The black hair young man threw down eight flags then he weaved various patterns with his hand as he chanted. “Qian, Dui, Li, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Gen, Kun.” (Sky, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, Earth)
The characters of these eight words gradually emerged from the flags. The flags began to slowly rotate. As his chanting continued, the flags rotated faster and faster. His voice grew louder and airier. It sounded as if the voice came from the sky.
“Purple flame of the Eight Trigrams, I command you…”
He was still chanting. A huge Taijitu was surfacing underneath his sword. The Taijitu faced the rotating flags that were confining ZhuiKong. Purple flame revolved within the Taijitu. They were waiting for the chanting to finish then the flame would descend onto ZhuiKong.
Right at this critical moment, ZhuiKong’s eyes grew cold as ice. A 70cm short sword suddenly appeared in his hand. He slashed at the air in front of him. Black hair quickly dodged to the side. Yet, his arm was still cut in two. There were only a few words left to his chanting.
“Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone. I am his woman…” Just then, a sound came from his chest and interrupted his rhythm. Black hair wanted to force those last few words out but he paused for a few seconds then vomited a mouthful of blood. His face turned pale white. He took out an antique looking phone from his pocket.
“Hello… I get it. Hand the phone to Adam… I am not far from the waterfall of Caradhras… but he makes me rage… understood.” He then threw the phone to ZhuiKong who caught it and placed it by his ear. “Hello, is this Adam? Look time no see. Thanks for letting us go the last time. Or I would have lost two garbage cleaners.”
A calm voice responded through the phone. “There isn’t much to be said. Zheng Zha has to die. I think you have met team Devil. There only needs to be one demon like him. Two would be troublesome even for you. End of discussion here. If you want to play your art of manipulating people, you can kill Luo YingLong here. He’s going to revive in God’s dimension anyway as long as his Core remains. However, if I see his Core return to the Sky and Earth Mirror in my hand, it signifies a declaration of war. I will use all our resources to kill you even if we were to let the other three team go. That will let the demon escape but you aren’t that much less of a threat from him.”
“Is that so?” ZhuiKong pondered for a long while before he said with laughter. “I can’t die yet. I can’t die before my little apple ripens. Then let’s compromise. You can’t attack him before the end of the battle at Gondor. Because his strength supports the life of team China and my little apple is in that team… This is my bottom line. If you refuse, you can see the beautiful Core fly through the sky.”
He did not hesitate before speaking his words despite being on the ground while LuoYingLong was in the air. LuoYingLong’s cheeks turned red. He almost couldn’t control himself from attacking.
“Deal. And there’s one more thing I have to verify. I heard that man is also in team China. If possible, let him know that I am in team Celestial. Otherwise, this realm will be too unexciting.”
Team China of course wouldn’t know what was happening far away. Zheng and his group followed Aragorn and the other movie characters. The nine of them rushed their way as they wanted to catch up to the Uruks before they rest. Aya was in risk of getting defiled. That was under the assumption that team Africa failed to save Aya.
They were getting close to the Uruks after a few days of rushed chasing. The dead bodies on the ground never stopped appearing. They had become the marker for their route.
After four days and nights, another morning came. Everyone including Zheng was feeling their bodies unable to keep up. Aragorn had no choice but to agree to rest for three hours. The sun would come up in three hours and they could continue the chase again.
“The sun is in the color of blood. It seems like a massacre happened not that far away last night.” Legolas stared at the sun and said.
Everyone looked tired. They had been running for four days without rest, only stopping to eat and drink. Yet, they still hadn’t caught up to the Uruks. The Uruks had extraordinary endurance.
Once everyone got up, Legolas handed them each a piece of biscuit. He then went to check the ice statue. That was what he did everyday. He led the group on the road again, following the traces on the ground.
They arrived at an grassy field stretching as far as they eye could see. Judging by the map, they had entered the Rohan territory, a kingdom of cavalries. Rohan’s specialties were horses and elite riders. Their force was only second to Gondor among the kingdoms of man.
