Chapter 1400: Grond

Translator: Sean88888  Editor: Elkassar1

The defending alliance could not understand the intention of Sauron’s side. What was the point of using the precious trebuchets to fill the land in such a critical time? Even if they could fill up the muddy area, so what? The City Wall was not breached. Minas Tirith did not enjoy its reputation as the most impregnable city on Middle Earth for no reason. Were the enemy going to climb the City Wall by piling up Orc carcasses too?

But the defending alliance was also well aware that the attacking alliance would never do anything pointless in the current period when every second was as valuable to them as gold. Therefore, despite not knowing the enemy’s true intention, it did not stop the defending alliance from desperately bombarding the trebuchets below the city. However, because the attacking alliance was only targeting the area in front of the City Wall, their trebuchets had long retreated out of the range of the city trebuchets.

Knight passed down the order to snipe the Uruk-hai operating the heavy trebuchets. The Uruk-hai were not that easy to assassinate thanks to their rough skin and thick flesh, but if one sniper could not kill them, then use two; if two could not do the job, then use four. They would do anything necessary to make sure the Uruk-hai died.

The plan was quickly put into practice. This no doubt made the heart of the attacking alliance bleed, but what else could they do? They could only waste even more contribution points to keep replenishing the Uruk-hai. Finally, before the sun set, the muddy ground outside Minas Tirith was carpeted with a thick layer of sand and stones from the Anduin river.

Next, a large number of Orc slaves rushed forth, each holding a wooden plank, and with the help of the large boulders thrown outside the city as cover, paved a path to the main gate of Minas Tirith with the planks!!

Being the most impregnable city on Middle Earth, Minas Tirith of course had an extraordinary main gate too.

The gate was simply named the Great Gate. There were three layers to the Great Gate.

(https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Gate_of_Minas_Tirith)

The first layer was made from the body of Grundos, an Ent whose name was as well known as Treebeard. It was immune to all types of fire!

The second layer was forged with pure gold mixed with lead. Almost all long range attacks would be absorbed by this layer.

The third layer was made of 13-year-old hazelnut wood mixed with mithril threads. Legend had it that 13-year-old hazelnut wood made the most powerful wand, and the mithril threads also had high sensitivity to magic. This enabled the gate to be permanently enchanted with four great spells: ‘Refreshed’, ‘Self Repair’, ‘Deflect’ and ‘Greater Slide’.

Therefore, it would be a big mistake for the enemy to attack the Great Gate, because in terms of defence, the Great Gate was actually far sturdier than the City Wall.

The City Wall would likely not be able to withstand the impact if a hundred trebuchet boulders bombarded the same spot, but if it was the Great Gate, everyone in Minas Tirith could guarantee that it would be fine.

That was why the City Wall of Minas Tirith was also called “the wall that will never be breached”. The garrison would be overjoyed if the enemy focused their attacks on the Great Gate, because they could then also focus their defences on a single spot, causing the enemies outside the city more powerful and direct damage!

However, there were exceptions to everything. No city was truly impregnable. After a while, the Orc army outside the city started letting out deafening howls. The cries quickly reached an overwhelming intensity, obscuring every other sound.

All the Orcs were shouting the same word at the same time, their voices devout and filled with faith, like humble believers who were shouting the name of their omnipotent god!

GR-O-ND….

GROND….

GROND!!!

(https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Grond)

Back in the days when the army of Mordor dominated Middle Earth under the leadership of the Witch-King of Angmar, the leader of the Ringwraiths, the biggest enemy they faced were the city gates of the Kingdom capitals and their terrifying defence.

Thus, under Sauron’s personal order, a huge and magnificent battering ram was forged with black steel and pure gold. The battering ram was as long as a hundred-year-old Godwood was tall. Thick chains that had a blood-red glint dangled from its humongous body.

The blacksmiths of Mordor toiled for at least 170 years to forge this terrible weapon. Its tip was cast into the shape of a ravening wolf, ferocious, grim and savage. Fire burned in its great maw, as hot as the magma of Mount Doom.

Sauron had personally engraved the dark runes on it, permanently enchanting it with the four powerful destructive spells of ‘Doomsday’, ‘Break Enchantment’, ‘Area-Wide Deflect’, and ‘Wave of Fatigue’. The battering ram was named Grond in commemoration of the ancient “Hammer of the Underworld,” a great mace wielded by Morgoth, Sauron’s former master. It was operated by a team of Great Beasts from the southern swamp, escorted by a band of Orcs, and several Trolls were needed to utilise it.

