Chapter 1389
A group of people boarded the Arcane Battleship and set course for the nearest Blood Elf City.
The Netherworld has its own set of rules. Down here, might makes right—whoever has the biggest fist gets to make the rules. Northend isn’t much different, but it’s nowhere near as blunt.
Show them your muscles, and you might not even need to fight. You’ll probably get what you want without much trouble.
This time, we were here to snatch people back. The Blood Elves had almost swept up every Cave Goblin from the Tungus Mountains, leaving only a lucky few behind. According to Gobwin, there used to be forty to fifty thousand Cave Goblins surviving in these mountains, barely scraping by. Then the Blood Elves came for a raid—counting the ones killed, there should still be forty thousand taken away.
That’s a lot of Cave Goblins, and it hasn’t been long since they were captured. They’re likely still in the nearest Blood Elf City, not yet transferred elsewhere. A frontal assault is the only way to rescue them. Unless those arrogant Blood Elves get a taste of real trouble, there’ll be endless complications.
Five Arcane Battleships shot toward the nearest Blood Elf City. It wasn’t far from the Tungus Mountains—just three hundred leagues away. This was the fringe of Blood Elf territory, so the family holding land here couldn’t be one of the powerful ones. That’s exactly why Leon wasn’t too worried.
Blood Elves are arrogant, but their internal hierarchy is strict. The strongest families hold the best land at the center, rich in resources, while weaker families orbit around them, clinging to their power.
For a Blood Elf family that isn’t all that strong, finding a sizable Blood Essence Ore vein is priceless. It could expand their territory or send their family’s strength skyrocketing.
If not for that, they wouldn’t be so desperate to capture Cave Goblins. After all, using Cave Goblins as miners costs a lot more, and their numbers are already low. If they go extinct, and someday you need them but can’t find any, it’ll be a huge loss.
That’s why no matter how powerful a race is, they rarely bother to wipe out these timid, ugly creatures.
The five Arcane Battleships moved fast. Within an hour, they spotted a Blood Elf City rising from the plains—ornate, towering buildings everywhere, golden-red hues gleaming through the blood-colored walls, intricate patterns etched along the ramparts, and three spires over a hundred meters tall, each crowned with a floating crimson crystal.
The approach of the five Arcane Battleships must have triggered something—an ear-splitting alarm blared through the city. A black cloud rose up, as flocks of Monster Birds carried Blood Elves out to meet us in battle. The three central spires began to glow with soft magical light, power gathering into a translucent shield that wrapped the entire city.
Those Monster Bird Riders formed a black river in the sky, surging toward the five Arcane Battleships. Before they even reached us, the Blood Elves on their backs had already drawn their bows—arrows merged into a blood-red stream, streaking toward us. Many Blood Elves raised their staffs, blood runes glowing eerily across their skin as they began casting spells...
Leon stood in the captain’s cabin of one Arcane Battleship, watching the Blood Elves and shaking his head.
“What a domineering race. Looks like the Blood Elves see themselves as the underground’s overlords. We’re still kilometers away, and they’re already launching an attack...
Spread the word: wipe out all these Monster Bird Riders. Only after that can we negotiate with the local Blood Elf family.
The Netherworld is chaotic, sure—war is routine here—but this is excessive. The Arcane Battleships are still kilometers out, haven’t shown any hostility, and the Blood Elves are already attacking. That’s just brute force—doesn’t matter who you are, they hit first and ask questions later...
Leon hadn’t planned on talking things out with these Blood Elves anyway. Now it’s simple—might makes right, exactly how the Netherworld plays its game.
Leon gave the order, and the alchemical golems aboard the five Arcane Battleships received it almost instantly. The specially designed Alchemical Golems, already on standby, began operating their assigned stations.
The control programs for these Alchemical Golems are tightly written. They’re not particularly strong in combat—in fact, they’re weaker than the mass-produced, lowest-tier golems. But their specialty is piloting the Arcane Battleships.
Every part of these Arcane Battleships passed through the hands of the alchemist team. When designing the special Alchemical Golems, their only priority was compatibility with the Arcane Battleships.
Combat strength was sacrificed for perfect synergy—these Alchemical Golems mesh seamlessly with the new Arcane Battleships. It saves a ton of manpower, and the battleships’ combat power stays at its peak.
These Alchemical Golems don’t need to join the battle directly, so whether they’re strong or not doesn’t really matter.
Now that Leon’s order was given, over a thousand Alchemical Golems operating the Arcane Battleships’ various systems began moving with almost no delay. The command golems on each ship were all Sky Rank Alchemical Golems, assembled from Sky Rank golem parts or rare materials—literally built up to their rank.
Those materials would be more than enough for a level forty-three or even forty-four Alchemical Golem. But these are just level forty golems—not yet transcendent, only newly awakened to sentience.
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But even with their limited experience, their intelligence is enough to command all the Alchemical Golems aboard an Arcane Battleship.
Less than three seconds after Leon gave the order, the Arcane Battleships’ weapon systems activated. Each ship used only a tenth of its armaments—the main cannons didn’t even warm up. Clearly, by the golems’ calculations, these Monster Bird Riders weren’t worth the main guns; the weakest weapons were more than enough.
