The sky gradually brightened, and the gray-black landscape of the Scorching Canyon, which looked like it had been burned by flames, came into view. Even during the day, the sky here is a dark red, the color of the volcanic ash suspended in the air and reflected by the magma on the ground.

Diego felt smoke coming out of his throat, and the pain felt like it was about to crack. But in reality, he wasn't thirsty, and the water bag in the devil's cloth bag would have ensured that they wouldn't have to look for water all the way to Red Ridge Mountain, but he just had a sore throat because he had been running for five or six hours, and they hadn't stopped since crossing the mountain trail. On his side, two leopards were also running tiredly, foaming at the mouth and looking even more wolf than Diego.

Diego didn't know if the orcs were all the same brainless, the fallen dragon-throated orcs were like this, and now the orcs of these new tribes were still like this, and these tenacious orc chasers had been chasing them for most of the night.

Although Diego can run faster with the help of cheetahs, it is completely incomparable to the wolves ridden by the orcs, these creatures with incredible endurance can often run for hours on end when tracking their prey, and if it were not for the cover of night, they might have been overtaken by the orcs.

"I swear I must get a mount, whether it's a nightblade leopard or a war horse, even a dwarf and a big goat can make do!" The panther said viciously, sticking out his tongue and moistening his nostrils, "It's so torturous to run like this." ”

"Are we still going to run? Do you want to stop and have a good time? He said eagerly.

"Keep running, you can't beat it." Diego said in frustration that it was no longer the twelve orcs guarding the mountain path who were chasing after them, but more than fifty wolf cavalry. These people obviously have good trackers among them, and as soon as they stop for more than a quarter of an hour, these people will appear in their field of vision on time.

Masrae was about to say something more, but just then, Diego saw a dead tree trunk that could only be hugged by two people at a turn in the distance, lying on the side of the road, blocking most of the road. At the root of the tree, a black iron dwarf was waving at them.

"Hey, human, over here." The dwarf shouted.

Diego was taken aback by the thought of an ambush, but he quickly thought of another possibility, so he turned around and ran over there. As he approached the dead tree, he jumped over the trunk with a jump.

He was surprised to see that more than twenty black iron dwarves were crouching behind the trunks of trees, and he almost stepped on one of them as he flipped over. These dwarves all carry muskets in their hands, and without exception, these muskets are loaded with live ammunition and ready to fire.

The ensuing Black Panther Masrae Bearskin was also frightened by the number of Black Iron Dwarves, hunched over with a guarded waist and a low cry coming out of his throat, looking like he might attack at any moment. After all, not long ago, he had a real fight with the black iron dwarves, and his wariness of these gray-skinned dwarves was not so easy to eliminate. Relatively speaking, Guan Haifa is much more stable, and it follows Diego unhurriedly, like an elegant lady.

"Alright, Masrae, be quiet, they are not enemies." Diego hurriedly reassured that he didn't want to make a mistake with the musket, you know, there was no safety device on the dwarven musket.

"Wow, are these two big cats your pets?" A dwarven musketeer asked enviously.

"No, one of them is," Diego pointed to Kanhaifa and then to the Panther, "this is my druid friend." ”

But the Black Iron Dwarves, who had never seen a druid, did not understand the meaning of the word "druid" and took it for the name of the Black Panther.

"Hey, Druid Masrae!" The dwarf greeted the panther warmly, reaching out to try to stroke the top of its head, but the latter's fierce baring teeth and growling prevented him from approaching.

"Wow, that's a big fierce cat." He said with some sarcasm.

"You're from the Thorium Brotherhood, aren't you?" Diego couldn't laugh or cry, but the Night Elf didn't seem to have any intention of "revealing his true body", so he didn't bother with it anymore.

"If you're talking about the most brilliant dwarven blacksmiths, yes." A dwarf replied proudly.

"That's right."

"yes, that's it." The dwarves chimed in.

"Would you like some drink, human?" Finally, Diego heard a whispering voice interject. He turned his head and saw a drunken black iron dwarf holding a wine bag. In his other hand he held a musket, and wine spilled from the corner of his mouth and ran down his beard all over the butt.

"This ......" Diego was tempted to refuse, but he doubted that the dwarf would give him a shot because he was refused, even though the wine-stained musket might not be able to go off. Just then, the Black Iron Dwarf who had beckoned him came to his rescue.

"Shut up, Lolore, if you don't want to never drink again, be quiet for me!" The dwarf roared.

