The Ultimate Evolution

Currently, in the eyes of others, Sheyan was just an Orc corpse that was stabbed full of arrows. The only thing that may cause suspicion was that more arrows seemed to have fallen around this Orc than in other places.

But the difference was not too outrageous. Perhaps it had something to do with the leather armour worn by the dead Orc – perhaps it was a high quality armour, or perhaps the Orc wore an extra layer of metal armour inside because he was a coward – so he required more shots to kill. There were countless possible reasons that could explain it.

Of course, if a contestant tried shooting Sheyan, the contestant would surely receive the relevant notifications in the battle log. The specific numbers would probably be suppressed by Sheyan’s high Perceptive Sense, but the contestant would definitely realise that he had found a big fish.

But the precondition was that the contestant must be constantly monitoring their battle log. Even Sheyan could not do that on the battlefield, as it was fatal to be distracted in that way.

In any case, no one would attack a dead corpse on purpose unless there was something wrong with their brain – after all, bullets and arrows don’t come for free. More importantly, the situation on this chaotic battlefield was ever-changing, so everyone was busy looking for the next target. At most, they would check how much contribution points they received. Who would have the time to check the battle log?

In fact, Sheyan had been hit a few times by stray contestant bullets and arrows on the way to this place, but no one had tried to focus fire on him. This proved that his assumption was spot on.

This Troll that was protected by Sheyan had a strong physique and looked ferocious, so almost all the storyline character soldiers on the city wall nearby were pouring their arrows on the monster. However, the “corpse shield” in front of it was doing an excellent job of protecting it. Sheyan’s ‘Hedgehog’ milestone thus made rapid progress.

There were pros, but there were cons too. By the time Sheyan had raked in 882 proficiency points, his HP had also reached a dangerous level. Although most arrows could not even break through his defence and had only caused 1 or 2 points of damage, there were the occasional explosive strikes, and sometimes he would be shot by the leaders among the guards. In those cases, he would lose dozens, maybe even hundreds, of HP.

So he had already used the honorary dosage.

He still had some cards up his sleeve, but on this ever-changing battlefield, he would prefer to save his two major abilities of ‘Death’s Lament’ and ‘Gloryheal’ for emergency situations.

“Ugh!” Sheyan’s eyebrows could not help twitching slightly as he groaned.

Another arrow meant for the Troll’s head was intercepted by Sheyan. The arrow had a custom-made arrowhead, and the one who fired the arrow was probably pretty powerful as well. The arrow easily broke through Sheyan’s defence and penetrated at least three inches into his thigh!

A burning sensation spread from the wounded part of his thigh – the arrowhead was obviously poisonous. Sheyan was almost completely immune to poison, but even though he could ignore the damage, he could not numb his nerves to the pain.

Following that, Sheyan saw a pair of giant eyes staring straight at him. The eyes were filled with emotions such as shock, incredulity and disbelief. The eyes were vastly different from human eyes. They looked like large transparent fish tanks filled with the water from a muddy river. A black ping-pong ball floated in each of them.

Who would have thought that it was not the archers who first realised that something weird was going on, but the Troll near him. Sheyan probably groaned a little too loudly when the arrow struck him.

“You’re not dead!” the Troll exclaimed in its low, muffled voice.

It must be mentioned that the Troll’s position was quite strategic. It was close to the city wall, so it was unreachable by the trebuchet stones. The Minas Tirith contestants were deliberately leaving the Troll alive to lure the reinforcements in, so even though the arrows launched from the city wall were dropping like rain, the Troll that was burying its head under its hands with its butt raised high could probably stay alive for more than half an hour longer.

“You’ll die before I will, you idiot! If you want to live, do as I say!”

If it were anyone else calling the Troll an idiot, the foul-tempered Troll would have sent them flying with a slap, but Sheyan was a terrifying existence who had +3 Legend Level. Moreover, his Charm had almost reached the level of a normal human by now. Therefore, after a moment of hesitation, the Troll replied obediently, “Okay. What should I do?”

“Keep collecting corpses and piling them up in front of you. Build the cover a little higher until it forms a parapet. That way, less arrows will hit you. Then, dig down into the mud under your feet. First, smear your body with the mud, then smear it on the wall of corpses. You’ll find this place more comfortable than a goddamn paradise after that.”

…A minute later, the big Troll roared excitedly.

“This is great! As expected of the legendary Seaman! Those damned bugs can do nothing to me now. None of their arrows can hit me!”

Sheyan had been “incorporated” into the corpse wall, so the surface area of his body that was exposed to the arrows had been greatly reduced. His milestone progress had reached 1004/5000, and his HP was slowly recovering.

