The Ultimate Evolution

The human alliance, who originally thought that their plan had succeeded, found to their dismay a sad truth after the dust had settled – although they had killed Eviltusk, the biggest threat to the city walls, they now had only two or three hundred people left. It was far from enough to defend the sixth wall!

The city wall was an inanimate object that had could not attack back by itself, so even though it was tall and imposing, even a three-year-old child could conquer it, given enough time. Therefore, a wall was only useful if there were enough soldiers defending it, just like tanks and fighter jets would only be useful if there were people controlling them.

The sixth wall that the human alliance had retreated to was at least a kilometre long. When the remaining two or three hundred people stood on it, they were spread extremely sparse. If the enemy split into two groups and attack from two different spots, the defending side would lose the wall for sure! Their situation was made worse by the fact that the remaining soldiers were all tired, defeated soldiers with low morale and stamina!

Therefore, although the human alliance had eliminated the greatest threat to the wall, the city wall could no longer play its proper role, thanks to Sheyan’s devious scheme!

It was in fact a clever exchange of chess pieces. To Sheyan and Party Ace, the more rotten the whole situation became, the more individual power could affect the overall war situation, which means the more benefits they could seek.

The dark side obviously did not intend to give the enemy any time to breathe. One should always kick the enemy while they’re down. They continued to attack in a frenzy. The entire dark side was awash with a strange new excitement, including the contestants. They poured their contribution points into redeeming Trolls that could storm fortifications regardless of the cost.

The world had always been unpredictable; who knew what would happen when the Elven reinforcements arrived! After all, behind the enemy were their Realms who could “macro-manage” things. Therefore, everyone understood that if they could resolve the battle today, they should not leave it for tomorrow!

Under such circumstances, the dark side only performed two tentative attacks before they managed two send six Trolls onto the sixth wall thanks to the combination of Sheyan’s diseases and the Cries of Terror of the sole remaining Ringwraith. The dark side lost over one hundred troops and all the other Trolls in the process.

As soon as the Trolls managed to reach the top of the wall, they could finally display their forte, close combat. There was limited space on the city wall, so it was hard for the defending soldiers to completely surround the Trolls. As such, and considering the strength of the storyline character soldiers, it took at least 50 soldiers to bring down each Troll.

On the other hand, six Trolls running rampant on the city wall was a huge blow to the defending side’s morale.

Legolas summoned his power and brought down two Trolls by himself, but he ended up being pincered by Sheyan and Reef after that. He was quickly infected with viruses, experiencing weakness and intense pain! He cast an Elven spell on himself and rapidly retreated, but…Sheyan’s goal from the very start was not to take his life, but to take away one of his hands!

A Legolas who could not use a bow was like a tiger without fangs. Before this, every time he appeared, most contestants would feel like a spike was stabbing into their backs. A lot of contestants even had the tragic experience of being shot to the point of near death by the Elf. Now that Legolas had lost an arm, everyone (except Sheyan) could finally heave a sigh of relief.

Why not kill Legolas? Because the dark side must keep their eyes on the big picture. They could not waste too much time here just to deal with Legolas. They were already at the sixth level of Minas Tirith. The human alliance had no more room for retreat and their reinforcements were far away. Where could Legolas with his one good arm escape to?

Perhaps he could run away by using secret Elven arts, but if he was the only one who survived in this battle, he would surely be called a coward and a weakling. The Elves cared a lot about their honour. They would rather die than live with such a reputation.

In this fight, the dark side continued to focus on reducing the number of common storyline character soldiers. Since they had decided on this plan, then they should do it thoroughly.

The human alliance directly gave up on defending the seventh wall. The remaining forty or fifty people all retreated into the White Tower to make the last stand.

The world was truly unpredictable. When the human alliance had gleefully trapped Party Ace and Skull in the Source of Darkness hall, they never would have thought that they would one day end up in such a predicament too.

