Chapter 1423: Fatal Weakness

The sky continued to darken. The rolling black clouds were so low that they seemed like they were almost pressing down on the land; they had even swallowed up the top part of Minas Tirith’s White Tower. Rain drizzled down. Even if one were to stay in a tent, facing a fire, the dryness from the front would only make the humidity from the back all the more pronounced.

After the war situation had turned around, Sauron was not at all dismayed with the annihilation of the 200,000 Orcs as well as losing the Haradrim believers and Oliphaunt war beasts from the south, because he had seen the impressive result. In his opinion, even if the war was lost now, it would not have been in vain, because he had severed the bloodline of Isildur, the bloodline of the Gondorian royal family!

He also understood that to turn the situation around from the dire crisis they were facing previously into the deadlock now was already no small feat. It could already be considered a small victory.

Therefore, the excited Sauron decided to infuse even more divine power into the Pelennor Fields. The gloomy, wet weather was causing serious damage to the bows and strings of the Minas Tirith defenders, like genital warts damaging a person’s sex life. As for the Corsairs of Umbar, who would be the main force, they would have felt uncomfortable without a bit of humidity.

Two days have passed since the previous battle, and both sides were now locked in a stubborn stalemate, each side seemingly waiting for their own reinforcements.

On Sauron’s side, Saruman’s elite Uruk-hai army had departed from Isengard for two days, led by Faerun, an archer even stronger than Lurtz.

And upon hearing the sad news of Aragon’s demise, the Elven King, Elrond, agreed to his daughter Arwen’s request to let her lead a small number of his tribesmen to Minas Tirith to avenge her betrothed. If these Elves were allowed to enter Minas Tirith to help the humans guard the city, the difficulty of breaching the city would no doubt increase tenfold. After all, Faerun alone could not make up for the Uruk-hai’s widespread ineptitude in long-range attacks.

***

At the current moment, the leaders of the dark side were gathered in front of a 3D map of Minas Tirith. Under the monitoring of satellites, the situation in the city was clearly displayed. The human alliance had given up on the second, third and fourth walls, deciding to put up a defensive line on the fifth wall instead.

That was because the length of the fifth wall was only about half the length of the first wall, so it would somewhat make up for their shortage in manpower. Furthermore, this way, when the attackers launch a large-scale raid, they must follow the S-shaped paths that were like winding mountainous roads to get to the fifth wall. There would hence be enough time for an early warning.

Such an arrangement by the city defenders was indeed giving the dark side leaders a headache. Minas Tirith did not gain a reputation as the most impregnable city on Middle Earth without a reason. When the dark side were to launch a large-scale raid on the city, the passage from the bottom of the first wall to the gate of the fifth wall alone was already five or six kilometres long.

Specifically, the passage was a winding path that snaked back and forth. First, they would have to enter from the gate to the left of the first wall, then walk 50 meters ahead to reach the second wall, then move two to three kilometres to the right along the bottom of the second wall to reach the second gate. After going through the gate, they would then have to walk 50 meters ahead to reach the third wall, then travel a long distance to the left to reach the third gate… During the process, they would have to constantly endure the enemy’s projectiles. An ordinary army would probably collapse from the shots before they even reached the fifth wall.

“According to the latest information we received, the enemy contestants have spared no expense and have redeemed a large number of troops, so the number of defenders have reached around 3000,” said Jax, the leader of the Blue-ray Party, with a gloomy face.

“To tell you the truth, the corsairs are useless. We will be in a very passive position when we storm the city. By relying on the protection of the walls, the enemy can cause us a lot of damage.”

“We didn’t come here to listen to you whine,” retorted Percival. After making the trade with Party Ace, he was now the wielder of Andúril, and his power within his party had increased several folds because of that. With the weapon, he had successfully drawn more than 70% of the elites in the party to his side. They were preparing to do something big the next time they enter the LOTR world.

Percival was looking at the problem from the enemy’s perspective. Even if there were Elven reinforcements coming, there were only a few hundreds of them! Would the enemy dare to leave the protection of Minas Tirith because of that?

Before this, even when Party Ace was surrounded by tens of thousands of enemy troops, they still fiercely defended the Source of Darkness hall and had even killed Aragorn during the process. Now, almost all of them were equipped with a legendary equipment, especially the MT, who was probably the first among this batch of contestants to own a legendary grade shield! With this party guarding the Source of Darkness hall, it was almost impossible for the hall to fall. Since their side was now in an unbeatable position, the ones who should be worried were the other side.

