After thousands of Orcs were reduced to ash, the charging horde finally came to a halt.
The Orcs at the forefront, those lucky enough to survive, stared at the radiant barrier before them in utter terror. Their bodies recoiled instinctively, haunted by the sight of their comrades vanishing the moment they touched the light. No whip or roar could force them forward again.
A shrill cry split the sky.
The Witch-King of Angmar, mounted upon his fell beast, rose above the army and drifted forward, stopping just short of the towering barrier of light. His burning gaze swept across it coldly. This was no ordinary defense, formed by the combined will and magic of the Auror Legion, it was not something even he could shatter with brute force.
For a moment, the battlefield fell into an eerie stillness.
Yet the Auror commander did not relax. Even he did not dare underestimate the Witch-King, and silent orders rippled through the ranks, remain on full alert.
The next instant, the Witch-King began to chant.
The incantation echoed between heaven and earth, ancient and blasphemous. The sky darkened as evil power converged upon him, thick black smoke billowing from his form. Within the smoke, twisted faces writhed and screamed, as though countless cursed spirits were trapped inside. The shrill wails pierced the air as the black tide surged forward and slammed into the barrier of light.
Light and darkness collided violently.
Ripples spread across the silvery screen as wave after wave of black smoke battered it. The Witch-King's attacks grew heavier, more vicious, the darkness pounding relentlessly, determined to tear the barrier apart.
But the Auror Legion did not yield.
They fasted, joined their wills, and continuously reinforced the barrier. Though it trembled under the assault, it did not break—not once.
Just as the struggle reached a deadlock, the Witch-King showed no anger.
Instead, he laughed.
Raising his right hand, he revealed the ring bound with dark power upon his finger and poured his will into it. Ancient incantations thundered across the battlefield. The sky dimmed further, as if night itself had descended, and a sinister whisper burrowed into the minds of the Aurors, stirring unease, fear, and suppressed despair.
Then the ground began to shake.
A deep, ominous rumble rolled beneath everyone's feet. In the northern reaches, the earth collapsed, triggering massive landslides. As rocks and mud tumbled away, something horrifying was revealed.
A mountain of buried corpses.
The remains of warriors who had once fought and died on this land lay exposed, stacked layer upon layer.
The corpses buried beneath the land came from many eras, some were soldiers of the fallen Arnor Kingdom, others remnants of the ancient Kingdom of Angmar, invaders and defenders alike. Long ago, when Angmar destroyed Arnor, blood had flooded the plains and bodies had piled into mountains. From that day on, the northern border was known as the Dike of the Dead.
Now, those corpses answered the call once more.
Under the Witch-King of Angmar's dark sorcery, the earth split open. Countless bodies clawed their way out from beneath the soil, the tremors shaking the battlefield. Green-black flames burned within empty eye sockets as the dead rose in a vast tide behind the Auror Legion and surged forward.
Faced with this sudden undead onslaught, part of the Auror Legion was forced to turn and intercept the charging corpses. Individually, the corpse-soldiers were not a serious threat, but their sheer numbers were overwhelming, entangling half of the Aurors' strength and disrupting their formation.
The Witch-King did not miss this opening.
He raised his hand, activating the full power of the dark ring upon his finger, and unleashed his strongest curse.
The radiant protective barrier shattered instantly, breaking into fragments of light that scattered and faded into nothingness.
"Advance."
The Witch-King's command rang out in the Black Speech.
The Orc army roared and charged once more, flanking the corpse tide and surging toward the Auror Legion. The Aurors showed no fear. Wielding their staffs, they unleashed devastating spells, cutting down dozens, then hundreds, of enemies at a time. The ground around them became a grinding hellscape of annihilation, Orcs and corpses alike reduced to ash.
The Witch-King watched calmly.
To him, these were nothing but expendable tools, cannon fodder meant to drain the Aurors' magic. Even if every Orc died, even if the corpse army was obliterated, it would be worth it if the Auror Legion's power was exhausted.
And this was only the beginning.
Behind the corpse army came Trolls, massive and resistant to magic. Worse still were the true undead, beings possessed by malignant spirits. Their bodies were hard as steel, their movements terrifyingly fast. Any wound inflicted by them carried a curse; if left untreated, the victim would rise again as one of them.
Even the Aurors had to keep these creatures at a distance.
The Legion quickly understood the Witch-King's intent. Worse yet, Orcs slain moments earlier were being raised again by witchcraft and thrown back into the fray. From that point on, the Aurors abandoned restraint, switching to spells that completely destroyed the bodies, leaving nothing behind to be reanimated.
Then the counterattack began.
Following the principle of strike the king before the army, the Auror commander led an elite group skyward. Brooms rose as one, and the Aurors converged, surrounding the Witch-King of Angmar in midair.
The Witch-King of Angmar, wielding terrifying sorcery and vast spiritual power, still held a slight upper hand even when facing the combined assault of more than ten Auror Elites. Most conventional spells, no matter how destructive, including Shattering and Explosion magic, were completely ineffective, unable to inflict the slightest damage upon him.
This was because the Witch-King was a spirit being, closer to a wraith than a physical entity. Ordinary attacks, whether physical or magical, passed through him meaninglessly. Only light-aligned white magic possessed any real suppressive effect against such dark spirits.
Realizing this instantly, the Aurors changed tactics. They abandoned offensive spells and cast guardian incantations instead, summoning numerous animal guardian spirits that surged forward to surround the Witch-King once more. Though the guardians could not truly harm him, their radiant presence disrupted his movements and weakened his control over the battlefield.
For a time, the two sides fell into a tense stalemate.
Then, a dragon's roar tore through the sky.
The Witch-King's expression shifted, a rare trace of apprehension flashing in his burning eyes.
The Auror commander, however, broke into a grin.
"Smaug has arrived!"
At that moment, the dragon descended.
Smaug crossed the battlefield in an instant, his colossal body stretching over a thousand feet, wings unfurled to blot out the sky. The storm of wind from his descent crushed the earth below as overwhelming draconic pressure swept across the battlefield.
With a thunderous roar, Smaug dove toward the low-lying Orc and Undead ranks. His chest glowed crimson, and in the next breath, dragonfire erupted.
The flames were so intense they liquefied steel in moments. Orcs and undead alike were erased without even a scream, reduced instantly to ash as the inferno swept through their ranks.