Spirit Pact Hundred Scenes Record

Chapter 42 The Declining Royal City

Bran's infiltration route was a long-forgotten, abandoned mine tunnel.

The mine entrance was hidden behind a crevice in a collapsed rock wall beneath the airport platform, deliberately concealed by piles of rubble and slag. Bran used his cane to pry open a few loose rocks, revealing a narrow opening just wide enough for one person to pass through. The cave was pitch black, with a faint smell of hot air and sulfur emanating from its depths.

"This mine tunnel was dug two hundred years ago when the Sunstone vein was being mined. It was abandoned after the vein dried up," Bran explained in a low voice, while pulling two simple psionic miner's lamps from his pocket and handing them to Grom. "The structure inside is relatively stable, but there might be some sections where cave-ins could occur. Be careful."

Grom took the miner's lamp and nodded his thanks. Looking at Bran's aged, haggard face and crippled leg, he couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you coming with us?"

Bran shook his head with a wry smile: "In my current state, following you would only be a hindrance. And if I also disappear, the Order will immediately become alert. If I stay here, I can provide cover for you and create some... chaos."

He didn't specify what kind of chaos he wanted to create, but the determination in his eyes made Grom understand that his old comrade was prepared to make some kind of sacrifice.

"Take care." Grom patted Bran on the shoulder forcefully; dwarves don't need many words.

"You too," Bran said. "Finding the truth and saving Ironforge. That's the best reward for me."

After saying goodbye to Bran, the group began to enter the mine tunnels.

Karen walked at the front, carrying Dawn in one arm and a miner's lamp in the other. The light illuminated the rough cave walls, revealing neat chisel marks left by the dwarven craftsmen who had carved them out, as well as remnants of long-extinguished lighting runes. The air was hot and dry, each breath feeling like a burning sensation in her lungs. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dust, making almost no sound as she walked.

Shadow perched on Karen's shoulder, its silver eyes gleaming faintly in the darkness. The black cat had recovered considerably and was able to move normally, but its strength was still far from its peak.

"The psionic veins in this mine tunnel have completely dried up," Shadow suddenly said. "I can feel that the geothermal psionic energy that should have flowed through it is now reduced to a few weak, intermittent remnants. It's like a blood vessel that has been forcibly drained of blood."

Grom followed behind Karen, the light from his miner's lamp illuminating his ashen face. "The Sunstone veins were once one of Ironforge's most important energy sources. Even if the veins themselves were depleted, the underground psionic circulation should have remained active, providing basic support for other veins. Now even that's..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but the meaning was clear.

The mine tunnel was long and winding downwards, with varying slopes. In some sections, as Bran had described, landslides had indeed occurred, requiring them to crawl across piles of rubble using both hands and feet. In other places, fine cracks appeared in the tunnel walls, from which a dark red glow shone—the light of the magma layer below, indicating that they had penetrated deep into the mountain.

After walking for about half an hour, a fork in the road appeared ahead.

The three passages lead in different directions. According to the map provided by Bran, the middle one leads to the lower residential area of ​​Ironforge, the one on the left leads to the abandoned forge workshop, and the one on the right leads directly to "Forge Square" on the outskirts of the royal court.

"Let's go to the right." Grom chose without hesitation. "We need to confirm the situation of the Royal Court and the true state of the Soul of the Forge first."

They turned to the passage on the right. This passage was wider than the previous one, with more intricate chisel marks on the cave walls, and even some decorative reliefs depicting the dwarven ancestors forging artifacts. However, the reliefs were cracked, and parts had peeled away, revealing the rough rock beneath.

The passage gradually sloped upwards, and the temperature rose accordingly. A light appeared ahead, not from a miner's lamp, but from some kind of artificial light source.

After walking for a few more minutes, they came to a heavy iron door at the end of the passage. The door originally had intricate locks and warning runes, but now the locks were severely rusted, and the runes were completely faded. Grom tried to push it, but the iron door wouldn't budge.

"Is it locked from the inside?" Feng Liya asked.

"No, it's rusted to death." Grom carefully examined the door hinges and hinges. "It hasn't been maintained for at least ten years. Doors like this should be inspected and oiled by guards every day."

He took out several tools specific to dwarves from his backpack—a small hammer, a chisel, and a bottle of special rust remover. After about five minutes, accompanied by a screeching metallic scraping sound, the iron door was finally pried open a crack.

Grom squeezed in first, followed closely by Karen and the others.

