Deep inside the subterranean magma caverns of Black-Iron Moon, four hundred and ninety thousand Star-Iron Golems sat in the dark, listening anxiously for news from the surface.
Every time someone shifted their weight or scratched their head in the giant underground hall, a chorus of painful SQUEAKS, CREAKS, and CRUNCHES echoed off the stalactites, followed by a steady drizzle of red rust dust.
At the highest stone platform in the center of the cavern sat three colossal thirty-five-foot Elder Golems—Grand-Uncle Iron-Thumb, Grand-Uncle Heavy-Jaw, and Grand-Uncle Flat-Foot. None of the three elders had stood up in six hundred years, because the damp sulfur steam rising from the underground lava cracks had rusted their iron tailbones solid to their basalt thrones!
“Why hasn’t Little Gang come back yet?” Grand-Uncle Heavy-Jaw rumbled, his lower jaw squeaking like a rusty wheelbarrow every time he spoke. “It’s been three hours since he took the patrol squad up to smash those soft meat-invaders! Could those humans have used some tricky flying-sword array to trap him?”
“Impossible!” Grand-Uncle Iron-Thumb snorted, trying to wave his hand only for his wrist hinge to jam halfway with a loud CLANK. “Little Gang’s Star-Iron shell is six inches thick! Even a Rank 7 Nascent Soul sword cultivator would only leave a white scratch on his belly! Wait—listen! Someone is running down the main tunnel!”
