“The show has begun,” Reef could not help laughing, relief evident in his voice, “It seems like more than one party is planning to snatch food from the tiger’s mouth. Those three assassins were all elites from the Maritime Alliance. Their Beastmaster MT, Rak’shiri, is supposedly pretty strong.”

“That’s why, sometimes, taking a step back opens up a whole realm of possibilities. If we had joined the battle for Éomer too, it’d be a skirmish between three factions from our side. We’d be weakening ourselves by our own initiatives. Éomer’s level of strength is unpredictable; we might not even be able to kill him. Even if we do, our party may not necessarily get the drops,” said Sheyan. “We’ll take a five minute break. After that, we’ll go check up on our commander in chief, Gothmog. I only hope that he doesn’t act as foolishly as he looks.”

Because Éomer was currently facing a crisis, he had changed the whole situation of the nearby battlefield. He had seemingly become the eye of a large vortex. His prestige among the Rohirrim army was second only to the king, so many of the elite cavalry was now rushing over.

An increase in pressure over on Éomer’s side naturally meant a decrease in pressure over where Sheyan was, so their party could now easily group up. By the time they did, the Blu-ray Party and the Maritime Alliance were already pointing fingers at each other. Their members, though, never stopped attacking. Fortunately, both sides still managed to keep a clear head so far; they had not started attacking each other.

But after Party Ace’s five minute break was over, the situation of the Blu-ray Party and the Maritime Alliance had become very dire. Éomer had greatly lost his mobility after losing his beloved mount, but with Gúthwinë in his hand, he was now exuding the temperament of a wounded beast searching for prey to hurt!

The first casualty was the Maritime Alliance. Rak’shiri, the Beastmaster MT, had been overconfident in his estimation. He did not expect Éomer to be so sinister and different with Gúthwinë in his hand. Rak’shiri only persisted for less than twenty seconds before Éomer seized on an opportunity and killed his pet, Hyper.

Rak’shiri’s companions naturally would not sit by and watch him get killed, so they rushed forward to help him. During such an emergency situation, the Maritime Alliance finally showed their mettle. They attacked Éomer with wild abandon, pulling his attention to them. While they were still cheering for successfully regaining the prey that seemed to have escaped from them a moment ago, Jax’s four great MTs dashed forward to receive Éomer’s attacks….

And then…

And then they realised that they were unable to endure his attacks.

But that’s fine. Jax never expected them to be able to. Otherwise, wouldn’t that make real MTs like Reef a joke? Therefore, the plan was for the four to take turns. But at that moment, Jax suddenly realised something. The first MT to tank Éomer’s attack could not get back at all, because none of them have an MT Awakening Skill to save their teammate!

After only a moment of hesitation, two of Jax’s four great MT’s had died, while the other two were scared out of their wits. Therefore, the Blu-ray Party could only hold Éomer off with numbers and summoned creatures. But on this chaotic battlefield, doing so would only lead to dire consequences. More people battling Éomer meant less pressure on the rest of the Rohirrim cavalry, so the more Orc troops the rest of the Rohirrim cavalry could kill.

But more importantly, Éomer was not just an officer in the Rohirrim army, he was a symbolic figure. His soldiers’ attention were constantly on him. If he was only surrounded by a few people, the soldiers would feel that with his bravery, he should be able to deal with them easily, but if he was surrounded by dozens or hundreds of people, then the soldiers would naturally rush to his aid.

Therefore, there were disadvantages to attacking Éomer in large numbers, despite the increase in power. Even if the Blu-ray Party and the Maritime Alliance were currently sharing the burden, the pressure on them was not any lighter than when Sheyan, Reef and Aziz had confronted him in a trio!

***

While all that was taking place, Sheyan and his party members had finished resting up and had already moved away. By only defending and not attacking, they managed to pass through half the battleground to reach Gothmog’s location. The whole battlefield had now become a mess. The Rohirrim cavalry had crashed into the Orc army with astounding impact, causing the Orc troops great damage, but the Trolls redeemed by the contestants were creatures that were able to halt the cavalry’s charge, so only half the cavalry troops managed to completely penetrate through the Orc army.

King Theoden had rallied these cavalry troops and led them into battle again. When they once again charged out of the Orc army, only less than 500 were left of the 8000 Rohirrim cavalry. The rest had not necessarily died; they had just been bogged down and dragged into a chaotic fight. But every now and then, an officer would charge out from among the Orc army, gather the troops around him, then charge back into battle with hundreds of cavalrymen now following behind him.