With that, he fell to the ground and listened with his ears close to the ground. But the orcs weren't horses, and Diego doubted he could hear the soft claws of the wolves slapping on the ground.

"Ready to shoot!" The dwarf jerked off the ground and commanded sharply.

There was a sound of a hammer being wrenched from behind the trunk.

"It's amazing!" Diego exclaimed in heartfelt admiration, and he looked up from above the dead tree and was surprised to find that the orc wolf cavalry was already less than two hundred meters away from them.

"Well, well, it's useful for dwarves," Diego explained to himself in his heart, "they're not as tall as humans, and they can't see that far." ”

The dwarves rose from the ground and set their muskets on tree trunks. Diego also took the bow from his back and bent it to shoot an arrow. But the dwarven commander who saw this qiē was very dissatisfied with this, and he picked up a musket with a hammer beside him and threw it over. This made Diego, who was worried about going off, scramble for a while.

"With this, human, that's what men should use," the dwarf said disdainfully. The dwarven musketeers behind the trees agreed, and they all nodded their heads like chickens cutting rice, and at the edge of the line, Loloel raised the wine bag in his left hand again. The commander finally pointed to the wooden bow in Diego's hand, "Throw it aside, that's what thin people and girls only use." ”

After speaking, he casually threw over a square wooden box.

Diego took it a little helplessly, he thought that the box contained a paper bullet. He placed the box on the trunk of the tree, opened the lid casually, and glanced at it casually.

A group of neatly arranged, yellow cylinders came into his eyes.

Iron-clad bullets? Looking at those familiar objects, Diego froze!

He remembered that the first appearance of iron-shelled ammunition was in the Burning Expeditionary Era, and that it was first invented and used by the Draenei from the Outlands. Although there may be differences in primer and propellant, the iron-shelled bullet is no different in principle and construction from the bullets he had seen before the crossing.

"Fire!" At this moment, the dwarf commander ordered loudly, and after a "bang" of gunfire, the orcs fell in large numbers, some wolves were hit, and some of the orc cavalry above were hit, but no matter who fell, the remaining one of these partners still continued to charge with the team without hesitation, without the slightest stagnation.

On the other side of the road, Masrae Bearskin and Guan Haifa were stealth, silently making their way around the orcs. At this moment, they did not dare to rush forward to entangle with the orc wolf cavalry, and to be honest, they were not as confident in the dwarven marksmanship as they were in Diego.

The battle was more intense, but this qiē seemed to have nothing to do with Diego, who was completely immersed in his own world. He carefully took a bullet out of the magazine and carefully examined it in the palm of his hand as if he had found a treasure.

He immediately discovered the difference between these brass bullets and iron shell bullets, the shell of this bullet is not a thin shape in the front and thick in the back, its two ends are generally thick, and the bullet head and the shell are one, but there is no base, of course, there is no primer, the tail end of the bullet is cut very neatly, and then it is filled with some kind of black solid very flat. He carefully picked at it, and found that it was formed by the drying of dense gunpowder powder mixed with some kind of fiery glue or something.

He lifted his musket and looked at it, and saw that it was a normal dwarven musket, still with a hammer and anvil. The anvil is also covered with a fire cap. He guessed that the principle of firing such a bullet should be as follows: when the shooter pulls the trigger, the unrestrained hammer strikes the fire cap, and the high powder powder in the fire cap ignites the propellant in the bullet through a small hole inside the anvil, so that the cartridge case and the bullet head are fired as a whole by the push of gunpowder.

"What a genius design!" Diego exclaimed in his heart.

He raised his gun, shot down an orc that rushed up, and shoved the bullet through the muzzle of the gun, following the example of the dwarves. The bullet was a little thinner than the caliber of the musket, which made it glide smoothly inside the chamber, and finally, Diego heard a soft "click" and it got stuck somewhere. Diego reckoned that there should be some kind of locking device in the innermost part of the chamber that would jam the bullet and prevent it from sliding at will.

He picked up his gun again and shot an empty saddle wolf over his head to the ground—it was as easy for him as eating and drinking.

He roughly estimated that it did not take more than five seconds from the time of reloading to the completion of the shot. This rate of fire is not much slower than that of a bow and arrow, and it does not take much effort on his part, unlike archery, even the strongest archers will slow down their rate of fire after dozens of shots due to the weakness of their arms. But the musket had no such problem, and if he had enough time, he could keep shooting.

