"Yes, this is the secret dockyard of the Kingdom Navy, where we build the latest warships." Duke Berval nodded.

"A new warship? Bigger than the Dreadnought? ”

"Bigger than the Dreadnought, of course," the Duke of Boval nodded again, as if sensing that this was not enough to describe the new warship, and added, "in fact, it would be a miracle beyond your imagination, unlike any warship that had come before." ”

"What's that?" Diego asked suspiciously, but in his heart, there was already some speculation.

"You'll see later, my barren words aren't enough to describe its greatness." Duke Berval said mysteriously.

"Construction of this dock began shortly after Stormwind was rebuilt, and it was directly subordinate to the king, and its existence was not known even during the years when the black dragon Onexia was secretly controlling Stormwind. In fact, even Boward didn't know, and although he knew that a portion of the royal family's income was invested in a secret project each year, he never knew what that secret project was. It wasn't until I returned to Stormwind that he learned about it from me. You are the second nobleman to visit this place, so to speak! Standing at the entrance of the cave and looking inside, the king said with a serious expression. The inside of the cave was dark, and the black hole was like the open mouth of a dragon, waiting for the delicious food to jump in on its own.

"My pleasure," Diego replied modestly, but he confessed his doubts, "but why let me know now?" ”

"Your loyalty has been tested, my Count, and besides, the war is about to begin, and now that the time has come for it to show its strength, we need no longer conceal its existence!" Varian said in a deep voice. He took a step and walked into the cave, Diego and Boval following closely behind, noticing that none of the royal guards were following him.

By the light of the wind lamps hanging from the rock wall, they walked forty or fifty yards along the water's edge, and stopped in front of a fortified wall of granite masonry. The wall sealed almost the entire cave, and even the water was sealed by an iron gate.

Bolval walked to the wall, groped for it, and finally found an iron ring. A wire rope is tied to an iron ring at one end, and the other end passes through a finger-thick hole in the wall to the inner wall.

Boval grabbed the ring and tugged hard three times, then twice. Diego heard a bell from within the city walls, three long and two short.

A few seconds later, with a sudden muffled bang, more than a dozen bright magic spotlights lit up on the surrounding walls, illuminating the surroundings as if it were day. Then there was the sound of a rolling machine, and a small window one foot square appeared on the city wall, and a voice came from inside.

"Praise the Light!"

"Only dead orcs are good orcs!" Varian replied loudly.

This must be some kind of code! Listening to the donkey's answer to the horse's mouth, Diego guessed in his heart.

At this moment, a beam of light shone down from a height of more than ten meters above the city wall, swept over the faces of the three people in turn, and then carefully shone around them, as if to determine whether they had been kidnapped.

After a few moments, the sound of the rolling machine sounded again, and a small door that could only be passed through a single person appeared on the wall.

"Verified, Your Majesty, you can come in." The voice said.

They rushed through the wall, and the gate was immediately closed behind them.

Truth be told, the moment they stepped out of the passage, Diego almost wondered if he had arrived at the dwarven city of Ironforge, a city in the heart of a huge mountain. Lights hang everywhere here, reflecting the inside of the mountain as if it were day.

The dome of the cave is more than 100 meters above the ground, and it is open and deep. In the center of the cave, a lake more than a hundred yards in diameter occupies more than half of the cave. And on the lake, a huge battleship under construction attracts all of Diego's attention.

It was an aerial battleship he had seen in his previous life, the Sky Breaker! In his previous life, the Empire had served the Alliance on an expedition against the Lich King to Northrend. At the moment, however, the ship is not yet fully completed, and the two large built-in propellers that provide it with thrust have not yet been installed.

But even then, this unprecedented battleship is shocking enough. It is more than fifty meters long and nearly twenty meters high, and from a distance it looks like a wall standing on the water. At the bow of the ship is a winged griffin-shaped bow, and at the edge of the deck behind the bow, two round cast-iron turrets resemble two fortresses, each containing two twin heavy guns. On either side of the chest and abdomen of the battleship, a total of four transverse spirals provided the forward power for the battleship.

The airship had four decks, the ground floor was an ammunition compartment for dropping bombs from the air, the upper level was home to more than forty heavy guns, and the third level was a traditional dwarven gun, although from the empty gun windows, none of these weapons were yet installed.

Since the outfitting had not yet been completed, the battleship was surrounded by scaffolding, on which countless workers were walking and working, busy like ants, and all kinds of strange-shaped spreaders and carts were shuttling up and down, and the voices of people were in full swing. On the stern side, a team of workers is hoisting onto the deck a dinghy with a folding delta wing for the crew, which has no power but can be lowered to the ground by the glider above.

"How? Spectacular, right!? Beside Diego, Duke Berval looked at the stunned hunter with satisfaction and laughed loudly. In fact, the first time he saw this scene, he was even more shocked than Diego.

"Indeed! Does the ship have a name? Diego retracted his gaze and asked deliberately.

"Skybreaker! His Majesty himself gave it a name! An unfamiliar voice replied.

Diego turned his head, only to notice that several officers were waiting next to them, and one of them, with the rank of major, stepped forward and saluted: "Your Majesty, I salute you and welcome you to inspect!" ”

The king also warmly returned the salute and cordially encouraged the builders.

Diego took the time to look around. Around the lake, there are neatly arranged rows of various buildings, including blacksmiths, lumber mills, alchemical laboratories, dwarf workshops, warehouses, leather processing plants, ...... everything needed for shipbuilding. Raw materials are delivered here in a constant stream and then made into finished products and transported to ships.

"How's it going?" Just then, he heard the king's gentle question, which sounded like there was no urgency.

"Fortunately, it has been going according to the plan and in an orderly manner." The Major replied with his chest straightened, but a violent cough came from behind him.

"Someone seems to have a different opinion on this?" Varian said with a smile.

The Major dodged to the side with some embarrassment, revealing a short figure behind him. It was a dwarf.

"I'm Polvik, the chief technician here, and I have something to say!" The dwarf said loudly.

Diego looked down at the chief technician. The dwarf with a strange pair of goggles was half bald on top of his head, and the rest of his hair grew like weeds, but his small round face was trying to mitigate the effects of the messy hair, making him look much younger, like a beardless, smaller dwarf, though the two races were not related by blood.

He was dressed in a canvas uniform of no apparent color, as filthy as a rag, stained with oil, stains of sweat, and a strange smell of sweat acid, oil, and metal—he looked more like an ordinary dwarf repairman than a senior executive who commanded all the mechanics.

"What do you want to say, Mr. Polvik?" Varian crouched down, looking at the gnome as level as he could.

"There's rats in here!" The chief technician said seriously.