Behind the door was a small storage room, piled with some broken toolboxes and empty wine barrels. The dust was so thick that clear footprints could be seen, indicating that no one had been here for a long time. At the other end of the storage room was a half-open wooden door, through which a brighter light shone, and a faint, indistinct commotion could be heard from afar.

Grom gently pushed open the wooden door.

The sight before him froze him in place.

Karen, looking from behind him, also gasped.

This is the interior of Ironforge.

But it is not the magnificent, prosperous, and vibrant dwarven city described by Grom.

Instead, it was a... decaying, lifeless city that was slowly dying.

They stood on a high platform, overlooking a vast, bowl-shaped underground plaza below. At the center of the plaza should have stood the colossal "Public Forge"—the heart of all Ironforge's forges, the nexus through which the Forge's spirit circulated throughout the city. But now, that forge was completely extinguished.

Not only was it extinguished, but it was also riddled with cracks. The furnace surface was covered with a thick layer of ash and rust, and the interior was pitch black, devoid of any firelight or psionic glow. Of the twelve energy conduits surrounding the furnace, eight were broken, and a dark red, viscous substance resembling congealed blood flowed from the broken ends.

The square should have been surrounded by hundreds of forging workshops and blacksmith shops. But now, more than half of the workshops are closed, their chimneys no longer emitting smoke. Those that are still open have pitifully weak fires, and the clanging sounds of forging are sparse and feeble, completely lacking the lively rhythm that a dwarf workshop should have.

Even more shocking were the dwarves walking in the streets.

They wore tattered, patched clothes, and many looked pale and had vacant eyes. Some dwarves dragged their weary bodies carrying ore or finished products, but the ore was of poor quality and the finished products were crude and rudimentary. Many others sat directly on the street, leaning against the walls, staring blankly, indifferent to everything around them.

The air was filled with the smell of rust, ashes, and... despair.

"How could this be..." Grom's voice trembled. "Three years ago... three years ago when I left, this place was thriving! The public furnaces burned day and night, and the firelight from the workshops illuminated the entire square as if it were daytime! The streets were packed with merchants and adventurers from all the floating realms! Now... now it's like a ghost town!"

Karen's spiritual vision automatically activated. Although it was blurred due to depletion, it could still detect the abnormal flow of spiritual energy.

The city’s psionic network is operating in a morbid manner.

Normal psionic energy should circulate like blood, pumped out from the Soul of the Furnace, the "heart," flowing through various areas of the city, providing energy for workshops, living facilities, and defensive arrays, and then returning to the Soul of the Furnace through return channels to complete the cycle.

But what Karen "sees" now is that the vast majority of the psionic energy flowing from the Soul of the Forge is forcibly directed deep underground—towards the "psionic siphon" that Bran mentioned. Only a very small, sparse amount of psionic energy is allowed to circulate within the city, barely maintaining its most basic functions.

Moreover, even this small amount of psionic energy was being continuously extracted. Karen noticed that the furnace flames of the workshops that were still operating around the square were weak because the psionic energy pipes connecting the workshops were being secretly diverted by some invisible, parasitic structure.

The entire Ironforge is like a tree rooted in countless parasites, being slowly drained dry from the inside.

"Those people in black robes..." Feng Liya suddenly lowered her voice and pointed to the other side of the square.

Karen looked in the direction they were looking and saw several figures dressed in the black robes of the Azure Flame Order. They swaggered down the street, and the dwarves around them gave way, their eyes filled with a mixture of fear and hatred, but no one dared to stop them. The order members stopped in front of a workshop, where the workshop owner—an old dwarf with a wrinkled face—tremblingly presented a fist-sized, reasonably good quality molten crystal. The order member examined it, nodded, took a small bag from his waist and tossed it to the old dwarf, then took the crystal.

The old dwarf opened the bag and looked inside. His face turned even more ashen, but he still bowed and watched the members of the cult leave.

"They're... requisitioning?" Karen asked incredulously.

"No, it's plunder." Grom's voice was as cold as ice. "Under the guise of 'energy management fees' or 'mineral usage taxes.' But I bet those bags don't contain gold coins or supplies of equivalent value; at most, they're filled with some cheap food or... things that are completely worthless."

Just then, a series of heavy, orderly footsteps came from below.

A squad of dwarven soldiers entered from the plaza entrance. They wore relatively intact armor and marched in a fairly orderly fashion, but the armor bore many signs of repair, and their weapons looked quite old. The captain of the guard was a middle-aged dwarf with a scar running diagonally from his forehead to his chin, and his eyes were cold and weary.