However, Diego didn't think such a bullet would be so rebellious, and if that were the case, the Black Iron Dwarves would have ruled all of Azeroth. He thought about it for a moment and soon discovered the flaws of this bullet. That is, the propellant of this bullet leaks into the air, and when it is loaded into the chamber that is hot and hot from multiple shots, it may even ignite without the high powder powder in the fire cap, and it will fire on its own.

Sure enough, he saw that the dwarven musketeers would replace their spare guns every three shots, and for this reason, many dwarves had more than one spare gun, which was inserted in a fan shape behind their backs, like peacocks with the screen open.

But this is a huge improvement over the previous dwarven muskets. It increased the rate of fire of the musket by almost five times. Of course, Diego knew that this did not guarantee that the hunter would be far more powerful than the other classes, because even in the days of the Expedition to the Outlands, hunters who were generally armed with iron shells were not among the nine classes, and the rate of fire of muskets at that time was already twenty rounds per minute.

"Now that the Black Iron Dwarf's bullet manufacturing technology has developed to this stage, maybe I can make an iron shell in advance?" In the smoke of gunpowder, a bold thought suddenly came out of his heart irrepressibly.

He collected his thoughts and began to concentrate on the battle with the orcs. As soon as he joined, the orc wolf cavalry was immediately suppressed, and they were completely unable to withstand Diego's almost every shot.

The power of the dwarven musket was not as powerful as the rifle before Diego's crossing, and as long as the hit was not fatal, the brave orcs would continue to attack, and the injury was not a pain for them, but a glory. But Diego was always accurate, he could always hit the orcs in the head or heart, even the ones in heavy armor - there were not many of them, and wolves were not as heavy as horses - he could also shoot through the gaps in the armor and knock the orcs inside to the ground.

With the rhythmic sound of gunfire, one orc after another fell on the way to Diego. The fifty meters in front of him was like a death zone that no one could cross.

The dwarves also noticed Diego's sharp marksmanship, and the dwarven commander even set aside two people to change his musket and reload it with ammunition.

"Nine, Ten, Eleven...... "Every time Diego shoots down an orc, his dwarven assistants will happily count him, because Diego also has a credit for his attack, and they have a share of the glory.

After leaving behind more than twenty-five wolves and the same number of orc corpses, the orc wolf cavalry, who had suffered more than half of the casualties, began to retreat, and unlike the orcs of the old tribes, they could rationally decide whether to attack or retreat. It's not about courage, it's about the orcs who have been through so many wars and can't afford more casualties.

The dwarves didn't go after them, their little short legs weren't suited for that. The crowd erupted in cheers, and Diego joined in. The Black Iron Dwarves did not reject him, as they were impressed by the precision and lethality of his marksmanship in the battle just now.

It didn't take long for Masrae and Sekihafa, who were chasing the orcs, to return. But it was not so much a pursuit as a farewell, they just followed the orcs out of more than ten miles and returned. Diego didn't want to kill more people after getting rid of these henchmen.

In plain sight, Masrae Bearskin reverted to his human form. Perhaps he was stimulated before, but now he is neatly dressed and spotless, as if he had just gone on a pleasant outing.

This magical human~ beast transformation made the Black Iron Dwarves curious, and they immediately began to watch strongly, and some of the dwarves also reached out and touched Masrae's body, which made the latter embarrassed and almost angry. Truth be told, if it weren't for the slightest politeness, these evil tech nerds would have wanted to slice and study the Night Elves.

"Are you sure these Black Iron Dwarves are harmless?" Masrae whispered as he followed Diego to avoid the dwarves' burning gaze.

"Yes, they are Black Iron Dwarves, but these Black Iron Dwarves are different from those Black Iron Dwarves," Diego explained with some awkwardness, "They are the Thor Silver Brotherhood!" ”

The Night Elf blinked in confusion, "What's the difference?" ”

"This ......," Diego was a little confused, but it was a long story.

Speaking of the Brotherhood of Thorium, we must also start with the Battle of the Three Hammers that led to the division of the dwarves, and in the latter part of that war, the soon-to-be-defeated leader of the Black Iron Dwarves, the mage prince Thorrisen, recklessly summoned the ancient powers that had been sleeping underground. To his shock (and ultimately ruin) the creatures he summoned were far more terrifying than any nightmare he could ever imagine.

