The Rock-Gnawing Tribe had a strict hierarchy; every goblin knew their place, knowing exactly who was beneath them and who was above them.
And above all the goblins, there were two.
Broken-Tooth Goruk, the goblin chieftain who could operate the Giant-Arm Miner, and Pustule Groz, the shaman of the Rock-Gnawing Tribe, who was also an Alchemist possessing Alchemy Spells that were sophisticated and miraculous in the eyes of other goblins.
At this moment.
Broken-Tooth Goruk was in the tribe's open clearing, brutally impaling a goblin who had challenged his authority. He hoisted the body on a wooden rack, lit a bonfire, and began roasting it directly, letting the other goblins share the meat.
This goblin chieftain was already very old.
Nearly 30 years old.
Goblins have a lifespan of about fifty years, but 30 is already considered an advanced age.
Survival in the wilderness was difficult, and the resources the Rock-Gnawing Tribe could obtain were limited. Very, very few goblins could live past 30; they often died in their teens.
Generally speaking.
A goblin of Goruk's age would have already been challenged and replaced by a younger one.
But through his own ruthless slaughter and the experience of a cunning old soul, he still firmly controlled everything in the Rock-Gnawing Tribe, sitting upon the highest throne of power.
Only he could pilot the Giant-Arm Miner.
This was something the Rock-Gnawing Tribe had once paid a massive price for, starving many clansmen to death to scrape together the funds to buy it from a passing merchant caravan.
The Giant-Arm Miner was a humanoid Alchemy Golem.
Standing eight meters tall at the shoulder, with exposed seams on its riveted steel plates, its style was rugged and primitive. Its giant arms were thick and long, with shovel-like hands that could reach the ground; it seemed as if a light tap could shatter marble.
As its name suggested, it was an Alchemy Golem used for mining, but its size and tonnage could equally be used for slaughter and combat.
Sitting in the cockpit in the chest of the Giant-Arm Miner.
Broken-Tooth Goruk felt himself become towering, looking down at the other tiny goblins. A wonderful feeling of being superior, of being able to decide the life or death of other goblins at will, welled up within him.
Especially since he had scared off a wyrmling not long ago.
This caused Broken-Tooth Goruk's vanity to swell to the extreme, feeling that Dragonkin were nothing more than this. He felt that if he had a better Alchemy Golem, he would even dare to hunt young dragons, or even adult dragons.
"It's a pity that wyrmling got away."
"If I could catch it, I could buy an even better Alchemy Golem."
"I wonder if the Wolf Riders have tracked it down by now."
Broken-Tooth Goruk thought to himself.
Suddenly, he seemed to see a dark shadow flash across the sky, vanishing in an instant.
"What was that?"
Goruk was startled, but he soon calmed down again. The dark shadow seemed like an illusion and had already disappeared; the sky was as peaceful as ever.
At the same time.
Inside the Alchemy Workshop, an extremely hideous goblin was flipping through something.
Its grayish-green skin was covered in cracked patterns, with yellow-green slime oozing from the crevices, emitting a pungent odor like a mix of rotting meat and sulfur. Dozens of fist-sized tumors bulged on its back, their surfaces transparent like pustules, with different colored pus accumulated inside.
Pustule Groz, the Rock-Gnawing Tribe Shaman.
He was fully concentrated, flipping through a thin booklet in his hands.
A few words were written on the cover of the booklet.
[Elementary Alchemy Manual]
Groz had found this Alchemy Manual; unfortunately, because of his limited literacy and lack of guidance, he could basically only understand the diagrams. Over the years, he had been fumbling through it on his own, ending up covered in pustules, but by a stroke of luck, he had mastered a few basic Alchemy Runes.
Every time he flipped through the Alchemy Manual, Groz always felt something different.
Unlike his other ignorant clansmen who were satisfied with the present and a muddled life, he loved knowledge, research, and communicating with other intelligent beings.
He felt that he might be a Genius.
If he hadn't been born in a small place like the Rock-Gnawing Tribe, he would surely have a very long-term future.