By noon, everyone was tired. A series of whinny suddenly came from the distance. Their hearts skipped a beat because clops of numerous horses running followed after the whinny.
The group hid behind large boulders to be safe. They saw a group of cavalry charging by. The cavalries were elites. The horses were smaller than the Nightmare but were obviously fine breeds. The size, defense and speed of a horse determined the strength of a cavalry’s charge.
“You can see they are well trained. They maintained a defensive formation while running.” Xuan answered when Zheng asked about the strength of the knights.
Zheng nodded. “The last question is, can they use battle Qi? If they do, this army would be overpowered.”
They cavalries had ran past them. There were about five hundred of them. Some of the knights also were leading extra horses. Aragorn came out of hiding and yelled. “Riders of Rohan! What news from the Mark? You look like you just fought a battle.”
When the leader in front stopped, the rest of the knights ran around to his back as if someone were commanding them. They continued to maintain their formation. The leader of the cavalries looked at Aragorn then led his knights over.
Gimli, Legolas, and the players also came out.
The knights encircled the nine of them in the center. They pointed their spears at the group. Nine people seemed so insignificant among several hundred cavalries. The leader entered the circle.
He questioned the group in a cold voice. “What business does an elf, a man, a dwarf, a woman and a girl have in the Riddermark? What do you plan to do with such a strange group!”
Gimli couldn’t hold himself back. “Give me your name, horsemaster, and I shall give you mine.”
The leader got off his horse and walked over to Gimli. Their heights were such a contrast. He said in a cold tone. “I would cut off your head, dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground.”
“Cut off your head?” Right as the leader finished his sentence, Zheng’s sword was already on his neck. Zheng repeated the question with the same cold tone.
The riders were startled. Not one of the hundreds of them caught Zheng’s movement. His speed was simply too fast and secondly, everyone’s eyes were looking at Gimli until the moment the red sword was placed next to their leader’s neck. No one dared to move at this moment.
Aragorn and Legolas were also appalled. It wouldn’t be as serious a problem if it were someone else holding the sword. They knew how strong Zheng was, someone who took down hundreds of Uruks. The riders were well trained but their numbers here weren’t enough for him to kill.
Aragorn immediately stepped in front of Zheng. “This is a misunderstanding… Riders of Rohan, I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. This is Gimli, son of Glóin, and Legolas, from the Woodland realm. These are friends of Gandalf the Grey and brave warriors of man. We are friends of Rohan and of Théoden, your king. There is no need to point your spears at us.”
The leader didn’t panic. He waited for Zheng to move the sword away then said. “Théoden no longer recognizes friend from foe. Not even his own kin. Saruman the White has gained control of him.” The leader removed his helm, revealing a tired face.
The riders withdrew their spears.
The leader continued. “Saruman has poisoned the mind of the king and claimed lordship over this land. My company are those loyal to Rohan. And for that, we are banished. The White Wizard is cunning. He walks here and there they say, as an old man, hooded and cloaked. And everywhere his spies slip past our nets.”
Aragorn let out a sigh of relief. He reapplied the riders mistook them for spies, hence the hostility. He said. “We are no spies. We track a band of Uruk-hai westward across the plains. They have taken two of our friends captive.”
The leader pondered. “We encountered the Uruk-hai during the night. To our surprise, it looked as though a terrifying thing was chasing after them. They continued running after seeing us. We did notice a woman and a Hobbit among them.”
Zheng said. “That’s the right group then. The woman and Hobbit are our comrades. Did you see any other humans?”
The leader shook his head. “No other man. We did not find any woman or Hobbit after the battle. They might have ran or they might have died to our horses. We piled the carcasses and burned them.” He pointed to smoke in the distance, about a few kilometers away on a low ground.
Aragorn met eyes with the players. No one said a word. The movie characters were worried but team China knew team Africa had entered the woods according to the plot.