Ragnaros, the Firefiend, was the king of the fire elemental sealed by the Titans in ancient times, and he was reborn again by the summons of Thorrisson. Ragnaros' rebirth in Azeroth shattered the Red Ridge Mountains, and his power caused a roaring volcano to rise from the ground, forming a volcano bordered by a scorching canyon to the north and a burning plain to the south—Mount Blackstone. Although Thorrison was slain by the power he unleashed, most of his surviving compatriots were enslaved by Ragnaros and his elemental creatures. To this day, they are still left in the Blackstone Tower.

It was in this context that the Thurium Brotherhood was born, consisting of a group of highly talented super-craftsmen and blacksmiths among the Black Iron Dwarves, who were unwilling to be enslaved by the Firelord Ragnaros and escaped from the Darkhearth. But as they escaped, they not only took with them the Black Iron Dwarve's own exquisite craftsmanship, but also brought out some of the knowledge about crafting equipment and weapons that the Flame Lord had taught the Black Iron Slaves.

Now, these out-of-house Black Iron Dwarves have set up camp in the northwestern tower of Thorium overlooking the scorching canyon, always on the lookout for movement in the canyon. The Black Iron Dwarves who helped Diego were members of the Thor Silver Brotherhood.

At this moment, Diego noticed that the dwarven commander was walking towards him. The black-iron dwarf who had just finished cleaning the battlefield carried several short wooden sticks the thickness of his arm, and these totem poles were painted with colorful patterns, some of which had wing-like planks on them. Diego was keenly aware of the power contained within these totem poles.

"We're so lucky, that orc shaman fell in the first wave of shots, otherwise it would definitely cause us a lot of trouble." The dwarven commander was gleeful that he was dressed in an earth-gray chain mail and his wrinkled face was pockmarked and looked like an old farmer who had a good harvest. He raised his hand to meet Diego, who clenched his fist and slammed it twice into him, making a hand-bump. This is a common ritual among the dwarves, and it means that an iron hammer strikes an anvil. "Hey, human, glad to help you."

"Thank you very much, we deserve a toast to this. I've had enough of these pesky greenskins. Diego laughs and says that within ten years, he has learned how to deal with the natives of the land.

"That's right, you're the most appetizing human I've ever met!" The Black Iron Dwarf laughed similarly, pointing to himself, "Jack Rockleg, the leader of the Thorsilver Outpost. ”

His personality was very different from that of the Black Iron Dwarf, and he resembled the bold and enthusiastic Copperbeard Dwarf, he had a typical dwarven appearance, but his complexion was darker and dark gray, and his eyes were red, which looked like glowing lava. Diego knew that it was due to the influence of the firedemon Ragnaros, and even after leaving the Blackstone Abyss, these influences were still transforming their bodies.

"Diego Asnar, hunter," Diego introduced himself, turning and pulling the Night Elf beside him, "His name is Masrae Bearskin, a druid, and I'm sure you'll find common ground in wine." ”

"A skinny man who likes to drink, that's really rare." The Black Iron Dwarf said in surprise as he nodded to the Night Elves, then turned to look at the Dwarven Musketeers behind him.

"Well done, guys! It's time to head back to the outpost. He praised his dwarves, "Today we have a meal!" ”

The dwarves cheered again, more excited than when they had first won the battle, much to Diego's surprise.

……

Note: Shamans are the spiritual leaders of clans and tribes. They communicate with spirits, have the ability to foresee the future, and guide their people through the dark ages. Many people misinterpret their wisdom and calmness as pacifist nature. In fact, when challenged, shamans possess powerful abilities to deal with those who disturb the natural order.

Shamans believe that all things have spirits and can communicate with the earth, fire, storms, currents, flora and fauna. Many people believe that shamans believe in elemental powers, but in reality, they are in a state of equal communication. In order to better communicate with their ancestors and the elements, shamans often use totem poles as secondary weapons.

The Prophet is an ancient beast tribe that embodies the most powerful shamanic powers, and these powerful shamans are Thrall's most trusted advisors and are often involved in the development of the tribe's strategy - Thrall himself is a powerful shaman, in fact, few can match his power. Prophets did not use only the power of the land and the sky. They also have the ability to predict the future. Their wisdom can only be expressed in battle through their courage and cruelty. When the enemy approached, the Prophet rode their loyal wolf into battle. Use their powerful shamanic powers to summon various elementals to fight.

Shamans in Warcraft history are more controversial. Some of them—those who are undetermined and blindly seeking power, are tempted by demons to degenerate into lackeys of the Burning Legion—sorcerers.