The dwarves let out a battle cry that echoed through the entire space. They rushed at Noah and his group without regard for their lives. Just the sight of pointy ears in their domain twisted something inside the dwarves. Their killing intent skyrocketed as a dwarf threw his battle ax at Noah. The ax soared through the air, but Noah simply flicked his wrist as the ax froze in the air, turned around, and flew straight back to the dwarf. Only, the dwarf couldn't stop the ax. It hit the dwarf straight on the head, knocking him out cold in an instant. Noah's team scattered around the space in a blink of an eye. Each used their own speed spell to enhance their speed to the point the dwarves barely saw them. Wind rustled every time Noah's team ran past them. The previously silent workshop of the dwarves turned into a battle zone. Without being able to see the intruders, the dwarves swung their axes left and right blindly.
"Stay still and fight us motherfuckers!"
"I want them dead!"
The dwarves screamed as loud as they could. Suddenly, a dwarf froze for a moment before falling down. It happened so quickly. One moment he was fine, and the next, he fell to the ground like a lump of coal. Instead of reaching for their fallen comrades, the dwarves roared at Noah and his team, whom the dwarves couldn't see anymore.
"What have you done?!"
"You will pay for this!"
The dwarves boiled in rage as their eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. Their roars could be heard from anywhere in the space. Soon, the dwarves fell one by one. Noah wasn't wasting any more time on the dwarves. He knocked the wind out of many dwarves just with his fists. Eventually, Noah and his team knocked out every dwarf in the hall and gathered before the weapon.
"Any idea how to destroy this without making a fuss? Too much fuss, I mean," said Neela.
"Before we destroy the weapon, look for a safe. It must be here somewhere," said Noah.
Noah's team nodded before heading out to search for the safe, leaving Noah with the weapon. Noah started to walk around the weapon in the hope of trying to get a better understanding of the weapon. He wondered how Hammond came up with such a bizarre contraption to exchange messages between two places without the use of arch energy.
As he reached the weapon's back, he noticed a door. Noah twisted the golden knob, opening the door. When the door opened, his face was illuminated by the jars lined up inside. His neck hair stood up due to the electric energy coming from the jars. There were almost fifty jars, and each had balls of lightning inside.
"Lightning in a bottle. Who would have thought that?" Noah smiled.
Noah tried to pull out a jar, but they were held in place by a magnetic field.
"So this is what powers up the weapon. How in the hell did these dwarves manage to catch lightning in bottles?" Say whatever about the dwarves, they never ceased to amaze Noah with their innovations. Granted, Hammond was on another level compared to the dwarves, but it didn't mean the dwarves were incompetent. It was just their hatred toward the elves that got the better of them and forced them to kidnap Hammond. Still, Noah felt like he was missing something in this whole story. He couldn't put his finger into what it was, but his gut told me he was missing something, a crucial piece of the puzzle.
While his team was turning the place upside down, searching for a safe, Noah pulled out a jar from the power compartment and put it in his space ring. He had a feeling this might come in handy later. After closing the compartment, Noah continued to walk around the weapon. When he walked a full circle around it, Neela returned to him with a proud grin on her face.
"We found it," said Neela.
"Lead the way," Noah sighed in relief inside. He was glad everything had gone according to plan till now. The red-haired beauty led Noah to the safe that was located in a small room. When Noah entered the brightly lit room, he was welcomed by a long oak table, chairs tall enough to accommodate dwarves, and numerous racks filled with parchment and scrolls. Whoever occupied the room didn't give a damn about tidiness. Everything was lying around out of order. It would be a miracle if anyone could find something in the room. The parchment and papers on the ground rustled as they entered the room.
"There it is," Neela pointed at the safe built inside the wall to Noah. Just like the lever they used to get into this area, the safe had several keyholes as well as tiny gears. If Noah wanted to get the blueprints unharmed, he would have bothered to look for the keys. Since he was here to obliterate the plans, he just went to the safe and sent a stream of heavenly flames into the keyholes.
The entire safe melted down like butter in a few moments. Then, Noah turned his focus onto the bigger problem, the weapon itself.
"How do you plan to destroy it?" asked Neela.
"With these," They heard Norvin's voice. When they turned to the doorway, they saw Norvin, walking toward them in his human form. He carried a red oak barrel on his shoulder.
"Explosives. I found this in a room. Apparently, it's a new kind of explosive, more powerful and more stable. At Least that's what I heard from the dwarves before I knocked them out cold," said Norvin.
"Push this baby into the weapon and watch it go kaboom. Problem solved," Norvin placed the barrel heavily on the ground as Noah's team almost leaped out of the room.
"I told you. It's stable,"
"Stop messing around," said Noah with an amused smile.
"I will take care of destroying the weapon. You guys go ahead and get the dwarves to safety. I don't want them to get caught in the blast," said Noah. If it was Michael, he wouldn't have bothered with saving the dwarves. They built weapons to kill people. So they deserved to die. That would have been Michael's argument. Luckily for the dwarves, Noah wasn't a vengeful god-like Michael. He was merciful.
"I will signal you when we get them to safety," said Norvin before leaving the room with Noah's team. After they left, Noah carried the barrel to the weapon. With a simple leap, Noah reached the weapon's mouth and slowly rolled the barrel down after he attached a rope around the barrel. Noah hovered around the weapon waiting for Norvin's signal. Almost five minutes later, Noah heard a roar in the distance. Noah could recognize that roar in his sleep. That was Norvin in his true golden baboon form. Only a few people had seen his true form, which stood eight feet tall and quite terrifying to look at.
"That's my queue," Noah mumbled as he raised a hand toward the roof. Then, a beam of light shot through the roof, creating a hole wide enough for Noah to escape through. He slowly hovered toward the hole with the rope attached to the explosive barrel in his hand. When he was just a few meters away from the hole in the roof, Noah snapped his fingers as sparks flew into the rope. Blue fire immediately engulfed the rope and traveled through the rope like a blue dragon. Eventually, the flame traveled into the weapon, away from Noah's sight. For a few moments, nothing happened. Noah just waited for something to happen in utter silence. The silence only lasted for a few moments, though.
Boom!
Noah heard the sound of a muffled explosion. In a blink of an eye, fire streamed out of the weapon's mouth, and the weapon exploded into bits and pieces. The sheer force of the explosion alone sent Noah flying directly through the hole. Norvin wasn't kidding when he said the explosive was more powerful. A single barrel was enough to destroy a colossal weapon to pieces and shake the entire building. Noah felt truly lucky that he put the barrel into the weapon instead of making it explode outside it. If that were the case, the explosion would have been several times more powerful and destroyed the entire building along with the adjacent buildings.
Dark smoke rose to the sky itself, forming a giant cloud above the building. Noah used the cloud of smoke to his advantage and flew away from the place. While he was flying away, he saw more and more dwarves running toward the fire instead of away from it. He felt pity for the dwarves. But luckily, Noah cleared the building before setting up the explosion.
His task here was done without a hiccup. Good thing Andreas used all his soul energy, brewing special potions for Noah. Otherwise, they would have had a huge argument about whether to destroy the weapon or not. By the time the higher-ups from Han Torum appeared at the shipyard, Noah and his team were long gone. All the dwarves they knocked out pointed at one group, the elves. As a result, the empress would have a long discussion with her ministers and schedule another secret meeting with none other than the Dark Lord himself.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