Chapter 37: Fire Dwarves Join
While Valerion lay in the nest recovering in peace, Livia was not idle.
Kobolds were skilled at mining—digging holes, moving stones, and crushing ore were all done efficiently—but when it came to forging and smelting, these little guys were completely clueless. Piles of ore like small mountains sat at the mine entrance, with no shortage of copper, iron, tin, and gold, yet they could only sit there drying in the sun, unable to be turned into sharp weapons, sturdy armor, or handy tools.
For the territory to grow stronger, miners alone weren't enough; there had to be blacksmiths.
That night, Livia lay quietly by the Lava Lake and opened the system map to conduct a comprehensive scan of the volcano's surroundings. A pale blue light screen unfolded before her eyes, with dense spots of light flickering deep within the mountain range.
Suddenly, a special light spot jumped out from the extreme depths of the underground.
[Fire Dwarf Tribe]
[Quantity: 23 (18 adults, 5 younglings)]
[Racial Traits: Skilled in forging, smelting, and engineering; stubborn personality, difficult to tame; immune to fire, skilled in underground combat]
[Location Coordinates: Downstream of the lava river deep within the volcano, approximately 20 kilometers away]
[Current Status: Under Siege]
Livia stared at the words "Under Siege" quietly for three seconds.
The next second, she stood up, flicked her tail, and walked straight toward the passage leading underground from the depths of the nest.
As soon as she moved, the three little dragon cubs raised their heads almost simultaneously.
Kalendil was the first to jump up, his eyes sparkling: "Mother! Where are you going?"
"Underground," Livia replied without looking back.
"What for?"
"To recruit troops."
Kalendil instantly became excited, puffing out his little chest: "Can I come along? I can help by breathing fire! I promise to be good!"
"No."
"Why?" Kalendil instantly deflated.
"Too deep, too hot, you won't be able to handle it," Livia said calmly.
Kalendil retreated with a sigh, looking disappointed.
Valerion slowly raised his chubby head, his "iron spine" cloak covering him tightly, and asked softly, "Mother, can I go? I can help carry things..."
Livia glanced at him; this little dragon could still barely stand steadily.
"No, focus on recovering."
Valerion gave an obedient "oh" and continued to lie there quietly.
Aetheriel also raised his head, sparks flickering in his left eye. Before he could finish speaking, Livia interrupted him:
"You can't either."
Aetheriel froze in place, blinking his eyes aggrievedly: "Why? I haven't even said I wanted to go yet..."
Livia was silent for a second before saying bluntly, "Because you discharge electricity randomly."
Aetheriel quickly looked down at his small claws, which were emitting tiny, thin electric arcs. They were quiet and looked very well-behaved. He immediately looked up to promise: "I can stop! I'll hold it in! I definitely won't shock anything!"
Just as he finished speaking—
"Snap!"
An electric arc shot out without warning, accurately hitting the tip of his own tail.
"Awoo—!"
Aetheriel jumped in place from the pain, his fur standing on end.
Livia ignored him and turned to walk into the dark, deep underground passage. Her huge wings folded gently against the narrow rock walls, and her figure soon disappeared into the darkness.
The underground passage was even deeper and hotter than imagined.
Livia followed the rushing lava river all the way down. The surrounding temperature grew higher and higher. The rock walls changed from ordinary black to dark red, then bright crimson, then orange-yellow, and finally became translucent like glass—marks left only after being repeatedly melted by thousands of years of high heat.
After walking for about two hours, the sounds of intense fighting, roars, and short shouts from dwarves faintly drifted from ahead.
She quickened her pace, turned a huge corner, and the view suddenly opened up.
An incredibly vast underground cave appeared before her, at least three hundred meters in diameter and nearly fifty meters high. In the center of the cave, a twenty-meter-wide lava river flowed turbulently, the magma churning and bubbling. A wave of heat hit her face, illuminating the entire cave in a bright red glow.
