What's wrong with building a steel torrent in a dungeon?

As Modsheka spoke, he quickly selected hundreds of elite soldiers from the camp and launched a carpet search to the west of the camp.

As a result, less than an hour into the search, they found a trace.

"Sir... this way..."

A sharpshooter lowered his voice and said, "We found a cave ahead, and there is a burning campfire around it. I guess this is probably a resting place for the troll army."

"Did you alarm them?" Modsheka was delighted.

For so long, they have been chased and beaten by the trolls behind them. The trolls come and go without a trace. Even if Modsheka wants to fight back, he can never find their trace.

Now, they finally discovered each other's habitat, and made the trolls taste the pain of being awakened from their sweet dreams, and having to flee in panic.

"We were not alarmed." The sharpshooter said, "We used magic to explore the surroundings and ruled out the possibility of hidden sentries. The other party was very arrogant and probably didn't expect us to discover them."

"Okay! In that case, prepare for the raid!"

"As you command!"

Soon, the elven army surrounded the cave. An elven theologian carefully explored inside and found a faint glow of fire deep in the cave. This made Modsheka very happy and he exclaimed that he could finally catch the troll.

So Modsheka ordered the raid without hesitation.

A dozen divine magicians stood in the front, and more than ten divine magicians in the back pulled the bowstrings to full length and entered the cave silently.

Whoosh whoosh!

At this moment, more than a dozen arrows flew over from all around, and several archers fell to the ground, but most of the arrows were blocked by the divine magician.

"Wait, arrows?"

The leading divine magician was stunned.

The trolls have never liked using bows and arrows. Moreover, now they are all equipped with grenades. Wouldn't it be better to throw grenades at such a close distance? Why shoot arrows at them?

A divine magician discovered a clue and immediately used his divine power to light a beam of light, shining it towards the incoming arrow.

The next moment, an expression of surprise spread across his face.

This is... an elf's arrow! Elves live in the cave.

How can this be

At this time, the other side seemed to have noticed something was wrong, and the two sides were in a strange confrontation. After a few minutes, the people in the cave finally couldn't help it, so they shouted: "We are the Southern Army, the First Corps, the Second Wing. Which unit are we on the other side from?"

"The Second Wing? Wait! That's impossible! Wasn't the Second Wing completely wiped out?"

The divine magician was stunned.

He knew that the current situation was beyond his understanding, so he quickly asked someone to find Modsheka.

Chapter 347: Dead End

"The Second Flag Regiment? That's impossible!" Modsheka seemed extremely shocked after hearing the news.

"These are the arrows they used." The divine magician presented the arrows.

Modsheka took one look and his face immediately turned pale.

"Walk!"

After saying this, he entered the cave without looking back. Seeing this, his guards hurriedly followed him.

He pushed aside the guards defending in front of him, and then shouted to the depths of the cave: "I am Modsheka, the wing commander of the First Corps. Who is your current leader?"

There was silence for a long time in the depths of the cave, and then a woman's voice was heard: "Modsheka? God Shiloh bless you! Is it really you?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a series of chaotic footsteps sounded in the cave, and the surrounding elven soldiers instinctively raised their weapons.

Soon, dozens of disheveled elf warriors appeared in front of them. They were very dirty and exuded an indescribable smell. Only from their pointed ears and the style of their clothes could they be barely identified as elf soldiers.

"Modsheka! Goddess Shiloh!! The reinforcements are finally here! I have never felt that you look so tall and majestic!" A disheveled female elf held Modsheka's hand, her eyes full of excitement, and even tears seeping out of the corners of her eyes.

"You are..." Modsheka was stunned, and then asked in surprise: "You! Are you Florenceni?"

He really couldn't associate the disheveled elf in front of him with the wing leader Florenceni who valued her image more than her life and always talked about elegance.

"It's me, it's me!" Florenceni said, "We've been here for a month... No! Three months... No, no, no, I always feel like we've been here for more than a year."

"Um... in terms of time, you have been here for no more than three months," said Modsheka.

“You don’t know how we survived these three months.” Florencene said, “We could only eat cherry tomatoes that were forced to give birth, catch fish in the nearby stream, pick mushrooms like trolls, and eat wild fruits. When there was no real food, we could only drink cold water… We… woooo…”

At this point, Florenceni, who was always known for her toughness, actually started crying.

Modsheka didn't know how to comfort her. He could only listen to her ugly crying while ordering his men to report what happened here to Elendil.

When Elendil arrived, she was also very surprised by what she saw.

They had always thought that Florence was either captured or died for her country! They never expected to meet her here.

After an inventory, it was found that there were only more than 20 elven warriors around Florenceni. They relied on their few divine arts to barely survive in this primeval forest.

