Star Forge Titan

"The situation was extremely critical. His Majesty, the 173rd High King, who was then just a wandering warrior and didn't even know his own identity as a prince, silently and resolutely dropped the broken blade in his hand."

"At this moment, the dwarf prince faced a ferocious man-eating beast in front of him, and innocent elderly, weak, women, and children behind him. Faced with this dilemma, the brave dwarf prince did not flee, but instead pounced on the beast and hugged its neck!"

Hearing this, Xiaoling couldn't help but let out a cry of surprise and covered her mouth with her hands, looking worried but wanting to continue listening.

Gripi, who was so excited about his talk, put one foot on the coffee table, pointing to the sky and spitting everywhere.

At the same time, his voice became much louder, like a bronze bell being struck "bang bang".

Then, the dwarf continued to tell the rest of the story while making a humming voice-over.

"Although this monster has invulnerable skin, its chest rises and falls like any other living creature, proving that it still needs fresh air to keep its sinful heart beating."

As he spoke, Grippy stretched out his muscular arms, pinched his right wrist with his left hand, and bent his arms inward as if strangling an invisible monster. The veins on his forehead bulged like earthworms, and his eyes were wide open like an owl starting to hunt at night.

At some point, other maids and members of the Chamber of Commerce who were passing by also began to stop and listen, forming a circle around the reception area.

"The brave dwarf prince obviously realized this, so he hugged the beast's neck tightly, and then used his powerful arms to strangle it hard!"

Gripi paused, glanced around, and saw that everyone was holding their breath and waiting for the continuation of the story. Then he nodded with satisfaction.

"Crack!" He clapped his hands hard, making a loud slapping sound.

"Like a sturdy magic lock made of mithril, the man-eating beast's neck is tightly tightened, and not even the smallest amount of air in the bar's smallest finger glass can get in!"

"The beast struggled and leaped in anger! Like an enraged bull, no, ten times more dangerous than that! A hundred times more angry!" Gripi jumped onto the coffee table, opened his arms, made claws out of his five fingers, and roared "Ah Ah" from his mouth.

Combined with his weird green gradient Mohawk, he does have the aura of a terrifying beast.

Anyway, Xiao Fengling was frightened and let out a scream, and then immediately burst into laughter in her seat because of the dwarf's funny appearance. The other onlookers also laughed and applauded.

Unlike some dwarves with excessive pride, Grippy was not angry about this, but became even more interested.

He kept imitating the suffocating appearance of the man-eating beast, and at the same time sang the bravery of the dwarf prince in slightly vulgar but very vivid doggerel. The story that combined action and language was particularly vivid, focusing everyone's attention on the plot, as if they were watching the ferocious fight in person.

Speaking of thrilling parts, not only the little girl's wind chimes, but even many adults couldn't help but gasp.

Finally, Gripi strangled himself, half-lying on the table, and told the ending of the story in a halting manner.

"The man-eating beast that couldn't breathe finally stopped moving. It was like a stone falling into the water, or a dwarf who slipped and fell into the lake. Oh, there is actually no difference between the two." Grippy rolled his eyes and muttered, making everyone laugh and easing the originally tense atmosphere.

"In short, the man-eating beast has completely fallen into the dark abyss of death, and can no longer kill innocent people."

"The dwarf prince saved the lives of innocent people and added a new glorious chapter to his heroic career! Hey!"

After saying that, Greeppi, who was pretending to be dead, turned over and jumped up, clapped his hands in front of his chest, and started tap dancing directly on the table.

With only the accompaniment of clapping his hands, he sang a cheerful ballad.

Infected by the emotions in the song, the audience also started dancing.

For a moment, the atmosphere in the entire hall became extremely cheerful.

The cheerful scene lasted for the entire dance, and then everyone dispersed with smiles on their faces. Gripi, whose forehead was sweating from singing, also sat back in his seat silently.

Unlike the others, the smile on the young dwarf's face only lasted for a moment, and soon turned into a tired and slightly confused expression.

In the story, the dwarf prince has a beautiful flowing long beard. He is brave and fearless. He goes through all kinds of hardships and obstacles but always manages to turn danger into safety.

But just as the Silent Desert is not as silent as its name, reality is often not as smooth and perfect as fairy tales.

"Uncle with a long beard, do you know any other stories?" Xiaoling came close to Greeppi and looked at him expectantly.

"Another story?" The dwarf was silent for a moment.

"I know another story, but it's not as lighthearted and joyful as the Adventures of the Dwarf Prince."

"...I still want to listen." Little Fengling shrank his neck but still did not leave.

"Well, it's a story about a crazy dwarf. It's a story that sounds a bit strange."

Grippy rubbed his face and began to tell the second story in a low voice.