Instead of patrolling, the guards headed directly toward the high platform where Karen and the others were.

"Oh no, we've been discovered." Feng Liya immediately became alert.

"Not necessarily," Shadow said. "They might just be on a routine patrol of the area. But we'd better get out of here and find a more secluded spot to observe."

But it was too late.

The guards had arrived below the platform, and the captain of the guards looked up, his gaze fixed directly on Grom.

"Grom Anvil," the captain of the guard said, his voice booming but devoid of emotion, "traitor, how dare you return."

Grom recognized him: "Torin? It's you? When did you become the captain of the guard?"

Tolin—the captain of the guard—remained expressionless: "After you were convicted and fled, the king promoted me to replace you. Now, by the king and the chief craftsman's orders, you and all your accomplices are hereby arrested."

He waved his hand, and twenty dwarven soldiers immediately spread out, forming a semi-circle around the platform. They raised their weapons—not the traditional dwarven battle axes or warhammers, but a type of weapon Karen had never seen before, resembling a combination of spear and staff. The spearheads gleamed with a dark red light, clearly weapons provided by the Order.

Grom gripped his warhammer, but Karen held his arm down.

"Don't fight them head-on," Karen whispered. "They outnumber us and have the cult's weapons. We have no chance of winning if we fight them now."

"Then what should we do? Surrender?"

"Let's go with them first," Shadow said from Karen's shoulder. "Let's see where they take us. If they take us directly to the Royal Court or the High Craftsman, that will save us time finding our way."

Grom hesitated for a second, then loosened his grip on the hammer. He knew Shadow was right; given their current state, a direct confrontation was indeed unwise.

"We surrender," Grom shouted, "but my friends have nothing to do with this, they were just..."

"All those who travel with you are your accomplices," Tolin interrupted him. "Arrest them all and take them to the royal court for trial. If they resist, kill them without mercy."

The soldiers stepped forward and bound Grom, Karen, and Fenglia's wrists with specially made shackles. The shackles were engraved with runes that suppressed psionic energy; as soon as they were put on, Karen felt the flow of psionic energy within her body become sluggish, as if she were being bound by a heavy yoke. Dawn was roughly snatched from Karen's arms by a soldier; the cub let out an angry growl, but its weakened state rendered it powerless to resist.

"Don't hurt it!" Karen yelled.

"Spirit creatures must be kept in solitary confinement," Tolin said coldly. "The elders of the Order are very interested in this...rare species."

Karen's heart sank. If Dawn were taken away by the Order, the consequences would be unimaginable. But he was currently bound by shackles, his psionic energy suppressed, and he was completely powerless to resist.

Just then, Shadow silently leaped off Karen's shoulder, blending into the shadows and disappearing. The soldiers seemed oblivious to the "ordinary black cat," their attention focused on Grom and Dawn.

Karen felt a little relieved. The Shadow was still free, which was their greatest hope at the moment.

The soldiers led them down from the platform and across the square. The dwarves in the street stopped to watch, but no one spoke, no one uttered a sound. Their eyes were complex—there was hatred for Grom, the "traitor," curiosity about Karen and the other outsiders, but more than anything, a numb, indifferent apathy.

Karen could sense that the heart of this city had died.

Or rather, it is dying.

They were led across the plaza and into a wide tunnel that led higher up the mountain. The tunnel should have been lined with illuminating crystals, but most were now extinguished, with only a few still emitting a faint glow. The ground was paved with stone slabs, but many were cracked, and strange, dark red plants that resembled moss but weren't quite moss were growing from the cracks.

At the end of the tunnel stood a massive gate, cast from a single block of fine iron. Over ten meters high, its surface was originally adorned with carvings of the dwarven ancestors' achievements, but many details were now obscured by stains and rust. Two rows of guards, their armor far superior, stood before the gate, their eyes colder than those of Torin's soldiers, like emotionless statues.

Tolin stepped forward, exchanged a few words with the gatekeeper in a low voice, and showed him a token. The gatekeeper checked it and nodded, and the heavy iron gate slowly opened inward with a screeching sound.

Behind the door lies the Royal Court area of ​​Ironforge.

But the decay here is even more shocking than that of the square outside.

The passageway should have been lined with statues of past dwarf kings, but now more than half of them have collapsed, with broken stones scattered all over the ground. Many of the portraits of heroes from different eras hanging on the walls are faded, moldy, or even badly damaged by insects. The marble floor tiles are severely cracked, with dust and unidentified black stains filling the gaps.