“To be honest, a major reason for the current situation is because there was a small problem with our plan back then,” said Reef under Sheyan’s instruction.

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“The area and duration of the flood were both less than two thirds of what we predicted. The biggest reason for this is that we forgot about one thing – we didn’t take into account the giant chasm made by the earthquake earlier.”

The earthquake Reef was referring to was the masterpiece by the think tank of the human alliance’s contestants which had ingeniously destroyed more than 80% of the dark side’s siege engines. It had also left a terrifying giant scar in the land below Minas Tirith.

When Sheyan had flooded the plain, the chasm had swallowed at least a fifth of the flood water. This directly led to a decrease in the volume of mud created and in the water level.

“Without that chasm, there would have been less than two thousand defenders in Minas Tirith right now,” Reef concluded. “But our biggest problem now is, should we play it safe and wait for our reinforcements to arrive, or should we try to end the war before the Elves reinforcements arrive?”

“When the Elves are here, our position will become even more passive,” Jax pointed out the hidden danger, “The Elves can launch deadly attacks from 500 metres away. The darkness will even become their ally. They can harass and ambush us non-stop under the cover of night, while their high Perceptive Sense in the dark makes it difficult for us to ambush them back. Our troops will slowly be depleted under their harassment tactic.”

Percival smiled triumphantly. “Although the Elves are strong, they have a fatal weakness, and that weakness is currently on Ms. Zi and I. We can make them fight to the death with us as soon as they arrive, because the woman leading them, or should I say, the widow, came here prepared to die. We only have to make sure she catches sight of Andúril and the Evenstar necklace, and she likely won’t be able to stop herself from charging at us recklessly.”

Jax had his point, and Percival’s judgment was not wrong either. After Sheyan contemplated the problem for a while with his eyes closed, he asked, “Have you guys considered ambushing the reinforcements?”

To besiege a city in order to target the reinforcements coming to its aid was a very common tactic, but although it was common, it often worked. The reason was that it was similar to an overt plot. The reinforcements had no choice but to go to the city’s rescue, even though they knew full well that the enemy would attack them. The attacking side who only had to wait for the enemy reinforcements to come to them held a great advantage.

“That’s not a bad tactic, but the problem is, the people in Minas Tirith must be keeping a close communication with the Elves, so unless the people in Minas Tirith are encountering a dangerous situation that they really can’t solve by themselves, the Elves probably won’t rush over in a hurry, making themselves vulnerable to an ambush….” said Percival.

Percival was showing Sheyan respect by not directly stating the hidden meaning behind his last words. But no doubt, they urgently needed a way to make the people in Minas Tirith feel a strong threat.

“But before that, we have to do two things,” said Sheyan, “The first is to deal with those freaking walls of Minas Tirith! If our troops have to reach the bottom of the fifth wall by taking the normal path, they’ll have to endure bullets and arrows for several kilometres.”

At this point, Sheyan smirked. “That’s why we won’t take the normal path that the enemy wants us to take! In truth, the straight-line distance from the gate of the first wall to the fifth gate is only 300 metres. According to our field survey, only the first wall of Minas Tirith is built extremely tough, while the rest of the walls are quite mediocre in terms of quality. What’s more, it seems like the Stewards of Gondor have not paid attention to this matter for the last hundreds of years.”

“No matter how poor their quality, they’re still city walls,” Jax scoffed contemptuously. “In this era with no firearm, do you expect the corsairs to dig through them?”

“That’s why our party has decided to make an investment,” said Sheyan flatly.

After Sheyan spoke, as if to annotate his words, a loud roar suddenly came from the outside. The roar was sharp and penetrating, and sounded very unique, like the trumpeting of an elephant!

Then, the earth shook slightly, and some abnormal ripples appeared in the cups held by the contestants….

The signature creature of the Haradrim race from the south, the most terrifying siege engine the war had seen so far, was coming onto the stage again!

After a lot of deliberation and discussions among themselves, Party Ace had actually decided to redeem an Oliphaunt, the horrible war beast! The contribution points and Sauron Badges required to redeem this creature was already close to the price of a legendary equipment, even though the Oliphaunt was a one-time item that could not be taken out of this world!

But this move had truly struck a fatal weakness of the human alliance! With this siege weapon that was more than ten metres tall, the city walls would be but mere bubbles.