“Zeus, that son of a bitch, after he listened to Finarsih’s divination, his plan was actually to lead the main force of the Rohirrim army towards Gothmog,” said Aziz flatly. “I don’t approve of this plan, so I got into a confrontation with them. I even disrupted their plan. Of course I won’t get any help from them after that.”

Sheyan and Reef could not help inhaling deep in disbelief when they heard Aziz’s explanation.

Who was Gothmog? The commander in chief of the entire Orc army!

Gothmog had the insanely powerful passive ability ‘Commander-in-chief’, which stopped him from falling if there were still soldiers that had the courage to fight within 100 metres of him, even if there was only one – his life would be kept in his body forever through the power of Sauron and the Ringwraiths. However, that only showed how important he was to the whole army. History never lacked instances of an entire campaign derailing due to the death of a commander in chief! If Gothmog actually died, the whole Orc army may very well collapse immediately!

In the original plot, the Orc army was a really powerful army. In this era of cold weapons, they would still fight fiercely, unwilling to leave the battlefield, even when their casualty rate exceeded 40%. The army only collapsed following Gothmog’s death. This showed that Sheyan’s assumption was not baseless.

Of course, it would not be correct to say that Zeus and his party were betraying Gothmog, for the ‘Commander-in-chief’ ability was truly perverse.

Their objective was actually quite simple. They wished to stall the Rohirrim cavalry by utilising the seven remaining Ringwraiths and the powerful guards around Gothmog. They could then lure out the senior officers of the Rohirrim army one by one amid the chaos, thus dividing and conquering them individually. Many lives would still be lost during the process, of course, but the Glory Party could gain enormous benefits from it.

However, this plan was way too risky! Zeus and his party were playing with fire, making a huge gamble! He thought he was plotting against others, but he was actually exposing his most vital parts to the enemy!

It must be noted that, according to the progression of the plot, the leader of the Ringwraiths, the Witch-King of Angmar, would fall in the hands of Éowyn dozens of minutes later, and Gothmog would soon meet his demise under the joint attack of Gimli and Aragorn, who had led the Army of the Dead over!

This was something like a destiny for Gothmog and the Witch King of Angmar. As the contestants on their side, they should try their best to avoid this destiny from coming to pass. And yet, Zeus’ party was actually doing the opposite, striving to lead the battle towards the two important figures for their own personal gains! If the enemy contestants found out about the plan and used it to their advantage, the situation would become extremely dangerous.

Aziz’s motive was now obvious. Since Gimli and Aragon were not here yet, he had hid himself and waited for the best opportunity to shoot and injure Éowyn. It was a bold and reckless move to stop destiny from coming to pass. He wanted to make sure Éowyn stay as far away from the main battlefield as possible, thus preventing the fall of the Witch-King of Angmar.

But no one knew how effective his efforts would be. Aziz was doing this by risking his own life!

Aziz had seen a lot of things in the Nightmare Realm, but he was still shocked by the sudden spike in his HP and MP after joining Party Ace. He remarked angrily, “…This is unfair! Why is your party bonus so insane?! No wonder it was so hard to kill one of you!”

Zi snorted in party channel. “It was all thanks to me combining the Illume Union into Party Ace. If I hadn’t, there’s no way Party Ace’s level would be so high.”

Sheyan just smiled without saying anything, because the battlefield was not really a good place to have a chat about the past.

At that moment, Éomer, roaring like a golden lion, had reached them on his mount. He swung his heavy spear down on them! Reef immediately raised his shield and faced him fearlessly!

Reef would certainly be able to endure this attack. Of that, Sheyan had no doubt. But how much damage the attack would do to Reef was crucial, because it would determine whether they would be able to eliminate Éomer here and now.

Sheyan was also an MT, but strictly speaking, Reef and his shield was still more suited to tank this kind of Boss which dealt massive single-target damage. He was undoubtedly the core factor in this battle. If even an ordinary attack from Éomer was enough to deal Reef a heavy blow, there would be no need for a fight. They should just run away as quickly as possible.

With a loud clang, the dark golden glow on the shield surface splashed and scattered. Éomer’s spear struck the shield hard and was then parried to the side, plunging deep into the soil.

Reef did not block the spear by foolishly taking the attack head on, but by swinging the shield forward at an angle so that it would hit the side of the spear, thus changing its direction. It was a little like the force application in Taichi.

Immediately after the attack, Reef said happily in the party channel, “I’ve only lost one sixth of my HP! We’ve got a shot!”

“Okay, but let’s retreat first,” Sheyan said calmly. “Don’t forget, this guy still has his legendary sword. He hasn’t even used any cavalry abilities yet. We can’t be overly optimistic. But if we do try to fight him, we must first eliminate his mount.”

