Knight and Wand

Chapter 186 Structure
Taking his eyes off the huge dwarf statue in front of him, Leon turned around and walked down the stairs with everyone.

He looked around the mine platform, lit by the torches of his soldiers.

On the underground rock platform as big as a square, in addition to the facilities and debris abandoned by the Helan dwarves, there are also tattered animal skin tents that were obviously built recently. These primitive creations that are completely out of place in the environment are naturally the work of the wild goblins.

After confirming the identity of the original owner of this place, Leon couldn't help but become more vigilant about this place.

The wild goblins did not pose much of a threat to the crowd, and if it was just a human mine, he did not think there would be any danger.

But there are relics left by the ancient Heran people who were able to build such a huge mine.
In this world, those short men whose appearance and habits are very similar to the dwarves in his previous life always remind Leon of the bad impressions he had in certain games and movies in his previous life.

He turned to Lohak and said, "Gather the soldiers and make sure they don't touch anything. Don't touch anything that you're curious about!"

"Understood." Lohak nodded and immediately walked over to shout at the soldiers to gather the scattered alert troops.

"My Lord, come and take a look."

Hearing Corvis' call from behind, Leon turned around.

The young man who cast the spell and controlled the flying sword went around to the back of the dwarf statue.

He used his floating sword to illuminate the large rock suspension bridge behind it, which was much wider than all the surrounding platforms.

Leon turned and followed.

On the rock bridge illuminated by the flying sword, there are eight tracks that can carry mine carts. The mine tracks extend to the cave on the opposite bank, which is much larger than all the mine tunnels on the hollow rock walls.

"The opposite side should be the main tunnel for transporting ore. I don't know where it can extend to. This underground mine may be part of a larger mining structure." Corvis guessed.

Leon groaned after hearing this.

When I was walking in the tunnel before, I thought I had only made a small fortune. Now, this underground mine is much larger than I expected. It is no longer a question of making money, it may even bring huge trouble.

Do you want to continue exploring?
A few knights and dozens of soldiers are more than enough to deal with the threat of wild goblins.

And since those relatively weak wild goblins can live in the mine for so long, perhaps it means that there is no danger here.

While thinking, Leon stared at the huge dark mine tunnel in the distance, still feeling worried.

To be on the safe side, now that he had confirmed the original owner of the mine and the basic situation underground, he still wanted to go back and consult with Laura before making any long-term plans.

"Let's retreat first and come back next time when we're fully prepared." Leon said cautiously.

Bringing Corvis and Olivia back to the line of soldiers, Leon saw Larian squatting in front of a hide tent, seemingly checking a pile of bones made of the remains of food left over by the wild goblins.

Leon walked up to Larian and said, "What's wrong? Did you find anything?"

The Knight Errant sighed, stood up and shook his head.

"Most of these are bones of wild animals, but there are also human ones. Many of them are children."

After hearing this, Leon looked at the pile of bones and couldn't help but feel angry.

You eat me, I eat you, it is the natural law of the survival of the fittest, but knowing that the children of his own race have become food for those monsters still makes him instinctively angry.

If they had not been discovered in time during the night watch on the night of their escape, Azerien, Lohak, and I would probably have been eaten by these little bastards.

Patting Larian on the shoulder, Lion promised: "I won't let them go. I'll eradicate those damned remnants next time."

Larian nodded, looked deeply into the darkness of the cave, then stood up and returned to the team.

On the dim square platform, the team reassembled, quickly counted to confirm that no one was left behind, then turned around and returned to the suspension bridge where they came from.

Olivia tilted her head, as if she heard something.

She quickly turned to warn her lover: "Leon, there is a sound under your feet."

"What's that noise? Is that another wild goblin?"

The girl frowned and shook her head: "I don't know, the noise was so loud, it didn't sound like footsteps, and it was getting louder and louder!"

Although Leon didn't know what was going on, he knew something was wrong and immediately shouted, "Everyone, speed up!"

But before he could finish his words, everyone present heard a crackling sound coming from under their feet.

That's the sound of chains and gears.

The edge of the platform, which was not illuminated by the surrounding firelight, made a sound of sinking and rising.

Amid the clanging and thumping sounds of the stone platform rising and falling, a broad black shadow three or four meters high rose from the ground in the front and back of the team, blocking everyone's way forward or backward.

As the black shadow rose, there were bursts of dense clicking sounds around it, as if some strange metal object was crawling towards them.