(https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Great_beast)

At sunfall, right before the darkness crept in, Grond made its majestic appearance like the King of Destruction, rolling heavily across the fertile soil of Pelennor Fields.

This giant battering ram was over 150 feet long and at least 60 feet high. Its dark greenish body had a shine on it that was reminiscent of the glimmer of water on the mountains. The Great Beasts dragging it forward panted heavily and would occasionally let out an angry roar.

There were a total of 17 names engraved on the torso of the battering ram. They were all the names of the last kings of the capital cities that had been smashed apart by Grond. In the dark, the ghosts of the kings that were imprisoned in the names would appear around those names, crying and wailing. Their fear and pain supplied an overwhelming amount of power to Grond!

The attacking alliance had great timing. The moment Grond advanced into the firing range of the city trebuchets, the sky happened to turn completely dark. The dark environment would surely affect the city’s long-range attacks somewhat.

The Orc arsonists had arrived even earlier onto the battlefield under the cover of darkness, leaving fire and smoke in their wake everywhere they passed through. The fire and smoke, as well as the illumination which alternated between dark and bright, greatly interfered with the shots from the defending side, reducing their accuracy by at least 10%. This may not seem like much, but against the Minas Tirith side who relied entirely on long-range attacks for damage output, it was a significant weakening.

At this time, the nine Ringwraiths once again took off on their terrible Fellbeasts. Both the Ringwraiths and Fellbeasts were abnormally powerful creatures of darkness, and since they were creatures of darkness, of course they would not be affected by the dark!

However, the same could not be said of the Great Eagles which were able to restrain the Ringwraiths’ actions during the day! They were unable to keep up a high level of combat ability at night!

Vision relies on the photoreceptor cells in the retina, and the visual system of humans and birds are different.

Humans have two kinds of photoreceptors: rods and cones. The cones are most sensitive to one of three different colours between green, red and blue, and work only in bright light. In other words, the cones enable humans to see colours in daytime. On the other hand, the rods are not good for colour vision, but they work in dim light, so they enable humans to see at night.

However, most birds only have four different kinds of cones and no rods, so they can not see at night. Eagles are obviously not humans, nor are they related to nocturnal creatures like bats and owls. Therefore, their inability to see at night is a natural biological defect of their species, just as humans cannot breathe underwater like fish.

It could be seen by now why the Realm had nominated the Blu-ray Party to lead their side in this war.

***

The status of a contestant had a lot to do with the level of their power; after Reef and Aziz had displayed their formidable strength, their status had risen among the contestants. It was now very convenient for them to inquire about anything.

Sheyan had learned from Reef that the Blu-ray Party had set up a military staff committee for tactical decisions; the offensive launched today was planned by them. They called it a four-route offence. A direct attack with Grond should count as one route. The Ringwraiths, whose power remained unchanged at night, unlike the Great Eagles of Misty Mountains whose strength had plummeted, should also count as the main core of the second offensive route.

“In that case, the third route…?” mused Sheyan, “It should be the way I deduced!”

The Uruk-hai’s excited screams rose once again in the distance. It turned out that the defending alliance were not the only ones with powerful mages. Zeus, who specialised in gravity control, was finally in the limelight. After he joined the team escorting Grond, he reduced the gravity on and around the heavy battering ram to the lowest extent possible!

Everyone knew the city garrison would desperately attack the battering ram during its advance to the City Wall. On the contrary, after arriving at the bottom of the City Wall, the attacks would instead become less intense due to the difficult shooting angles. Therefore, the stretch of road from the spot where Grond started entering the enemy’s range to below the City Wall could be considered a tragic path of death. The longer Grond took to traverse this stretch of road, the more deaths it would result in.

Now that Zeus had suddenly halved the gravity of the area around Grond, the battering ram’s movement speed more than doubled. What’s more, even all the Great Beasts, Trolls and Orcs nearby had become lighter and could move faster and dodge better!

While the entire Minas Tirith garrison were focused on the advancement of Grond, some enormous things seemed to be moving in the dark. When they stopped, little spots of flames lit up near them.

The little spots of flames were basins of fire used to ignite burning boulders! Countless Orcs were getting busy around them!

The fire in the basins illuminated the 25 heavy trebuchets nearby!!

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