Gray dwarves, also known as duergar.

They live in wonderful cities deep in the Underdark, relying on the knowledge of the ancient dwarves and countless slaves to tirelessly expand their underground kingdom.

In fact, gray dwarves were once just ordinary dwarves.

As a result of their greedy and endless delving below the surface, they eventually came into contact with the mind flayers.

After being enslaved by the mind flayers for many ages, the gray dwarves finally regained their freedom with the help of the evil god Raduguer.

However, long years of slavery have forever changed their character and alignment, making their darkened spirits as evil as the tyrannical princes they once were.

Because of this, the freed gray dwarves became gloomy, pessimistic and suspicious.

In Brian's impression, these gloomy, boring, and always busy gray dwarves have simple and direct principles of doing things, believe in law, credit, and hard work, and despise other non-gray dwarf races.

They are also a group of pragmatists, but although they are rational and ruthless, they will not commit unreasonable cruelty.

Although gray dwarves look down on adventurers, they never think of directly killing people. Instead, they find ways to enslave and use them to generate maximum benefits.

The Dugar people are called gray dwarves not just because of their skin color.

Gray also represents their monotonous and boring life style.

The gray dwarves' living habits, apart from not spending time having fun, their culture is as prosperous and complex as other races.

This is especially noticeable in the royal city of Aldus.

Because the City of Blades is a workday year-round, the gray dwarves pride themselves on their perfection and efficiency, and despise carelessness and extravagance.

Under their ruthless servitude, the derro and other slaves could only endure hardship and hard work.

It was their character that made Brian, who was walking on the street, clearly feel the influence of the demon lord on this place.

He found that many pedestrians had various abnormalities: body twitches, changes in habits, and abnormal behavior.

For example, he heard with his own ears that a patrolling guard actually boasted about his corrupt behavior to his companions, and a few people began to dress up for decoration, and some even talked about a gray dwarf betraying his family.

All these abnormal behaviors were explaining to him the changes that had taken place in the royal city of Aldus.

At this moment, he heard the quarrel coming from ahead. His curiosity was aroused, and he signaled to the gray dwarf Weitz who was leading the way, and rushed over together.

"Damn Chad, he betrayed his family and betrayed his people. He is a heretic controlled by the devil!"

"Death to this evil heretic!"

Two gray dwarves dressed as guards pushed a gray dwarf businessman to the ground on the street, brandished their hammer-like fists, and beat him wildly.

The latter could only hold his head, huddled on the ground, and howled in pain.

The people watching melon-eating obviously knew very well the principle of staying out of their own business. They were pointing, talking and laughing, but no one was willing to take action.

"These two gray dwarves are from the garrison. We'd better not meddle in other people's business."

Waits persuaded everyone: "If outsiders interfere in the affairs of our race, they are likely to be rounded up or killed on the spot."

Brian nodded slightly. Even if the other party didn't remind him, he wouldn't help like a paladin with a strong sense of justice.

Then he heard someone in the crowd watching the excitement saying that the gray dwarf guards abused the businessman because they found a gold brooch in the businessman's coat.

As far as Brian knows, in gray dwarf society, it seems that violent beatings of fellow humans for decoration are not common.

This made him realize that the violent law enforcement by the guards seemed a bit unusual, and it was probably a sign of the madness spreading in King Aldus City.

Seeing the two guards leaving the unconscious businessman and leaving, Brian thought for a moment, and then walked up to the gray dwarf businessman under the strange eyes of the crowd.

He carefully observed the merchant's palms, and sure enough, he found the same marks he saw at Yuehu Fortress: a small bump appeared strangely near the thumbs of both hands.

"Let's go." He didn't stay long, stood up and motioned for Weitz to lead the way.

"stop!"

On the busy street, there were sudden shouts and the sound of dense footsteps rushing in, causing Brian, who was thinking about it, to immediately look over in alarm.

A group of more than twenty derro thugs were rampaging through the streets, half of them coming for them.

On this street, there is enough room for five carriages to pass.

The derro dwarf thugs rushed over without any nonsense. Five of them raised their crossbows in their left hands while running and fired powerful arrows.

The agile thug in the lead stepped forward and slashed his neck with the sharp dagger in his hand.

Seeing this scene, the crowd screamed in unison and made way for them to make way for a wide fighting venue.

Facing the mob's surprise attack, Brian calmly released the "Arcane Barrier" to resist the speeding crossbow bolt. At the same time, he took two steps back and avoided a throat-wiping attack in time.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Hesiah, who had drawn her rune sword, had already hurriedly engaged three derro dwarves, and two twitching thugs were lying at her feet.

Obviously, this group of thugs underestimated the strength of the sword mages, so that they immediately killed two of them as soon as they took over.

Waits, who was leading the way, blended into the crowd. As for the goblin Copper and the derro dwarf Jeep, they had mysteriously disappeared from his sight.