Leon's heart trembled.

Damn, there is indeed a trap. I knew those petty-minded guys would love to play tricks on outsiders who break into their territory.

But why do the wild goblins live here without triggering the traps?
No one touched anything they shouldn't have touched. There was no valuable treasure to be seen, so the soldiers didn't even have the chance to do anything.

Did anyone step on the ground mechanism?

Those damn wild goblins have been eating, drinking, defecating and urinating here for such a long time without any reaction. Is it because they are light enough and humans' footsteps are heavier?

A host of doubts flashed through his mind, but Leon didn't delay at all. The moment he saw the black shadow rising, he immediately ordered the soldiers to stop.

"Form a formation! Meet the enemy!" Lohak put down the halberd and axe on his shoulder and shouted to the warriors.

The well-trained soldiers immediately formed into a square formation, with large shields raised in unison on the periphery to protect their comrades behind them.

The archers held crossbows behind their shields, and the soldiers on the innermost side held their spears horizontally pointing straight into the deep darkness, where arcs of orange light were strangely lit.

There was no need for Leon to remind him of this unexpected change. Corvis's flying sword whizzed around the square formation, illuminating the uninvited guest that appeared in the shadows.

In front and behind the team, there were two metal statues with their bodies folded together. The statues had no heads, and they were squatting on their feet with their arms clasped. The surface of the metal shell was rusty, and under the gap structure of the rusted shell, the yellow copper texture was revealed under the light source.

As for those densely packed things crawling over, they were a group of slender robots that were also covered in rust and copper?! Did I go to the wrong set?
Leon saw those strange-looking constructs clearly and was so surprised that he thought he and the Avalon army had traveled through time again.

Those slender gold-copper machines, nearly as tall as a person, had a faint orange-yellow light leaking out of the gaps in their torsos. They had three arc-shaped pointed feet touching the ground at the bottom of their bodies, and skeletal-like arms extended from both sides of their torsos. The parts that should have been palms were connected to double-pointed pickaxes with rotating structures.

Horrifying gasps and low exclamations were heard among the soldiers. The warriors from the three territories were shocked by the unprecedented monster before them. They couldn't understand how a pile of iron lumps could move like a living thing.

But these slender metal hooks did not care about the surprise of the crowd, and still unceremoniously accelerated their three interlaced pointed feet and rushed towards the phalanx of soldiers. The two pickaxes raised high were obviously not to welcome guests.

"Shoot!" Lohak roared.

The crossbowmen pulled the triggers, and sharp crossbow arrows flew densely from behind the shield wall towards their respective targets.

With a series of clanging and crackling sounds, these crossbow arrows that could penetrate skin and break bones hit the three-legged mechanical body and caused it to shake slightly.

But the arrows either just left dents and scratches on the three-legged mechanical bodies, or got stuck between their hollow and slender shells, obviously having no effect on the constructs.

As for the two giant statues blocking the way forward and backward, the rust scraped off by the crossbow arrows was almost like polishing them.

No one was surprised by the result of this test attack. Even the soldiers knew that arrows had little to no damage to metal.

Lohak immediately ordered the crossbowmen to abandon their light crossbows which had no effect on the enemy, and drew out the maces and swords at their waists, preparing to engage the enemy in close combat.

In the brief surprise, Leon did not continue to pay attention to the three-legged constructs running towards him.

There were quite a few of those slender, magical little mechanical bodies, but they were not very fast in their movements. Moreover, judging from their size and structure, although they were dangerous to ordinary people, they posed limited threat to a few serious Knights of Arms.

But the problem is, since the Heran people can make these strange golden and bronze figures move, then the two huge metal statues in front and behind the team are probably not dead objects. If their size and weight hit them, it will be a big trouble for everyone.

The next second, a teeth-grinding vibration came from the two metal statues in front and behind, and the sound of gears rolling inside confirmed Leon's expectation.

But he didn't know if it was due to disrepair, he only saw that the limbs of the two giant statues seemed to be stuck, and the joints of their bodies were very stiff when they opened.

I'll kill you while you're weak. Leon doesn't want to wait for the enemy to finish transforming.

He completely handed over the command of the army to Lohak and reached into his waist bag and pulled out two black Neti cards.

While activating the boiling heart, it also infuses the Heroic Spirit Card with magic power.

There was a flash of light behind the soldiers, and Canis took shape.

