Chapter 528: Parting Ways

"It actually dared to chase us straight like this?"

"Don't get it? It's good that you don't get it, otherwise you could go over to the Greenskins and be a mole. Pass on my order: detonate!"

Hidden trapdoors were excavated into the mountainside, and Belegar Ironhammer and his subordinates peered through telescopes toward the west side of the valley. The Little Beards were all very nervous—Geerya-Edan, who had been tormenting them until they were restless, was also a defeated subordinate of that Black Orc.

"Boom—!"

The pre-planted explosives went off; the most experienced miners knew how to make the direction of the landslide controllable and concentrated. The stirred-up dust and smoke blotted out the sky and sun, and the warriors waited silently for their King to issue further orders.

"WAAAGH!"

"Your Majesty, shall I take the brothers and charge? If..."

"No. Before leaving, the Great Restorer instructed repeatedly to be doubly careful when facing Tiepi. Those who follow it are all elites; I don't believe they are all made of iron!"

A heaven-shaking roar announced that the Warlord was safe and sound. Belegar reached out and grabbed his Gatekeeper; the Dwarfs lacked impact, and holding the high ground could not improve that much.

"Da Orks think I came at the right time, or maybe not!"

Arriving at the mouth of the valley, the Green Prophet heard the explosion and couldn't help but sit on his war boar and scratch his head. If he really caught up, could he stop Tiepi? Perhaps this missed opportunity was Gork and Mork being considerate of his hardships.

"Short-stubs, you harmed my brother, I will fight you to the death!"

Belegar's prediction was correct; even without further slaughter to expand the results, the Greenskins suffered over a thousand casualties, and this was still the result of their forced march with loose formations. Counting the time to clear the road, they were completely unable to catch up to the retreating Chaos Dwarfs.

"Lads! Get over here and move the rocks for me!"

A scratch had been added to Tiepi's face, which added a bit more ferocity to it. The reputation of occupying Black Fortress and unifying the Badlands caused Greenskins emerging from the ground to join its ranks one after another.

"You, you aren't really thinking of crossing Eight Peaks to fight the Black Dwarfs, are you?"

"Thinking? How is that possible? I am the biggest and hardest Greenskin; I say we do it, so we do it!"

"No! Forcing that path will bury all the lads! I don't agree!"

"Tie-E is a brother who started the riot with me, and making him the vanguard was my arrangement! He was harmed and I sat by and did nothing; how can I lead troops in the future?"

The riot Tiepi spoke of was its first battle after raising an army. As slaves, they had no clothes to cover their bodies and no real weapons in their hands. Fighting steel with flesh and blood was an unequal battle, and more than half of the Orcs who fought side-by-side with it returned their souls to the Great Green.

Coupled with the trials of subsequent continuous battles, those old veterans were now fewer than the number of fingers on two hands. They had formed a bond stronger than brothers with Tiepi, each taking "Iron X" as their title, and even if they could go out and become Warlords themselves, they still followed by Tiepi's side.

"If you want to crash and die here, go yourself; don't take the lads I recruited! Fight Eight Peaks first, then you can do whatever you want to the Black Dwarfs later!"

Practical experience told Wurzag that to gain the respect of the bosses, one must have one's own troops. The guidance Gork and Mork gave him was often contradictory—these cunning yet brutal, brutal yet cunning brothers were always in constant internal strife.

"Is that really what you think, hmm?"

"That's right!"

"Then get lost, take your lads! I go where I fight, and I cut whoever I want!"

Tiepi's patience was exhausted; it finally couldn't stand the Green Prophet jumping around in front of it and muttering in its ear. It also loathed the lack of organization and discipline of the Savage Orcs.

"Hmph! I'll see how you do!"

The Green Prophet took a team mainly composed of Savage Orcs and headed west. Long travels had made it fond of the Bottomless Steps—one of the few places in the Badlands that could produce iron ore. Although it lacked smelting and forging means, using it as a blunt weapon was still better than a rock.

"There's such a thing? Losing the Green Prophet is equivalent to losing an arm!"

In Gaoyuanbao, Sinuoli laughed heartily while reading the letter. Back in the Grey Mountains, he was a novice and had bluffed Wurzag once; every time he thought about it afterward, he felt a chill in his heart. The Green Prophet was also a standard Chosen—a peak mortal spellcaster who could still burst out a few Divine Arts.

"It's time to test Belegar's level! He must kite them; he can't let them pass completely, but he can't let them not pass at all. Once their sharpness is worn away, they'll have a hard time!"

Looking at the dense Greenskin markers on the sand table, Sinuoli knew that even after splitting the army, Tiepi still had a massive military force; it was far from the time to line up for a field battle.

"That prisoner can even be used to make a fuss. Compared to just slaughtering him as a sacrifice to Hashut, the fallen brethren should have more heaven-defying and earth-shattering tricks. Hmm, this kind of thing that damages one's image must be left to Drazhoath as a glove."

Stroking his beard, Sinuoli's eerie smile lowered the temperature of the conference room by a few degrees. The lord of the Black Fortress sneezed; perhaps some people didn't rely solely on strength to gain the favor of the Four Gods.

"WAAAGH!"

After a short rest, heaven-shaking war cries rang out again at the northern foot of Eight Peaks. Responding to them were the ammunition poured out by gyrocopters and Dwarf squads that appeared and disappeared like ghosts within the mountain.

Before Tiepi could calm down from its rage, Tie-E, who had been tragically destroyed in mind by Evil Spells and completely reduced to a puppet, appeared on the battlefield with a slave army still loyal to the Chaos Dwarfs.

Coupled with the Council of Thirteen's continued attention to Eight Peaks, a long, multi-racial conflict centered on the two northern peaks and Thunder Mountain, known to later generations as the "Three Peaks Rotational War," thus began.

Not long after, the Dwarfs discovered that Grimgor intended to use the "small-scale, high-intensity" battles to temper the native Greenskins of the Badlands—no one knew if this came from Gork's instructions.

"Your Majesty, a summons from the High King's Court has arrived!"

"A summons? This is a rare item; it's still some years before the Grudge Council is held."

Sinuoli muttered softly while opening the letter. Thorgrim was his father; there were few things that couldn't be communicated privately.

"Determined to conquer Silver Peak; this is a good idea. The so-called Silver Road was originally named for transporting her rich silver ore. After the fall of Gangbadefeng, they fought around her for another twenty years."

The summons was very brief; excluding the formal header and footer, it contained only one sentence. It was not hard to guess that this was stimulated by Agelimu's recovery of Red Eye Mountain; the two of them were once rivals for the High King's throne.

"Nothing to say, assemble the army and return to the Old World! Must go help out! The Cold Fang Tribe can't have many nails; wouldn't it be wonderful to take them to vent some anger."

Rising to his full height, Sinuoli paced excitedly. After Eight Peaks, fight Itza, then pit his wits against the gods of the Old World, and after that, worry about the Greenskins in the Badlands—finally, there was a chance to play a low-end game and find some confidence!

"No, I think if I go, I'll be overstepping my bounds! Invite Gotrek; if he goes, the face will be there. Add a few more elites to make up the substance; empty out half of Eternal Peak. Master has ascended to godhood again, so it's hard to say how much combat power is left."