, he would dare hunt young dragons, even adult dragons.

“Pity that young dragon got away.”

“If I could catch it, I could buy a better alchemical golem.”

“I wonder if the wolf cavalry has tracked it down yet.”

Brokenfang Groluk thought.

Suddenly, he glimpsed a dark shadow streak across the sky, gone in an instant.

“What was that?”

Groluk’s heart leapt, but he quickly calmed— the shadow must have been an illusion, vanished now, the sky as calm as ever.

Meanwhile.

Inside the alchemy workshop, an extremely ugly goblin was flipping through something.

Its gray-green skin was cracked with fissures, oozing yellow-green pus, emitting a pungent stench of rotting meat and sulfur; its back bulged with dozens of fist-sized tumors, translucent like boils, each filled with differently colored pus.

Pustule Groz, shaman of the Kanchi Tribe.

He was fully absorbed, turning the pages of a thin little booklet.

The cover bore a few characters.

【Elementary Alchemy Manual】

Groz had found this alchemy manual, but due to his limited literacy and lack of instruction, he could barely understand the diagrams; over the years, through trial and error, he had developed countless sores—but also, by accident, learned a few basic alchemical runes.

Each time he opened the manual, Groz felt something new.

Unlike his ignorant tribe members, content with their dull, mindless lives, he loved knowledge, loved study, loved communicating with other intelligent beings.

He believed he might be a genius.

Had he been born elsewhere, not in this backwater like the Kanchi Tribe, he would have had a brilliant future.

Through rare exchanges, he knew of a civilization beyond the wilds called the Lothien Federation, home to a goblin kingdom where goblins were wise and civilized—not crude and foolish like those of the Kanchi Tribe, which he despised; it was the place he longed for.

After flipping through the manual a while longer.

Groz slowly set it down, carefully storing it in a black wooden box to prevent damage.

Only then did he notice his communication stone glowing faintly at his waist.

He picked it up, pressed it to his ear.

His face instantly changed—his expression twisted so violently that many of his sores burst open.

“Dragon! A powerful black-and-red young dragon!”

“It’s slaughtering us!”

He had just heard desperate screams, pleas for mercy, and the roar of dragon wings slicing through the air.

Beyond the sound, the message also gave a vague direction.

“Black-and-red young dragon?”

Groz paced the room, realizing the gravity—the wolf cavalry had likely been wiped out entirely.

“Should I tell Groluk? Attack under cover of night?”

Groz first thought this.

But he quickly dismissed it.

A young dragon capable of annihilating the wolf cavalry, leaving no survivors, was no ordinary beast; even with the Kanchi Tribe’s goblins and one Giant-Armed Miner, a surprise attack would not kill it.

“I must not tell Groluk—he’s bloated with pride and stupid, no longer aware of his own place.”

“What if I sell the information to the caravan?”

Groz considered.

He had contact with the caravan that had sold him the Giant-Armed Miner.

Perhaps he could sell the dragon’s location for some profit.

But this was a dragon.

A dragon meant wealth, meant hope of escaping the wilds.

Groz pondered long and hard, and finally decided: first send out skilled scout goblins to investigate; if there was even a sliver of chance, he would spare no cost to hunt the young dragon; if all else failed, then notify the caravan and sell the information.

But just as Groz made this decision.

Outside, a sudden clamor of terrified shouts erupted.

Then—

CRASH! With a deafening boom, the ground shook violently, as if a meteor had struck; cracks spiderwebbed outward from under Groz’s feet.

He lost his balance, stumbled backward, and fell.

“What happened?”

Groz panicked, scrambled to his feet, and ran out of the alchemy workshop.

The moment he pushed open the door, his vision was filled with dust and fire; through the haze, a black-and-red streak flashed past—Groz’s pupils finally caught the source of disaster.

It was a dragon, its body armored in black steel-like scales, threaded with dark red, lava-like veins.

It was slowly rising, its thick limbs crushing the ground into ring-shaped craters, where crushed bodies had been reduced to pulp.

A pair of enormous wings, covered in feather-like scales with razor-sharp edges, unfurled.

A single sweep severed several goblins who had not time to flee, splitting them cleanly in two; their leather armor was as fragile as paper.

It was Luo Si.

He had come.

Originally, Luo Si thought a goblin tribe that couldn’t even capture Samantha posed no threat to him—he could ignore it. But then he reconsidered: perhaps he had been arrogant, and should not underestimate them.

Arrogance is the greatest killer of dragons—without exception.

Luo Si reasoned: goblins are intelligent beings, not mindless beasts; if their tribe possessed an alchemical golem, they had likely interacted with the outside world, possibly even communication channels with other intelligent races.

Thinking this.

Luo Si, who treasured his life above all, grew afraid—he did not want to abandon Iron Cedar Hills, yet feared unexpected attacks.

This fear.

Made Luo Si decide to eliminate the source of his fear entirely, to find peace of mind.

(End of Chapter)