Even more bizarrely, the air was filled with a faint, sweet, cloying smell, like the afterglow of some kind of burning medicine. Although Karen's spiritual senses were suppressed, she could still feel that the smell contained trace amounts of psychic energy that could affect the mind.

They were led through a long corridor and finally arrived at a spacious hall.

This must be the royal council hall. The hall is circular, with a raised platform in the center bearing three chairs—the central throne and two side chairs on either side. Dozens of smaller chairs surround the hall, presumably for nobles and high-ranking officials.

But now, the hall is empty, with only a few people.

On the throne sat Moradin II, the dwarf king.

When Karen first saw him, she could hardly believe that he was a king.

Moradin II looked very old—not a normal old age, but a morbid, hollowed-out one. He was skin and bones, his magnificent royal robes hanging loosely on his body, like a skeleton. His eyes were sunken, his gaze unfocused, and the edges of his pupils were tinged with an unnatural dark red. His hands rested on the armrests, his fingers withered and thin, his nails blackened, and he trembled slightly.

He sat there, but he didn't feel like a living person; he was more like a... manipulated puppet.

On the left flank of the throne sat a richly dressed, stout dwarf. He was about two hundred years old, in his prime, with a ruddy complexion, a stark contrast to Moradin II's haggard appearance. He wore an exquisite robe, his fingers adorned with jeweled rings, and a string of jingling keys—a symbol of a master craftsman—hung at his waist.

Master craftsman.

Karen recognized him immediately. Based on Grom's previous description and the evidence provided by Bran, this man was the mastermind behind the psychic siphon project, which colluded with the cult.

The master craftsman was leisurely sipping a glass of wine when he saw Grom being brought in, and a mocking smile appeared on his lips.

"Oh, isn't this our esteemed 'former' captain of the guard, Lord Grom Anvil?" The master craftsman's voice was smooth and affected. "Three years have passed, and you've become quite a mess. Oh, right, I forgot, you're now a traitor, a fugitive, a sinner who should be hanged in the Royal Court Square."

Grom glared at the High Tinker, his eyes practically spitting fire: "Glen Blackhammer! How dare you sit here? Look at the state you've made of Ironforge! Look at the state you've created for the King!"

"Watch your words, traitor," said High Tinker Glenn Forgehammer slowly and deliberately. "Ironforge is doing very well right now. Yes, energy is a bit strained, but that's because we're undertaking the great 'Forge Upgrade Project.' Once it's complete, Ironforge will enjoy unprecedented prosperity. As for the King…"

He turned to Moradin II, his tone becoming "respectful": "Your Majesty is simply overworked and needs rest. As the Grand Craftsman, it is only natural that I should share Your Majesty's burdens and handle some... trivial administrative matters."

As if he had overheard their conversation, Moradin II slowly turned his head to look at Grom. His eyes were vacant, and his lips moved slightly, uttering a weak sound: "Grom... you... are back..."

"Your Majesty!" Grom knelt on one knee, maintaining the decorum of a subject even with his hands cuffed. "Your Majesty, please wake up! Glenn Forgehammer is colluding with the Order! They are draining the energy of the Forge Soul! They are destroying Ironforge!"

A flicker of struggle crossed Moradin II's expression, but it quickly returned to its blankness. He murmured, "Energy...forge...upgrade...for...the future..."

"Did you hear that?" Glenn Forgehammer laughed smugly. "His Majesty supports me. And you, Grom, not only did you steal the fragments of the relic, but now you dare to trespass into the royal court with these unknown outsiders and slander loyal subjects. Your crimes have been increased once again."

He stood up, walked to the edge of the platform, and looked down at Grom, Karen, and the others.

"According to Ironforge law, treason is punishable by death. But the elders of the Order are very interested in you... and your 'friends'. So, I've decided not to kill you for now, but to imprison you and wait for the elders of the Order to come and... take you in."

He waved.

"Take him away. Lock him in the deepest 'solitary cell' of the dungeon. No one is to touch him without my order."

The soldiers stepped forward and roughly dragged Grom and Karen away.

Karen took one last look at Moradin II on the throne.

A faint, almost invisible... clarity seemed to flash in Old Wang's eyes.

And despair.

Then, they were dragged out of the hall.

They were driven deeper and darker into the earth.

There, what awaits them is neither judgment nor redemption.