Without even a chance to say hello, Unas quickly recounted the accident to Angela in detail, concluding with a plea, "Miss Angela, you must help us."
"I sense a very intense fluctuation of Fire Elemental within the mountain. Don't panic," Angela said, waving her staff and chanting a few incantations. Three red, humanoid figures appeared out of thin air before them. "Let my Fire Elementals go in and investigate first."
Although Angela is a water-based Archmage, she is not afraid of minor fire spells. Her upper Fire Elemental is a strong humanoid form, but her lower body has no legs. A cloud of black smoke supports her entire body and suspends it in the air, about a foot off the ground.
At Angela's command, the three Fire Elemental moved quickly toward the mine. The mountain wall, which was almost perpendicular to the ground, did not hinder them at all. The black smoke seemed to have a suction force that stuck to the stone wall, and they quickly disappeared into the billowing smoke on the cliff.
Angela waved her staff again, and a light blue Water Mirror appeared before everyone. The image in the mirror was shaking rapidly, showing the perspective of the Fire Elemental.
Everyone's attention immediately focused on the Water Mirror. The light emitted by the Fire Elemental itself allowed people to see the cave faintly visible in the thick smoke. Large and small rocks kept falling from the cave ceiling, and each muffled thud caused the screen to shake violently, as if a small earthquake was happening in the mine.
The cracks in the ground were indeed widened by the blast, and the Fire Elementals poured in one after another. The jagged gaps were the marks left by high-explosive bombs. As they descended, after passing through the initial relatively wide section, the cracks suddenly became very narrow, seemingly impassable even to Gnomes Goblin.
Fortunately, elemental creatures do not have fixed forms. Fire Elementals are essentially integrated flames with a bit of intelligence, and they can easily squeeze through even the narrowest terrain.
Along the way, one could see large craters blasted out one after another. After walking down more than a hundred meters, the crevice suddenly flattened out, with a large amount of rubble piled up here, leaving only a gap as thick as a thigh, through which a strong red light was shining.
Observing into the crevice from the perspective of the Fire Elemental, a vast, empty hole filled with red light appeared before them. Countless red crystals hung all around the cave walls, among which five emitted light several times stronger than the other crystals. Undoubtedly, these were the activated crystals that were about to explode.
"I never imagined there was such a treasure trove below! With these crystals, my people will all be healed!" Perella exclaimed in delight. "Your Excellency, Archmage, please help us preserve them!"
Angela nodded silently, and the three Fire Elementals quickly squeezed through the gap, splitting up to pick the activated Fire Crystals. As long as they could get them away from this large hole full of potential bombs, they should be able to stop the chain explosion.
Just as a Fire Elemental had grabbed an activated crystal and was about to pry it off the mountainside, a bright light shone from the other side. The image on the Water Mirror flickered a few times before turning completely black. At the same time, everyone clearly heard several muffled thuds coming from the mountains, and the earth trembled slightly.
Even without Angela's explanation, everyone knows that the Fire Elemental is finished. This explosion might activate other crystals, and if this continues, the crystals in the Cave will eventually be exhausted.
Unas was helpless; the cave shrouded in thick smoke was impassable to anyone who needed to breathe. Perella once again turned to Angela Archmage for help.
"I have no better options than to continue sending Fire Elementals to steal the crystal. If we're lucky, we might succeed," Angela summoned three more Fire Elementals. "But I can only control three Fire Elementals at a time, which probably won't be enough. Water Elementals can't survive for long in such intense flames. Now we have to call for reinforcements. Please allow me, Lord Unas, to notify the Blood Elf mages to come and help. I will also send a distress signal to Dean Du'an."
"No problem, you can inform them." Unas immediately nodded in agreement. The Blood Elf mages, who had regained their strength, and Helen were defending the earthen wall at the front line. They should be able to come over soon. The crystal mine was also related to Du'an's interests, so he would probably come too. It was just unknown what conditions he would bring.
Angela silently chanted an incantation, sending magical signals in both directions and drawing a six-star Magic Circle on the ground.
"What is this?" Unas asked Perella in a low voice.
"Spatial Node Array, used for mages to locate teleportation spells."
As soon as he finished speaking, light burst forth, and two figures appeared on the Magic Circle. The next second, Du'an and Huoye's figures clearly appeared in front of everyone.
"What's the rush? Huoye and I were just—" Du'an began to complain as soon as he arrived, but stopped abruptly when he saw the Argent Dawn's group of Paladins. "I didn't expect Lord Tyrosus to be here as well. My apologies."
Just as the One-Eyed Baron was about to make a polite remark, another muffled thud rang out. Du'an abruptly turned to look at the mountain wall, only to discover the mine shrouded in thick smoke. He immediately frowned and said, "The Fire Elemental vibrations inside are extremely strong. What happened?"
Unas then spent some more time explaining, and after hearing the details, Huoye became anxious, "What are you waiting for? Let's begin! Every explosion means our losses are increasing!"
Unas gestured for him to calm down, "Wait for the other Blood Elf mages. They'll probably be coming on horseback, so it'll be a little while. You three can summon Fire Elementals to prepare."
Huoye immediately began casting a spell, and four red circles of light appeared on the ground at the same time. One after another, Fire Elemental emerged from them, quickly accumulating to more than a dozen, of varying heights and builds. Huoye himself was exhausted, but he seemed to want to summon more, which was completely due to his impatience and lack of composure.
Unas quickly called for a halt, "A large quantity is useless; what matters is agility, speed, and strength. Fire Elemental from the underground cave are truly useful."
Huoye suddenly realized and slapped his forehead. He immediately began to remedy the situation, controlling the Fire Elemental to merge into groups of three. Soon, the twelve firemen became four almost identical, strong, and majestic tall elemental creatures.
The other two didn't have this skill. Angela summoned three Fire Elemental just like before, and although Du'an was a fire elemental, he focused his main attention on researching the Magic Circle, so he only summoned three as well.
With ten Fire Elementals in total, the chances of success were greatly increased. Just then, the rumble of hooves came from afar, and the Blood Elf mages finally arrived.
Unas didn't want to waste any more breath and directly ordered them to summon Fire Elementals. Five of the seven Blood Elves, along with Helen, were fire-based. This was because fire magic was generally the most destructive, and people mostly learned magic to kill enemies, so fire magic was the most popular school of magic in the world.
These mid-to-low-level mages could only summon one Fire Elemental each, thus adding six new ones to the army. Once all the mages were ready, Unas gave the order, and the sixteen Fire Elementals lined up and rushed towards the mine.