On a raised plateau beside the lava river, twenty-three Fire Dwarves were tightly besieged.
Fire Dwarves were indeed short; even the tallest adult warrior in the tribe barely reached Livia's knee. Their skin was a dark red like fired pottery, their hair and long beards were a bright orange like flickering flames, and their eyes were golden, standing out exceptionally in the darkness.
Surrounding them were five Frost Giants.
Each Frost Giant was ten meters tall, with bone-chilling ice-blue skin and snow-white, cold hair and beards. They emitted a frigid aura, and wherever they passed, even the scorching rocks cracked from the cold, making them completely out of place in this lava cave.
The Fire Dwarves were forced to the edge of the plateau with nowhere to retreat. Five younglings huddled tremblingly at the very back, while the adult Fire Dwarves held iron hammers and fire axes, shielding them firmly. But anyone could see they wouldn't last long.
Livia crouched at the mouth of the passage, watching quietly for a second.
Then, she walked out step by step.
The five Frost Giants, who were about to launch a fierce attack, all jerked their heads around simultaneously.
When they saw Livia's massive Red Dragon silhouette, they were all stunned.
The leading Frost Giant narrowed his ice-blue eyes, his tone wary: "A dragon?"
Livia didn't speak and continued walking forward.
The Frost Giant's expression changed, and he cried out in shock, "It's a Red Dragon! How can there be a Red Dragon deep underground?"
Livia still didn't say a word.
She walked to the edge of the lava river, stopped, tilted her head slightly, and looked calmly at the five ten-meter-tall Frost Giants.
"These dwarves," she finally spoke, her voice not loud but echoing clearly throughout the cave, "are mine."
The Frost Giants were momentarily stunned, then, as if they had heard the funniest joke in the world, they burst into wild laughter, their voices shaking debris off the rock walls.
"You want them? On what grounds? Just because you're a single Red Dragon?"
Livia did not answer.
She simply took a deep breath.
The Dragon Core deep in her chest roared to life, her body temperature skyrocketing. Between the gaps of her molten-gold scales, a blinding white-gold light shone through. The rocks beneath her feet began to melt slightly, and even the nearby lava river boiled more violently.
The next moment, she opened her mouth.
A terrifying pillar of fire erupted forth.
It wasn't ordinary Red Dragon fire, but a white-gold Dragon Breath of extreme temperature, so bright it was hard to keep one's eyes open. The pillar of fire, three meters in diameter, swept across the entire cave and slammed directly into the Frost Giant who had been laughing the most arrogantly.
The wild laugh on the Frost Giant's face instantly froze.
And then—
He simply vanished.
He didn't fall, he didn't die; he was completely evaporated.
Not a trace of ash or a single shard of ice remained.
The remaining four Frost Giants were frozen for a full second before they realized what had happened.
"Run!!"
Without even the courage to resist, they turned and fled, scrambling frantically into nearby small passages, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Livia casually breathed out another burst of Dragon Breath, landing behind the last Frost Giant's buttocks, instantly evaporating it as well.
She closed her mouth and watched the three pathetic retreating figures, making no move to pursue them.
Then, she slowly turned around and looked at the Fire Dwarves on the plateau.
The twenty-three Fire Dwarves remained in their original positions, motionless, all completely stunned.
The Fire Dwarf Chieftain held his large iron hammer, his mouth wide enough to fit a fist-sized ore, his eyes bulging so much that his golden pupils nearly popped out. The adult Fire Dwarves behind him were the same, like statues frozen in time, even forgetting to breathe.
Only the few dwarf younglings were still moving, poking their little heads out from between the adults' legs, staring curiously at Livia, the large, shining dragon. They weren't afraid at all; instead, they thought she looked quite beautiful.
The entire cave was so quiet that only the sound of the churning lava river remained.
The silence lasted for three seconds.
"Thud!"