"By the way, Commander..." Florenceni, who had cried enough, asked curiously, "How did you know we were trapped in this place? We don't even know where we are. Could it be that Padrodil successfully broke through and returned to the Southern Legion?"

"We have no news about Padrodil. Meeting you was purely a coincidence." Elendil was a little embarrassed. She didn't know how to explain to Florenceni.

After the brief reunion, Elendil fell into even greater worry.

Florence thought it was a coincidence, but in their opinion, it was obviously not.

From the beginning, they kept encountering clues about Florencene, and it was obvious that the trolls wanted them to go back to their old ways and fall into the trap carefully designed by the trolls.

They originally thought that they could escape the troll's trap by changing their direction, but now it seems that all this was just their own cleverness.

In other words, when they met Florencene, they had already fallen into the troll's trap.

Not only Aarendil, but all the generals present could not help but feel powerless. It was as if fate had grabbed their throats, and any struggle was useless. In fact, the struggle itself was part of the opponent's plan.

If we had not turned back at that time, but continued to cross the swamp to the south, would the situation have been different?

However, there are no ifs on the battlefield... Even if there were, I'm afraid the Troll Empire would have other ways to deal with it.

Modsheka frowned. They had been looking forward to hope, thinking that as long as they could get through this night, they would see the light of day.

Now it seems that these are nothing but wishful thinking.

"Speaking of which, where is Padrodil?" Aarendil said to Florensini who was wolfing down meat beside him, "Also, why are you here?"

"We...we were almost wiped out after being ambushed by the despicable trolls. On the way to escape, we met Padrodil." When Florencene said this, her expression was a little gloomy, and then she told him everything that had happened to her.

At Padrodiel's suggestion, they made a detour and then broke out to the north, but they were sniped all the way. Finally, Padrodiel decided to go west and reach the coast, but was trapped by the forest before arriving.

The generals present became more and more frightened as they listened.

Isn't this exactly the same as what happened to them?

"Then why don't you break out?"

"We can't escape... the trolls are sniping at us. There are Feather Tribe above us, they know our whereabouts very well."

"Then why don't you continue westward?" Elendil's voice was trembling.

"Because there is a huge rift in the west, except for a few passages that we can barely try to pass through, all other places are dead ends without exception." Florenceni said: "The trolls guarded these passages, making it impossible for us to pass. If we want to leave the forest, we can only choose to take a detour. But by that time we were already at the end of our strength.

Rift Valley?

This was not in their intelligence at all...

All the elves felt a chill in their hearts.

Florenceni continued, "Padrodil thought that we would just die slowly if we stayed here. We couldn't just sit there and wait for death, so she proposed that she lead the elite troops to break out to the north and look for an opportunity."

Leading the elite troops yourself?

I'm afraid he doesn't want to bring along Florenceni, a burden.

"We have been holding on here, praying every day that Padrodil can successfully break through and bring reinforcements to save us." Florenceni said: "Although there may be some twists and turns in the middle, the god Xiluo has blessed us anyway... Commander, you still brought the troops to support us. Your arrival here also means that Grom has been breached and the Troll Empire has collapsed across the board!"

After hearing this, all the elves had strange expressions on their faces.

Chapter 348: Natural Chasm

"What? How could this be??!"

After Modsheka described their experience to Florenceni, she collapsed to the ground. The joy of being rescued was gone, leaving only endless despair.

Eternal darkness is not scary. What is scary is that you once saw the light that was within your reach, and then you were thrown into darkness.

This is Florenceni's current situation.

"It seems that we are in the same situation as you." Modsheka looked at Florenceni, who looked hopeless, and said helplessly, "Tell us everything about your breakout to the west! We have more people now, so maybe we can break out of that rift valley."

"No! It's impossible to break out from there." Florencene said with a sad face, "This rift valley is narrow in a few places, but it is not passable by human power. We must build a bridge! But the key is that the trolls have ambushed many musketeers over there... Even if we can build a bridge, we will be riddled with bullets from the oncoming direction."

Doesn't this mean that there is no way to get through? Modsheka thought there would be several passages.

"What about breaking out to the north or west? Is there any way?" Elendil asked.

“I, I don’t know.” Florencene said, “After the failure of breaking out to the west, we were exhausted from dealing with the harassment of the trolls and had no power to break out. Later on, it was difficult for us to even survive. Even if there were no trolls, we would not be able to get out on our own.”

"Okay, I understand." Elendil took a deep breath, ordered her men to take Florensni away to rest, and then continued to discuss with Modsheka and other generals.

"The trolls drove Firorensni here but didn't kill her. Now they've driven us here again." Elendil frowned, "What on earth is the reason for this?"

