Abel was at on top of a valley somewhere near the border between the Duchy of Koror and the Great Dividing Mountain Range. As he stared down to the ground below, he could see a large number of wild beasts and venomous creatures moving by. This was where the deurgars lived, which meant that humans wouldn’t choose to come here at all.
Even hunters wouldn’t watch to catch their games here. Because of this, there was an especially large population of dangerous beasts. For the sake of their survival, the deurgars picked their hideout at a campsite that was easy to guard.
While White Cloud circled around in the sky, Abel took the time to understand the geography of this location. The valley range here was smaller than he thought, with a width of just about 800 meters in width.
When he saw some of the wooden houses below, he realized how old and broken they were. It’s hard to imagine someone using them as shelters to cover against rain and wind. As unusual as it sounded, there weren’t any farms or any kind of crops to be seen. Apart from the deurgars, nothing alive could be seen at all.
Black Wind was scratching its nose this entire time. Abel could smell it, too. The stench was very strong. A part of it must’ve come from the filth that was piled up on the ground. Mostly, however, it must be from the giant pot that was boiling in the middle of the town square.
These deurgars were just like the fallen. They didn’t live in the dark world, but the way they exist was the same as repulsive as those spawns from hell. Actually, the deurgars should be a lot smarter than the fallen. They didn’t seem to care about using their intelligence for hygiene purposes, so it seemed.
In the town square in the middle of the valley, there were a bunch of deurgars forming a circle together. They were watching a bloody duel between two deurgars.
As one of the deurgar’s blade swept across another’s legs, a stream of dark grey blood spilled on the ground. All the spectating deurgars started cheering when they saw this. They were screaming on top of their lungs. It’s almost like the sight of blood was all that they lived for.
As the injured duergar backed down with his injured leg, his head was quickly severed by the blade of his opponent. When the fight was over, the spectators ran in to pick up the dead body. While doing so, they chanted loudly and danced in a very strange fashion.
Abel couldn’t believe what these deurgars did next. After they finished dancing, they picked up the dead duergar and, including his severed head, they threw his remainings into the big boiling pot. They then added more timbers.
It’s one thing to eat another intelligent species, but just how sick did these deurgars had to be to eat their kind? Abel couldn’t fathom at all. Maybe the deurgars were really the minions of the devil. They clearly had no business existing in this world.
Abel looked away for a bit. He saw a cavern in the innermost part of the valley. Judging from how there were two guards standing their post there, it must be the residence of an important figure.
Two guards. They had a full set of dwarven armor on them. They were well equipped, too. Unlike the deurgars in the town square, they seemed a lot more civil, in a way.
While Abel was still observing, a squad of about ten deurgars came out of the cavern. Just like the guards, they had weapons in their hands and were wearing dwarven armors. They were heading towards the town square. When they arrived, they picked two deurgars and carried them back in chains.
Abel was in the sky when he heard the two deurgars screaming for their lives. It was not a pleasant thing to hear. Whatever fate awaited them, it’s probably going to be very dark.
So that’s how it was. The world inside and outside the cavern was completely separate from each other. The inside must be where the armies and the ruling class were. The outside was more like a farmhouse for keeping livestock.
Abel placed a giant arrow on his ballista. He added a net on the tip of the arrow, which he planned to place his super exploding ball. Just when he was in the middle of setting his ballista, he could feel a malicious presence rising out from inside the valley.
The protective gear that White Cloud was wearing could guard against some of this malicious aura. It wasn’t completely immune against it, however, so it had to fly higher to stay away from the evil force’s influence.
Abel was brutally disgusted. As it turned out, the two deurgars were sent to be living sacrifices. The other deurgars were sacrificing them to pray for power and protection from the great being of evil.
So that’s why they looked so ugly. They were literally defiled by the power of evil. The ruling deurgars were using the less significant deurgars to gain more powers for themselves. This way, even when the deurgars were rivals to both to humans and the dwarves, they could still produce a lot of powerful fighters amongst their kind.
When the deurgars felt the presence of malice, they knelt on the ground, and, like a bunch of madmen, they started crying out words that Abel didn’t understand. All of them had a fanatic look on their faces as they were doing this.
The evil presence continued for about another ten minutes. When it disappeared, those deurgars went back to whatever they were doing before. It’s almost like they all forgot what happened just then.
White Cloud came down again. As Abel pointed his ballista towards the cavern, he searched for a six-second delay super exploding ball inside his private storage box. He then placed it in the net on the top of his arrow.
With no hesitation at all, Abel released the arrow from his hands. When it flew straight towards the cavern, the stat on his ring started to look a lot different from it originally was. The attack precision point was now 73, which was much higher than it was in the Holy Continent.
Also, for a moment there, the ballista was shaking for a bit when he was shooting the arrow. Abel knew that he didn’t do anything to make the ballista shake. It must be his blue ring. By making a ballista shake a little, the direction of his shot was slightly adjusted.
Abel had thought that his arrow would go straight inside the cavern, but because of how big the cavern was, he wasn’t sure where exactly it was going to enter. He wasn’t a profession ballista shooter, per se, but he knew enough about archery to shoot the arrow to where he wanted it to be.
After the blue ring helped him adjust his shot, Abel could see the arrow flying straight towards the center of the cavern.
“Invaders!” the guarding duergar screamed as he tried to locate the source of the attack.
Abel whispered to himself, “6, 5, 4…”
White Cloud was flying as high as it could. While it was doing this, Abel kept counting down to himself.
“3, 2, 1.”
When Abel counted to “one,” a massive explosion occurred in the middle of the valley, right inside the center of the cavern. When rocks split from above, they fell down like giant arrows that were flying towards the deurgars.
All the deurgars inside the valley were completely petrified. Every rock that was flying at them was strong enough to kill them. The wooden houses they lived in came down like toys. When the rocks hit them, the only response they could make was to scream painfully to their deaths.
As quick as the explosion was, it was a lot more effective than what Abel had in mind. While the super exploding ball killed most of these deurgars, a lot of surviving ones were knocked down on the ground, screaming in anguish as they didn’t even have the time to beg for mercy.
The cavern was gone. Instead, everything inside became a giant, deep hole. As the entrance of the cavern was blocked by several large boulders, the only way to get in was through a passageway that was wide enough for just one person.
Abel didn’t want to waste another one of his super exploding balls. As powerful as it was, meteorite irons were quite hard to get back. It’s not like he didn’t have a filthy rich dwarf on his side, but he’d rather save as many materials as he could.
Abel equipped himself with Raven’s claw. As he took out a quiver of iron arrows from his portal bag, he started aiming at some of the surviving deurgars. Flaming red arrows kept shooting out of his hands, and the ground he was pointing at started exploding like wild.
All the deurgars that lived outside the cavern were on basic levels. Since White Cloud was in hiding, none of them could find a target to fight back. While some of them were looking for the whereabouts of their enemy, a lot of them decided to run for their lives.
Abel wasn’t sparing any one of these deurgars. Whenever they tried to escape, they would either die from the flying arrows or by the explosion that was ignited by Abel’s flame spell.
Pretty soon, all the deurgars in the valley were dead.