When Éomer realised that his attack had failed, he was a little surprised. His attack was a combination of manpower and horsepower. So far, few had been able to block the attack, including the Trolls. He wished to follow up with another attack but he suddenly felt a dangerous threat coming at him. He instantly blocked his face with his arm. A sharp pain came from his palm; a bullet had hit his gauntlet, exploded, and lit his arm on fire!

Éomer looked up while in extreme pain, his eyes bloodshot. It was him. The weakling who hurt his sister, then took his left eye. He immediately dashed towards the guy with a shout.

Before this, Aziz was fighting alone. He was not allowed to make any mistakes, nor even stop for breath. But he now had a pair of powerful MTs guarding him, and he knew that both Reef’s ‘Holy Grasp’ and Sheyan’s ‘Survival Mark’ could provide him with strong protection, so he would now have a lot more room to breath, and a lot more room for errors. The effectiveness of his retreat was night and day compared to before.

While they were frantically retreating, Sheyan instructed in the party channel, “When I give the order, all of you stop attacking. Focus only on defending. I repeat, do not actively attack.”

Ronnie, without a doubt the most murderous among them, was naturally the most perplexed. “Why?” he could not help asking.

“Do you remember the Beholder Zi killed earlier? The battlefield is in a mess, but I’d bet that the Blu-ray Party and the Maritime Alliance, at least, would have people responsible for keeping an eye on the overall situation,” Sheyan snorted. “Éomer is Rohan’s Marshal of the Mark, so he’ll surely give very generous rewards to the ones who kill him. Now that Aziz has lured him out from among the Rohirrim cavalry’s main force by chance, will the two parties just stand by and watch us devour such a fat sheep?”

A cold glint flashed across Zi’s eyes. “You mean they’ll come kill steal Éomer from us?”

“I’d do the same if I were them. It doesn’t matter. If they want him, we’ll give him to them! We must keep our eyes on the big picture! When they attack Éomer, they’ll surely draw most of the Rohirrim cavalry to them. We can free ourselves and go greet Zeus. We must make sure nothing happens to Gothmog!”

At this point, Sheyan’s lip curled into a sneer. “But the most important reason is, in the original plot, Éomer would survive and be crowned the King of Rohan, so would he really die so easily? He hasn’t even used his legendary sword yet, and yet he’s already so terrifying. To survive such a brutal war…surely his strength isn’t as simple as what he currently shows. Those two parties with their pathetic MTs wish to take him down? Dream on. They shouldn’t even think about it if they’re not prepared to sacrifice a few dozen lives!”

***

Sheyan was completely right. At the moment, both the Blu-ray Party and the Maritime Alliance had their attention focused on the trio.

“Those two sure are strong. No, it’s more precise to say that Reef is strong. Did you see how easily he parried Éomer’s attack? The timing of his ‘Holy Grasp’ was impeccable when he rescued Aziz too.”

The one speaking was Percival of the Maritime Alliance. As he monitored the situation on the battlefield, the light that reflected off his eyes flashed continuously, like the hard disk indicator light of a computer that was running Crysis 2 at full graphics.

“Do you think you can handle Éomer, Rak’shiri? This question is crucial, and I hope you’ll be conservative in your assessment.”

As Rak’shiri stared at the image of Éomer rushing about in the middle of the screen, and of course, at Reef and Sheyan, he replied scornfully, “Of course I can’t.”

The expressions of the people around him changed when they heard that, but Rak’shiri instantly added with a smirk, “But if I have Hyper’s help, it’ll be a piece of cake. If these two clowns can do it, then of course I can, too.”

Rak’shiri was a Beastmaster MT, so his pet and him were naturally one entity. Percival instantly smiled in relief when he heard that.

“That’s great! Since Party Ace have so generously presented us with this gift, it’ll be rude for us to refuse! I’ve realised that Éomer’s mount is very powerful, and he obviously cherishes it very much. A few times, Éomer would rather get injured himself than let his horse get hurt. So, we only need to kill his horse or cause it heavy injury, and he’ll surely come after us instead. The chaotic situation on the battlefield is the perfect opportunity for us to mobilise our thief squad.”

At the same time, Jax of the Blu-ray Party ordered decisively, “Gather everyone we can spare, we’ve got a big job coming up. Muse, Harry, Dos, and Raymond, the four of you get ready to move out. You’ll be given priority on all the potions and items in our party storage. I want you guys to stand before me in your best condition in five minutes!”

“I don’t expect you to perform as well as Reef and Seaman. My request for you is simple. When we can’t hang on anymore and are about to lose someone, the four of you take turns blocking Éomer’s attack. I only need you guys to take one attack each. There are dozens of us supporting you. Can you do that?”

