Xiao Chen met the dwarf king Monios a day later, but the meeting place was not in the palace, but in the Baiye family, one of the six major families. Most of the dwarves in the Baiye family were potion masters and healing magicians, and they had a good relationship with all parties. For Xiao Chen, it was a safer meeting place than the palace.
The dwarf king had white hair and beard, and his face was covered with wrinkles. Obvious age spots covered his forehead and cheeks, making him look very old. He was already over 300 years old. Even among the dwarves who lived longer than humans, he was a real old man.
When Xiao Chen, Luo Ling, Mei Tiantian and Ansaldo arrived at the Baiye family together, the patriarch of the Baiye family accompanied them to the reception room, but the dwarf king was sitting in a chair and thinking about something.
"Greetings, His Majesty." Baiye tribe leader Avasolo and Ansaldo knelt on one knee to salute the king. Then they briefly introduced Xiao Chen and the other two. Xiao Chen did not use the pseudonym Ji Yijun that he used when applying for the entry permit, but used his real identity.
The king stood up and looked at Xiao Chen and the other two with cloudy eyes, then nodded and said, "I am really surprised that the head of the Tower of China would come to my country in person. I was negligent in the past few days and did not realize that such a guest had arrived. But it is not too late now. We finally meet today."
Seeing that the other party did not point out that he was impersonating Ji Yijun, Xiao Chen realized that the other party should be showing goodwill. He also smiled and said, "What I want to do involves the safety of the entire world, including the Dwarf Kingdom. I try to keep a low profile to avoid being discovered by the enemy. I have no choice. Originally, I planned to visit His Majesty to discuss in detail after dealing with the affairs of the temple. But I didn't expect the development of the matter to be so unexpected."
King Monios' breathing became a little heavy: "I already know about the temple. If you could communicate with me first, I'm afraid things wouldn't have come to this point, and there might be some other turn of events."
"What do you mean by a turnaround?"
"Perhaps the monster who called himself the God of Forging would not have invaded the temple and caused this tragedy," said the king.
"You knew about the existence of this thing before? But you didn't tell anyone else in the kingdom?" Xiao Chen heard this from the king's words.
The king looked away and nodded, "This thing has existed for a long time. It has been hidden in the ruins in the past, and no one knows of its existence. I guess it has been accumulating power there for who knows how many years.
Or maybe someone knew of its existence but was already dead. It was not uncommon for people to disappear in the ruins of the gods before, and it was generally believed that it was a punishment for not solving the puzzles left by their ancestors, but now it seemed that they might have died at the hands of this thing.
But no one before me had ever seen it and returned to the kingdom alive."
"Have you seen it?" Xiao Chen asked.
"Yes, I entered the Ruins of God in the second year after I ascended the throne, hoping to find something useful inside. At that time, the Dwarf Kingdom had just experienced a war and suffered heavy losses, and there was almost no money left in the treasury. In the past, when the Dwarf kings were financially prosperous, they would hide some supplies in the Ruins of God, which was the last guarantee for the Dwarf Kingdom. So I wanted to go in and find these supplies, and then take them out to rebuild the Dwarf Kingdom.
I went in with about 10 members of the royal family, and that’s when we encountered this monster.”
"Did it also call itself the God of Forging at that time? What did it look like then?" Xiao Chen asked.
"Yes, it was a mist, red, with a glowing light inside. It should be the same as what you encountered in the temple. No one could tell what it was, but we all heard it talking to us, saying it was the god of forging.
This kind of talk might be enough to fool ordinary ignorant people, but naturally no one I brought with me would believe the monster's lies.
The ruins of God is originally a small world with abundant magic power. We guessed at the time that this should be some kind of energy creature that sneaked into this world.
At that time, I brought two royal masters and two high-level wizards. The rest of the people were all strong, so we wanted to subdue or destroy it. After all, this is where the most important supplies of the Dwarf Kingdom are stored, and we can't let such a monster roam around in it.
But the monster's power was so strange and terrifying that he actually controlled two weaker people in our team at some point, and then attacked the two masters in our team from behind.
This kind of attack from teammates is the most difficult to guard against. With one of the two masters dead and one injured, our team was in chaos. The power of the red fog itself is also very strong. We could only fight and flee, but one by one we fell to the monster. If it weren't for my cousin who covered my retreat, I'm afraid I would have died in it.
After coming out of the God's Ruins, I actually sent a team to investigate the situation, but this team also did not come back. So, I quickly closed it off, and even stopped the tradition of the Great Forger entering the ruins. "
Xiao Chen was puzzled and asked: "Why did you keep this news secret?"
Wang Guo sighed and said, "You have to know that the royal masters I brought in twice accounted for half of the number of royal family members who supported me. The situation in the country was not peaceful at that time. If some people knew that my losses were so great, I might not even be able to sit on my throne. I arranged a series of illusions at the time, making it seem that these people were assigned to faraway places to perform tasks, so I concealed the matter. But later, other nobles still felt that these people disappeared one after another in a very short period of time. Although they didn't know the specific reasons, they still thought they could take advantage of my loopholes, so they launched a rebellion afterwards."
"You must have other difficulties, right?" Xiao Chen looked at the king and felt that he had something else to say.
The king hesitated for a moment before saying, "Another thing is that no one can tell what the god is. What if a dwarf really recognizes it as the god of forging? Some people believe in it, and some don't. This will tear apart the kingdom, which is already very fragile at the time. I can't take such a risk."
Xiao Chen said: "But besides the royal family, there should be a way for the high priest of the Forge Temple to enter there, right? Didn't you inform the Forge Temple about this matter?" (To be continued)