Fear Catalyzes, Despair Shapes; the Black Sprouts Have Really Arrived (Bonus Chapter 310)

"You damned sprouts! I was blind to trust you! Put me down! Damn it! Leave my people alone and fight me one-on-one, you bastards!"

The dwarf's signature gravelly voice echoed through the gloomy Abyssal Sanctum. Though grating, it had grown weak—but the blazing fury made up for his body's exhaustion, like a fire that refused to go out.

The wretched Lord Balder had been stripped by the wicked shadow elves until he was left with nothing but his underwear. Like a beast, he was locked in a suspended iron cage.

The sturdy Frost Dwarf clutched the bars and shouted down at the others, but no one paid him any attention.

As he watched furiously, the wicked elves in the Abyssal Sisterhood's uniforms and spider masks were dragging some Frost Dwarf prisoners—too starved to muster any strength—out of their cages. They were leading them from the cells toward another part of the sanctum.

Balder had no idea what fate awaited his people, but during the ten days he had been imprisoned here, not one of the others who had been taken away had returned. That alone was enough for the Frost Dwarf lord to guess what would happen to him.

But he wasn't despairing over the likely prospect of death. He was simply filled with guilt.

When Sin Bastion fell to the insect swarm, he had been separated from the Sin Lords. He should have led his people away, but Balder, a bold and hearty man, couldn't stand by and watch the dwarves be devoured by the swarm. Just as the former slave master Fenris Ironfist had said, Balder had relied on his courage and the sacred relic in his possession to escort a group of dwarves through the crisis and out to safety.

With the swarm rampaging, the Frost Dwarf