CHAPTER 106: THE ANVIL’S GATE

Chloe’s hand tightened on the hilt of her dagger, her eyes narrowing at this new, swaggering potential rival for my favor.

Pixia’s holographic console was flashing with a stream of data so fast it was a blur.

"My Lord!" she squeaked, her voice an octave higher than usual. "His rank! It is... it is unclassifiable! The system simply lists it as ’Heroic Spirit’! His potential is... infinite!"

Setanta.

The name tickled a distant memory from my old life. A story. A legend.

Cú Chulainn. The Hound of Ulster. The greatest hero of Irish mythology.

His childhood name was Setanta.

I had just summoned a literal hero.

A legendary, mythological hero.

To serve me. A Demon King.

The sheer, glorious, system-breaking absurdity of it all was breathtaking.

"A good fight, you say?" I replied, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across my face.

"Son, you’ve just signed up for the main event."

I stood up from my throne.

The time for planning was over.

The time for waiting was over.

I had my army. I had my commanders.

And now, I had a legend.

"Isabelle," I commanded, my voice echoing with a new, absolute authority. "Assemble the teams. All of them. Yori, you’re with me. You’re going to see your new forge in person."

I looked at my assembled forces.

"We march for Hakui at dawn," I declared.

"We’re going to go have a little chat with a Dwarf."

"And if he doesn’t want to chat," I added, my smile turning sharp and fanged, "we’ll just take his mountain."

----------------------

The morning after the gacha roll was electric.

The air in the Throne Room, usually a delicate balance of simmering jealousy and fanatical devotion, was now charged with a new, chaotic energy.

That energy had a name.

Setanta.

My new, legendary, and profoundly arrogant subordinate was currently trying to arm-wrestle Grak the Unbreakable.

It was a beautiful, stupid, and structurally-damaging sight.

BOOM!

The massive stone table they were using cracked under the strain, a web of fissures spiderwebbing across its surface.

"Not bad, big fella," Setanta grunted, his wiry arm trembling but holding firm against Grak’s tree-trunk of a bicep. "You’ve got some proper grit."

"YOU ARE SMALL AND LOUD," Grak roared back, a wide, happy grin on his brutal face. "I LIKE YOU."

I watched them, a feeling of deep, profound satisfaction washing over me.

My collection of magnificent, monstrous bastards was finally complete.

"Alright, you two," I commanded, my voice cutting through their testosterone-fueled contest. "Save it for the enemy. We have a mountain to climb."

I gathered my full invasion force.

This was not a subtle infiltration.

This was a declaration.

The Wrecking Crew, led by the divine and deadly Isabelle.

The Shadow Strikers, led by my beautiful, fanatical Chloe.

Grak, my living siege engine.

Setanta, my legendary spearhead.

And Yori, my cunning trap-master, who was practically vibrating with excitement at the thought of seeing a real dwarven forge.

This was the full might of Aethelburg.

And we were going to knock on the Dwarf King’s front door.

With a sledgehammer.

The march to the Hakui mountains was a silent, grim affair.

My army moved like a river of darkness and steel, a promise of violence flowing through the ruined outskirts of the city.

We reached the foot of the mountain at midday.

It was a fortress.

A single, massive peak of black iron and granite, its sides carved with glowing, geometric runes.

A single, massive gate, forged from what looked like a solid slab of obsidian, barred the only entrance.

"Well," I said, admiring the craftsmanship. "He’s certainly not subtle."

"The runes are defensive, my Lord," Yori observed, his old eyes tracing the glowing lines. "Anti-magic, kinetic absorption... this gate is designed to withstand a siege for a thousand years."

"We don’t have a thousand years," I said. "Grak."

My new Unbreakable Beast stepped forward, cracking his massive knuckles.

"YOU WANT ME TO PUNCH THE DOOR?" he asked, his voice a low, happy rumble.

"I want you to introduce yourself," I replied with a grin.

BOOM!

The ground itself seemed to shatter as Grak charged.

He was a living avalanche of muscle and rage, a ten-foot-tall battering ram of pure, unadulterated force.

The wind shrieked as he closed the distance with the obsidian gate.

BOOM!

His fist, a sledgehammer of flesh and bone, connected with the gate.

The impact was an absolute, apocalyptic detonation.

CRACK!

A deafening, thunderous roar echoed through the mountains.