Smelling the opportunity, the contestants of Minas Tirith could remain silent no longer. They started rushing out of the city to join the chaotic fight. At this time, from a high vantage point, the whole battlefield would look like a pot of boiling stew – messy, heated, and disorderly. However, as more and more cavalry officers kept organising the scattered Rohirrim troops to charge into the Orc army, it was not difficult to notice that the general situation was tilting towards the Rohirrim cavalry’s side. The collapse of the Orc army was only a matter of time.

The King’s Company, King Theoden’s royal guards, had cut through the Orc army formations at will like a hot knife through butter until, under Zeus’ deliberate guidance, they ran into Gothmog and the Uruk-hai host around him.

At the moment, Zeus and his party could be seen trying to kill a Rohirrim officer carrying a ‘Sunset Horn’. Zeus was not weak. In Sheyan’s opinion, he was far more reliable than that Beastmaster MT of the Maritime Alliance. His Awakening Skill, ‘Gravity Suppression’, had fully matured. He also knew the extent of his abilities well, so he would not choose a target that was beyond his capability.

But Zeus’ biggest weakness was that he was too credulous, too trusting in the Metal Professor. For example, the idea to make use of Gothmog this time was strongly advocated by the Metal Professor. As for Aziz’s reaction, first, Zeus did not expect him to object so fiercely. Second, he already had a feeling that this wild and intractable subordinate of his would not obey him for much longer. He had even heard whispers that Aziz had been having contacts with other parties. Therefore, at this critical moment, he steeled his resolve and made his decision.

Aziz was a sharp, double-edged blade that had no hilt. To use him, you must first consider whether you will be cut yourself. It was small wonder that Aziz did not consider Zeus very highly, as there was a shining pearl like Sheyan in front of him.

Right now, only the Uruk-hai host around Gothmog were able to hold their own against the King’s Company, under the assistance of the seven Ringwraiths, of course. As soon as Party Ace approached, more than ten King’s Riders in golden armour came charging at them.

However, Party Ace only observed from the sidelines, choosing only to defend and not attack. The King’s Riders attacked them for a while, but perhaps the double effects of Reef’s ‘Cardiac Shattering Roar’ and Sheyan’s curse-mix cloud were simply too annoying to deal with, they soon went back. Kulutego had recovered some of his biological powers by now, so he built some quick stone walls that were very effective protection against small-scale cavalry charges.

After observing the situation for a while, Sheyan suddenly remarked, “I know who their target is! It’s the Hobbit!”

“How do you tell? I didn’t notice any clues at all,” Zi was quite familiar with Zeus’ personality. She could not help but wonder.

“I didn’t realise it from the way Zeus arranged his party, but by observing all the people involved in this battle,” said Sheyan with a smile. “On this battlefield, the weakest storyline character is no doubt Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck, a member of the Fellowship of the Ring. As a hobbit who isn’t proficient in combat, he’s the least difficult to kill. And more importantly, he carries a powerful legendary weapon, the ‘Sword of Western Royalty’!”

“According to the original plot development, when Éowyn is about to be killed by the Witch-King of Angmar, Merry will use this sword to stab the sinew of the Witch-King’s knee from behind, causing the Witch-King to fall to the ground. Éowyn will take this opportunity to stab the Witch-King between his crown and his cloak, thus slaying him! The sword should have been corroded away by the Witch-King’s evil power, but this has not happened yet, so as a target, Meriadoc Brandybuck no doubt has the highest value for money right now.”

“But Éowyn is really close with Merry. In the original plot, he’s always under her protection. Will she just let this happen?” Zi could not help doubting.

Sheyan gave Aziz a meaningful glance and said with a smile, “This depends on how much damage our dear Aziz has done to the king’s goddaughter.”

“Ten hours,” replied Aziz coldly. “For at least ten hours, she’ll only be able to display half her combat power.”

Sheyan shrugged at Zi and said, “The Metal Professor has an excellent grasp on human psychology. If I’m guessing correctly, she had already expected that Aziz would go assassinate Éowyn by himself after he left the party. This means the biggest obstacle to assassinating Merry is gone. Not only has she reduced the negative effect of Aziz’s departure to a minimum, she has used it to their advantage. After they’ve obtained the ‘Sword of Western Royalty’, the power of the sword should somewhat make up for the loss of Aziz’s firepower, so they can then continue to carry out their plan of hunting down higher-level enemies.”