The Explorers Association has been digging underground for more than half a month. The influx of air and noise from the outside world awakened some of the creatures sleeping in the underground palace.
After receiving Valeera's warning, Sharlayan and Stellagosa immediately drew their weapons and assumed fighting stances without saying a word.
Brian and the archaeologists were not professional combatants, and their reaction speed was more than a beat slower.
"Chirp! Ga!"
The weird screams came from far away, and when the first alien creature rushed out from the gap in the door pushed open by Sarlayan, Brian finally woke up as if from a dream.
"What the hell is this!"
Brian is a veteran archaeologist and explorer.
Over the years, he traveled to almost every corner of the Eastern Kingdom.
Except for the well-hidden underground palaces like Uldaman, Brian has explored every significant ruin on the surface, so he can be considered well-informed.
But the deformed and ugly creature that appeared in front of Brian was something he had never seen before.
The foul smell emitted from the opponent's big mouth full of yellow teeth had already reached Brian's nose, and the saliva splattered out of his mouth due to the roar was flying everywhere.
"This is the Trogg."
Sarlayan, who had been mentally prepared for a long time, did not panic. As the strongest warrior among the three, he undoubtedly stood at the front to attract the enemy's attention.
"Don't take action yet, let me try these guys' abilities."
In a rare move, Sharlayan took out a large shield half as tall as a man and struck it on the ground. Valeela and Stellagosa nodded in understanding.
This large shield is not an artifact, and it is not even of epic quality. It is just a high-quality shield that Sarlayan picked up casually during his adventure. Its biggest advantage is that it has a wide protective area and can protect most of his body when unfolded.
"Crunch!"
The trogg at the front didn't have any weapons in its hands. It didn't have a clear mind and scratched the big shield with its dirty claws, making a tooth-piercing sound of metal friction.
"That's it?"
The force coming from the shield was not great, let alone shaking Sarlayan's defense, it didn't even put any decent pressure on him.
"Bang!"
Taking advantage of the opponent's strength and old opportunity, Sarlayan counterattacked the big shield at the right time, forcibly deflecting the opponent's attack posture. Tai'an's claws scratching the big shield were heavily deflected, and the force of the attack continued unabated and hit the enemy's thigh. Chest.
"Crack!"
Accompanied by the crisp sound of bones breaking, the trogg, the fastest to die, screamed and was knocked back, and there was no movement after landing.
After this test, Sarlayan roughly judged the individual strength of the Trogg.
Although there will definitely be differences in strength between different troggs, in general they should be pretty similar.
The melee fighting ability of a single trogg is no different from that of high elf civilians who have not received any combat training, so they can only bully a thin dwarf.
The advantage of the Troggs is not in their individual strength, but in their overwhelming numbers.
After knocking away the first trogg, Sarlayan immediately put away his shield and regained his grip on Valajar's sword.
In just a short time, more than a dozen troggs rushed out of the gate and pounced on the leader, Sarlayan, like refugees who had been hungry for a week.
"Roar!!"
The dragon roared as usual at the beginning, and the violent sound waves spread out, shaking the troggs within a certain range until their mouths bleed. Unable to maintain the previous fierce charge, they fell to the ground with garlic at their feet.
"Stella, Valeera, don't hold back anymore, attack with all your strength!"
"no problem."
"give it to me!"
Stella held the Meteoric Staff with both hands, and the purple crystal on the head of the staff began to shine.
Centered on the first fallen trogg, a dark purple gravitational point suddenly appeared, and the huge suction force pulled all the surrounding troggs over.
Valeera turned into a shadow and rushed out from Sarlayan's side. The black shadow shuttled many times between the troggs gathered by Stellagosa.
Flowers of blood were flying all over the sky. Not a single trogg that appeared within the scope of the killing feast was still alive and breathing. Every enemy struck by the attack had eye-catching wounds on their neck or heart.
The two of them cooperated and killed dozens of troggs at once, but this did not stop the charging of the troggs that came one after another.
Fortunately, the gap in the gate opened by Sarlayan is not large, and only three troggs can be squeezed out at one time.
Sarlayan stood guard at the gate, waving the heavy sword up and down. Every stroke could take away the life of at least one trogg.