Leon didn't have time to explain the situation to the young master of the Wolf family who was looking around in confusion. He ordered the knights to act separately immediately.

"Corvis, Olivia, Canis! Go smash the 'Golem' at the back! Be careful."

"give it to me."

Olivia responded in a deep voice, and without hesitation, she grasped the Sword of Victory and rushed out of the army first. Corvis called back the Sword of Friendship and followed closely behind.

The young master of the Wolf family scratched his head and didn't ask any more questions. He picked up the heavy lance and caught up with the two men.

As the spirit of the Neti card, he would not die anyway, so he naturally did not care what the enemy was. It was enough for him to know where the enemy was and how many he had to kill.

"Larian, come with me and try to take down the golem in front!"

"As ordered."

Just as the knights of Avalon went out and rushed towards the two headless statues that were struggling to stretch their limbs, a large number of tripods, swinging their sharp pickaxes in their arms, stepped into the illumination range of the torches behind the soldiers' phalanx.

In the square formation where shields were raised, the soldiers roared in unison and thrust their spears with all their might.

The forest of guns surrounding the formation hit the golden-bronze monster fiercely, which did not dodge or evade and seemed to have no intelligence at all.

The tip of the gun came into contact with the rusty steel casing and the brass mechanism, causing a crisp clanging sound.

Some of the gold-and-bronze monsters were knocked to the ground by the spear heads that were thrown at them, and their three legs and pickaxe arms were waving and turning, trying to turn over and stand up.

But most of them were just held back by the spears and then continued to rush towards the shield formation with their tiptoeing.

Pairs of pickaxes hit the soldiers' shields like mining operations. The crisp sound of the hits became one after another. The heavy pickaxe heads left shocking dents and damage on the thick shields, which made the left arms of the soldiers in the front row numb. A few more hits and the thick shields would undoubtedly be pierced through!

But the soldiers did not sit there and wait to die. While their comrades on both sides of their bodies smashed and stabbed the enemy with spears, they also swung their own melee weapons and started fighting.

The heavily armored guards led by Hawke and Zabron used their large shields to block the attacks while swinging their weapons to fight back.

The construct was stabbed backward by the swords of several people, but the effect was minimal. However, the nail hammers in the hands of the hammer-wielding guards such as Zabron suddenly knocked the three-legged construct to the ground, with significant effect.

"Hit, hit, hit in the middle of them!!" Hawke roared loudly in the battle formation filled with war cries, reminding his comrades.

The hammer in his hand went straight to the chests of those metal monsters.

The fact was just as he had tentatively guessed in his mind.

The moment the thin steel shell on the monster's chest dented, Hawke heard the sound of something breaking and cracking. The orange light between the cracks in its torso suddenly went out, and the metal "monster" collapsed to the ground as if it had lost its life.
Standing in front of the formation, Lohak swept across, and the knight's brute force carried by the heavy steel axe and halberd knocked away several three-legged golden-bronze monsters that were approaching without any dodge.

Hearing Hawke's shout, he took advantage of the situation and used the long handle to overturn a tripod mechanism, raised his big feet wrapped in plate armor and steel boots, and stomped hard on the metal chest wrapped in a steel shell.

With a bang, the sunken and broken structure seemed to have crushed some kind of crystal inside.

Looking at the motionless metal "corpse", Lohak laughed and found the weakness of this hard lump. He found that except for its scary appearance, it was not difficult to deal with.
The two knights, one taking a light and one heavy step, rushed towards the "golem" that was trying to get up.

Larian's long sword accurately cut through the skeleton limbs of the three-legged monster that blocked the way, and the moonlight blade cut through the exposed joints. The dancing blade cut through the metal and steel along the weak parts, splitting the construct into parts.

Leon was not as elegant as his opponent. He looked at the pickaxe head coming towards him, dodged the attack and grabbed the arms of one of the machines. With the brute force of the knight boiling at the moment, he swung the three-legged dwarf machine in front of him and threw it forward.

After a series of heavy clanging collisions, a path was cleared. Leon stopped beside the giant statue and drew out the false thorn sword and held it in front of him.

Ancient spells were chanted in his mouth, and magic patterns extended and wrapped around the blade.

A cyclone of blazing flames suddenly erupted and rose in the dim shadows, transforming the sword into an orange-red flame.

The Molten Sword, which he had already mastered, was held in Leon's hand.

(End of this chapter)