The Troll continued to dig deeper into the mud in high spirits. Its pair of giant hands were no less effective than a pair of shovels when it came to digging, and the monster also had abnormally high strength. It soon dug a large mud pit that was more than a metre deep. The Troll kept itself close to the wall of the pit. Although the mud around the pit would continuously flow into it, it was no problem for the Troll at all. The monster easily hurled the mud back out with its hands.

“You’re amazing! You’re the smartest creature Black-Ear has ever met!” the Troll told Sheyan while laughing like an idiot.

At the moment, Sheyan was looking at Black-Ear with envy. Although the Troll had also been struck by many arrows, the blood of the Trolls possessed a strong corrosive property, just like the blood of the Xenomorphs, so the steel arrowheads would gradually dissolve in their blood. The Troll did not even need to go through the complicated process of pulling the arrows out as the arrows would just fall off by themselves after the arrowheads had completely dissolved.

Black-Ear looked left and right. It suddenly stood up and beat its chest hard like a giant ape while shouting in a booming voice, “Big-Nose! Limp! Come to me! It’s safe here!”

Sheyan’s eyes bulged. He really wanted to reach out with his hand and shut Black-Ear’s mouth, but he knew it was already too late. The other two Trolls nearby had already stood up in excitement and tried to trudge through the mud towards them.

While the two Trolls who seemed to be good friends with Black-Ear were laboriously dragging themselves over, Black-Ear was also working hard in expanding the size of its pit. Sheyan knew he could no longer stay here. No contestant could resist the temptation of killing three Trolls in one go, and the soldiers in the city would also not allow the Trolls to group up in this way. Sheyan, from the corner of his eye, already caught a glimpse of the people on the wall pushing the ballistae to aim towards this side.

Sheyan had already collected nearly 1200 proficiency points. He rolled into the mud pit and gripped Black-Ear’s arms tight to prevent the Troll from flailing around in panic. Then, the ground below them gave way, and both of them fell down together with the mud!

It was not a long fall, only about two or three metres down. They fell into what seemed like a dry, smooth cave. The mud that was pouring down quickly spread out on the ground by itself, as if an invisible hand was flattening it.

Sheyan then saw the concerned face of Sanzi, and of course, Kulutego. For the powerful two-headed Cyclops, controlling the shape and form of soil was something that he could do the moment he was born, just like eating, drinking and sleeping. To dig a tunnel to this place right outside the city was way too easy for him.

Black-Ear could sense the savage ferocity emanating from Kulutego, so it could not help but bare its teeth and growled at the Cyclops. Sheyan instantly kicked the Troll away. Black-Ear could only face the wall nearby and sulk. Sanzi did not think it strange that Sheyan had brought a Troll along. He looked up with worry as he said, “We should go, brother. This place might not be safe.”

“Let’s wait another ten seconds,” replied Sheyan.

As soon as he said that, a loud explosion could be heard outside. Immediately afterwards, two gigantic, fat silhouettes fell down from above one after another. They were, of course, Black-Ear’s BFFs, Big-Nose and Limp.

But they were not as lucky as Black-Ear. Their bodies were densely covered in arrows. Not only that, a ballista bolt as thick as an egg had pierced into Big-Nose’s chest, while half of Limp’s head had been badly burned by fire. The two Trolls held their wounds and groaned in pain.

Sanzi was not willing to wait any longer. He motioned for Black-Ear to drag the two heavily-injured Trolls up so that they could leave the place immediately. Sheyan also went over to help. His strength was no weaker to the Trolls. They quickly left the place following behind Kulutego.

The mono-eye on Kulutego’s right head was glowing with a yellowish light, which created a space around his body about half the size of a shipping container. As soon as the yellowish light no longer shone on the earth, the earth would return to its original state.

After walking for about 50 metres under the ground, Sanzi finally indicated that it was safe. Because Sanzi was a summoner and had experience in taking care of creatures, he was very skilled in treating a creature’s injuries, so he went over to Big-Nose and Limp to help them clean and bandage their wounds. Thanks to Sanzi’s exceptionally high Charm and +2 Legend Level, the two savage Trolls actually endured the pain obediently while he treated them. They did not go berserk at all like Trolls were wont to do when in pain.

“You guys will be fine. When you go back, you will be treated by Sauron’s divine power. There won’t be any lasting injuries,” Sanzi comforted the Trolls.

When he turned around, he saw Sheyan staring at Kulutego while appearing to be in deep thought. Being Sheyan’s brother, he instantly knew what Sheyan was thinking about. He told Sheyan with a wry smile, “It won’t work. When I came here just now, I already took Kulutego around to check the place out. According to the legends, when Minas Tirith was built, it was blessed by the gods .When Kulutego got within three metres of the city wall, he felt like he had to spend several times or even dozens of times the usual amount of MP if he wished to move forward. The foundations of the city walls are indeed protected by divine power.”