"A long time ago, there was a dwarf who came to a desert with no end in sight. He accidentally dug up a large treasure and became extremely rich."

"But being wealthy didn't bring him happiness, so he began looking for ways to make himself happy."

"Strong liquor, gold, and women... cough cough cough." Grippy slapped his forehead and stepped on the brakes, then continued under Xiaoling's puzzled gaze:

"In short, there are all kinds of ways to be happy."

Having said this, the young dwarf paused, and his tone became inexplicable.

"But the happiness those things bring is like dew under the scorching sun, which cannot last."

"Finally, the dwarf took a liking to fired glass."

Chapter 17 Desert Memories

"A bored and decadent dwarf tycoon became obsessed with glassmaking. He ignored everything else and stayed in his workshop all day, surrounded by fire, sand, and all kinds of ugly glass creations..."

The story about the crazy dwarf continues, but the narrator's thoughts gradually drift back to that hot afternoon twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago, a dwarf named Thorin Armitage lost all his elders when the mine under his family business collapsed.

For the dwarf society, this is a very rare and even somewhat ugly accident. After all, they have a very deep accumulation of technology in this area, and most of the time they can detect signs of disasters in advance and respond.

However, accidents are called accidents because people do not anticipate their occurrence in advance.

According to the traditional customs of the dwarves, Thorin, who lost his parents and became an orphan, would have been adopted by other relatives, and would only be sent to an orphanage if there was no other way.

Unfortunately, all the adults in the Armitage family died in the mine disaster, leaving only the lonely little Thorin who luckily escaped because he did not go down the mine due to his age.

Just as the neighbors were discussing whether they should all work together to find a solution, someone suddenly mentioned that the Armitage family seemed to have a "distant" relative in a faraway country. They called him a distant relative not because of the generation gap in blood, but because of the real geographical distance.

Apart from having someone send him greeting cards and some gifts every year, the mysterious distant relative never returned to the Dwarf Kingdom in person, and even few people in the Armitage family knew him.

The content on the greeting cards is always the same. Most of the time, it is just a blank card and no one knows who sent it.

Only Thorin's grandfather, who died a few years ago, seemed to have seen him, but the old man never told his descendants anything about him until his death.

Some people even suspected that the relative was already very old, but the arrival of this year's greeting card seemed to indicate that the other party was still alive.

The dwarves, who were unexpectedly stubborn and conservative in some aspects, finally decided to send little Thorin to be taken care of by the distant relative. The dwarves always believed that only family members with blood ties could give children the best childhood and protection.

Since most of the Armitage family's property was paid out as compensation after the mining disaster, the dwarf Thorin's travel expenses were finally collected by his neighbors, but he finally embarked on the journey to find his relatives.

Following a caravan and carrying a few old greeting cards, sixteen-year-old Thorin passed through the dwarf tunnel, passed through the vast woodlands, crossed the towering mountains, and arrived at the Silent Desert, a sea of ​​dust that seemed to have no end.

Thorin had wondered what kind of person that distant relative he had never met might be. Perhaps he was a wealthy merchant, or an old warrior who had experienced many adventures, or a skilled craftsman.

These are common occupations in dwarven society.

But what he never expected was that he would be connected to a huge palace, or castle, which was made by completely hollowing out an entire piece of weathered rock.

Inside this rock castle, he met his mysterious distant relative, a middle-aged dwarf with a gloomy face, covered in heavy black armor.

The ruler of the city-state of Benisu, the Witch-King Seened.

The armor on his body was covered with ferocious spikes, and the shoulder armor and chest were carved into some kind of ferocious beast. It was so heavy that it could leave obvious footprints on the stone floor.

From any perspective, it is a terrifying existence for children.

The young Thorin immediately started to hiccup, which was his normal behavior when he was most nervous.

"Thorin? Thorin Armitage?" The dwarf, who looked to be in his prime, frowned.

This brat in front of me, who hasn't even grown much of a beard and keeps burping, is his only remaining blood relative?

At this moment, a sense of absurdity and amusement rose in Senedd's cold and numb heart.

This unexpected emotion made him change his mind.

Instead of leaving Thorin to the care of the servants in Rock Castle, he took the boy directly to the training ground and tested him in front of everyone.

Thorin, who was at most a child in the dwarf society, was astonished and even terrified when he saw the heavy axe wielded by Senedd. He grabbed an oak chair and blocked it, and had to roll on the ground from time to time to escape.

Oh my God! This was completely different from the warm or cold family reunion scenes he had imagined!

Finally, Senedd dropped his axe and laughed out loud. His expression made all the servants around him kneel down in fear and salute, because His Majesty the Witch King had not laughed for sixty years!

