Unas led his team to the Mining District quickly. The Lava Monsters there had already been eliminated. After consulting with a few injured Dwarves, he followed the tunnel back to the Black Furnace and found some clues. The group soon arrived at the well Shaft Gate Hall of the Black Furnace.
After going around in circles, I unexpectedly returned to this place. There were several obvious black marks on the scattered corpses on the ground, indicating that they had been crushed and charred. They were probably left by the Lava Monster.
Unas arrived at the wellhead, and a stench of blood assaulted his nostrils. The bottom was pitch black, and he couldn't see anything. He had to go down and investigate. If the lava pool in the Smelting Room was connected to the underground lava river, perhaps he could Flamewaker Island from here.
The spearmen, led by Luther, clearly had a psychological aversion to the Black Furnace. Having finally escaped, they were reluctant to go back down on their own initiative. Unas did not force them, but ordered all the Black Furnace slaves, including Frank and Bas, to stay up there.
Of the other 1,200, more than 400 were former Stormwind City soldiers, now all under Marshal Windsor's command. Their combat strength should be quite good, so we'll use them as the main force this time.
Unas grabbed the Steel Cable and was the first to jump down the well. He slid all the way to the bottom, where a faint light shone up from below. As soon as he emerged from the lower opening, he swung the Steel Cable with all his might, somersaulting several times in the air before landing steadily on the edge of the hot spring pool.
Although they had taken the time to learn to swim from Hart, no one wanted to get soaked. Besides, the water in the hot spring was no longer clean; more than a dozen corpses were floating on the surface, turning the entire pool red. There were also piles of severed limbs and remains on the shore. It seemed that Torbjorn's rearguard had a fierce conflict with Blacktooth and Half-Face.
Unas took out a bundle of spare ropes from his bag, tied a loop at one end, threw it up to hook the end of the Steel Cable, and then tied the other end of the rope to the corpse of an Ogre on the shore. This way, people coming down wouldn't need to swing; they could slide directly to the shore.
Once the main force had mostly disembarked, he couldn't wait to lead the way, having already memorized the route to the Torbjorn Arsenal.
It turned out that bringing so many people down was completely unnecessary. They only encountered two Lava Monsters on the way, attracted by the sound of people. Unas had already seen how the Blackrock Orcs dealt with them, dodging their greatest weapon—the fire ring—by jumping around, and then easily taking them down with a few hammer blows.
The group descended into the Smelting Room, where they found no enemies. Using the Dwarf pumps, they drained the lava, which had once again overflowed, revealing a large black hole at the bottom of the pool.
Huoye and Angela immediately summoned Fire Elemental to scout ahead. After passing through a long, U-shaped crevice that went down and then up, the space in front of them suddenly became very wide. Several huge black shadows appeared in the surrounding lava and pounced on Fire Elemental as soon as they saw him.
The two mages immediately controlled the Fire Elemental to escape upwards at top speed. With a whoosh, the Fire Elemental emerged from the "water," and Angela's Water Mirror showed a river of lava that stretched as far as the eye could see, with an equally fiery red riverbank on the right.
The Lava Monsters caught up from behind, and the image on the Water Mirror flickered a few times before turning completely black. Several Fire Elementals were instantly killed.
Unas, however, was so excited he almost jumped for joy. "Is this the river?!"
"I don't think there could be another lava river underground around here, sir, it must be!" Huoye replied excitedly.
Angela analyzed, "Judging from the direction of the lava river and the location of Shadowforge City and here, that should be some section upstream of Flamewaker Island."
Unas asked, "Why haven't we seen the Fire Elemental army? Have they already passed by?"
"That's unclear; further observation is needed."
Summoning Fire Elementals again would be like sending them to their doom to the Lava Monsters; we must send someone over to eliminate the enemy first.
Unas, Erigor, and Darian are the best choices for the starting lineup; in terms of survivability, Paladins are second to none.
Huoye returned the Crimson Diamond to Unas, saying, "I've discovered a new function of this gem—wearing it greatly increases fire resistance. I've placed a small Magic Circle on it; with a little activation, it can create an extremely strong fireproof barrier. As long as you're within the barrier, you won't suffer any damage from the lava."
Erigor said confidently, "Such good stuff should be left to you later. The three of us are strong enough; just give us a regular fireproof barrier."
"Stop talking nonsense," Unas took the gem. It was so big and not easy to carry, so he had to tuck it under his arm for now. "We need to clear the way for those behind us, so we can't fail. Of course, the stronger the better. With this, we can bring more people across."
They tried to open the barrier, and a red light expanded from the gem, covering an area of five or six meters in radius. So the three Paladins, Angela, the Copperhammer Brothers, and Centaur of the rescue team decided to go over first.
The prepared group held hands, took a deep breath, and jumped into the large hole. The barrier was indeed powerful; Unas felt as if he had entered a pool of warm water, and the others felt the same way.
The thick lava had a lot of buoyancy, making it a bit difficult to go down, but going up was easy after a sharp bend, and the group quickly passed through the U-shaped crevice to the bottom of the lava river.
The Lava Monsters surrounding the cave entrance at the bottom of the river immediately pounced. Everyone held their breath, knowing it was impossible to fight them, and could only try to get ashore as quickly as possible.
The group huddled together, defending themselves against enemy attacks while moving towards the right bank of the river. However, their movements were greatly hampered by the lava, and being surrounded by enemies made their pace incredibly slow, like a tortoise crawling.
Unas slammed his Hammer of Hammer of Righteousness the Lava Monster that was right in front of him, which would have torn the enemy to pieces on land. But in the lava, it only caused insignificant damage. The Divine Storm was also almost a slow-motion replay, its power greatly reduced.
Each swing of the weapon required several times the usual effort, and everyone's stamina was rapidly depleted. Unas was already feeling a bit breathless and strained, not to mention the others. Darian beside him had his cheeks puffed out and his face flushed red, almost unable to hold back his breath.
There were still about thirty meters to the riverbank. I couldn't afford to fail now, so I had to go out and lure the monster myself.
He turned and handed the Crimson Diamond to Erigor, then simultaneously activated his wings and Invincible. The wings greatly increased his speed, and the Invincible freed him from the need for protective barriers.
Unas charged forward, the energy arrows shooting out from his body attracting the attention of almost all the enemies in front of him. A bunch of Lava Monsters chased after him, creating a gap in the encirclement.
The rest of the group mustered all their strength and seized the opportunity to rush to the shore in one go. Darian was the first to stick his head out of the river, opening his mouth to breathe in the hot, sulfurous air.
At the same time, Unas burst out of the lava river surface, his Light Wings suddenly swerved, and he glided quickly to the shore, then folded his wings and landed, even before the others had completely reached the shore.