The Fire Dwarf Chieftain slammed his knees to the ground, thumping his chest with his hands, and shouted at the top of his lungs with excitement:
"Dragon Queen!! You have saved our entire tribe! From this day forward, we Fire Dwarves are at your service twenty-four hours a day and submit to you completely! If you tell us to forge, we forge; if you tell us to make weapons, we make weapons!"
The twenty-two Fire Dwarves behind him all knelt in unison, their beards trembling with excitement: "We submit to the Dragon Queen!!"
Livia looked down at these small beings, seeing the undisguised admiration and awe in their eyes, and asked bluntly, "You can forge?"
The chieftain nodded like a woodpecker: "Yes! We are the best! In the entire underground, if we claim to be second, no one dares claim to be first! Furnaces, forging, engraving, armor casting—we are masters of it all!"
"Can you make weapons?"
"Yes! They can cut through iron like butter!"
"Can you make tools?"
"Yes! Durable and sturdy!"
Livia nodded, satisfied. "Alright then, pack your things and follow me."
The chieftain was stunned for a moment. "Go? Where to, Dragon Queen? We are used to living underground..."
"To the surface, to my Volcanic Territory," Livia said calmly.
The Fire Dwarves looked at each other, somewhat hesitant. The temperature on the surface was low, and there was no lava river; it was too "cold" for them.
Livia was silent for a second, then pointed her claw at the rushing lava river beneath her feet. "This river leads directly to my volcano twenty kilometers upstream. Inside the volcano is a massive Lava Lake, larger, hotter, and warmer than this place."
The Fire Dwarf Chieftain's eyes lit up instantly, brighter than the lava.
"Really?!"
"Really."
The chieftain immediately turned his head and spoke quickly to his clansmen in the Dwarven language. All the Fire Dwarves' eyes lit up, and they nodded in unison, so excited they were almost jumping.
He turned back and kowtowed heavily to Livia with a "thud." "Dragon Queen! We will go with you! We would follow you through fire and water!"
On the way back, the twenty-three Fire Dwarves followed behind Livia, chattering incessantly like a flock of excited little sparrows.
"Dragon Queen, that breath of fire just now was way too powerful!"
"The Frost Giant just vanished! Not even a scrap left!"
"You are the most powerful dragon we've ever seen! Bar none!"
Livia walked forward silently, not listening to a word.
After walking for about half an hour, the Fire Dwarf Chieftain suddenly ran up and respectfully presented a rolled-up item to Livia with both hands: "Dragon Queen, this is a small token of our tribe's appreciation, an ancestral treasure, dedicated to you!"
Livia looked down.
It was a neatly rolled parchment blueprint, its edges worn, clearly quite old.
"Forging blueprints?" she asked.
"Yes!" The chieftain's eyes sparkled as he excitedly unfurled the top sheet, pointing at the complex patterns on it. "These are lost techniques passed down from our ancestors! Look at this one!"
Livia glanced at it.
The blueprint depicted a massive Catapult with a wheeled base and a complex mechanism for the throwing arm. Next to it were drawings of many round, jar-like objects.
"Is this a Catapult?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Yes!" The chieftain's voice trembled with excitement. "Its range is a full five hundred meters! It can even be loaded with Dragon Breath Fuel Canisters—that is, sealing your Dragon Breath into special ceramic jars and launching them with the Catapult. They explode upon impact, turning everything into a sea of fire!"
Livia stared at the blueprint quietly for a long time.
Dragon Breath Fuel Canisters.
Explode upon impact.
An image involuntarily flashed through her mind: countless jars whistling through the sky, crashing into enemy ranks, and exploding into a white-gold sea of fire that even melted the earth.
The power was indeed terrifying.
She was silent for two seconds, then glanced back at the chattering, excited Fire Dwarves behind her.
Then she looked back at the blueprint.
Finally, she rolled up the blueprint expressionlessly and put it away.
Forget it.
Better to let the Kobolds continue digging tunnels in peace for now.