The leader looked over the nine of them then said something to his adjutant. Several riders then brought over seven horses.
“May these horses bear you to better fortune than the former masters. Look for your friends, but do not trust the hope. It has forsaken these lands.” He put his helm back on then mounted on his horse. He headed through the riders.
The riders departed as fast as they had came. A few minutes later and they were far away, leaving the group of nine and seven horses in the field. Oh, and there was the skeleton horse carrying a frozen statue.
Zheng and Aragorn nodded to each other. They each mounted on a horse. Lan and YinKong mounted on one. Gimli and Legolas mounted one. Then the group rode toward the burning carcasses.
They arrived at the smoking area before long. Several spears stood on the ground, each had a head of Uruk at its end. In the center of the area was a two meter tall pile of dead bodies. The number of Uruks was approximately a hundred. There was no hope of finding any survivor among these bodies. They had to search the weapons and items for traces.
Some time passed, Gimli pulled a charred belt from the weapon pile. He cried. “It’s one of their little belts. They may have been…”
“No!” Aragorn did not look at the belt. He looked to the side and some tracks. “A Hobbit lay here. He crawled. And a woman crawled over here. Look here, traces of shoes that belonged to man.”
While Aragorn was searching for the traces, team China examined the wounds on the Uruks since they knew the captives were fine.
Zheng looked at a cut off head and said. “Cut by a dull anti-cavalry saber. The charging speed from a horse gives it enough destructive force without a sharp blade. Yet, the head doesn’t look surprised. So it wasn’t killed by the riders charging at the band. This wound has trace of battle Qi.”
He turned around to face the other five members. “I saw Aragorn use his battle Qi. The battle Qi transfers to his sword and increases its toughness. It can even block my light blade. Which means after the riders first charged at the Uruks, they continued to fight them in an arm to arm battle. It had to be battle Qi that allowed him to cut such a clean wound using a dull saber without the speed from a charge… Why are you looking at me like that?”
Aside from Xuan, everyone else seemed stunned. It was as though he was saying bizarre things.
“Well.” ChengXiao said in a serious tone. “It would be normal if Aragorn was the one saying these things. But bro, aren’t you roleplaying too seriously? Do you really believe you are an experienced mercenary in this world? You were an office worker.”
Zheng scratched his head. “We have been fighting with our lives everyday aside from the days in God’s dimension. I can’t not learn these things even if I try to. The consequence from using Tiger’s Soul taught me how to control my strength when using a blade and how slashes function. Battle Qi is also similar to Qi so… I seemed to have become an expert without realizing it. Haha.”
Xuan ignored his laughter. He continued examining the burned bodies and intact heads. “Around 70 to 80 percent of the riders can use battle Qi. The rest might be new recruits. They have excellent capacities. And with battle Qi, these riders can rival Uruks two to three times their number.”
“Right, I also thought about it. If we have a thousand riders and fifty elves that can use Explosive Shot, we won’t have to fear the other two teams. Though these elven archers are rare. They also won’t participate in the war. The other thing is the Nemesis…” Zheng laughed.
Xuan continued after him. “Get it. The Nemesis can retain most of the person’s prior abilities and unlock the first to second stage. It also enhances a person’s body to ten folds his stats. If we can transform the Uruk leaders that can use Explosive Shot to Nemesis, twenty of them would be enough to deter the other two teams. Is this what you were going to say?”
Zheng nodded. “Right, right. No matter how strong they are individually, as a team, or with their influence, a thousand of these riders and twenty of those Nemesis give us the power to go wherever we want. There’s no need to worry about team East America or team Celestial.”
“Oh?” Xuan sneered. “What about the final Ringwraith? Are you certain the Explosive Shot can hit it? What if Sauron is more powerful than the Balrog? Can you kill it with this group? And… what if there’s someone as strong as your clone in team Celestial or team East America? You are too optimistic. I don’t know what kind of feeling this is, but I feel that I might die in this battle.”
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