Sheyan shrugged. Even if Kulutego could easily infiltrate the city, what good would it do? He could only bring with him twenty contestants at most, perhaps even less than that. And if he were to bring Trolls, he could only bring five or six.

As always, individual power like this, though not necessarily worthless, could never play a decisive role in a war of this scale. The defending contestants only had to send a few dozen people to drive them back. It would not affect a large number of people, unlike breaching the gates, which could let a continuous stream of their forces into the city.

Sheyan had once killed ten contestants by himself under very specific circumstances, which was quite a feat! However, in this war, if he killed ten contestants, the enemy could easily send 20 more to deal with him! In fact, they would not even need that many people if they only wished to stall Sheyan instead of killing him.

Following Sheyan’s instructions, the group found a quiet place to secretly dig themselves out of the ground.When they got out, Black-Ear dragged Big-Nose and Limp away to get treatment.

Reef and Aziz had become the centre of attention in the camp. Aziz’s shot was truly breathtaking, but those who had ambition were more focused on the way Reef managed to help Aziz escape under the joint attack of three top-class enemy snipers.

The cocky Aziz simply ignored everyone, including Zeus. He went straight back into his tent and had not left there since.

Meanwhile, Reef naturally would not reveal his ability, so the others could only speculate among themselves. The more the rumours circulated, the more amazing his ability became. Some were even calling him the number one MT now.

The situation was undoubtedly developing in the direction Sheyan wanted. The more famous Reef became, the more convenient it was for Sheyan to hide in Reef’s shadow, keeping a low profile while being in control.

But the general development of their campaign was not so favourable. Due to Gothmog’s erroneous decision, the rescue operation lasted all the way till noon! The result was the successful rescue of only 20 Trolls (three of which were rescued by Sheyan as an afterthought). For that, he paid the heavy price of losing more than 10,000 Orcs and Uruk-hai!

The dark side’s army may number 200,000, but that figure included more than 100,000 Orc slaves and Orc labourers. They were not much more than auxiliaries meant to clean up the battlefield and provide logistical support. They could not really be relied on to carry out actual combat.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliaries)

Therefore, if we were to discount the Orc slaves and Orc labourers from the army’s number, the Orc army had lost over a quarter of their combat forces in one morning. Among them, the proportion of Trolls that were lost was shockingly high! And there was also the loss of the siege weapons!

It was fortunate that the Orcs and Uruk-hai were simple-minded creatures, so their morale did not drop as easily as human army. Otherwise, the dark side might have lost as much as a third of their combat forces.

To make matters worse, not only had their army weakened, the opponent’s army had also been strengthened.

The Minas Tirith contestants had done an excellent job and had surely reaped a lot of contribution points, which they would use to trade for all kinds of equipment, creatures and items to enhance their strength.

The situation was even less optimistic because of this.

Less than an hour after the battle ended, Party Ace received a visitor. The identity of the visitor was very unique – he was the mysterious leader of the Blu-ray Party which had been very aggressively displaying their might so far!

“My name is Jax.”

The man who was wrapped in a blue full-body cloak smiled and held out his hand to Reef. In order to show his sincerity, Jax had even taken off his mask. He had a very ordinary face. His most striking feature was a grim scar on his face which extended from his left cheek all the way to his lower right jaw like a crimson centipede!

“Your spectacular performance today has really opened our eyes, Party Leader Reef. You’ve shown everyone what a truly powerful MT looks like.”

Reef took the compliment very calmly, but of course, he was secretly feeling pretty happy.

“I’m flattered, but instead of personal glory, it’ll make me happier to see the entire dark side gain an advantage.”

“Well said,” replied Jax. “Our side is currently in a really precarious situation. That’s why, in half an hour, there’ll be a meeting between the leaders of all the parties. I hope that you and your deputy will be able to attend.”

Reef discussed this with Sheyan in the party communication channel. “No problem,” he then replied.

***

It was evident that the Blu-ray Party attached a great deal of importance to this meeting. The tent in which it would be held, despite looking simple in outer appearance, was actually a dimensional equipment. The actual space inside was shockingly large. Not only that, it was decorated and furnished so well that it would not look out of place as the venue of a United Nations conference.

The fact that the Blu-ray Party was placing a lot of importance on this meeting was not only evident from the layout of the venue and the luxurious decorations, but also from the strength that they displayed at the reception. A total of eight Temperers were welcoming the guests at the door. One of them was an MT, and he was even an MT wielding a two-handed tower shield normally used to stop cavalry charges!

Party leader Jax and his deputy, Walter, were also wearing defensive equipment and accessories that shone with the unique glimmer of legendary grade!