The Bard's Influence

Odom, with his wavy blond hair, finally returned to Dawn City after William talked him into it. He would join up with the Lonely Mountain Squad there.

They would set out in three days.

They would not use a Portal. Instead, they would ride magical beast warhorses to Lonely Mountain—or, more precisely, fight their way there in plain sight. They wanted the Dwarf Kingdoms to face the truth: they could not stop Odom Heavyhammer from returning to Lonely Mountain.

It was simple.

They were giving them a chance.

If they still could not stop them, that was their own failing.

Odom's departure also brought Burning Ash from Dawn City to the border.

After all, William had promised King Vekru that he could withstand an assault by ten enemy Epic-Class Professionals. With one of his own gone, he naturally needed someone else to take Odom's place.

Over the next three days, skirmishes continued along the border, but a full-scale war never broke out.

The players were in no hurry. If there was no war to fight, they had plenty of other ways to pass the time: Mahjong, Dou Dizhu, and one-on-one duels. Business as usual.

They received war experience and combat pay every day anyway, so they were not losing much.

The war here seemed to have stalled.

But under William's direction, the eighty or ninety thousand bards on his payroll had begun spreading the same story across the continent.

The Blacklock Dwarf Kingdom was nowhere near the Sand Sea Kingdom and had taken no part in the war between the two Human Kingdoms. Its territory was dotted with small black-walled cities, most home to tens of thousands of dwarves.

A half-elf bard who had traveled from afar trudged into one such city. His weary appearance drew plenty of attention.

Dwarf