Brian's expression turned cold as he looked at the Derro dwarf thug who was one meter away from him, holding a sharp dagger in his backhand, lowering his body slightly, like a poisonous snake ready to attack, ready to show its fangs.

Through the test just now, he judged that the opponent was a rogue with at least level 10 strength.

At this time, he would naturally not ask stupidly why the other party attacked him.

Because the derro dwarf rogue had already pounced on him again, the five companions who were shooting cold arrows in the distance also cooperated with each other to attack him under the hint of sign language.

——"Colorful jet!"

The moment Brian raised his hand, a dazzling ray of light scattered out in a cone shape and enveloped the wanderer in front of him.

The wanderer looked startled and wanted to turn around and dodge.

However, Brian's spell was released very quickly, and the distance between the two was too close, so in the end he failed to dodge the attack and was enveloped in light.

Brian knew that this first-level spell could not control the opponent at all. At most, it could only slow down his pace.

Due to his understanding of the rogue's reflex properties and escape ability, he did not choose to continue the pursuit.

Instead, he raised his hand without hesitation, and five missiles composed of magical energy shot out from his fingertips, hitting two derro dwarf thugs holding crossbows in the distance.

——"Arcane Missile!"

"Pfft! Pfft!"

The chests of these two thugs felt as if they had been hit by large-caliber sniper bullets. Blood suddenly exploded, and then they fell straight to the cold floor of the street, killed instantly.

The other three derro dwarves beside the thug were stunned, like wooden figures, looking at the corpse lying on the ground, their eyes filled with shock.

The rogue who recovered from the "Colorful Jet" naturally noticed this situation and chose to retreat without hesitation.

"Catch these damn rats. Go ahead and block the exit and hand them over to us!"

At this moment, not far from the street, cold words accompanied by heavy footsteps were approaching.

When the wanderer saw a group of huge figures approaching quickly, his pupils immediately locked and he said: "It's the Calavo Cavalry. Our mission has been completed. Let's retreat quickly!"

The derro rogue's tone was filled with fear and urgency.

At this time, he naturally couldn't care about Brian and was ready to flee.

"Want to leave?" Brian shouted with a cold face, "It's not that easy!"

——"Fourth Ring Spell: Dimensional Anchor!"

A green ray shot out from Brian's hand and hit the wanderer's body, instantly interrupting his attempt to escape by jumping through the shadows.

——"Psychic blast!"

Brian concentrated his thoughts, and a silent ripple spread to the wanderer's body, causing him to be shocked on the spot and motionless.

——"Arcane Missile!"

Immediately afterwards, he raised his hand and pointed, five missiles composed of magical energy left five holes with gurgling blood on the wanderer's body, and he fell to the ground on his back, lifeless.

With the death of the rogue, the remaining derro dwarf thugs, except for three thugs holding crossbows who were far away and managed to escape, were all killed by Hesiah and the duergar reinforcements who arrived.

Just when the three thugs were about to disappear from Brian's sight, there was a sound of speeding through the air, and all three thugs were hit by arrows and fell to the ground.

A group of gray dwarf cavalry riding wolf spiders appeared in Brian's sight and began to maintain order while cleaning the battlefield.

"Those are Calavo heavy cavalry, most of them come from the Hinton clan who are good at domesticating tarantulas." Weitz emerged from the chaotic crowd and explained to the two of them.

"Who are these derro dwarves and why did they suddenly attack us?" Hesiah put away the rune sword and expressed her doubts to Brian.

"He is a member of the 'Grey Ghost'. This is the only true thieves guild in the entire Aldus King City. It was established by the derro dwarves. The main members of the guild are derro dwarves and a few exiled gray dwarves.

." Brian said to her, "and some scattered slaves who escaped."

Not only did he know this, he also knew very well that the dragon eggs of the 'Dragon Blacksmith' who lived in King Aldus City were stolen by this group of thieves.

If he wanted to recover the dragon egg, he would have to deal with these thieves.

"Strange, why are the copper block and jeep missing?" Waits suddenly realized something was wrong and asked curiously.

Hesiah pursed her lips and smiled, glanced at Brian, and did not answer.

"Don't worry about them, take me to see your boss as soon as possible." Brian did not answer his doubts, but urged impatiently.

The destination of their trip was to meet Weitz's boss, the gray dwarf prince of Aldus King City, the only legal heir to the Deep King.

This meeting will determine whether he can form an alliance with the gray dwarf prince and reach a strategic partnership with him.

Naturally, he didn't want to waste his time here, let alone have any interaction with the Kavora cavalry who had just appeared.

Because he knew that the appearance of this group of derro dwarf thugs was actually to create an opportunity for Jeep to break away from the team.

Apparently, Jeep was aware of his deliberate display of surveillance and control over him.

So they used some means to let the Gray Ghost people create chaos and wait for an opportunity to escape.

Therefore, Brian took advantage of the situation and let the copper block keep an eye on the jeep in advance.
Chapter completed!