He even handed over all the government affairs of the court to his nobles. He did not care even if those vicious wolves who deserved to be exposed to the sun levied heavy taxes. He just stayed in the castle, drinking and forging iron decadently. Recently, he even liked the time-consuming and laborious job of making glass.

But no one dared to forget that no matter how decadent he was, this was still the Witch King, a tyrannical king who would completely drain the life and magic of the offender.

"This is my nephew."

Without any warning, Seineid dropped his axe and pointed at the dwarf Thorin, who was now lying on the ground covered in sand, and continued directly:

"You will be my heir in the future."

Thus, the city-state of Benisu had its own prince, a dwarf prince.

After spending a long time with Sened, Thorin gradually realized how decadent this elder was who always wrapped himself in heavy armor.

Grain production in desert areas is limited, so making wine often requires more effort, and many luxury-level wines need to be imported from other places.

But every morning for the Witch King, Seened, would start with a full bottle of liquor. He would chug the expensive liquor like gargling his mouth, and when he appeared before everyone, his face would already have the rosy red of a drunkard.

Senedd didn't care at all because what followed was his new entertainment activity - beating his nephew.

In other words, training one's nephew...

Thorin spent his childhood being beaten by his uncle, or God knows which generation of relative he was from.

Fortunately, the dwarves' personalities and bodies are as tough as rocks. The harsh and abnormal training not only did not turn Thorin into a psychopath, but instead made him more determined to beat up the hateful drunkard.

At the same time, the growing dwarf prince also began to get involved in government affairs.

After seeing how ugly the nobles who relied on the Witch King's violent power were, Thorin found that he had more people to beat up.

At the same time, this also made him increasingly disgusted with this dim castle built by hollowing out the mountain and everyone in it.

In a trance, Thorin had a feeling that the dwarf who claimed to be his uncle was also like this former mountain, hollowed out by liquor and other dirty things, leaving only an empty shell still standing there.

If I could, I would like to be a bard.

When Thorin got up from the ground with a bruised face, this thought suddenly popped up in his mind.

But soon, he shook his head with a sad smile and put this unrealistic idea behind him.

I'm not going anywhere until I take down every bastard in this castle!

At least, that was what young Thorin Armitage thought before the huge fire started.

Chapter 18: Sky-Breaking Fist

"Lucas, let's go! We have news about them!"

Gao Shan, the green-skinned barbarian orc archer, ran over shouting, excitedly lifted up his young apprentice, and spun the latter three times in the air with a stunned expression before putting him down.

"You found them!?!" The young apprentice who reacted also showed a happy expression, and seemed even more excited than Gao Shan.

After separating from the other members of the adventure team, the orc Gaoshan, who had sufficient travel expenses, did not forget to fulfill his previous promise. He rushed to the oasis farm Tatooine as soon as possible and took the young man who was quite talented in boxing as his apprentice.

Although, his own rank in the school was not high, he just barely reached the second level of "skilled".

But there is basically no problem in giving some guidance to Lucas, a beginner who has barely reached the 'beginner' level through his own exploration.

At the same time, Gao Shan had no intention of letting this promising young man go unnoticed. After sending most of the money he earned to his fellow tribesmen far away, he could finally devote himself to the pursuit of the ideal of the Freedom Fist.

Yes, Gao Shan was ready to take Lucas with him to join the Free Fist, because both he and this young man had a fire burning in their hearts, a fire of hope that wanted to illuminate the entire desert.

The Fist of Freedom is a group composed of countless people like them who have gone through hardships but still have the fire burning in their hearts.

The land of the Silent Desert has been ruled by tyrannical witch kings for too long. The average life expectancy of the lower-class civilians is as short as only thirty years old, while the nobles can live comfortably until the end of their lives.

As for the five wizard kings who are high above, they are like the merciless sun that sets and rises in the desert sky, and they have never disappeared for even a day even after hundreds of years.

The harsh policies that are as cold as ice and as hot as fire have always scorched the entire barren land, making people struggle in never-ending suffering.

After the two of them calmed down their excitement, Gao Shan told them the news he had heard.

It turns out that the news that the Free Fist fighters had killed the Fourth Sorcerer King a few months ago was true. Moreover, after the Sorcerer King's death, they also occupied the city-state of Benisu that was originally ruled by him.

The nobles were punished, a newer public government was established, and even the name of the city-state was changed to "Nunris".

Desert people cherish water resources very much, and water also occupies a very high position in their belief system.

Nun represents the "primordial water" in desert mythology that gives hope and life to all living beings, and "Nunris" means the city protected and blessed by the primordial water.

The Fist of Freedom, which suffered a severe blow more than a decade ago and remained unknown for a long time, suddenly ignited the fire of hope that can truly illuminate all directions, which is extremely exciting for all those who follow its path.

Gao Shan and Lucas are among them.