A massive shockwave of displaced air and pulverized stone blasted outwards, shaking the very foundations of the peak.

The obsidian gate, a marvel of dwarven engineering designed to withstand a thousand years of siege, held.

But a single, hairline fracture appeared on its surface.

Grak roared in frustration and hit it again.

BOOM!

And again.

BOOM!

The sound was a constant, percussive rhythm of destruction, a drumbeat of war that announced our arrival.

After the fifth punch, the gate finally gave way, shattering inwards with a sound like a mountain breaking.

"A most effective, if unsubtle, doorbell," I commented.

The way was open.

But our welcome was already waiting.

From the darkness of the tunnel beyond, a new sound emerged.

A low, grinding, metallic groan.

Then, they appeared.

Golems.

Dozens of them.

Hulking, eight-foot-tall constructs of iron and brass, their single, glowing red eyes fixed on us.

They moved with a steady, grinding, and utterly relentless purpose.

"Finally!" Setanta roared, his bored expression replaced by a wide, bloodthirsty grin. "A proper fight!"

He was the first to engage.

BOOM!

He was a blur of fiery red hair and green cloth, a living whirlwind of death.

His spear, Gáe Bolg, was not a weapon of brute force.

It was a scalpel.

He didn’t smash the golems. He dismantled them.

BOOM! CRACK!

His spear struck the joint of a golem’s arm. The impact was a sharp, focused detonation. A visible shockwave of force ripped through the metal, and the golem’s arm was torn from its socket.

He danced between them, a master artist painting a masterpiece of violence.

My other forces surged forward, a tide of monstrous fury crashing against a wall of unfeeling iron.

BOOM! CRACK! BOOM!

The tunnel became a percussive nightmare of sonic booms and shockwaves as my Orcs and Ogres clashed with the dwarven constructs.

Grak was a whirlwind of destruction, his fists turning solid iron into crumpled scrap.

Isabelle and Chloe were a blur of motion, their blades finding the weak points, the gaps in the golems’ armor.

We were winning.

But it was costly.

For every golem that fell, one of my Orcs was crushed by a massive iron fist.

"This was a test, my Lord," Yori said, his voice grim. "A screening. He sacrificed these golems to gauge our strength. To slow us down."

He was right.

We had breached the outer gate.

But as we fought our way through the last of the golem defenders, we saw it.

At the far end of the long, dark tunnel.

A second gate.

This one was even bigger, forged from a shimmering, silver-like metal I had never seen before.

And standing before it, his arms crossed, was a single figure.

He was short, stocky, and built like a barrel of angry muscle.

He had a magnificent, braided white beard that reached his knees.

He wore a suit of powered armor that hummed with a barely contained energy.

In his hands, he held a warhammer that was probably heavier than I was.

"You have broken our toys," the Dwarf Lord’s voice boomed, a deep, rumbling sound like stones grinding together. "Now, face a true son of the mountain."

The trap was sprung.

The real battle was about to begin.

The ninth floor of the Hakui mountain fortress was a masterpiece of dwarven stubbornness.

It was a vast, echoing cavern, lit by the faint, geothermal glow of lava rivers flowing behind thick crystal walls.

The air was hot, thick with the smell of sulfur and roasted monster meat.

My new Troublemaker Party was taking a well-deserved, if deeply dysfunctional, rest.

Gorok the Unbreakable, my newly acquired Beast King, was using a dead golem’s arm as a dumbbell, his massive muscles straining against the enchanted metal. He was a simple creature, and his happiness was directly proportional to the amount of property damage he was allowed to cause.

Sarah, the former Demon Queen, was lounging on a makeshift throne of broken golem parts, filing her nails with a shard of obsidian. She looked bored, regal, and like she was about to order someone’s execution for breathing too loudly.

Saburo, my chuunibyou intern formerly known as Kevin, was leaning against a wall, trying very hard to look mysterious and brooding. He was mostly just succeeding at looking like he had a stomach ache.

And I, Ragnar Vhagar, the Vampire Lord of Aethelburg and the only thing holding this circus of sociopaths together, was trying very hard not to have an aneurysm.

"The rations are... insufficient," Sarah announced, her voice dripping with a condescension that could curdle milk. She held up a piece of dried, salted meat with two delicate fingers, as if it were a dead rat.

"This is peasant food. I am a queen. My palate requires something more... refined."