What comes around goes around; that was the way of karma. Back then, the Minas Tirith contestants had made additional rules through their Realms’ intervention to prevent the dark side contestants from holing up in the Source of Darkness hall and stalling for time. Little did they expect that the rules they formulated back then would come back to haunt them one day! But even without karma biting them in the ass, could they really defend the tower? The core problem was, where would they find MTs as powerful as Sheyan and Reef who could hold the door and let no one pass? (TL: Hodor!)

***

At the top most part of Minas Tirith was a flat man-made ground built entirely from white stones. The ground was about as big as one and a half soccer fields. At the centre of it was a wide courtyard called the Court of the Fountain, at the middle of which lay a fountain similarly built from white stones. Wide pathways formed a cross around the fountain. The rest of the ground was covered with green grass. The grass looked like a green carpet against the white buildings in the background.

Ahead of the courtyard were tall buildings constructed in a similar style to the Athenians on Earth – in square blocks, with many straight white stone columns decorated with carvings. Time had coated the white buildings with a layer of light grey, but even that had only added to the magnificence of the buildings. This was the heart of Minas Tirith – the royal palace.

To the left of the fountain was a dying tree. This was the White Tree of Gondor that had lived for thousands of years. It was said that when it flourished, long and elegant leaves would grow on it, and many white flowers would blossom on its crown, reflecting light like snow under the sun.

The tree was planted by Isildur himself and it symbolised the glory of the ancient Númenóreans. As long as the tree lived, the kingdom of the Númenóreans would prosper, and if the White Tree died, the kingdom would fall into ruin. Right now, the tree looked like it was terminally ill, desperately clinging on to what little remained of its life.

The White Tree was surrounded by five lifelike statues that seemed as if they were protecting the tree. The statues were almost three metres high. They looked humanoid, but they were so slender that they seemed sickly and deformed. They wore helmets that shined with a black metallic sheen and were decorated with a pair of wings at the sides. All the statues were holding spears that had sharp, slender spearheads.

To the east of the courtyard and on the right side of the palace was the imposing White Tower. The 150-foot building seemed to naturally integrate into the whole Minas Tirith and even take root deep into the mountain. The windows on the tower overlooked the Court of the Fountain and could carry out precise suppression fire from above. The gate of the White Tower was just as narrow as the entrance of the Source of Darkness hall.

What’s more, the surface of the White Tower and the surface of the withering White Tree were both shining with a faint layer of light. When Gandalf had entered the tower, he had used the White Rod of the Stewards of Gondor to unleash the energy of the king’s tombs in the royal cemetery, burning away the last bits of Gondor’s fortune to connect the White Tree and White Tower together so that they could support each other.

Therefore, as soon as the people of the dark alliance set foot on the Court of the Fountain, they instantly faced a fierce assault from atop the White Tower. Although they had expected the attack, it still caused them a lot of trouble.

Five minutes later, seeing the sharp rise in the number of casualties, Sheyan realised that his plan to seize victory quickly was too naive. After a series of quick negotiations, the dark alliance decided to stop attacking. They arranged some sentries and started resting up.

The whole battle had been going on for a while. The dark side still had some troops left, but they were mostly the Corsairs of Umbar who numbered less than 1300 by now. Including the cheapest Orcs hired by the contestants meant to be used as cannon fodder, the total military strength of the dark side was no more than 2000. This was, after all, the era of cold weapons.

These troops were already exhausted and were almost at their limit. They could not even hold their weapons steadily anymore. However, a hot meal plus around six hours of sleep would be enough to double their current combat power. The dark alliance could afford to do so now that all seven walls of Minas Tirith had been conquered.

Now that the battle had developed this far, even if the Elven reinforcements could arrive in time, they would not be able to do much. The only thing they could do, and probably the last thing they wanted to do, was to fight with the Orcs on the open plain.

While they were resting, Sheyan received a piece of bad news. It was probably the work of the enemy Realms. For some reason, his Dingyuan and her crew had been forcibly teleported back to the Pirates of the Caribbean world. It seems that the enemy Realms had realised how critical the situation was and was starting to do everything they could to try and help their contestants. They were panicking.

This further convinced Sheyan that they could not delay any further. They must complete the mission as quickly as possible. Otherwise, unforeseen changes may suddenly occur, disrupting their whole plan.