Chapter 020: Comparison

There is also the comparison of the strength between the experts from both sides. On Basha’s side, there are four Domain Masters—Moses, Naixiu, Du Fan, and Leibiao. There are fifteen Holy-level experts, namely Basha, three magicians, and eleven battalion commanders from the Black Eagle Knight Order.

Of course, Karu also has many strong fighters! Just the ten Mountain Giants are all Holy-level experts or above. Additionally, Komhan has six more Holy-level experts among his subordinates!

There’s also that second-in-command of the magical beasts—unknown whether he is still in the vicinity. Could there be any Holy-level experts among Karu’s reinforcements this time?

The number of Holy-level experts on Karu’s side is no less than that on Basha’s side. Although they are at a disadvantage in terms of the number of Domain Masters, the ten Mountain Giants are, in some aspects, no less powerful than the Domain Masters!

The strength of both sides is in a very delicate balance—perhaps a small factor could determine the outcome of the war.

Among Basha’s army of over 60,000 warriors from various races, more than 40,000 had already entered Basha’s Black Eagle Knight Order base by the time Karu’s forces were still 20 li away from it.

There are also over 20,000 dwarf warriors gathered 10 li away from the Black Eagle Knight Order base, ready to support Basha’s forces at any moment.

It’s time to give a proper introduction to the Black Eagle Knight Order base.

We must thank His Majesty the Dwarf King for his foresight. When establishing the Black Eagle Knight Order, he not only adopted the most advanced human practices in terms of organization and training but also strictly followed human military standards when building the base.

At the time of construction, many dwarves were highly dissatisfied. Although many tribe leaders dared not speak out in front of the Dwarf King, they secretly criticized him harshly. Why build such a heavily fortified military base deep in dwarf territory?

The Dwarf King spent a great deal of effort choosing the location—a valley surrounded by mountains with only one entrance. If one tried to climb up from the peaks to reach the base, unfortunately, those surrounding peaks were not the small hills of 200–300 meters high as during the battle with Komhan in the Kama Valley. These peaks surrounding the base were over 2,000 meters tall!

At such a height, coupled with dense jungles and steep peaks, it’s impossible for a large force to cross over. But even if a small group tried, facing that many Black Panther Knights would be suicide! Moreover, even inside the valley, there are thick city walls and gates! One can imagine just how solid these walls were built, given the emphasis placed on them by the Dwarf King. These walls are even covered with a layer of iron! Du Fan’s unfinished mission in the Siluo Province could be completed here. Of course, there are differences here: first, the distance between the two peaks is quite short, so the wall is only built over a thousand meters long. Additionally, the dwarves in the Twilight Mountains may lack everything else, but they never lack stone or iron! The thick gates are entirely cast from iron! Of course, they’re not solid iron—there are clever hollows in them—but even so, these gates are far better than the wooden doors covered in iron among humans! The walls are not only thick but also very high! It can be said that no ladder can climb such walls; they can only be broken through, never scaled over! There are certainly many defensive tools on the walls and gates—slinging platforms, rolling boulders, boiling oil, arrow towers—everything is there! Those who criticized the Dwarf King for wasting resources centuries ago would surely marvel at this sight today, recognizing that the Dwarf King truly deserves to be the king of the dwarves, with vision that spans centuries ahead! When the allied forces of the Dodge and Bilu tribes arrived in front of the Black Panther Knights’ base, they all took a deep breath in shock! How could such defenses be broken? The dwarf warriors had never seen such fortifications before! In the eyes of the dwarves, war meant direct combat—there was no need to go to such lengths to build such defenses! When they were still over two thousand meters away from the Black Panther Knights’ military base in Bashah, Karu’s army stopped. From the middle of the army, ten giant figures suddenly stepped forward! These ten giants were none other than the Mountain Giants, standing over six meters tall with rock-like skin—clearly giants, the legendary race of Mountain Giants! Following behind them were numerous dwarf warriors, each carrying large stones.

