Chapter 44: The Royal Hall Is Mine—and Another Extreme Troop Line
Light spread from the floor of the Dwarven Royal Hall to the vaulted ceiling.
The bronze emblem that had belonged to Haldor faded.
New black-gold lines expanded outward from beneath Cassian’s boots until they reached the edges of the entire hall.
[Dwarven Royal Hall occupied.]
[Owner: Cassian Vale]
Cassian opened the Building panel immediately.
What stopped him was not the `Epic` line.
It was the first name on the production list.
[Dwarven Royal Hall]
[Quality: Epic]
[Stable Troop Lines]
[Hill King | Legendary | 1 / 30 days]
[Storm Guardian | Epic | 1 / 3 days]
[Ironhorn Ram Cavalry | Rare | 1 / day]
[Ridgewarden | Rare | 1 / day]
[Dwarf Gunner | Elite | 10 / day]
More ordinary Dwarf lines continued below.
Cassian did not scroll.
An Epic Troop Building that could steadily produce Legendary troops.
One every thirty days was slow during the newcomer period.
But as long as the Building existed, this was no one-time drop.
It was a Legendary troop line that would keep accumulating.
Cassian had entered the mountains looking for a gate that could keep producing Rare troops.
What lay behind that gate was better than he had expected.
Aurelia saw the panel too.
"The Hill King you just killed was a Hero."
"The ones produced here are Troops."
"Yeah."
Cassian opened the next section.
The existing stock appeared.
[Current Stock]
[Hill King ×1]
[Storm Guardian ×2]
[Dwarf Gunner ×20]
[Other Rare / Elite lines: Stock available]
Cassian did not recruit everything.
Haldor had just given him 500,000 Aether.
Having enough money to spend did not make every purchase worth making.
The first choice was obvious.
[Recruit: Hill King ×1]
[Aether Crystal ×120,000]
"Recruit."
Then the second.
[Recruit: Storm Guardian ×2]
[Aether Crystal ×60,000]
"Recruit."
Cassian’s finger did not stop on Ridgewarden or Ironhorn Ram Cavalry.
Instead, it moved to the Elite line at the bottom.
Dwarf Gunner.
Eira noticed.
"You skipped the Rare troops and went for the Elite ones?"
"First, I want to see this."
Cassian opened the detailed information.
[Dwarf Gunner]
[Quality: Elite]
[Role: Long-range Burst]
[Strength: Extremely high single-shot penetration / extreme range]
[Weakness: Slow reload / weak in melee / poor sustained fire]
The last battle had already proven how dangerous the first volley from more than a hundred Dwarf Gunners could be.
It had also proven the weakness just as clearly.
Once the first volley was gone, true high-tier mobile units could reach them before the next one formed.
Most people looking at a troop like this would start with the word `Elite`.
Cassian was looking at the line below it.
[Growth Path detected.]
[Dwarf Gunner has a special extreme-firepower branch at Rare quality: Dwarf Rocketier]
[Current advancement cost: Troop Soul: Elite ×4 per Elite Dwarf Gunner]
Cassian looked up.
That changed the calculation.
Clearing the Royal Hall’s outer garrison had given him eighty Troop Soul: Elite.
He already had eleven in storage.
Ninety-one total.
Advancing all twenty Gunners would cost eighty.
He would still have eleven left.
Cassian selected Recruit.
[Recruit: Dwarf Gunner ×20]
[Aether Crystal ×40,000]
[Aether Crystal: 500,466 → 280,466]
Twenty stone doors along the side of the hall lit up at once.
A Dwarf nearly three meters tall emerged first, carrying a heavy warhammer.
[Hill King]
[Quality: Legendary]
[Type: Troop]
Two Storm Guardians in storm-carved heavy armor followed.
Then twenty Dwarf Gunners filed out in two neat ranks.
All twenty-three newly recruited Dwarf Troops dropped to one knee.
"Lord."
Cassian raised one hand.
"Up."
He separated the twenty Gunners from the group.
[Troop Soul: Elite: 91]
[Dwarf Gunner ×20]
[Advance all to Rare special branch Dwarf Rocketier?]
[Cost: Troop Soul: Elite ×80]
"Confirm."
Eighty Troop Souls shattered at once.
The long weapons in the Gunners’ hands broke apart from the middle.
The barrels thickened.
Stabilizing frames formed behind them.
What had been a long gun rebuilt itself into a rune-covered launcher nearly as tall as the Dwarf carrying it.
[Dwarf Gunner ×20 → Dwarf Rocketier ×20]
[Quality: Rare]
[Troop Soul: Elite: 91 → 11]
[Skills: Rocket Salvo / Mental Guidance / Overload]
Cassian read the three skills.
The firepower still needed a live test.
But testing Level-1 troops would tell him too little.
He pulled the newly recruited Hill King, the two Storm Guardians, and all twenty Dwarf Rocketiers into the growth interface.
[New Dwarf Troops: 23]
[Level 1 → Level 10]
[Battle Essence ×230,000]
"Upgrade."
Twenty-three pillars of growth light turned the interior of the Royal Hall white.
The Hill King grew heavier and broader.
Storm patterns across the two Storm Guardians’ armor lit completely.
Fine guidance lines spread across the twenty rune launchers.
[All 23 units: Level 10]
Eira was already more interested in the launchers than the rest.
"Where do we test them?"
Cassian walked out of the Royal Hall.
A solitary stone hill rose about three hundred meters ahead.
"There."
The twenty Dwarf Rocketiers set their launchers.
They did not fire immediately.
Runes lit layer by layer.
Nearly half a minute passed before long spirit rockets, each roughly a meter in length, fully condensed inside the frames.