When Brian came back to his senses and tried to join the battle, he found that there was no room for him to take action in this small battlefield.
The battle lasted for a full half hour.
It wasn't that the Troggs gave up, but that the three of them killed Sarlayan and lost their patience.
Ignoring Brian's repeated reminders to protect the ruins and cultural relics, the temper-stricken Sarlayan sprayed a large mouthful of flames of life into the gap in the door in human form.
The entire entrance to the underground palace was illuminated by fire, and the shrill screams of the Stonejaws came one after another.
The habits of creatures like troggs are no different from wild beasts, and the light of the sky finally makes them feel afraid.
After this round of dragon's breath, Sarlayan and others outside the door could still hear strange cries coming from inside the door, but no troggs dared to rush out of the door again, and the panicked cries gradually faded away.
"Huh~"
Sarlayan, who had been fighting for a long time, let out a breath.
"I thought these deformed monsters were really not afraid of anything. It turns out they are as afraid of fire as wild beasts. If I had known, I would have given them a sip of salt soda."
Stella Gosa rolled her eyes: "Don't be poor, take the time to rest, there are still many fish that have slipped through the net in the underground palace, and the next exploration is destined to not be easy."
Uldaman is an ancient earth spirit factory. I am afraid that even Azadas himself cannot accurately tell how many earth spirits there are in the underground palace, how many of them are affected by the curse of flesh and blood, and how many flesh and blood earth spirits have become deformed. Degenerate.
The production of Titan artifacts is usually measured in units of tens of thousands. At first glance, it is estimated that there are at least tens of thousands of troggs in the underground palace. It would take a lot of time to kill them just by Sharlayan's three-person team.
As a degraded species of earth spirits, troggs are born with a strong ability to dig holes. If they are allowed to escape at will, God knows where these guys will dig holes and escape.
In the original history, those who suffered were the Gnomeregan dwarves who built the city underground. However, who can guarantee that history will develop along this route?
If these guys dig underground in Yonge Forest with a grudge, it will really be an unreasonable disaster.
"Brian, it's your turn to act."
After a brief discussion, the three of Sarlayan decided to drive straight into the core of Uldaman.
As long as the sleeping Azadas and Earthen can be awakened, and the Earthen factory in the Uldaman underground palace can be restarted, these erroneously degraded Troggs can realize what real numerical advantage is.
Sarlayan patted Brian hard on the shoulder twice: "Without further ado, let's set off immediately. Put aside the ruins and cultural relics along the way for now, find the target and go straight to the center of the underground palace."
Brian sighed helplessly: "That's all we can do now. I hope those barbaric troggs won't destroy the precious cultural relics in the underground palace."
…
Compared to Ulduar and Uldum, Uldaman is undoubtedly much smaller in size, but that's only relative.
As a facility built by Titans, the scale of various buildings inside is based on the size of Titan guardians, which is obviously too high for high elves and dwarves.
After several discussions and seeking Stellagosa's consent, Sharlayan finally decided to let her return to her dragon form.
The archaeologists headed by Brian were shocked from ear to ear when they saw Stellagosa's true form. They never dreamed that a giant dragon would follow them.
Calling everyone on their backs, Stellagosa flew around the vast underground palace to find a way, killing some lone troggs along the way.
Frightened by the dragon's power, these poor deformed creatures did not dare to resist.
The passages inside Uldaman extend in all directions, but they can't stop Sharlayan and the others from exhaustively exploring them one by one.
After going around the same dead end three times, Sarlayan finally started trying to decrypt it after being reminded by the barrage.
"The Map Hall...is this right?"
Arriving at an empty hall, Sharlayan jumped off Stellagosa's back first.
There are a bunch of miniature architectural models placed in the center of the hall. From a structural point of view, they are not similar to Uldaman.
"The structure of this miniature model...could it be Ulduar?"
There is a device that clearly looks like a jack in the center of the model, but the key that is supposed to be inserted into it is missing.
The light in the underground palace is very dim, relying entirely on the lighting spell released by Stellagosa to provide vision.
Sarlayan turned on his eagle eye and looked around, and it took him a while to see a shivering Stonejaw monster holding a "staff" in the corner.
"That should be the key, right? Brother, let me lend you my head."
"Haw!"