A stone that required two dwarves to lift must be incredibly heavy! Du Fan stood on top of the city wall and roughly estimated that each of these stones weighed around 1,000 pounds!
Seeing such stones and those mountain giants, Du Fan immediately understood that they were planning to use these stones to attack the city wall!
That wasn’t enough! The mountain giants began to move closer to the city wall step by step! The dwarf warriors also carried huge stones and gradually advanced toward the wall!
“Shoot them all!” Du Fan shouted. Soon, the arrows from the elves were fired fiercely at the mountain giants!
Unfortunately, the arrows shot by these level-7 elves had no effect at all on the mountain giants!
But Du Fan quickly figured it out.
After all, Nayixiu’s sun-shooting attack only caused superficial injuries to one mountain giant! How could ordinary arrows from level-7 archers possibly harm them?
The elves’ arrows, when shot at the mountain giants, were like tickling them—they fell to the ground as soon as they hit them!
“Shoot those dwarves carrying stones! Hurry up!” Seeing that shooting the mountain giants was ineffective, Du Fan began directing the elves to shoot at the dwarves carrying stones.
However, the dwarves carrying stones seemed to have anticipated this. In front of each pair of them, there were two more dwarves with shields protecting them!
Moreover, seeing that the mountain giants weren’t afraid of arrows at all, these dwarves wisely followed behind them.
The elves’ arrows only slowed down their progress. Sure, a couple of dwarves fell, but such a casualty rate was practically nothing in a battlefield like this.
With an army of 160,000, losing one or two didn’t matter—new dwarf warriors quickly took their place.
Soon, the mountain giants reached a distance of 300 meters from the city wall. Only then did their speed slow down. The dwarves quickly moved the stones behind the giants.
“Ah!” One of the mountain giants screamed suddenly! He lifted a huge stone with both hands and threw it with force! The stone fell toward the archers on top of the city wall.

“Run! Run!” Du Fan shouted loudly when he saw the stones being thrown down.
Archers at level seven had excellent eyesight; from the force and trajectory of the thrown stones, they could determine exactly where the massive rocks would land.
Soon, the elf archers standing near the predicted landing sites quickly took cover.
Archers at level seven were incredibly agile and fast!
With a loud “bang,” the stone hit the city wall, producing a tremendous noise!
The tall, thick city wall, covered in iron plates, trembled slightly under the impact of that single stone!
Seeing one mountain giant smashing the wall, other mountain giants quickly began lifting huge rocks and throwing them one after another!
Just the weight of the stones already reached 2,000 jin, plus the strength of the mountain giants and the downward impact force—such stones, when thrown at the city wall, carried a force of at least tens of thousands of jin!
Watching this method of attacking the city wall, Du Fan couldn’t help but gasp in awe!
These mountain giants were like living trebuchets!
Even trebuchets couldn’t throw stones weighing over 2,000 jin!
Super mobile trebuchets! That was Du Fan’s further assessment of the mountain giants!
It seemed that mountain giants were truly valuable assets on the battlefield!
Thinking of this, Du Fan recalled how, over a thousand years ago, a hundred mountain giants worked together to help the dwarves escape—what an unimaginable force that must have been!
Now, just ten mountain giants standing at the foot of the city already posed such a threat to the Black Panther Knights!
The city wall, covered in iron plates, was shaking from the impacts!
Moreover, the wall was about ten meters thick and nearly thirty meters high!
Such a solid wall could still be shaken—one could only imagine what would happen if such stones hit human city walls!
However, after throwing stones for a while, the mountain giants suddenly realized that their attacks had little effect!
Indeed, the defensive fortifications designed and supervised personally by the Dwarf King were truly extraordinary!
Even with such heavy stones, the wall only shook—shaking didn’t mean it would collapse!
The Dwarf King was truly far-sighted, Du Fan thought in admiration.

While Du Fan was still marveling, those mountain giants suddenly changed their target. Realizing that attacking the city walls was ineffective, they turned their attacks toward the elf archers standing on top of the walls! Soon, those huge stones were hurled straight at the elves on the walls! “Get down! All of you, get down!” Du Fan shouted loudly. With the mountain giants having changed their target, the elf archers found themselves in a desperate situation. Those two thousand elf archers were, in a way, Du Fan’s lifeline! Just two thousand people—losing even one meant a significant reduction. A huge stone flew toward the group of elves, leaving them with no chance to dodge! In fact, three stones were thrown at them at once! Seeing this, Du Fan cried out, “Archers, get down quickly!” As soon as he finished speaking, he rushed toward that huge stone at lightning speed! Book 39: The Black Knight Order