The loading speed was even worse than that of ordinary Dwarf Gunners.
But when twenty rockets finished forming at once, even Aurelia gave them another look.
"Fire."
WHOOSH!
Twenty trails of light crossed the mountain ground.
Halfway to the target, Cassian suddenly raised his hand.
"Change target."
"Three hundred meters to the left."
The twenty Rocketiers closed one eye at the same time.
[Mental Guidance]
All twenty rockets bent in midair.
A near-right-angle turn.
The formation did not scatter.
Every rocket drove into the stone hill on the left.
One second later—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The mountainside erupted as if a giant hand had ripped it open.
Stone blasted dozens of meters into the air.
When the dust fell, the hill was gone.
Only a collapsed crater remained.
Eira was silent for two breaths.
"Rare?"
"Rare."
Cassian was satisfied too.
This line was not built to chase monsters, bodyguard a Lord, or provide sustained fire.
It gave up reload speed, physical durability, and melee ability for one or two rounds of siege fire far beyond what its quality suggested.
Aurelia asked the most important question.
"How many volleys can they fire at that output?"
Cassian did not answer for the troops.
He looked at the lead Rocketier.
The Dwarf checked the energy channel inside his launcher.
"Two standard Rocket Salvos."
"If we use Overload—"
He paused.
"One."
"After that, we won’t be combat-capable for a while."
Aurelia nodded.
"Then they’re siege weapons."
"Yeah."
Cassian looked at the crater where the hill had been.
Rare was just the grade on the panel.
It did not define what they were for.
They would be miserable inside an ordinary hunting team.
But give them a prepared position, thirty seconds to load, and a target worth spending the first volley on?
Their value changed completely.
His communication interface lit up.
Veyra.
Cassian answered.
"What?"
"I’ve already redrawn the boundary lines after the Rank III expansion."
Veyra did not ask about the battle first.
"What about your side?"
Cassian sent her the Dwarven Royal Hall panel and the recording of the Rocket Salvo test.
There was silence for several seconds.
Veyra did not open the Rocketier record first.
She opened the newly recruited Legendary Hill King Troop at the top of the list.
"Bring this one back."
Cassian glanced at it.
"You want it?"
"Aegis Fold has been training long enough that the pressure from Eira’s last test isn’t enough anymore."
Veyra’s voice remained calm.
"If you stole something that can actually smash a line, don’t leave it sitting in the mountains."
Cassian smiled.
"Fine."
"The first one is yours for formation training."
"Better."
The call ended.
Cassian did not leave the newly recruited Dwarf force at the Royal Hall.
"The other five Stormlance will lead the return."
"The Hill King, both Storm Guardians, all twenty Rocketiers, and the five Gloomhoof go back to Forgotten Shrine."
The five Stormlance acknowledged together.
The Hill King Veyra wanted was part of that group.
Once it reached the Shrine, it would become the next real pressure test for Aegis Fold.
Eira looked over the forces that remained.
"We aren’t going back?"
"No."
Cassian reopened the map.
The Royal Hall marker had changed from Unclaimed to his black-gold ownership mark.
Beyond it lay the route where Elara’s people had first run into the Ridgewardens.
This Building was much closer to Elara’s Domain than to Forgotten Shrine.
That was why her group had found the outer patrol first.
That was why she had lost three Troops and withdrawn.
She had known something was here.
She simply had not been able to take it.
Cassian had now dealt with the hardest part—the core threat that had made the place impossible for her to take.
But a change of ownership did not change the Royal Hall’s location.
It still sat close to the area Elara operated in.
Any supply or access route to the Hall would still run through this side of the ridge.
More importantly, if word ever spread that an Epic Wild Troop Building with stable Legendary production was hidden here, the first Domain to face outside attention would not be Forgotten Shrine twenty kilometers away.
It would be Elara’s.
Cassian’s eyes rested on her Domain marker.
House Vayne had just corrected its valuation of an Epic Hero Sigil back to the Caravan’s nine-hundred-thousand-Aether benchmark.
What was a Royal Hall that could keep producing high-rank Troops worth?
Cassian did not know what they would offer.
That was exactly why he was going to ask.
And Aveline Vayne’s Observer Passage gave her only six hours inside the region.
She was already waiting in Elara’s Domain to meet him.
Cassian opened the private channel.
[Cassian Vale: Is your mother still there?]
Elara answered almost immediately.
[Elara Vayne: Yes.]
[Elara Vayne: She was just asking when you were coming back.]
[Cassian Vale: I’m not going back to Forgotten Shrine.]
There was a brief pause.
[Elara Vayne: You’re done over there?]
Cassian sent her the top three lines of the Building panel.
[Dwarven Royal Hall]
[Quality: Epic]
[Owner: Cassian Vale]
This time, Elara was silent for several seconds.
[Elara Vayne: ...You actually took it?]
[Cassian Vale: Yeah.]
[Elara Vayne: Then why are you coming to me now?]
Cassian looked back at the Royal Hall, then at Elara’s marker on the map.
[Cassian Vale: To discuss a very large deal.]
[Elara Vayne: About the Royal Hall?]
[Cassian Vale: Why else would I be coming now?]
Another two seconds passed.
[Elara Vayne: My mother is standing right here.]
The corner of Cassian’s mouth lifted.
[Cassian Vale: Perfect.]
He closed the channel.
"Aurelia. Eira."
"You’re with me."
The four Blackfang had already spread ahead along the mountain route.
The newly recruited Dwarf force turned toward Forgotten Shrine under the other five Stormlance.
Cassian did not look at the Legendary Hero Sigil in storage again.
He had already taken the Royal Hall once.
Now he wanted to see what the same Building was worth to the people nearest to it.