Chapter 187: Despair Valley, the Most Unbelievable Miracle
Author: Amnesty L
"Stay alert, something's coming!"
Suddenly, a figure at the very front lay down, pressed his ear to the ground, and spoke.
At these words, the other four immediately stopped resting. They quickly stood up, surrounded the cart, drew their weapons, and vigilantly scanned their surroundings.
Before long, the sound of running faintly came from their left front, and a figure riding a strange creature appeared in their line of sight.
At first, the five figures were still on guard, but once they got a clear look at the figure on the strange creature, they all heaved a sigh of relief, expressions of surprise and delight appearing on their faces.
Tang Zheng, riding an Evil Spirit Hound, quickly approached the five and soon got a clear look at their appearances.
Short stature, thick beards.
Aren't these dwarves?
It was just that the skin of these five dwarves was an iron-gray color, different from the skin tone of the dwarves from the Angelicisia Mountain Range.
But there was no mistaking the race!
Seeing that they were dwarves, a smile appeared on Tang Zheng's face. Dwarves were generally a rather friendly race, so it seemed a good conversation was possible.
"Everyone."
Tang Zheng arrived before the five dwarves, pulled on the bone chain on the Evil Spirit Hound to halt its steps, and maintained a slight distance to show he had no ill intent. He then began to speak:
"I am a tra—"
"It's a human!"
"He must be a guy who escaped from the battlefield."
"How lucky! We actually ran into him. Grab him!"
"This'll fetch a big jar of wine!"
The five dwarves let out excited roars, cutting off Tang Zheng's half-spoken sentence. Their faces were all filled with greed and ferocity.
They all raised their weapons and charged forward in unison.
Seeing this, Tang Zheng, who had been trying his best to maintain a smile, couldn't help but let his expression falter.
"So there are humans in this area too? It just sounds like their situation is quite poor."
Tang Zheng watched the five charging dwarves, his gaze turning cold. In an instant, his figure vanished from the Evil Spirit Hound.
Becoming a blur, he appeared before the five charging dwarves!
Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat!
None of the dwarves saw how Tang Zheng attacked before their heads exploded into a mist of blood.
Only the dwarf charging at the very back was left trembling in place, unharmed, staring in horror at the bloody scene before him.
"How could this be…"
The dwarf looked in terror at his four companions who had died in an instant, his legs growing so weak with fear that he took a step back.
Was this the kind of human he remembered? He seemed to have only heard that there was a relatively strong one among the humans, but he should be dead by now.
「Gained Experience: 108」
「Gained Experience: 121」
「Gained Experience: 107」
「Gained Experience: 115」
Tang Zheng flicked the blood from his hand, an expression of disgust on his face as he glanced at the four dwarves he had casually punched into meat paste. "I clearly held back, yet it still created such a scene."
"You're all truly weak, Level five or six? Well, whatever. As long as one is left alive, it's enough."
They all looked so muscular; I thought their strength would be higher.
Thud!
The dwarf's mouth fell open and he collapsed to the ground, not understanding a word Tang Zheng had said.
However, he didn't need to understand.
Tang Zheng walked up to the dwarf, grabbed him by the hair, and yanked him up from the ground. A glint of magic flashed in his eyes.
"Charm Species."
The dwarf's entire body stiffened, and his terrified gaze immediately became vacant.
"What is this place?"
"Despair Valley."
Tang Zheng paused. He naturally had no idea what "Despair Valley" was, but just from the name, he knew it wasn't a good place.
After briefly gathering his thoughts, he continued.
"Which race rules here, and what is the kingdom called?"
"None. No race rules here."
"Despair Valley is all desert, and its depths are a dead land of active volcanoes. It is the most remote place in this world."
"Then what's the nearest country? And which race rules it?"
"I don't know," the dwarf said blankly. "Fifty years ago, our Gray Dwarf Kingdom went to war with the Troll Kingdom. Our country was defeated, so we fled here to survive."
"We Gray Dwarves haven't left this place in over fifty years. We don't know anything about the outside world."
After listening, Tang Zheng became thoughtful, then continued his questioning:
"What is this battlefield you mentioned earlier?"
"The weak humans occupy an oasis here, but the strong one among them has died of old age. We're going to seize the humans' oasis."
"As long as we can capture the oasis, the great Gray Dwarves will be able to produce a larger population, form a great army, leave this Despair Valley, and reclaim the honor that belongs to us."
Next, Tang Zheng asked a few more detailed questions. A moment later, he reached out and forcefully snapped the Gray Dwarf's neck.
"Evil Spirit Hound, let's go!" Tang Zheng's expression was grave.
The situation of the humans in this region could no longer be described as merely 'poor'; they were on the verge of being wiped out.
In this vast desert area, any place with a water source could be called an "oasis."
Twenty years ago, among the humans surviving in Despair Valley, a powerful individual who could be called a "hero" was born. He then occupied one of the three major oases in this area.
The human population, which had originally been hiding and barely surviving, was finally able to settle down here.
However, this "hero" had died of old age!
A human's lifespan, after all, could not compare to that of other races.
Weak, short-lived—aside from a decent reproductive ability, in the eyes of other races, they were indeed an inferior race, fit only to be slaves or even food.
And for a "hero-rank" warrior to be born from such an inferior race was in itself one of the most unbelievable miracles of this Death Valley.
Clang! Clatter!
The sound of weapons clashing and scraping against shields and armor rang out amidst the occasionally blowing yellow sand of the arid desert.
Five hundred fully armed Gray Dwarves, each with a ferocious glint in their eyes, surrounded a human force of about one hundred.
To say they were 'fully armed' was an overstatement. In reality, each Gray Dwarf held a hammer-style weapon and carried a wooden shield wrapped in sheet iron.
As for armor?
In a godforsaken place like this, which lacked ores, even dwarves who excelled at forging weapons couldn't conjure materials out of thin air.
The Human Faction, on the other hand, had few proper weapons; in fact, most were using the same style of weaponry as the Gray Dwarves.
Only at the very front of this group of humans was a rather conspicuous figure, holding a silver spear and wearing dark brown armor.
This was a young girl with short silver hair and wheat-colored skin. She looked to be only about seventeen years old, her face filled with tenacity.
The armor was covered in dents of all sizes and was clearly well-worn; it was an ancient set that had obviously been around for who knows how many years.
The thick scent of blood permeated the air, and the ground was littered with a large number of corpses, the majority of which were human.
They were already surrounded!
In numbers alone, they had no chance of victory, to say nothing of the disparity in weapons.
"You damned underlings! None of you will escape! You will all die under the weapons of the great Gray Dwarf warriors!"
The Gray Dwarf general commanding this army shouted excitedly at the besieged humans.
He had long anticipated that the humans wouldn't surrender without a fight and would resort to desperate measures to resist. He never expected his gamble to pay off.
What he expected even less was that the granddaughter of that human "hero" was actually in this unit! If he could capture her alive and kill her in front of the other resisting humans, it would surely shatter the human line of defense.
In contrast to the excited and savage-looking Gray Dwarves, the surrounded humans were exceptionally calm. No one spoke; everyone merely gripped the weapons in their hands in silence.
There was no fear of death!
Nor was there any fear of the enemy!
Shing!
Armor clanked.
"Survive, everyone!" The Silver-haired Girl raised her arm, lifting the spear above her head. "Charge!!"
A hoarse roar rang out.
(end of chapter)