"Do they also want to trap us here to death?" Modsheka asked, "But why don't they just kill us? With our current strength, it is impossible to withstand the trolls' continuous attacks. If Jinzaka was here, it would be even easier. But from the time we arrived in the forest until now, the other side has not launched a single attack."

"Could it be that the war in the northeast has delayed them? So they can't eat us for a while." Elendil said: "If so, we still have a glimmer of hope."

"I can't guess..." Modsheka said, "We know nothing about the outside news right now. We can only take it one step at a time. I can only hope this is the case."

This night passed peacefully. There were no attacks, and no terrifying explosions.

But the hearts of the elven generals were uneasy throughout the whole night.

At dawn the next day, the elven troops continued to march westward at the planned speed, and finally encountered the Great Rift Valley that Florenceni had mentioned. Below the rift valley was an endless abyss, as if the gods had cut a blow on the earth.

If they were still at their peak, they would still be able to pass through with the ancient war tree. But with their current remnants, it is impossible for them to cross this abyss.

Modsheka did think about building a temporary bridge, but the elf army had no shortage of divine magicians, sharpshooters, painters, poets, and sculptors. The only thing they lacked the most was engineers.

Building a bridge for more than a thousand troops to walk safely is not something that can be done by just putting up a few planks. Not to mention that cutting down trees to build a bridge will attract the attention of trolls.

This rift, like a natural chasm, directly cut off the elves' hopes.

As a last resort, they could only stay where they were and look for a possible direction to break out.

However, they did not rest for long.

Several artillery shells appeared in the elves' camp without warning.

The elves had already been shaken by the explosion! The sparks woke them up from their dreams, and they ran around crying. They fled east again, and only felt relieved when they could no longer see the rift.

However, the explosion just now also made Modsheka cautious. The artillery used in this attack seemed to be different from the artillery used by the trolls before.

This time the power of the artillery was obviously much smaller, as if a grenade was flying over, and the range was also much shorter, but the lethality caused by the explosion was still amazing, at least much stronger than a grenade.

After the trolls left, several orcs appeared from the other side of the rift. The leader was Ka'graz.

"Is this the Flying Thunder Cannon? The effect is really good!" Kagraz patted the cannon at hand with a smile, obviously very satisfied with its performance.

Flying Thunder Cannon is a new type of artillery produced by the workshop.

Compared with traditional artillery, it is much smaller in size. If the parts are disassembled and carried, only three people are needed to carry the Flying Thunder Cannon around. The size and weight of its ammunition are also very small, only a few times heavier than a grenade.

After testing, the Flying Thunder Cannon immediately received unanimous praise from the infantry soldiers.

What high-mobility infantry lacks most nowadays is heavy firepower. When encountering a tough enemy, they can either wait for the big guys to be slowly transported up, or get close and use grenades to blow them up. But the appearance of the flying thunder cannon has filled this gap.

The inspiration for the Flying Thunder Cannon came from the attempt by several soldiers to use artillery shells to blow up a "grenade", which would explode when it hit the ground, killing the enemy.

After repeated attempts and designs by scholars, this flying thunder cannon was finally created. Although its ultimate range is much shorter than that of a large steel cannon, it is definitely not something that can be achieved by swinging one's arms. Even a troll bomber cannot do this.

Orc warriors are strong, and their individual carrying capacity is much higher than other races. They can even move quickly with just two soldiers. Therefore, the orcs love this kind of artillery the most. This time, the orc reinforcements were equipped with a large number of this kind of artillery, and the elite troops even had one in each squad.

In the following days, the elves tried to break through this natural barrier from various places, but they were all blown to pieces by the orcs equipped with flying thunder cannons. The flying thunder cannon did not need to be deployed in advance and fixed like traditional artillery. Instead, it could be installed and used at any time, and it was easy to aim. It was a good helper for killing people, robbing goods, and robbing houses.

The elves didn't believe it at first, thinking that they were just unlucky because their attacks happened to hit the trolls' firepower positions. However, they changed directions several times and even took risks to try to break through from unsuitable places, but they were bombed and doubted their lives without exception.

This made the elven generals secretly frightened! How many artillery pieces did the Troll Empire have? Why did they encounter enemy artillery positions everywhere? If calculated by this number, their artillery pieces might be able to catch up with their own muskets. How could they fight this battle?

Modsheka also guessed that the enemy must be equipped with new firearms. But his understanding of firearms was superficial after all. In his impression, the artillery was so large that it was impossible for a few people to move it. Even if there was a strong man who could carry the artillery, he would still have to carry heavy shells with him! How could he deploy it quickly with the army?

This understanding meant that they were doomed to be unable to imagine the appearance of the Flying Thunder Cannon, and could only break through again and again, and be beaten again and again.