Through some rare interactions, he knew that beyond the wilderness, there was a civilization called the Losern Federation, which contained a kingdom made of goblins. It was said that the goblins there were wise and civilized, not crude and ignorant like the goblins of the Rock-Gnawing Tribe whom he detested; that was also the place he yearned for.
After flipping through the Alchemy Manual for a while longer.
Groz slowly set it down and carefully stored it in a black wooden box to prevent damage.
At this moment, he noticed the Communication Stone at his waist was glowing slightly.
He picked it up and held it to his ear.
Groz's expression changed immediately. Because the change in expression was so intense, many of the pustules on his face were squeezed until they burst.
"Dragon! A powerful black-and-red wyrmling!"
"It's slaughtering us!"
He had just heard exhausted screams, wails for mercy, and the whistling sound of dragon wings slicing through the air.
Besides the sounds, there was also a vague, approximate direction in the message.
"Black-and-red wyrmling?"
Groz paced in the room, realizing the severity of the problem—the Wolf Riders had likely been wiped out.
"Tell the news to Goruk and launch a sneak attack under the cover of night?"
Groz first thought this.
But he quickly rejected it.
A wyrmling that could completely annihilate the Wolf Riders without letting a single one escape was definitely not ordinary. Relying on the goblins of the Rock-Gnawing Tribe and a single Giant-Arm Miner, they probably couldn't kill it even with a sneak attack.
"I can't tell Goruk the news; he's currently very arrogant and foolish, no longer recognizing his own place."
"How about selling the news to the merchant caravan?"
Groz thought for a bit.
He had a way to contact the merchant caravan that he had originally traded with to buy the Giant-Arm Miner.
Perhaps he could sell the news of the wyrmling to the caravan; he could earn some benefits at least.
However, that was a Dragon.
A Dragon meant wealth, and it meant his hope of leaving the wilderness.
Groz pondered deeply and finally decided to first send some goblins skilled in scouting to check the situation. As long as there was a slim chance, he would hunt the wyrmling at any cost. If it really wasn't possible, he would then notify the caravan and sell the information.
But just as Groz was thinking this.
A sudden burst of noisy exclamations came from outside.
Immediately following.
Boom! With a deafening roar, the ground shook violently, as if a meteorite had fallen from the sky. Many cracks and fissures extended beneath Groz's feet.
He lost his footing, staggering back a few steps before falling to the ground.
"What happened?"
Groz panicked. After standing up, he ran out of the Alchemy Workshop.
The moment he pushed the door open, his vision was filled with dust and firelight. A black-and-red afterimage flashed through the dust, and Groz's pupils finally captured the source of the disaster.
It was an unknown dragon whose body was covered in dragon scales that looked like they were cast from black steel, with patterns like dark red lava flowing over them.
It was currently slowly standing up. Beneath its thick limbs was a circular crater it had smashed out, and inside the crater were some corpses that had been crushed into meat paste.
A pair of massive wings covered in feather-like fine scales with edges like blades spread out.
With a gentle swing, it sliced through several nearby goblins who didn't have time to dodge, turning them into two halves. The leather armor they wore was as fragile as paper.
It was Garros.
He had come after all.
Originally, Garros felt that a Goblin Tribe that even Samantha couldn't capture shouldn't pose a threat to him and he could ignore them. But on second thought, he felt he was being somewhat arrogant and shouldn't underestimate the opponent like that.
Arrogance is the single greatest factor that gets dragons killed.
Garros thought that goblins were, after all, intelligent beings rather than magical beasts or Vicious Beasts. Since the tribe had an Alchemy Golem, there was a high probability they had contact with the outside world and perhaps had channels to communicate with other intelligent beings.
Thinking this way.
Garros, who cherished his life very much, felt a bit afraid. He didn't want to give up the Hemlock Hills, but he also didn't want to encounter an unexpected attack.
Because of this fear.
Garros wanted to completely eradicate the factors that made him afraid in advance, to put his mind at ease.