Raging Flames(2)

Gangdor and Medium Rare exchanged a glance, leaping into the fray without another word to begin a wanton massacre. The four gods of death showed off their might, leaving most of the dwarves dead before the barbarians could even draw close.

Richard was astonished; he had never expected this situation. These dwarven gunmen were only level 5 on average, and without any ammunition in their guns his four followers were far too powerful for them to bear. Outside of Phaser who was stabbing enemies one by one, the rest were harvesting lives in batches.

“Leave a few of them alive!” Richard commanded immediately, both mentally and with a loud yell. Only then did they hold back.

Disregarding the accident with the dwarves, Richard had killed the great mage while most of the cavalry were exterminated as well. The Red Cossack caravan was at the end of the line, and all that was left was a one-sided massacre. Their leader had been level 14, but Gangdor, the trolls, Zendrall, and Waterflower had all ganged up on him in the middle of the battle. Having fought side by side for so long, the entire party had developed good chemistry. After the battle with Sinclair, they also knew to eliminate the opponent’s powerhouses first.

The battle ended very quickly. Most of the remaining guards and merchants chose to surrender, while those who were stubborn ended up dead. Richard’s army was normally full of enthusiasm for such massacres. They suffered few casualties, but many of the enemies had died. Even though Richard called for them to stop almost immediately, less than ten of the dwarven gunmen had survived.

Richard took his horse in a circle through the battlefield, studying the situation before giving out a stream of orders, “Check the carriages, look for prisoners, heal the wounded! Also, bring me all the dwarves!”

The ten dwarven gunmen were pulled before Richard, all with huge bruises on their faces. Dwarves had terrible tempers and were very stubborn; they kept muttering under their breaths even after they were taken captive. Naturally, the desert warriors escorting them were no gentlemen. A few kicks and punches served well enough to calm them down.

“Who are you? Where did you come from? Why was a Red Cossack caravan here?” Richard asked in Faelor common.

All the dwarves began talking at once, but none of them were speaking in common so Richard did not understand a word. He immediately cast a language comprehension spell, listening hard for a long while before he barely understood the language.

These dwarves all came from the Ashen Plateau, one of the largest stretches of the dark world in Faelor. Deep into the Plateau were kingdoms of many non-human races. These fellows came from the largest dwarven tribe, the Anvil of Lightning.

A team of slavers from Red Cossack had run into the Anvil of Lightning, coercing them with alcohol, gold, and other luxury items to sell all their ore. A company of gunmen had also been sent out as mercenaries.

Richard frowned, pondering over what he had just learned. The dwarves were a huge race in Norland as well. Even there they could create and use guns, but theirs were far weaker than what he had just seen. The Anvil’s volleys were more powerful than those of his throwers! The throwers were comparable to level 8 warriors, and ordinary archers could not compare in equal numbers.

Richard’s eyes suddenly twinkled as he ordered a nearby guard to pass him some of the guns.

The barbarian quickly gave him one each of the long and short guns. He eyed them carefully, quickly taking them apart. Moments later, the two guns had been reduced to a pile of parts. His studies at the Deepblue had been comprehensive and profound, dipping into various fields. Mechanics was one such field of study.

Having taken them apart, Richard found that these guns were quite different from those of Norland. They were far more complicated, requiring precise work and exquisite materials. The barrels required cutting, grinding, and other techniques unlike those in Norland, which were just a bunch of crude parts without much processing. The bore was made of an alloy he had never seen before, extremely resistant to high temperature and pressure, allowing it to hold more ammunition.

Richard was surprised as he fiddled with the guns in his hands. These weapons seemed nearly a millennium ahead of Norland’s, in part because Norland’s progress on guns was very slow. The current state of firearms back home was not much different than it was three centuries ago.

The grand mages of the Deepblue thought of dwarven guns as a joke. They were just coarse metal pipes crudely put on top of wooden handles. They were only effective within twenty metres, and even then only against leather and chainmail. A knight in full plate could completely disregard a gun’s might.

As long as they were more than ten metres apart, a gun could not destroy the ranged defence barriers of a mage. However, given how slow gunmen moved, how could one even attempt to get so close to a mage? The mage would bombard them with fireballs before they could even approach, burning them to a crisp. Besides, even if they could get so close just pouncing on them and kicking them might have better effects. As for melee fighters, anyone who could shield themselves with their energy had no need to fear their minuscule power.

All he had learned about guns in the Deepblue was that they were tools the dwarves used to hunt wild animals, not useful against even the more powerful magic beasts. They were a good invention, but their main use was in mining.

However, the guns from the Anvil of Lightning were very different. Richard had personally seen their tremendous power at a fifty-metre distance through the eyes of the elite bats. They already had the power to threaten weaker mages, being tenfold or perhaps even more powerful than those of Norland.

According to Richard’s estimations, these guns had the offensive power of heavy infantry against even heavy cavalry with full-body armour as long as it was within twenty metres. These weapons were extremely powerful; even though they couldn’t pierce armour, the mounts would still be lost. Even worse was the effect of the explosive sounds and the smoke. Normal horses would grow unsettled by both, growing hard to control. A cavalry assault against a concentrated formation of these gunmen was basically suicide.

Richard’s throwers could threaten any heavy cavalry that was level 10 or below within fifty metres. However, while they held much higher power than the dwarves they could attack no more than ten times at most. The gunmen, on the other hand, could shoot continuously as long as they had enough loaded guns.

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