The four people mentioned by Jax were the specially trained MTs of the Blu-ray Party.

Of the four, only Harry had an MT innate ability, while the rest were not professional MTs. This was because outstanding MTs were often ambitious and would usually refuse to yield to others, but in the Blu-ray Party, there was only one voice allowed, and that was Jax’s. Therefore, his solution was to make up for quality with quantity. The MTs were easier to control this way too, and the party would not need to waste too much resources on them. They could die, betray the party, or run away, and the party would not lament it too much.

“Now, there’s only one problem left,” said Roulette. “Who will go make that muscle head Éomer come to us? On such a chaotic battlefield, we can’t go to him in such a large group. ”

“Leave it to me,” answered Jax proudly. Before he finished, a large mass of darkness had already appeared behind him. Then, a ferocious head poked out of the darkness. It was the mount of the Ringwraiths, a Fellbeast! Blu-ray Party was indeed a large party, they actually had the capability of redeeming such a perversely powerful creature so early!

“Wouldn’t it be too dangerous for you to go alone?” Roulette asked with concern.

“If Éomer can break through the defences of my legendary equipment, I don’t mind dying under his hands,” replied Jax confidently.

In the meantime, Sheyan, Reef and Aziz were seemingly running away in panic. The direction of their escape happened to be right between the base of the Blue-ray Party and the base of the Maritime Alliance! His intention was a little too obvious, but he did not care if the other two parties saw through his intention, because this was an overt plot, an open scheme! Even if the other two parties knew this was a scheme, they would still willingly step into it!

***

*CLANG!*

Another loud collision could be heard. Reef had nowhere to dodge. He had no choice but to fully bear the force of the hit with his shield. He ended up being sent flying more than seven metres back by the spear. He instantly rolled back up and spat out the sand in his mouth.

“Damn it, boss. Why aren’t they here to take over yet?” complained Reef hatefully.

Sheyan grabbed an arrow that was flying towards at Aziz and took three more arrows with his body at the same time, without any changes to his expression.

“Don’t worry, they’ll come for sure,” replied Sheyan decisively. “Big parties probably have to make a lot more preparation. Besides, haven’t I prepared two other emergency plans? If worse comes to worst, I’ll just go full power and kill this muscle-head. That’s not a bad plan either.”

It was worth noting that the Rohirrim cavalry were not fools who could only charge on their horses. Their unit type was somewhere between light cavalry and heavy cavalry, and they were also proficient in mounted archery like the troops of Genghis Khan. In the original plot, they even killed several Oliphaunts with their arrows. A single arrow was like a mosquito bite for an Oliphaunt, but everything that had accumulated to a large enough quantity could induce a qualitative change. Even the Oliphaunts could not withstand thousands, tens of thousands of arrows.

Before this, Aziz was running away among the crowd at full speed, so most of the cavalrymen were unable to lock on to him with their bows. Now that Sheyan and Reef had come to his rescue, his movement speed had slowed down, so any cavalry that could spare the effort was now shooting at the trio.

Reef had to tank Éomer’s attacks, so Sheyan naturally had to play the role of a human shield for the other two. But for a contestant, arrows were obviously much less threatening than a cavalry charge. In addition, Sheyan’s innate ability was very effective against this kind of medium damage attack, so although the archers were having a great time shooting at him, he was also willingly taking those arrows

Sheyan’s ‘Hedgehog’ milestone thus made great progress once again, almost approaching the 2500 mark which was the halfway point.

Suddenly, Sheyan felt the environment dimming, but his Perceptive Sense did not warn him. However, he still turned to look, and saw a person riding on a Fellbeast in the sky. The person was wearing a tight suit which covered his entire body like Spider-man and wielding a giant trident which glowed dark gold. The Fellbeast was about to dive down.

The dark golden glow on the trident was so dense that it looked almost solid. Sheyan immediately knew that the weapon was just like his ‘Verdict’, a dark gold weapon with the potential to upgrade to a legendary equipment. Although he could not see the man’s face clearly, the leader of the Blu-ray Party, Jax, was probably the only person who could redeem a Fellbeast mount at the current time.

At the same time, Aziz gave Sheyan a meaningful glance. Taking the cue, Sheyan instantly noticed three people who stood out among the vast crowd on the noisy battlefield.

The three seemed quite ordinary at first glance. They were even wearing heavy Orc armours in order to hide their real identity. However, they were moving extremely fast, and as they pushed their way through the crowd, none of the dust, blood, or even air left any traces on them. Such stealth technique was truly outstanding. Although they would sometimes even move in the opposite direction, Sheyan knew that they were definitely heading towards this place!

Definitely!