"Get out! All of you, get out now!"
Dain Ironfoot roared, his tone arrogant and disdainful.
"Lord Dain, may I have a word?" Gandalf walked out from among the Elven army and shouted to Dain.
"Gandalf the Grey?" Dain narrowed his eyes at him. "Tell these rabble to leave quickly, or I'll use their blood to water the earth!"
"There should be no such war between Dwarves, Men, and Elves," Gandalf said solemnly.
"There is an Orc army marching towards the Lonely Mountain; tell your army to stand down. Your weapons should be pointed at the enemy Orcs together!"
"I will not stand down in front of Elves, especially this immoral Woodland Elf!" Dain pointed at Thranduil.
"He harbors nothing but ill will towards my kin. If he intends to stand between me and my King, I will slice open his pretty head! Let's see if he can still smile then!"
Thranduil was angered to the point of laughter, his eyes cold as he looked at Dain II as if he were a dead object.
"Dain, wait—"
Dain ignored Gandalf's persuasion, turned, and returned to his army, preparing for battle.
"Let him advance. Let's see how far they can go?" Thranduil snorted, not taking the Dwarves seriously.
But Dain was clearly not a good-tempered person and immediately retorted, "Do you think I care about your dead dog's threats, pointy-eared little princess?"
"Did you all hear that, warriors? Let's give these bastards a good beating this time!"
As a horn sounded.
The Dwarf army charged down the hillside towards the Elves.
"Archers!"
At Thranduil's command, the Elves quickly drew their bows and notched arrows, and thousands of arrows rained down on the Dwarf army.
Just then, an eagle suddenly swooped into the battlefield sky, blocking the arrow rain.
The eagle instantly transformed into human form, and in that moment of suspension, he waved his wand and shot at the arrow rain.
The arrows quickly transformed, turning into a sky full of flowers, scattering with the wind.
Luke, who appeared in the sky above the battlefield, his body like a weightless feather, slowly drifted down.
He landed in the open space between the Elven army and the Dwarf army.
The charging Dwarf army paused, startled by Luke's sudden descent in front of them.
"Who are you?" Dain Ironfoot asked warily, looking at the scattered flowers on the ground.
"I am Black Robe Wizard Luke, and I am here to stop you from continuing this senseless loss," Luke's voice echoed across the entire battlefield.
"An Orc army has set out from Mount Gundabad towards here, numbering hundreds of thousands. They will arrive here in about one or two hours. If you don't want to be utterly slaughtered by the Orcs, then quickly prepare your defenses instead of fighting among yourselves."
Hearing Luke's words, everyone stirred.
The Elves, Dwarves, and Men combined here numbered only tens of thousands.
Compared to the Orc army, they were outnumbered by more than ten times.
"How am I to believe what you say is true?" Dain squinted suspiciously. "I know you are with Gandalf the Grey. How can I be sure you're not lying for those rabble and pointy-eared bastards?"
Luke scoffed at the words.
"Whether you believe it or not is your business. I don't need to prove it to you."
Just then, Beorn flew over on his flying broomstick with Bilbo.
He leaped down from mid-air, transforming into a giant bear, catching Bilbo with one hand, and roaring at Dain.
The war-pig beneath Dain was startled by the giant bear and hastily scurried backward, almost causing Dain to fall off.
Ignoring Dain Ironfoot's reaction, Luke turned and walked towards the Elven and Human armies.
Gandalf quickly came to meet him, asking, "Luke, has the Orc army really arrived?"
Luke nodded: "I saw it with the Palantír."
Gandalf immediately understood, but his brow furrowed even more deeply.
"Hundreds of thousands of Orcs, this will likely be a difficult battle!"
But what caught Gandalf even more off guard was that the Elves suddenly put away their weapons, preparing to withdraw from here.
"Your Majesty Thranduil, with such a great enemy before us, why do you retreat?" Gandalf found Thranduil and quickly asked.
Thranduil said coldly, "This is a war between Orcs and Dwarves. I need to be responsible for my people.
Every Elf of the Woodland Realm is precious and cannot be lost on a battlefield that does not belong to them."
"But if the Lonely Mountain falls, how long can the Woodland Realm last?" Gandalf disagreed.
"Do you think the Orcs will spare the Woodland Realm, or is the great Your Majesty Thranduil preparing to bow down to them?"
Thranduil snorted.
"Gandalf, you don't need to provoke me. I have personally experienced Morgoth's darkest times, witnessed the fall of countless kin, and killed more Orcs than there are trees in Mirkwood!"
"But my Woodland people will only die fighting to defend their homes, not as worthless sacrifices for these Dwarves."
"But the enemy probably won't give you a chance to retreat!" Luke suddenly pointed to a distant mountain peak and said. Thranduil and Gandalf looked in the direction Luke pointed.
They saw Orc banners appearing on the distant mountain peak.
At the same time, a dull, deafening roar came from the ground.
The next second, giant Earthworms burrowed out of the mountain, digging through tunnels.
Countless Orcs poured out of the tunnels, densely covering the surrounding mountains, encircling both the Elven and Dwarf armies.
"To arms!"
Dain no longer cared about confronting the Elves and immediately ordered his army to change their defensive direction.
Luke was also seeing the Middle-earth version of a "tunnel boring machine" for the first time. The speed at which it dug through mountains was something even last life's engineering teams couldn't match.
If he had the chance, he'd really like to catch one to use for digging tunnels or other engineering work in the future. The battle was about to begin, and the Dwarf army on the front lines was the first to clash with the Orc army.