One by one, turrets just over a meter long unfolded from the battleship hulls, magical light blooming from their barrels.
The Blood Elf Riders’ crimson arrows, blood magic, and even ordinary elemental spells couldn’t breach the Arcane Battleships’ shields. As the distance closed, every weapon aboard the five ships fired at once.
Ice-blue beams, scarlet fire columns, and teal rays compressed like a hurricane burst from the battleships’ turrets.
These ray-enhanced spells were the fastest and most powerful—though admittedly, they were easy to dodge.
On a battlefield like this, dodging doesn’t matter. Hundreds of turrets, each firing seven or eight times a second, blanketed a two or three kilometer area in rays. No need to aim—half the shots would hit anyway. And since every ray cannon was operated by an Alchemical Golem, the hit rate was nearly ninety percent.
Each ray cannon packed the punch of a slightly weaker single-target eighth-rank spell. Of the Blood Elf Riders, only two or three were Sky Rank; the rest were mostly Title Archmage level, with quite a few ordinary Archmages mixed in.
Just ten seconds of coordinated ray fire wiped out most of the Blood Elf Riders in the sky. Less than twenty percent tried to turn and flee, only to be caught by another barrage seconds later. Soon, the sky was nothing but a dense web of beams piercing the clouds.
The Blood Elf Monster Bird Riders were utterly annihilated. Every Blood Elf and Monster Bird was shredded, raining down in pieces from the sky...
The five Arcane Battleships pressed on, hovering two kilometers above the Blood Elf City, but didn’t tear through the city’s shield.
Within half a minute, several Sky Rank experts rose from the Blood Elf City, glaring furiously at the five ships floating overhead.
“Who’s got the guts to attack a Blood Elf city? Are you trying to provoke our wrath, you damned fools?”
Furious shouts echoed through the air. Darryl, a native of the Netherworld, strode onto the deck of an Arcane Battleship, staring coldly at the Blood Elves across from him. Any one of them could tear him apart in seconds, but now Darryl held his head high, looking at them as if they were pitiful insects.
“Foolish Blood Elves, hand over the subjects of the great Lord Merlin! If you do, the merciful and mighty Lord Merlin will let you idiots off. Otherwise, you’ll learn what happens when you anger a true dragon!”
Darryl roared, his voice amplified by battle aura and carrying for over a dozen kilometers. Everyone in range could hear him. After being hunted by Blood Elves, he finally had a chance for payback—and he wasn’t about to let it slip by.
The Blood Elves were stunned by Darryl’s words, completely confused. Subjects of a dragon? What were they doing here?
There’s no dragon territory anywhere nearby—why would a dragon come in person? The Blood Elves were baffled.
‘Subjects’ is a polite way to put it. More bluntly, it means slaves. Neither Blood Elves nor dragons care about the lives of slaves, or even bother to pay attention—let alone personally attack a city over them...
It’s really just a matter of pride. Their slaves were stolen, so now they’re here to save face. Dragons are the real tyrants—if one takes a dislike to you, it might destroy your city for no reason at all.
Pureblood dragons are extremely rare in the Netherworld, but every one of them is incredibly powerful. No race wants to provoke a pureblood dragon—it means total, reckless vengeance and destruction.
But usually, the dragons you see in the Netherworld are mixed-bloods or subspecies. They’re strong, but compared to a real dragon, the gap is huge.
Darryl, a Lizardman, wouldn’t even register to these Blood Elves.
“Foolish Lizardman! How dare you attack the Blood Elf city of the Tungus Mountains? Get ready for bloody revenge—your head will hang from the city gates by nightfall!”
The Blood Elves were furious. It had been years since anyone attacked a Blood Elf city—even during wartime, cities deep in their territory were never touched.
A swarm of Blood Elves took to the sky, most of them mounted on Monster Birds—especially the Twin-Headed Monster Birds, which stretched dozens of meters long.
No one was surprised by the Blood Elves’ arrogance and stubbornness. If anyone approached, they’d attack first and ask questions later—reason had no place here.
Leon already knew what the Blood Elves were like, but the others couldn’t hold back. Hubert hefted Slaughter and strode to the edge of the Arcane Battleship, his face twisted in a snarl as blood-red light surged across his skin.
“Idiots! Hubert is here—hand over the goblins you captured, and I’ll make your deaths quick. You dared to steal Lord Merlin’s subjects? You’re signing your own death warrants!”
This is an irrelevant system prompt, so it can be skipped in the translation.
Hubert roared from the battleship, barely restraining himself from charging out to tear the Blood Elves apart. With five Arcane Battleships and their weapon systems primed, it wasn’t like a mage—there was no guarantee the ships wouldn’t blast him before the Blood Elves went down...
Hubert’s roar echoed as a Blood Elf on a Twin-Headed Monster Bird drew his bow. Instantly, a crimson arrow streaked across kilometers, appearing before Hubert, its shaft wreathed in bloody light—like dozens of spectral hands reaching out from within.
The crimson arrow slammed into Slaughter with a thunderous boom. Blood-red light exploded, and the spectral hands scattered, bypassing Slaughter and slapping toward Hubert.