The Dwarves were fully armored, but the Orcs outnumbered the Dwarves by countless times, not to mention the Wargs and Trolls fighting among them.
Both sides fought madly, with screams echoing endlessly.
Just as the Dwarves were falling into a disadvantage, the Elves, who had been motionless, suddenly sprang into action. The Elves quickly joined the battlefield, fighting alongside the Orcs.
Countless arrows flew towards the Orcs, instantly killing countless of them.
But even though the number of Orc casualties far exceeded the combined total of Elves and Dwarves, Orcs continued to pour out of the tunnels endlessly.
Bard and a few hundred Men from Lake-town also joined the fight.
And Beorn, even earlier, had charged into the Orcs, moving like a giant bear through an empty land, swatting or flinging Orcs to their deaths one by one.
Gandalf drew his foe-hammer, his face grim as he looked at the Orcs covering the mountains and plains.
He asked Luke, "Luke, where is your dragon? We need him!"
Luke sensed something, looked into the distance, and smiled: "I think he's here!"
Before he finished speaking, the figure of the great dragon Smaug appeared on the distant mountain peak.
The great dragon stood on the mountain, tilted his head back, and let out a deafening roar, then spewed scorching flames at the Orcs on the mountain.
The appearance of the great dragon caused the entire battlefield to pause for a few seconds.
The Dwarves and Elves were both startled, but seeing the great dragon attacking the Orcs, they were immediately delighted.
The Orcs, on the other hand, were extremely panicked. Their formation was in disarray, and they were quickly seized upon by the Elves and Dwarves for a fierce counterattack.
"Luke, the Orcs are too numerous, we can't kill them all. We must find Bolg's location. As long as he is killed, the Orc army will be in chaos, and then we can turn the tide!"
Gandalf cut down an Orc with his sword and shouted to Luke.
Luke nodded, and with a wave of his wand, he eliminated all the surrounding Orcs and Wargs.
"I know, leave this to me!"
Saying that, he took out the Palantír to find Bolg's location.
"Found you!"
Luke looked at Bolg's figure appearing on the crystal ball and quickly determined his location.
But just then, something unexpected happened.
Bolg's figure on the crystal ball suddenly disappeared, and then a fiery red magical flaming eye emerged, emitting a dark spiritual fluctuation that sought to corrupt and degrade people!
"Black Robe Luke, the Wizard who subdued the great dragon, I know your desires. How about a deal with me?"
"As long as you cooperate with me and help the Orcs take the Lonely Mountain, I can teach you how to forge a Ring of Power for yourself, granting you immense power and endless life!"
The strand of Galadriel's hair on his wrist emitted a holy power, bringing Luke back to his senses from the seductive voice.
Luke felt a cold sweat on his back; he was almost caught off guard and influenced, controlled.
He hadn't expected to encounter the Dark Lord Sauron again so soon, and through the Palantír at that.
Clearly, the Palantír in his hand had been discovered by Sauron.
And Sauron also possessed a Palantír; it was through that Palantír that the other party contacted him, attempting to tempt, corrupt, and degrade him.
He hadn't expected that he would one day experience the same treatment as Saruman!
Luke dared not respond to Sauron. After all, if Saruman could be corrupted and controlled by him through the Palantír, Luke was in even greater danger.
"Eat shit, you!"
Immediately, Luke pulled out the crystal vial Galadriel had given him and channeled his magic to activate the light contained within.
The crystal vial instantly erupted with a dazzling, holy light—eärendil's light.
Sauron naturally remembered eärendil's light vividly, and his pupils constricted the moment he saw it.
The next second, his magical eye was burned by the holy, dazzling light, and he let out a cry of pain before instantly vanishing from the Palantír.
Seeing that Sauron's magical eye was no longer on the crystal, Luke still wasn't at ease and carefully illuminated it with eärendil's light to prevent Sauron from leaving any hidden marks within.
After confirming there were no hidden dangers, Luke finally breathed a sigh of relief, but he still decided to keep the Palantír and eärendil's light together from now on.
With eärendil's light, which restrains dark power, by his side, let's see if Sauron still dares to spy then?
If it doesn't blind him, he'll take his name!
Just looking at the Palantír, Luke frowned slightly.
Since Sauron already knew he possessed a Palantír, he would have to use it cautiously in the future.
The other party could completely see his situation through the Palantír, which was equivalent to having a monitor installed by his side.
What was even more infuriating was that he didn't have the confidence to look at the other side's situation.
Otherwise, he would likely end up like Saruman.
He put the Palantír and eärendil's light together and put them away.
Luke immediately prepared to go find Bolg.
Although there was an unexpected turn of events just now, he still saw Bolg's location.
This Bolg was truly cautious and cunning. He wasn't at the command post but was instead hidden inside the tunnels dug by the Earthworms.
Having found Bolg's location, he naturally had to go eliminate him.
However, he looked at Bilbo beside him, thought for a moment, and said.
"Bilbo, I'm going to the Orc main camp on the other side to deal with Bolg now. It's not safe here. I'll take you to Thorin and their city wall.
But Bilbo shook his head, holding his Elven sword.
"Luke, you don't need to worry about me. You know I can protect myself."
Seeing Bilbo's persistence, Luke didn't insist.
"Alright, then you take care of yourself!"
But he still, not at ease, cast several layers of protection on him.
Then he rode his flying broomstick and flew towards Bolg's direction.
But before he flew far, giant bats, obscuring the sky, attacked Luke.
"Avada Kedavra, Avada Kedavra—"
Luke's spells were nonstop, and the surrounding giant bats fell like rain.